So while it was in Colombia, it was like Trump was saying, you know, I'm going to do the same with Colombia now, but we didn't finish one. And I was like, it's not, I don't want to be able to go back to my family, let alone export any coffee out of the country. If this guy is going to rule it. So that's, that's a big one.
And if you, if you told me that there will be a potential for that to happen without them in as well as a situation, I would say you're mad. That's not going to happen. But he actually done it. And they showed that they can do whatever they want, basically.
So, so that's, that's huge. Sourcing green coffee doesn't have to mean sorting through endless options to find the one that works. Arcadia green coffee focuses on identifying Colombian coffees that match what roasters are already seeking or preparing to release. They only move forward when pricing aligns for both producer and roaster.
They pay producers upfront. And they provide a clear landed price, helping roasters make better sourcing decisions more efficiently. Find out more about mapper forwards podcast advertising partner Arcadia green coffee by visiting their Instagram at Arcadia green coffee and then contact Algusto Amaya on WhatsApp or email. You'll find all the links and details in the show notes.
Welcome to the daily coffee probe by mapper forward friends. I'm your host Lee Safar and this is episode three of a five part series with Agusto Amaya from Arcadia green coffee based in Ireland. But correct me if I'm wrong, Agusto, you guys send coffee all over Europe. All of the works.
Yeah. So, so we started as an ice importer to supply the ice market. That's that's the way we started. Now, we put together two companies.
So one in Ireland to import the coffee to Europe and another one in Colombia to export from Colombia and do the sourcing and buy in the local currency and all of that stuff. So, so we control the whole chain. So we clearly realized that by setting up the Colombian company, we could actually ship anywhere. And my business partner Jorge, he was the guy in charge of logistics in the coal industry that we were on.
So that's his brother. So he just he just do shipping. So so from from Colombia, we can ship everywhere same from Ireland. So if we have a coffee here that somebody's looking for or could match any requirement, we can actually ship from here to to Europe, basically.
So we have done that and it works. And what our setup allows to have a lot of flexibility. So we can ship from Colombia, Italy to any country or if the coffee is here in in in in in we have we have party warehouses that we use. So we use in Dublin, north of Dublin, we have one for supply and customers that are taking one type of coffee and is 700 kilos per week or stuff like that.
So we do that from from here. And the other one is in Northern Ireland and in Belfast. So we send containers straight to Belfast and for Belfast. The Northern Ireland, this is another shout out Jorge.
He realized that because of Brexit, if we import the coffee in Belfast, we can access to both markets and free commerce. So it's a free market from the Northern Ireland to the UK and the European Union. So when we bring in too many lots to send to two different places, many different places. We usually send them to Belfast and from Belfast is kind of easier to send to the UK and Europe.
And we the high volume customers with one or two different products we handle from from from the Republic of Ireland. Well, and you took me straight where I wanted to go with this conversation because in this episode, we're talking about, you know, sourcing green coffee in the middle of a coffee crisis and with the geopolitical tensions that are happening throughout the world. And people may say that Brexit is one of those geopolitical tensions that has created chaos for trade in Europe and for people who do want to access that EUDR is another one that's creating the potential for geopolitical tensions. We've got a lot of trade issues, sorry, logistics issues that are going on because of things that are happening right now with all of this speaker for what's going on in Iran and what's happening with what's happening not happening and then happening and then not happening again in Greenland.
I mean, and then we talk about Venezuela, we talk about a lot of the things that are happening across Latin America. A lot of the there's very many different variations of geopolitical tensions that are going on. What is that like for you as you're building your business to have to consider because you're someone who's informed and all of these things play a role in, you know, we didn't even mention things that are happening in the financial world, Japan, and the way that the, you know, the yen carry trade is really having an impact for anyone listening. If you don't know what that means, please go and look it up because it is going to impact the coffee industry rather significantly.
