New York tops long time leader New Orleans

[Mayhaw Man]

This article in today's New Orleans Times-Picayune breaks down some interesting facts and figures in the world of coffee importation. New Orleans has long been the leading coffee port in the world and one of the world's great centers of coffee roasting. While the roasting business is still doing well, New York has supplanted NO as the leader in coffee importation. This is due primarily to shipping rates and duties levied by the ports.

New Orleans still roasts more coffee than anyone else, thanks to a couple of huge facilities, Reilly Foods and Folgers being the largest, with a number of smaller roasters making up the rest. We also are the home (all of 5 miles from my house) of the largest coffee handling facility in the world, The Folger's Warehousing Facility-located in St Tammany Parish just off of I-10 near Folsom, LA.

This is a good article involving a pretty good description of how the world coffee trade works and I thought that a few of you might find it interesting. It's a shame that the Picayune, along with a number of other papers around the country use this website though, as photos and graphs are difficult to find (if they are available at all) and the articles are usually synopsized (as this one is).