The Hindu Business Line : Selling coffee through English, IT

"You have good coffee, the language to talk about it, and IT skills to communicate on the Internet,'' said Mr Trygve Klingenberg, CEO of Solberg and Hansen, Norway and the Vice-President of the speciality Coffee Association of Europe.

"You have world class agriculture, world class research but you are just too humble to market yourselves,'' he concluded. None of the other coffee producing countries speak English, he said.

The buyers, largely from Europe and the US, need an interpreter to talk to the growers, which make transactions difficult.

As for India's infotech skills, they could go a long way in bringing the coffee culture to the younger generation, which is almost constantly on the Internet, surfing and chatting. "Portals are the way to market your coffees,'' Mr Klingenbern said.

However, on the downside, a number of Indian exporters— the face of the country that buyers meet most often— were unscrupulous, went back on commitments, cheated on quality and did irreparable damage to the country's image.

"I know exporters who commit to send high quality Monsoon AA Malabars and their consignments contain something entirely different,'' Mr Klingenberg said.

Worse, there are exporters who tell growers that their coffee are of poor quality and do not deserve good prices and sell it at premium rates to exporters. "I know for a fact that this is happening,'' he said.

One way to prevent this was for the growers to cup and taste their own coffees.

Mr Klingenberg has been buying speciality coffees (which he defines as very high quality coffees) from India since 1933. Recently, the famed Monsoon Malabars have even appeared on shelves of the supermarket for the lay public. "And remember, these are not blends or fillers but labelled coffees from India,'' he said. Next it could be the turn of Royal Mysore Nuggets and Kappi Royale.

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