But what are your thoughts about how all of this volatility and uncertainty geopolitically is feeding into the coffee crisis and therefore your business? I think it's probably not big news for anybody, but it's just making making more challenging a situation that is already difficult. So a price aside, price volatility aside, which is huge and impacts everybody in the same way, and then you have this situation and the tariff, the tariff was, that was a cluster of, and that creates some dynamics that you don't realize, but they're there. So can I ask you something on that?
Actually, if it's okay. So if you're taking coffee from Columbia to Ireland, at the same time that people who typically would be shipping coffee from Columbia to the United States are looking for other trade routes. I do become a preferred customer of theirs in that situation. Well, you need to think about supply chains and security supplies about alternatives.
Right. And whether those alternatives come from, it depends whether they're ready or not. So if, let's say, if you market, if I am a supporter who have selling to the US and I get hit by tariffs, but there is other origins that are not hit by those tariffs or they're hit in a less, less way, that means that usually that market is going up. The VA towards the right, the less impacted source, let's say.
So economy always impacted and other countries were not impacting Mexican coffee. Let's say somebody will switch from Columbia to Mexican, right? Now, that Colombian coffee has to find out home somewhere because you're not going to store it forever. Going to be a big risk.
So you need to find another place to sell it. So another place to hopefully you don't have the story. So Europe is one of them and you're making an interesting point in terms of, OK, if I am the one who bring a Colombian coffee into Ireland, I'm going to start competing with a lot of Colombian coffee that didn't go to the US and it's coming to Europe right now. Or it's been you're offering to Europe because it's not been bought in America.
So that puts a lot of pressure into the into the system. Now, if you're running a business in which you have a price that you are agreed with your customer and your customers waiting for it, you don't have too much to be worried about because you don't want to look bought. If you are a legacy importer that you're filling up your warehouse and somebody else is offering similar quality, a lower price, you have a big risk. So it depends on the core business.
And but for sure, it causes even if we are a European player, if America gets a call or it's nieces, we get a call. So it's just the way it is. And we need to be aware of this. We need to be aware that it's a world commodity.
So we all know this is happening. You're not going to affect me. Well, you need to start digging because most probably it will affect you in some way or another. It's a global market.
So and it depends, but it, but the operating place is a big, big, big part of this game. We, I mean, EUDR isn't if it ever happens is not going to impact you directly, right? It is. No, it is.
How will it impact you directly? Because we, we saw this from the get go and we saw this because we, we understood that at the end of the day, our career is the one supplying the coffee and our career is the one who has to deliver to the customers the information that they need. Whether is the customers giving information to the European customs or ourselves? It doesn't matter.
At the end of the day, we are in charge of collecting information, making sure that the data is okay, and making sure that there's no errors in the polygons, making sure that the paperwork is done properly and blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's coming from us is there's nobody else. So since the regulations were put into, into practice or in a draft, we were like, well, how was it when dealing with that? It was like, we need to do it.
We need to do it. We need to comply. And that's the way it is. And there is no, we cannot, excuse me, we cannot point fingers to anybody else because we are the one sourcing the coffee.
We are the one dealing with the, with the, with the farmers. The farmers are not going to do it because why they should do it. Yeah, yeah. So, so yeah, you are has impacted us and, and, and it started like a big, big nightmare.
And once you find those challenges, once you realize that that's going to impact the price, of course, because you need to get information, you need to send somebody to do it, you need to run the data. So that cost money. And, and at the same time, it started with this huge list of requirements and has been postponed and reduced and changed. And this and that.
So, but imagine we were working to comply anyway. So, yeah, it's not, it's not a funny story for us, but, but it's our responsibility. Yeah. And what are the other geopolitical tensions that you guys are facing that are going to either directly or indirectly impact your business as exporters and importers?
That's, that's a lot of questioning. But is it more? Let's, let's approach it this way. Are you more concerned about the geopolitical impact on your business at origin or in your, in Ireland?
