The South Korea Customs Service reported on Friday that 120,000 tons of coffee was imported last year, a 4 percent increase from the previous year with 115,000 tons.
But by value, coffee imports dropped by almost 20 percent from $597 million to $502 million. The decrease is largely due to the falling price of new bean crops, which declined from $17.09 per kilogram in 2012 to $15.93 last year and dipped further to $14.47 as of May.
However, the volume of coffee imports continues to grow. In the first five months of this year, 54,000 tons of coffee was imported. That’s up 10 percent compared to the same period last year, when 49,000 tons was brought in.
Koreans are showing they care about the quality of their brew, as imports of processed coffee fell last year and in the first five months of this year, but imports of roasted beans and new crops of unroasted beans have grown.
Last year, 107,113 tons of new crop beans were imported, which is an almost 7 percent increase from the 100,228 tons imported in 2012.
This year, imports have expanded 14 percent in the first five months compared to the same period last year, to 49,404 tons. As of last year, beans from new crops accounted for 89.1 percent of all imported coffee products. That figure grew to 91 percent in the first five months of this year.
Roasted coffee bean imports grew 13.8 percent last year to 6,127 tons. In the first five months of this year, imports increased 10.8 percent to 2,724 from the same period last year.
Processed coffee, on the other hand, has been falling significantly. It tumbled nearly 22 percent last year to 6,989 tons imported and has seen a sharp drop of 35.6 percent to 2,191 tons in the first five months.
This indicates that Korean coffee drinkers are not interested in processed goods like instant coffees and instead want their coffee brewed fresh out of a machine.
Per capita consumption is estimated in 298 cups of coffees, up 3.8 percent from the previous year, when Korean adults consumed 288 cups each.
Source: Korea Joongang Daily
