It will be seen that the gain has been a decided one, fairly steady, but not exactly uniform. In the fifty years, John Doe has not quite come to the point where he hands up his cup for a second helping and keeps a meaningful silence. Instead, he stipulates, "Don't fill it quite full; fill it about five-sixths as full as it was before." That is a substantial gain, and one that the next fifty years can hardly be expected to duplicate, in spite of the efforts of our coffee advertisers, our inventors, and our vigorous importers and roasters.
The most striking feature of this fifty-year growth was the big step upward in 1897, when the per capita rose two pounds over the year before and established an average that has been pretty well maintained since. Something of the sort may have taken place again in 1920, when there was a three-pound jump over the year before. It will be interesting to see whether this is merely a jump or a permanent rise; whether our coffee trade has climbed to a hilltop or a plateau.
In this connection it should be noted that the government's per capita coffee figures apply only to continental United States, and that in computing them all the various items of trade of the non-contiguous possessions (not counting the Philippines, whose statistics are kept entirely separate from those of the United States proper) are carefully taken into account.
But for the benefit of students of coffee figures it should be added that this method does not result in a final figure except for one year in ten. The reason is that between censuses the population of the country is determined only by estimates; and these estimates (by the U.S. Bureau of the Census) are based on the average increase in the preceding census decade. The increase between 1910 and 1920, for instance, is divided by 120, the number of months in the period, and this average monthly increase is assumed to be the same as that of the current year and of other years following 1920. Until new figures are obtained in 1930, the monthly increase will continue to be estimated at the same rate as the increase from 1910 to 1920, or about 118,000. This figure will be used in computing the per capita coffee consumption. But when the 1930 figures are in, it may be found that the estimates were too low or too high, and the per capita figures for all intervening years will accordingly be subject to revision. This will not amount to much, probably five-hundredths of a pound at most; but it is evident that between 1920 and 1930 all per capita consumption figures issued by the government are to be considered as provisional to that extent at least.
In the 1920 Statistical Abstract the government has revised its per capita coffee and tea figures to conform to actual instead of estimated population figures between 1910 and 1920, with the result that these figures are slightly different from those published in previous editions of the Abstract. Figures from 1890 to 1910 have also been slightly changed, as they were originally computed by using population figures as of June 1, whereas it is desirable to have computations based on July 1 estimates to make them conform to present per capita figures.
Reviewing the 1921 Trade in the United States
According to the latest available foreign trade summaries issued by the government, the United States bought more coffee in 1921 than in any previous calendar year of our history, although the total imports did not quite reach the highest fiscal-year mark. Our purchases passed the 1920 mark by more than 40,000,000 pounds and were higher than those of two years ago by 3,500,000 pounds.
But this record was made only in actual amounts shipped, as the value of imported coffee was far below that of immediately preceding years. Coffee values, however, fell off less than the average values for all imports, the decrease for coffee being forty-three percent and for the country's total imports fifty-two percent.
Exports of coffee were somewhat less in quantity than in 1920, and about the same as in 1919; although the value, like that of imports, was considerably less than in either previous year.
Re-exports of foreign coffee were considerably below the 1920 mark, in both quantity and value, and indeed were less than in several years. The amount of tea re-exported to foreign countries was only about half that shipped out in 1920, showing a continuation of the tendency of the United States to discontinue its services as a middleman, which raised the through traffic in tea several million pounds during the dislocation of shipping.