I think, I think in both places, I think in both places, in Colombia, in Colombia, because Trump's just decided to take the president of the network country and that was it. So, and I was actually flying to Colombia. When he was starting to do that to Colombia as well? No, no, he actually, I woke up, I was flying in the evening.
Yeah. And in the morning, the news was, oh, that's going to do it. The US did that operation in, in Caracas and it's like, is this war? Is this an invasion?
What they're doing? So I was like, okay, if it's, if it's a war, if it's an invasion, it's a military operation, they're going to control the country and it's a war zone. That's it. I'm not going to Colombia.
I can go. They're going to close the airspace and whatever. Wow. But a three hours after was like, oh, no, they just took him and everything's fine in America.
Yeah, you're not supposed to take any of this stuff seriously anymore. What? Yeah, we had this, this, this roster coming from America to, to join us. We were invited to, to visit an indigenous town from, from all the way we find it, one of our producers.
So he was kind enough to invite us to his place. It's, it's, it's an indigenous reservation. So you just got to show up, you need to be invited and this and that. So we put all of that together.
And she canceled the day before because all of these things happened and nobody knew, nobody knew what had happened and yeah, exactly. So that's the one that did it. So while it was in Colombia, it was like Trump was saying, you know, I'm going to do the same with Colombia now. But we live in Venezuela and I was like, it's not, I don't want to be able to go back to my family, let alone export any coffee out of the country.
If this guy is going to rule it. So that's, that's a big one. And if you, if you told me that there would be a potential for that to happen without Devin, as well as situation, I would say, you're mad. That's not going to happen.
But he actually done it and they showed that they can do whatever they want, basically. So that's huge. Internal in Colombia, internal in Colombia, the situation has, has not improved, I have to say, and I'm sad saying it. And we have been bringing customers for the last three years from Ireland to Colombia.
And in our last trip, and the guys think, well, we're saying, we need to be very careful. We need to plan better. We need to do this. And I was like, guys, really?
And I said, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. But and you have the conversation to start showing frustration because you're preparing strips. And then now you need to move from cities and you cannot stay longer because the exposure and all of that stuff is like, we haven't had that since the 90s. And now we're coming back to this situation where you need to be careful, you need to be don't go to these places and whatever.
And I'm the first one. I grew up in Colombia, where you couldn't travel by road because you will get kidnapped. And my parents, they're both university teachers. And it's not about money.
It's just about they will take you. They will ask for a ransom based on your salary. So that was that was that was like a realist. That was the leftist group.
I was not talking about just, you know, robbers or bandits or whatever. This is something that was supposedly based in politics and the dynamics of that. But it's coming back and it's very sad because I keep telling people, it's a rich country in resources, in variety, in produce, in your name. And we were growing.
And now we're coming back to the old days. That's very sad. So that's one point. And then the situation, people will find ways to make money out of this.
So there are people importing coffee into Colombia when the tariffs were put in America for the Brazilians. And they were sporting, but the Syrian coffee through Colombia, which is illegal. And people will make money. I think it's the stats of last year of the imported Brazilian coffee into Colombia.
They don't add up. Yeah. The amount of coffee leaving Colombia couldn't possibly just be Colombian coffee because it was much higher. You know, last year, there was a very interesting dynamic.
People were contacting me who usually do these kind of origin trips. And they said, Lee, you need to find a way to get it out there to people to tell them if they're planning to go to Colombia. It's not safe. We, there are roads that are closed, right?
There are roads that are closed. And there are specific coffee growing regions that in Colombia that are just not safe for people who are not familiar, right? They will do things that will draw attention, et cetera, et cetera. So in one day, I think I had four or five people contact me and say the same thing, because it was getting quite bad in some regions.
So I put up a post and people got really angry, not most people, some people. Most people were very happy, people in Colombia and people not in Colombia, were happy that we were getting the word out that, because the worst thing for Colombia is that you get a whole lot of a bunch of people that are not from Colombia go there and they end up in a lot of trouble. And Colombia doesn't need that kind of press right now given everything that it's dealing with. But there were other people who were, in my mind, being focusing on the business that they were going to lose.
