According to the Coffee Board of India (2020-21), which country was the…

Concept: every trade statistic has an axis — who is counted, which flow is counted, and from whose books. A table of “importing countries” published by an exporting nation’s own commodity board counts the destinations of that nation’s shipments, while a table of the world’s largest importers of the same commodity counts purchases from all origins. The two rankings answer different questions and routinely differ, so the first step is to read which axis the source is using.

Application: the Coffee Board of India is the statutory body under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry that records India’s own coffee exports, so its 2020-21 country-wise table ranks the destinations of Indian coffee. In that table Italy stands at the top. India’s plantations are dominated by Robusta, and Italy’s espresso-roasting houses are the largest buyers of that Robusta, which is why Italy has headed the Board’s destination list year after year.

Cross-check: on the different axis of total coffee imports from all origins, the biggest buyers in the world are the United States and Germany — which is why Germany can look tempting here. The stem, however, anchors the data to the Coffee Board of India, that is, to shipments of Indian coffee, and on that measure Italy is ahead of Germany by a wide margin.

Hence, according to the Coffee Board of India (2020-21), Italy was the largest importer of Indian coffee.