Italy top coffee importer

The country bought 53,229 tonnes from India in 2007.

Italy continues to top the countries buying Indian coffee. In the calendar year 2007, Italian companies mopped up 53,229.50 tonnes or 23.87 per cent of the total coffee exports from India which stood at 2.23 lakh tonnes.

The Russian Federation followed second with 27,661.20 tonnes (12.40 per cent) and Germany with 11,900.4 tonnes came third (5.34 per cent).

The Indian Coffee Board statistics showed that in the calendar year 2007, Italian companies bought 9,523.5 tonnes of arabica and 43,706 tonnes of robusta. Russian Federation bought 2,572.8 tonnes arabica and 25,088.4 tonnes robusta and Germany 5,883.5 tonnes arabica and 6,016.9 robusta.

According to M P Devaiah, general manager-exports AllanaSons, a major coffee exporting firm, "Italians love Indian coffee, especially robusta. They have been consistently buying coffee from us. They have found it goes well in various espresso blends they create and sell through out the world."

"Though the Russian Federation is also a major buyer of Indian coffee, they are focused on instant coffees where both arabica and robusta are well utilised," he added.

The other countries, which regularly buy Indian coffee, are Belgium "" 9,284 tonnes (arabica 3,683.7 tonnes and robusta 5,600.3 tonnes), Spain "" 8,989.6 tonnes (arabica 634.2 tonnes and robusta 8,355.4 tonnes) and Finland "" 8,668.1 tonnes (arabica 127.2 tonnes and robusta 8,540.9 tonnes).

Ukraine buys 6,759.9 tonnes (arabica 20 tonnes and robusta 6,759 tonnes), Slovenia "" 5,944.6 tonnes (arabica 29.3 tonnes and robusta 5,915.3 tonnes), Greece "" 5,797.2 tonnes (arabica 99.6 tonnes and robusta 5,697.6 tonnes), Croatia "" 4,522 tonnes (arabica 115.2 tonnes and robusta 4,406.8 tonnes) and other countries 80,272.7 tonnes (arabica 19,431 tonnes and robusta 60,841.7 tonnes).