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COFFEE BUYERS WAKE UP AND SMELL THE MOULD
Un contrattempo del valore di 40 milioni di dollari ha costretto i magazzini di Trieste a disfarsi di oltre 430mila sacchi avariati - Cosa può capitare quando l'umidità gioca un tiro mancino alle quotazioni - I corsi della materia prima hanno subito una logica impennata, sfiorando i 1.750 dollari la tonnellata, il valore più alto degli ultimi sette anni

The Italians have given the world much of the lexicon of coffee drinks, including cappuccino, espresso, caffè latte and caffè macchiato.
Last week, they gave the coffee market something else - tonnes of mouldy coffee stocks. Up to 26,000 tonnes of coffee, worth more than $40m (€31m), were affected by mould at warehouses in the Italian port of Trieste.
The damage came from the moisture in the pallets that hold the coffee, according to Euronext.Liffe, the futures exchange and unit of Euronext.

But some coffee traders said the mould may have been caused by leaks in the warehouse roofs, while others said it may have been moist when it arrived from Vietnam, one of the world's largest coffee producers.
The effect has seen coffee prices rise to a near seven-year high of $1,750 a tonne last week, as the amount of potentially damaged coffee accounts for about a quarter of all stocks deliverable against the Euronext.Liffe robusta coffee futures contract, one of the world's benchmark coffee prices.
The price of robusta coffee, the stronger-tasting coffee than the arabica bean, fell $24 to $1,624 on Friday but is still up more than 40 per cent on the year to date, and is more than five times the price in late 2002. The tightness of supply and concerns about next year's Brazilian coffee crop have prompted some hedge fund managers to forecast that coffee prices could exceed $2,000 a tonne in the next six months, a level last seen in May 1998.

The temporary removal of this amount of coffee from the market, until Euronext.Liffe can identify the extent of the damage, comes at a time when coffee inventories in warehouses registered with the exchange have more than halved since last September, and are now at their lowest level since December 2000.
Robusta accounts for about 40 per cent of global coffee supplies - Arabica makes up the balance. Both beans are mixed to make the multitude of blends available to consumers. Arabica coffee prices in New York have only risen about 3 per cent so far this year to $1,06 a pound, as production has been more steady and stockpiles are higher.
The problem at the Italian warehouses have forced storage operator Henry Bath, one of the world's leading shippers and commodity storage specialists, owned by Sempra Energy, to change management at their Trieste operations. The problem comes less than two years since Liverpool-based Henry Bath started storing coffee at its Trieste warehouses.

Kevin Morrison
Tratto dal «Financial Times» del 28 agosto

• Bean: chicco
• Blends: miscele
• Coffee drinks: bevande a base di caffè
• Coffee market: mercato del caffè
• Crop: raccolto
• (Benchmark) coffee prices: prezzi (di riferimento) del caffè
• Coffee stocks: scorte/partite di caffè
• Coffee traders: operatori commerciali del settore (del caffè)
• Deliverable stocks: partite consegnabili
• Espresso: (caffè) espresso
• Futures contract: contratto a termine
• Futures exchange: mercato a termine (~ futures market)
• Hedge fund managers: gestori di fondi di copertura
• High: (qui: sostantivo) (livello) massimo
• Leaks: crepe
• Lexicon: lessico
• Moist: umido
• Moisture: umidità
• Mould: muffa
• Pallets: bancali
• Pound: libbra (unità di peso, pari a 454 grammi circa; abbr. lb.)
• Robusta coffee: caffè della varietà Robusta, più amara dell'Arabica
• Shippers: spedizionieri, trasportatori
• Stockpiles: riserve, scorte
• Stronger-tasting coffee: qualità di caffè dal gusto più forte di...
• Storage operator: azienda di stoccaggio/magazzinaggio (~ storage firm)
• Supply: fornitura, scorta, offerta