21st August 2021
Someone somewhere – I think P. D. James – says that no coffee tastes as good as it smells.
And given that most people drink coffee not for the taste but for the (perceived) caffeine kick, some people do not seem to see the point of decaffeinated coffee.
(Such people include me, for what it is worth.)
But some people do, and it appears that they will currently be disappointed if they go into a chain of well-known coffee shops.
For in those coffee shops there is no decaffeinated coffee.
I established this in two branches of the same well-known coffee shop near where I live – and not with loaded questions but with a general ‘how come’ when told they had none.
Both times the answer was: Brexit.
(The first mention was prompted by overhearing someone else being told there was no decaf, the second was prompted by me inquiring generally.)
The second person who told me this I did not know, but the first – the manager of the most local branch – is as undramatic and unpolitical person as you can imagine.
I had – and have – no idea if this is the true reason for the lack of stock.
Perhaps it is a coffee shop urban legend.
Perhaps it is the desperate excuse of a desperate area manager.
But it was the explicit, resigned reason given in two separate shops, independently of each other.
I mentioned the first incident on Twitter – and it seemed to affirm what others had experienced.
https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1429007481762615296
So: either there was a number of people lying, or there is a mass delusion, or a number of people are experiencing shortages and these shortages are being attributed to Brexit.
A quick infantile response to this is to say ‘so what’ and dismiss it as a ‘first-world problem’ (which may affect, of course, coffee growers not from the first-world.)
Perhaps it is: access to decaffeinated coffee may well be up there with guacamole and vegan bacon as the least of all our concerns.
But.
If this is true – and it certainly is the sincere belief of honest people – then it provides a micro-example of the inconveniences and misadventures that unsurprisingly will follow the United Kingdom ceasing to be part of the European Union single market.
There were always going to be some effects – and this could just be one.
And perhaps in the medium term, the supply lines will adjust, and decaffeinated coffee shall again be available in chain stores.
If so, then – other than passing complaints – Brexit will have taken effect without the huge backlash that many – especially Remainers – predicted.
On the other hand, if this inconvenience is added to others, and then to others, and they accumulate then – maybe – voters will see the point of the United Kingdom being part of the single market – and politicians could respond accordingly.
What will practically shift minds will be certain things being unavailable – even minor things – and people attributing the shortage to the explanation.
The taste of Brexit, like coffee, may not be as good as what some people expect it be.
*
(And for what it is worth, I support the United Kingdom being part of the single market but no formally rejoining the European Union – which some of you will say is the political equivalent of liking decaffeinated coffee.)
*
In the meantime…
…it looks as if we will now go further into Brexit with a caffeinated, heightened sense of nervous energy.
And what could go wrong with that?
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Would be very happy for the UK to be in the single market.
But doesn’t this mean that UK would have to accept ECJ rulings and freedom of movement?
Otherwise, like decaffeinated coffee, what is the point?
In English, you have an imaginative definition (“cherry picking”) for your wishful thinking.
Regrettably it does not work like that in the EU.
No decaf coffee and little cement, paint calor gas etc etc. PS if you go a try and buy treated wood (usually Scandinavian) take plenty of cash. Price has tripled in last 18 months.
If you believe the German press, the building trade is on its knees for a myriad of shortage of supplies in building materials – much is put down to the breakdown in JIT freight logistics brought on by CV19 .
In another instance, one large part in China is only operating at 75% capacity.
UK and other shops bracing themselves for a really tough winter/Xmas as they will have significantly less ‘tat’ /trinkets to sell. Oh dear.
While I don’t drink coffee (can’t stand the taste) I do drink decaffeinated tea, for one simple reason: health concerns. Caffeine does increase blood pressure, in particular if you drink a lot of tea/coffee/otherhighcaffeinedrink. I drink a lot of tea, decaffeinated tea since I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. So far I haven’t had problems getting it, but if the supply problem extends to tea it would indeed cause me a problem.
Raised blood pressure is why I stopped drinking caffeinated coffee 18 months ago and as a result sleep much better and don’t feel stressed anymore. I too initially thought what’s the point of decaf but quite quickly got used to it. I dislike tea. So far – way outside London – I have had no problems getting decaf, in supermarkets or cafés, so hoping for the best.
