Two hundred years ago, coffee traders in Havre, France, formally recognized and separated two distinct methods for buying and selling coffee. The first was the "futures" market, the buying a selling of contracts for coffee that would arrived ... well, in the future. The second was the buying and selling of coffee that was actually on hand, or "on the spot" rather than on the water, or on the farm, or on the tree. Later, when coffee dominated lower Wall Street, selling spot coffees was sometimes called "street sales." New spot coffee is coffee that has just arrived, is really and actually here.
