Liberian Coffee: Minor Player in Coffee Commerce; Interesting Political History

A scene taken from the Liberian coast

This evening it seems like a good idea to examine one of the lesser known coffees on the market today. The one I have chosen to write about is known as coffea liberica, or Liberian coffee. A coffee relative from West Africa, Liberia to be exact, this coffee accounts for around one per cent of the commercially grown coffee in the world. According to the web site www.tradewindsfruit.com, the taste and appearance of the coffee beans and berries are quite similar to arabica and robusta varieties, although the beans are often larger and contain a hard, difficult-to-shell skin, which hinders their commercial uses. Liberian coffee is a hardy plant, with similar climatic requirements as regular coffee. Liberian coffee has much larger leaves than is the case with regular coffee. 

Liberia contains 40 per cent of the remaining Upper Guinean rain forest. Because Liberia has a hot equatorial climate, with significant rainfall during the May to October rainy season, coffee production is particularly well-suited there. 

Interestingly, the nation of Liberia was founded in 1847 by colonists taken from African slave ships as well as by freed American slaves. These colonists founded the Republic of Liberia, establishing a government modeled after the United States, naming the capital city after James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States and a prominent supporter of the colonization. The colonists in question monopolized the political and economic sectors of the country in spite of making up only a small percentage of the country's indigenous population.

Liberia began to modernize in the 1940s following investment by the United States during WWII and economic liberalization under Liberia President William Tubman. Liberia was also a founding member of the United Nations and the Organization of Africa Unity. In 1980, a military coup overthrew the Americo-Liberian establishment, marking the beginning of political and economic instability as well as two civil wars that left 250,000 dead and devastated the economy of the country. A 2003 peace deal led to democratic elections in 2005. Nowadays, Liberia is still recovering from the lingering effects of civil war, with about 85 per cent of the population living below the poverty line. 

Many former coffee farms have now reverted back to wild coffee plants. This is due to many years of neglect. Planting rubber trees is now more profitable than coffee, as is cocoa, and these crops have replaced coffee in many instances as the crop of choice. 

One benefit of having the coffee plants revert to their wild state is that they are growing in soils free of chemical additives. Many of the Robusta plants are producing a good yield under forest shade which also improves the quality of organic coffee beans.