I can gladly send you some decaff from Italy. I always felt Brexit would sneak into the country in dribs and drabs. A general lowering of lifestyle choices. I suppose folk will get used to it without realising they’ve been conned and adjust.
At least one point of decaffeinated coffee.
For a reasonable number of people (about 30% of adults, I believe it is genetic), coffee helps activate the colon, and makes you poop. It is effective and predictable, usually with results within 30 minutes. I am one of many people who “regularly” (heh) drinks coffee for this reason (otherwise, I prefer tea).
It is not the caffeine that has this effect, but one or two of the other compounds in the brew. Thus decaffeinated coffee works just as well.
I actually drink the full-caffeine stuff, but some folk might prefer this effect without the caffeine.
In this particular case, I think the current global carbon dioxide shortage is more likely to be to blame. Carbon dioxide is used in the decaffeination process, and the current (partly pandemic-induced) shortage is also affecting the availability of things like beer and meat.
A measured, thoughtful and positive post based on personal experience. Thank you.
I suspect that the pandemic, with its long lists of anxieties, inconveniences and much, much worse for many people has left most people little energy for considering how life has changed and is changing due to Brexit. It’s probably helpful to the government that quite significant changes due to Brexit will always be trivial in comparison to those wrought by the pandemic, even if they would never dream of avoiding responsibility by blaming the outcome of political decisions on a natural disaster.
Even so, there are already impacts much worse than the availability of decaff. I had to explain to my elderly Mother that we might have to move house so we can continue to provide grandparent care to my son’s small children as he takes up a fantastic new job. She wondered why they didn’t employ an au pair instead and she got the same answer as you did about coffee: “Brexit”. The longer version of that explanation is complicated and nuanced, and, like coffee, it all sounds like a first world problem that will have some sort of solution one day, but Brexit has real and important impacts, many of which people are not seeing yet, but are weighing on our lives.
I drink decaff occasionally, usually when I can’t get the real thing. I feel exactly the same about single market membership. I always accepted we’d leave the EU if the referendum was lost, but that mandate has been discharged and we all need to start being honest about our place in the world and the kind of lives we want to lead. I’d lend my vote to someone who wanted to favour pragmatism and a better life rather than the sovereignty fantasies of a tiny minority.
I thought all coffee from our well known coffee shops came from that well known coffee growing nation of Luxembourg?
No?
At least Brexit closes that loophole. Well actually does it? I think it does.
Whichever way I don’t think that’s what people were looking for when they voted.
If you are referring to the Starbucks case, the European Commission claimed that the company’s Netherlands subsidiary should have paid about €30m more tax to the Dutch tax authorities.
Tax deductions had been agreed for royalties paid to a related company for know-how, and for the price paid for the purchase of green coffee beans from a related company in Switzerland (which sources all of the group’s beans centrally and distributes them around the world). The Commission said the deductions were excessive, and agreed on a selective basis, so amounted to state aid.
As I understand it, the actual roasting and packing of the beans was in fact done by the Netherlands company, in the Netherlands, and then they were shipped around Europe. All of our coffee is imported, but by no means all directly from the site of primary production. The Netherlands has a long history of coffee processing, so it is not very surprising if green coffee beans are imported there, and then the roasted beans are sent on to the UK.
After some years, the General Court of the European Union annulled the Commission’s decision, concluding that the Commission had not shown the deductions were excessive. The Commission chose not to appeal.
All of this is quick and easy to check. eg:
* https://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cfm?proc_code=3_SA_38374
* https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2019-09/cp190119en.pdf
* https://mnetax.com/why-the-eu-commission-wont-appeal-the-starbucks-judgment-37043
The Commission started looking at this in February 2014, issued a press release of its conclusions in October 2015, and then the General Court decision was in 2019. So, whatever you think, not only is this nothing to do with Luxembourg, it was not stopped by Brexit either. But you are probably right that most people won’t have been bothered too much about this when casting their Brexit vote. After all, they need us more than we need them…
https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/coffee-roasted-decaffeinated
Looks like the uk is a big importer and it mainly comes from the eu and Switzerland. Your informants may be right! The UK is critically dependent on decaf imports.
