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Taipei, Nov 13 (CNA) The Taiwan International Coffee Show 2020 opened on Friday with the support of dozens of foreign embassies and representative offices hoping to grab the attention of visitors with coffee from their countries.
The annual fair, now in its 18th edition and held until Monday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, is one of Taiwan’s most popular trade shows with around 250 exhibitors.
Central American and Indonesian coffee producers were among those who had their diplomats on hand to help present their products.
Honduras is Central America’s largest coffee producer and exporter, ships over $ 900 million worth of coffee products annually to markets around the world, and wants to do more with Taiwan, said Eny Bautista. ambassador of Honduras to Taiwan.
“Right now we are promoting more of our coffee to the Taiwanese,” Bautista said. “Since 2017, Honduras has won awards for excellence in coffee, and this is something very nice that we want to promote and let everyone know.”
Taiwanese importers mainly import green coffee beans and roast them according to the needs of their customers, and sales are on the rise, Bautista said.
Taiwan imported $ 2.20 million worth of coffee from Honduras last year, up 10.77% from 2018, according to statistics from Taiwan’s Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT).
This year, imports have been relatively stable for the first 10 months, but after a mediocre first quarter, they rose 26.93% year on year from April to October, according to BOFT data.
Although Honduras is one of the largest coffee producers in the world, it is only Taiwan’s 11th largest supplier.
Central America’s second largest coffee producer, Guatemala, ranks fifth and has a market share in Taiwan of nearly 15%, according to its ambassador, Willy Alberto Gómez Tirado, who was equally optimistic about the offers from your country.
“Guatemala has one of the best coffees and here (at the fair) we are focusing on our best quality coffees,” he said. “This year was a bumper year for Guatemalan coffee. We grew 120% (in exports to Taiwan) in the first six months.”
Taiwan Deputy Foreign Minister Miguel Li-jey Tsao (曹立傑) completed coffee from Latin America before receiving a tour of the Nicaragua booth from the country’s ambassador to Taiwan, Mirna M. Rivera.
“Specialty coffee from Latin America is becoming more and more popular in Taiwan as drinking coffee becomes not just a habit but a culture,” said Tsao.
Four of Taiwan’s six largest coffee import sources in terms of value in the first 10 months of 2020 were in Latin America.
The top six were Ethiopia (USD 20.99 million imports), Brazil (USD 17.65 million), Colombia (USD 16.61 million), Indonesia (USD 14.37 million), Guatemala (12 , USD 47 million) and Nicaragua (USD 8.68 million). order.
Indonesia’s representative in Taiwan, Budi Santoso, was also present at the fair on Friday to talk about his country’s specialties and the diversity of its products.
“Each island has its own unique microclimate and soil composition, and therefore Indonesia can produce various types of coffee from its western to its eastern tip,” Budi said.
One specialty coffee that caught the attention of many Taiwanese visitors to the fair was the high-end Kopi Luwak, made from the droppings of the Asian palm civet, commonly known as the toddy cat, said Peter Masyuni of a coffee company. called EOE Indonesia.
Considered to be one of the largest food-related trade events in the region, the show attracts nearly 200,000 visitors each year.
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