Shaping the Coffee Commodity Chain: Hamburg Merchants and Consumption of Guatemalan Coffee in Germany, 1889-1929

Abstract

During the second half of the 19th century, industrialization in Germany and subsequent changes in Hanseatic investment strategies aimed at Latin American coffee-producing countries had a considerable impact on German coffee consumption habits. Using a transnational perspective this article explains how, responding to greater commercial risks in the market, Hanseatic coffee merchants developed differentiated market policies and encouraged consumption patterns that would not only help counterbalance their own commercial risks but also satisfy the dissimilar needs of the industrial sector and the growing German middle and upper classes. German investment strategies in Guatemalan coffee production were to play a key role in this scheme.