Are we not critically dependent on all coffee imports – decaff or non decaff?
Am I missing something profound? Like is decaff significantly harder to source?
It is significant that last week the most jingoistic of the EU hating dailies, The Express, ran an article highlighting shortages which it said were an effect of Brexit.
This was a sea change in that up to then the right wing press in England had been lockstep blaming the so called and mythical pingdemic.
To me the most instructive part of the article was the response of the government to requests by business to open up a scheme of temporary work visas for agricultural, factory workers and HGV drivers.
The government answer was a flat refusal with the comment that UK business must find and train them inside the UK.
This reminded me of a comment Gove made shortly after the first national covid shutdown began – he said that it had a silver lining in that the sudden near complete cessation of trade (and most UK trade is with the EU) would get people used to what Brexit means.
Over four years ago the Guardian published an article summarising the views of leading Brexiters on how long it will take for the UK to just get back to the baseline in terms of GDP after Brexit.
I was struck by what Rees-Mogg said it would take – which was 50 yrs (and a number of others quoted had similar long terms), and how different this estimate was vs the sort of stuff the Leave campaign were saying which was promising an immediate boom.
I really don’t like Rees-Mogg’s politics but he is always honest if you care to listen.
So what’s my point? Well trade expert Chris Grey has long labelled the ERG and other hardline Eurosceptics as ‘Brexit-Jacobins’ and it’s a descriptor he carefully chose because he like Sir Ivan Rogers has understood that those in the current government are really revolutionaries and they are right now busy guillotining the connections between the UK and the EU as well as engaged in laying the groundwork for a root and branch clearance and rebuild of GB including constitutional changes so as to make it (in my view) far less social-democratic and far more libertarian.
I don’t for a moment think the ideologues care about those complaining about no coffee and in fact media storms in a coffee cup will be a useful distraction for the sheeple while they get on with making ‘facts on the ground’ such as repealing the FTPA and moving more parliamentary powers to the cabinet.
The question therefore must be: is it possible to be in the single market but not in the EU?
of course
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/slide_presented_by_barnier_at_euco_15-12-2017.pdf
but it comes with some strings attached and the EEA country’s did not sound very happy to welcome the UK in the EEA after HMG hinted it would be just short term
Yes via EFTA/EEA with Freedom of movement per Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein. Swiss have EFTA via 100s of bilateral deals.
Many do drink coffee for the taste. Just have a look around the web and see all the specialist coffee sites that have pages and pages about nothing but the taste of different types from different suppliers.
For what it’s worth, I used to drink a lot of normal coffee and tried a few specialist types. Then my doctor said to me to avoid caffeine so I only drink decaffeinated. The price has gone up but it’s still widely available to buy on the internet.
I suspect that Brexit is indeed a factor in this but mainly for coffee shops due to the shortage of delivery drivers bringing the beans from Europe.
“I had – and have – no idea if this is the true reason for the lack of stock.
Perhaps it is a coffee shop urban legend.”
My own little unscientific experiment suggests ( sample size 2, no twitterati , but then I struggle to believe many tweets, call me cynical) that at least in Hampstead and Mortlake ,as of yesterday late pm, there was no shortage of de-caff coffee in one high street coffee shop or a highish end indy coffeeshop.
The decaff coffee urban legend could, easily, transpire to become an urban myth.
On a more general point of goods shortages, two better evidenced reasons include the well publicised 100k haulier shortage in Europe inc EU and the more global difficulties in sea freight ( inc ships/containers/resourcing) owing to Covid.
It’s not to say that Brexit hasn’t had an impact on de-caff coffee supplies ( interesting it’s just decaff coffee…ummm?) but in the scheme of things, I’d be genuinely surprised that, after 7 months at the end of transition , de-caff coffee turns out to be a leading indicator of a deleterious Brexit impact.
Confession – I drink full strength coffee.