No, we need people to calm. We need them to buy the coffee. That's very, in my mind, I understand why they're thinking about that, but it's short-sighted. The last thing that you want is coffee buyers coming there, getting into some trouble that is of no fault of their own, and then people just stop coming to Colombia to buy coffee.
They just use importers and they let importers secure it. That's not going to work well. And it's about being responsible as well, and you're doing the diligence and having people on the ground. So the first two trips, I didn't even bother asking the guys, how's things, because I know how to do that.
In this trip, we were like, okay, guys, so what we need to do? And this guy said, we need to shorten the trip in this particular region, because things happen. It's legitimate. And that's what you want.
That's what you want. So you change, you change, you're not constantly out there. No, you're not. But you're making changes based on information that you trust.
And that's why generalization is, I don't like it, because you can still go to Colombia to a million places, that you don't have to worry about anything. However, if you can't go blindly. No, no, you're going to the middle of a mountain. In that mountain, there is a gorilla that I probably advise you to find out first, where are you going, rather than not going.
Because if you're going to take coffee, you can take pretty beautiful coffee in the boat airport. So you don't have to go anywhere. But yeah, and if you want to go to farms, we have five million people producing coffee, families producing coffee in Colombia. So you will have a chance to go to a farm, but you don't have to go to the forest as one of the highest one, whatever it is.
No, you don't, but yeah. And I think it's important for people to understand, and they may wonder. I'm sure a lot of people are wondering like, what does it mean for coffee farmers when Trump puts a tariff on something? Or when the cartels are taking over the country, or there's stuff going on in one part of the world that's affecting the origin.
It really does affect farmers. It really does affect people that are trying to do business, because this uncertainty, even locally in the country, is creating challenges that give them access to do business, right? We haven't even talked about currency yet. We haven't, and I think what's happening in the market the last two, three days.
It's crazy. There's nothing to do with supply in the month. It's all about the dollar. And the end.
And you see the price going up and it's all about the dollar. I'm sorry, it's nothing to do with the forecasts and the rains or the low rains or whatever. It's just about the dollar losing ground and the coffee's going up. Do you want to say more about it to people and help them understand what's going on?
Well, basically, for the US, it's beneficial if you're trying to export and to do business abroad, that you're the dollar is weak and that's what they're doing. However, if you're an exporter, you don't want to lose the value on your values. So the market is reacting in that way, and that's not helpful for anybody, because commodities are based on supply in the month. That's the way it is.
The dollar is going to be the currency that we're using in this commodity in particular. And it's about the supply and demand will react to each other. So let's say we have now an increasing prices. It doesn't mean that the demand is increasing.
It's just the price is going to increase because of this exchange rate situation happening. Right? So the farmer is going to see, oh, price is going up. So I can get more land, produce more, because I have been seeing good prices and that's the dynamic in any commodity.
I'm not talking about the only in any commodity after you have a period of time in which you have sustained high prices, behind that is common and an increase in the supply. Obviously, in coffee takes two to three years. And that's a problem, right? The delay is a problem.
But that's the dynamic in any commodity. You get high prices, you get people that they want to produce more, then it's always a delay, because this is organic product and it's time to produce. But in two to three years time, you're going to have people that are producing 20, 25% more over the production right now. And that increases the supply?
You have an increase in supply and all the things will be equal, you're going to have an increase in price. So if we are looking at this particular scenario, this particular scenario in the last three days is because of change rate. So there's no fundamentals. It's not because of it's an increase in demand.
It's because there is a policy in this particular country and it's affecting the markets in that way. But it's a fair no, it's a sustainable no. Are people going to take decisions based on it? Yes.
