STiR coffee and tea magazine

STiR coffee and tea 11 NEWS Weber New President of the Tea and Herbal Association of Canada Shabnam Weber Shabnam Weber, a Toronto-based tea retailer and founder of The Academy of Tea, is the new president of the Tea and Herbal Associa- tion of Canada (THAC). Weber, who co-founded the Tea Empo- rium, a chain of specialty tea shops, serves as a member of the THAC board. "The tea industry has been an enormous part of my life for almost two decades and I consider myself privileged to be a part of this world," said Weber. She replaces Louise Roberge who retired June 1. In making the announcement THAC board chair Ron Sadler praised Weber's work leading the education committee. "She assisted in developing and authoring the Tea Sommelier Education program with THAC and more recently, through her company The Tea Academy, has been the third party provider of THAC's Tea Sommelier Education program," he said. Weber said that serving on the THAC Board for almost ten years "has given me a broader and richer insight into all aspects of the tea industry. My vision for THAC moving forward is to build on our strengths, but to also have an association that embraces all parts of the tea world. I was an independent specialty retailer when I started my involvement with THAC," she said, adding, "I am a testa- ment to this statement: nothing happens without engagement." Weber will divest both her retail business and her interest in the Tea Academy to avoid any conflict of interest. Brazil Expects Record Crop Arabica production alone is expected to exceed Brazil's entire 2017/18 crop in what Conab (the Brazilian state forecasting agency) is predicting will be a record harvest. The 2018/19 crop year, which begins in July, is expected to yield between 58 and 60 million 60-kilo bags, the highest estimate recorded. Conab estimates 58.04 million bags compared to the 44.97 million bags harvested last year. Arabica is estimated at 44.33 million bags and robusta 13.71 million bags. While good news for coffee companies that were forced to reduce stocks last year, the bumper crop has depressed prices. Coffee has traded around $1.15 per pound since April. A U.S. attaché was even more optimistic, estimating the crop at 60.2 million bags. Yield per hectare is projected at 29.2 bags, up from 25.2 bags per hectare in 2017/18. Coffee harvests are cyclic, with a weak flowering like last year followed by robust growth. Robusta plants are doing exception- ally well after two bad years. Favorable weath- er and increasingly more sophisticated methods of cultivation have kept Brazil the world's largest coffee producing country.

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