Nigeria and specialty coffee by Alexey Nagibin

SPECIALTY COFFEE

Specialty coffee is the highest quality coffee available, graded uniformly across the entire Arabica coffee bean supply chain.

Specialty Arabica coffee beans are grown at the perfect high altitudes in unique climate zones, at the correct time of the year, in the best soil, and then picked at just the right time. To achieve this high quality level in a final served cup of specialty coffee, unique attention is paid in all stages: cultivation, fertilization, collection, sorting, processing, certification, transportation, selected profiled roasting, packaging, and careful brewing in coffee houses to reveal the best possible taste potential. Specialty coffee is grown, then sold to premium coffee traders. Roasters create custom profiles for each coffee, enhancing and highlighting their own natural flavors. Finally, Baristas use high precision and specialized equipment to produce the ultimate in a quality cup of specialty coffee.

The grading of specialty coffee green beans is done via visual inspection and cupping. Visual inspection entails taking a 350 gram sample of green specialty coffee beans and separating defective beans. Defects can be Primary ( e.g. black beans, sour beans ) or Secondary ( e.g. broken beans ). For coffee beans to qualify as “specialty”, they must have zero Primary defects and less than five Secondary defects. Cupping involves roasting the coffee beans and brewing them with hot water. It relies on the skills and experience of the taster to assign scores to each of the coffee’s attributes, such as the acidity, body, flavor and aroma. Specialty coffee is defined as any specialty grown Arabica beans that score above 80 points on a 100 point scale.

NIGERIA AND SPECIALTY COFFEE

Nigerians are typically non-coffee
drinkers, and consume mainly tea and cocoa.Coffee growing started in Nigeria around 1930, much later than in Europe.

In that the country has a uniquely good ecoclimatic zone for growing coffee,the quality of the coffee beans was very high. As a result, exporters became immediately interested. Recognizing the economic benefits of such trade, the Nigerian government created and adopted programs in the 1930s to support coffee farmers, including providing them with Arabica and Robusta seedlings. With the growing popularity of coffee, the Nigerian government supported the coffee growers in order to maintain the production of high quality beans, and the industry flourished.

With a peak of coffee production in 2006, Nigeria had more than 800 Arabica coffee farms in operation. In that year, the industry produced about 89,000 sixty (60) kilogram bags of specilaty coffee. A sharp decline in coffee farms and production then began, and in 2022, no more than 50,000 bags were produced.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the Nigerian government started shifting its support away from the agricultural sector and focused more on their newly evolving oil producing sector. In addition to the coffee producing industry beginning to decline, the ecological damage of massive oil drilling throughout the country, destroyed untold acres of valuable fertile soil for future high quality Arabica coffee growing.
Unfortunately, coffee farmers did not have enough income, independent of the level of prior government participation, to support and develop new and sustainable growth. Entire generations of Nigerians were put out of work, and fled the coffee fields for jobs in the growing oil industry. This resulted in the loss of valuable and experienced coffee industry professionals.

Specialty coffee has become a contemporary affordable luxury for the masses internationally. The commodity of Arabica coffee beans is a true national Nigerian treasure to be preserved, nurtured and re-developed. The true value of the hi-end specialty coffee bean industry for Nigeria can easily surpass and soon be greater than that of the oil industry in Nigeria. It will require a substantial and serious long term commitment from the Nigerian government for a total re-birth of the hi-end luxury Arabica Specialty Coffee industry in Nigeria, utilizing the newest and most state of the art agricultural tools available.

The redevelopment of the Arabica Specialty Coffee industry in Nigeria would require many key growth elements be instituted.
Nigerian government support for their specialty coffee farmers must provide subsidies in the form of taxation reform. A Nigerian ‘fair trade coffee commodity exchange’ must be created and reinforced.

These centralized platforms for the fair trade coffee market can be created with the templates successfully used by their coffee growing neighbors in Ethiopia and Kenya. They support unifying coffee farmers in order to guarantee quality control of their high-end superior crops of specialty coffee harvests. The unified selling power also allows the farmers to receive the highest possible fair prices for their beans internationally. Currently, coffee buyers approach Nigerian coffee farmers directly and force them to accept the lowest possible prices for their crops. The high demand for top quality specialty coffee beans can now bring in higher prices than ever before. An organized and centralized exchange for Nigerian coffee will allow farmers to focus more on high quality control and state of the art growing technology.

Unfortunately only two regions in Nigeria now produce Arabica coffee beans, Cross River and Taraba. They account for 10% of coffee bean production, with lower quality, less expensive Robusta seedlings and beans representing the major 90% of coffee bean production in Nigeria. Trials for new Arabica plantation locations are currently being carried out in the Mambilla Plateau region among many others, all of which must be developed and supported by conducting numerous experiments. Cultivating better practices, applying current experiments with processing techniques, especially anaerobic, can better unlock the unique potential of coffee taste and other qualities in each location.
Educating future generations of top quality specialty coffee Nigerian farmers is key for the redevelopment, sustainability and ongoing growth of the ‘New Age”’ coffee growing industry in Nigeria. As global demand grows, it is essential for Nigerian coffee farmers to be on top of current international trends. Ongoing education to understand the principles of Specialty and Sustainability will allow for increased yields of high quality coffee, increased income, and the elimination of the exploitation of child labor.

It is essential as well, to equip coffee growers with the most modern and efficient farming equipment and machinery. Providing the newest available techniques for crop processing and sustainable crop irrigation is crucial in preserving the unique eco-environment of the Nigerian coffee belt. Under current conditions, without government or outside funding, the farmers alone cannot possibly educate themselves in all that they will need to learn for maximum production and productivity in the re-birth of a thriving Specialty Coffee industry in Nigeria.

To promote Nigeria on the world stage specialty coffee market, social media and mass multi-media exposure is essential. The most talented and key Nigerian specialty coffee experts get to contribute and compete in international coffee championships, spreading the word that Nigeria is on the map as an up and coming source of top quality specialty coffee beans. Nigerian hosted international coffee exhibitions would follow, bringing together farmers, processors, baristas, marketers, and buyers from across the globe.

Much will depend on Nigeria’s understanding of the development of the much higher valued Arabica coffee bean market and the orientation of the government towards the future of the industry. This is perhaps the most significant driver of change and the implementation of sustainable development programs for the re-birthing of a strong, viable, successful and profitable Arabica specialty coffee industry for the future of Nigeria and for the current and future generations of Nigerian people.

ALEXEY NAGIBIN is an advanced specialty coffee expert with many years of professional experience in the specialty coffee industry. He founded one of the foremost Specialty Coffee Institutes, training Baristas from around the globe on the intricacies of Specialty Coffee. He owns and operates five high-end COLLECTIVE Specialty Coffee Brew Bistro, with his first and newest one soon to open in New York City. He seeks to develop a culture and appreciation of high-end specialty coffee consumption worldwide, in addition to establishing self-regulating fair trade commodity exchanges working in unison to help further develop and enrich the growing industry according to and based on sustainability principles.
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