And they're going back to market. And to help people understand how something that we're going back to Japan here, but this started in Japan and is a consequence of something that's happened in Japan over the last, I think, 30 years, if it's not 30, it's 20. Borrowing money in yen was 0%, sometimes negative percent to borrow money. And so what would happen is people would go and borrow money in the yen, convert it into US dollars and then go and buy their speculative assets or any of their other assets with that money.
And so people even in Japan were realizing there's no need for us to buy Japanese bonds. A bond is just like, it's another way of saying I'm lending the government money or whoever it is that owns the bond, right? I'm lending the money. So I don't need to lend, I don't need to buy a bond and get a return on that to the Japanese government because our currency is really not doing anything.
So I'm going to go and buy US bonds. So that Japan holds an exceptional amount of the US bonds that are out there. And so what happened, I think it was Thursday last week, these people were, they called it the yen carry trade, right? They would buy, they would borrow in yen, they would convert to US dollars, they would buy assets in dollars and they didn't have to pay any interest on it.
And so this was like free money and they used to call up until Thursday, they were calling Japan the ATM of the world. And Japan's industry or the country was suffering because of it. So they have a new Prime Minister and this new Prime Minister said, you know what, it's time we stopped being the ATM of the world. We're going to put 4% on any money you borrow from Japan, like that in one day.
And on top of that announced elections and everybody shared their pants because now people who are in Japan who hold American treasury bonds are thinking, I can make a better yield in back home. So I should start selling my Japanese, I should start selling my American bonds. This is what is driving on top of what's happening in Greenland and on top of what Trump's doing with all of these other things. This is what is contributing to the drop in the value of the US dollar.
The drop of the value of the US dollar is a problem for our industry because our commodity is only traded in US dollar. And if it is devalued, that will benefit some people and it will hurt other people. And it shifts the risk around in the middle of a country crisis. And you were saying, this is a situation that you need to keep your eyes peeled.
A thousand percent. The situation with the bonds in Japan happened three months ago already. The difference is that the Prime Minister has won the economy to grow. And as you're saying, they increase the rates.
But the situation with people doing the... The character? In Japan and investing in the US, that fueled a lot of investments into AI because it was zero money cost. So the yen had a hiccup three months ago and a lot of people lost a lot of money.
So this is happening again. And they thought then, that was the reverse carry trade, right? Like people were going to go out, what was happening with the yen then? They thought, oh, this is going to be a problem.
We've got to unwind our trade and this is going to cause this big bombshell. The financial system is going to fall over and it didn't, right? Now they're worried that this is the time it's going to happen. And the success...
So my point is, my point is, it's your political again. So we have a Prime Minister with a mindset and she's taking the measures that she's taking and she's affecting everybody again. And we have a guy like Trump, exactly the same. So we were talking this about this before and why he changed his stance with Greenland.
It wasn't because his advisers told him. He had a meeting in Davos and he realized that the people that were holding bonds from... The Netherlands. From the Netherlands.
From the Netherlands. And the UK as well, we're saying, well, look, we have this amount of bonds on you. You keep pushing this. We're going to get rid of...
It's all treasures. Yeah, exactly. So it's again, you're political, but it's not going to help us again. It's going to help or not depends, but it's going to impact us and it's a global market and we are as opposed to it.
How you can change yourself against it. There is ways, of course. But some are not to the reach of either roaster or producers. They can reach.
A small producer, a small roaster, can reach either. It's difficult to get the swing in this change rate. It has been something that we follow. This year in particular, it has impacted a lot of the Colombian producers because the exchange rate, the Colombian peso, is losing ground as well because the Colombian government emitted a lot of bonds last week.
So even though the market is going up, the internal price is still very stable. It's not following as fast as it should be following. So it impacts everybody and you try to... You need to be aware of it first and then you need to find a way to at least cover part of that risk, but there's no way to cover yourself against it all the time.
Well, you set us up perfectly for the next episode where we're going to talk about how is risk going to change as things evolve in 2026 and how people should be looking at managing risk. So join us for the fourth episode of this series, folks. Peace often, peanut butter, have an amazing rest of your day. Join us.