A member of the Coffee Industry Board disclosed that Japan has made the biggest coffee order Jamaica has received. It was also said that the buyers demand is greater than what is in fact available on the island. A total of 1,400 bags have already been exported.

Published: Tuesday, January 10, 1967

Biggest Coffee Shipment To Japan -1,400 bags

Gleaner Farm Desk

The biggest single shipment of coffee to have been sold by this island to Japan went out from Newport West in Kingston yesterday by the KASUGA MARU. It was 1,400 bags of Jamaican prime-washed coffee, each weighing 132 lbs.

Yesterday’s shipment was part of a total purchase by Japan of 4,400 bags from the current 1966-7 coffee crop. The total value of the purchase is £94,000 free-on-board to the Coffee Industry Board .

Board sources disclosed yesterday that only about 7,000 bags of prime-washed coffee are available this year for the export market. This represents, they said, about one-third of the total crop taken in by the Board.

Japan, which since 1959-60 has been purchasing increasing quantities of Jamaican coffee, has by this year’s operations become the island’s biggest customer in this commodity. A spokesman for the Board said that offers from Japan for the purchase of Jamaican coffee this crop year have been substantially in excess of all the coffee available for export.

The Kasuga Maru, which is under Capt. A. Kojima, loaded at Berth 5 at Newport West. Officers of the Coffee Board and the press were entertained by Capt. Kojima while the loading operations were on. The Kasuga Maru’ is scheduled to return to Jamaica in March.

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