Puerto Rico begins coffee exports to Japan.

Puerto Rico begins coffee exports to Japan

The Puerto Rican coffee industry, hurt by labor shortages, low prices and last year's Hurricane Hugo, finally has something to cheer about: the beginning of coffee exports to Japan.

The transaction,

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Robert Ruenitz, a representative of Nipuspan International Corp., formed for this specific venture, declined to put a dollar value on the transaction, saying financial details were private. However, a similar gourmet label, Jamaica's Blue Mountain coffee, retails for $22 a pound in New York and considerably more in Tokyo. That would put the retail value of the initial shipment of Puerto Rican coffee, being marketed under the Alto Grande label, at around $900,000.

"The market for premium coffee in Japan is very sophisticated," he said. "Ueshima is after good coffee wherever they can find it. They search every corner of the world. Where it will go in the Japanese market is really a matter of how the Japanese consumer reacts."

The president of Nipuspan, Dennis Evans, lives in Vega Baja, as does its vice president of operations, Jose Texidor Colon.

According to Alfonso Davila, the No. 2 man at Puerto Rico's Department of Agriculture, "Our policy is to open new foreign markets for quality coffee exports." Davila predicts the island will be self-sufficient in coffee production within five to 10 years.

"We'd like to see European countries import our coffee. This could help us expand our production, and enter into competition with Jamaica, Hawaii and other places that export gourmet coffee," he said.

The 40-foot container is being shipped by Sea-Land on Jan. 23 and is expected to arrive in Yokohama by mid-February.

The shipment, while small, comes at a time when Puerto Rico must import more

and more coffee just to meet local demand. In 1989, the island's coffee crop came in at some 325,000 quintales, while total island consumption was at 350,000 quintales. The difference had to be imported from Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and other countries. For this reason, Puerto Rican law limits coffee exports to 100,000 quintales. This shipment comes to 400 quintales.