by Michy Lynn

Created on: February 07, 2009

There was once an explorer who likened chocolate to the food of the gods. If chocolate is the food of the gods, then in the United States, coffee is clearly the nectar of the gods. Second only to oil imports, coffee is one of the strongest commodities imported into the United States.

Statistics reveal that more than half of Americans-over 150 million people daily-drink coffee, with even more drinking it or using it in recipes more infrequently. That means the United States is responsible for more than 1/5 of the entire world's consumption of coffee.

For wide-spread consumption, the only coffee grown inside the United States is grown in Hawaii, with a small amount of coffee grown and produced in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, Hawaiian coffee could not possibly produce enough to accommodate the 400 million cups of coffee consumed every day, and so the majority of coffee consumed in the U.S is imported. In fact, the United States imports over more than $4 BILLION dollars worth of coffee each year.

Coffee Import Origins

The coffee tree origination in Yemen, the southern part of Arabia. Though the trees were later transplanted to other countries, such as Brazil and Columbia, where red ash dirt and volcanic activity made soil rich for coffee harvesting, the southern Arabia are still produces much of the world's most expensive mocha, and imports this to the United States.

Coffee Imported from Brazil

Though the southern Arabian coffee and mocha is prized, currently, Brazil is the largest exporter of coffee in the world, and as such, the U.S. imports more coffee from Brazil than anywhere else in the U.S. The soil and conditions in Brazil are ideal for growing and harvesting coffee beans.

It is estimated that in 2008, Brazil had approximately 3,970 million coffee trees. The eastern slopes of the Brazilian Andes produce some of the richest, most aromatic coffees in the world, highly prized in the United States.

Coffee Imported from Columbia

Columbia currently exports about 560,000 tons of coffee per year, making it the second largest world provider of coffee exports, and the second largest provider of imported coffee to the United States.

Cost to Import Coffee to the United States

Coffee currently averages about three dollars and some change in retail cost for one pound of coffee in the United States. According to the National Coffee Association of the U.S.A., Inc, the United States imports over 5.733 million bags of coffee per year, making the import of coffee to the United States a multi-billion dollar industry.

Summary of Coffee Imports to America

When the average American consumes three cups of coffee per day, and more than half of all Americans being regular coffee drinkers, importing coffee to America will remain one of the strongest imports, especially when the United States has few territories that even come close to having the right soil and conditions to grow coffee. Though one must find irony that a "Cup of Joe" that is long held as an American icon is actually not even American in origin!

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