I agree with the comment that the coffee industry (as we know it) is very young, and so with a major player such as SB in the picture who knows where the future may be at. In terms of simple exonomics you can eaither hold an unbundance mentality or scarcity mentality. At the end of the day the market will work itself out. An immediate example of this is the wine industry. Somehow the tiny provence of Champagne in France manages to produce enough grapes (and enough quality grapes) to provide the entire world with quility wine. At a time it was only the locals who consumed such a fine product. Then only European aristicrats and nobels. Then mainly just the upper class citizens of the world. And now when supply is at an all time high with everyone consuming it (in varying degrees) that small little provence still manages to keep up. And has the price of current vintage champagne risen dramatically through the years. Not really. There is still top quality wine available at a reasonable cost to the consumer. Why is this? Because new regions from california to germany to new zealand to spain are all producing equally good alternatives. Regions which historically were not bleieved to be able to produce such fine quality produce. Such is agriculture. I hardly think that because the worlds largest coffee shop is buying the worlds largest quantity of quality coffee and paying well for it, pouring millions into the land and governments surrounding the supply of that coffee, that this is a bad thing for our industry. In fact just the opposite. Never before have we had so much money directed our way, allowing us the spend more on R&D on all facets of coffee, from the agriculture of growing the plants to the very methods of extracting that lucious flavour from the beans. I for one am excited to see what the future holds, just look at how the wine industry has boomed. Maybe someday we'll have uni students studying subjects of coffee making and marketing (well, maybe not??).
