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BANGALORE, Feb. 14

AN eight-member Japanese coffee delegation has found the quality of Indian arabicas and robustas ``beyond its expectation''.

The delegation has come with a ``strong impression that Indian coffee is very good,'' said Mr Taro Takeda, Vice-President of the All-Japan Coffee Association and the team leader of the delegation. It is for the first time in 18 years that a Japanese coffee delegation is visiting the country.

As for translating this impression into sales, Mr Takeda merely said if Japanese buyers saw ``good coffee, and price, quality and market conditions'' were right, they would look at Indian coffee.

``Indian coffee is not popular in Japan because India is not seen as a coffee country and tea is too much famous,'' he added.

Coffee drinking in Japan — still a largely green tea country — is restricted to the 40-plus age group, Mr Takeda said. The country has been promoting coffee and imports have steadily gone up from 1.9 lakh tonnes in 1980 to 4.4 lakh tonnes in 2002. "Twenty years back, we only drank green tea in offices. Today, we have moved to offering a choice of tea or coffee," he said.

Japan was looking at regular arabicas and robustas, Mr Takeda said, and speciality coffee forms a very small part of Japanese imports.

Japan was one of the ``new markets'' identified by the Coffee Board. It was a rare developed market where coffee consumption is still on the rise, said the Coffee Board Chairperson, Ms Lakshmi Venkatahcalam.

The Japanese visit to Indian plantation areas was on one of the board's strategy.

Exports from India to Japan have fallen since the eighties. ``Our exports to Japan have always been flip-flop," said Ms Venkatachalam. ``We haven't consistently pursued the market and established ourselves as a reliable supplier.''

Last year, Japan's maximum imports came from Brazil, followed by Colombia and Indonesia. India was 12th in the list, accounting for a meagre 5,585 tonnes out of total Japanese imports of 400,000 tonnes.

The inconsistent nature exports was one of the reasons that we lost the Japanese market, said Mr Ramesh Raja, President, Coffee Exporters Association. The other reason was the emergence of Vietnam as a producer of cheap robustas.

Japan buys robustas for its instant coffee market, which is 85 per cent of the home market. Roast and ground coffee is limited to out of home consumption.

As a follow up of the visit, the board has suggested that Indian exporters should pay a return visit to Japan.

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