The encyclopedia · Legal & Compliance · Legal decision · 2023–2026
Taiwan coffee chain 歐客佬 sold 'geisha' beans it never bought — twice
Panama's Finca Sophia was advertised as 歐客佬's geisha supplier in 2023 and again in 2025, but the estate says the chain never bought a single bean.
歐客佬 · Oklao Coffee · Black Gold · 2025-12-16
What happened
In December 2025, Panama's famed geisha coffee estate Finca Sophia, represented by Willem Boot, publicly accused Taiwanese coffee chain 歐客佬 of falsely claiming their coffee came from the estate. The estate said it had never sold beans to 歐客佬 or its related company Black Gold.
The accusation was a repeat. The estate said it had made the same complaint in 2023, and that 歐客佬 had used the Finca Sophia name again in 2025 as if it were an official supplier. The chain's defence that it was an 'administrative oversight' was rejected by Boot as a case of misrepresentation.
The Taichung health authorities investigated and referred the case to prosecutors on November 28, with a case opened on December 9 under Article 49 of the Food Safety Act, which covers adulteration or counterfeiting. 歐客佬 had earlier described the matter as an internal operational slip.
Commentators called the episode a matter of integrity rather than logistics, noting the same estate name had been used twice even after the first protest, and posing the question of how a chain could repeatedly sell a named estate's coffee without ever buying from it.
Why it happened
- Selling a famous estate's geisha name without any supply relationship turned the brand label into a fiction, and doing it twice destroyed the first 'oversight' excuse
- Calling a repeat mislabelling an 'internal administrative slip' dismissed the accusation instead of investigating it, which hardened the case
- The same named estate being used again in 2025, after a 2023 protest, turned a labelling error into something that read as deliberate
The lesson
A famous origin name is only worth the supply behind it — 歐客佬 sold Finca Sophia geisha twice without ever buying the beans, and 'an oversight' does not survive a repeat.
Aftermath
By December 2025 the Finca Sophia dispute had reached the Taichung prosecutors, opened under Article 49 of the Food Safety Act covering adulteration or counterfeiting. 歐客佬 had used the estate's name in 2023 and again in 2025 despite the estate's first protest, and its 'administrative oversight' defence was rejected as misrepresentation by the estate's representative.
Sources
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