By Bruce Mullins The specialty coffee industry’s Global Coffee Quality Research Initiative (GCQRI) has officially been launched, and has begun its historic multi-year journey towards a more complete understanding of the science behind coffee quality and coffee quantity. The Initiative—developed over the past 18 months by a consortium of leading specialty coffee roasters, thought-leaders and …
By Lily Kubota As with all industries, specialty coffee has a number of long-standing premises that, founded or not, are often taken as something akin to gospel. One of these premises is that better coffee equals higher prices (and therefore, economic sustainability for producers), and that economic sustainability can drive other facets of sustainability. At …
By Ric Rhinehart It was in 2000 that Google employees Paul Buchheit and Amit Patel first wrote a phrase on a conference room whiteboard, three little words that would become the unofficial statement of corporate values for the company: “Don’t Be Evil.” The phrase, akin to the medical version of “First, do no harm,” was …
By Peter Giuliano As we all know, coffee is a uniquely global product. Grown only within the tropics and typically consumed outside of them, coffee is one of the rare luxuries that transcends boundaries and cultures. This unique element creates a deeply, completely global industry where we regularly use names and words from a number of different …
How to Find Charity (Even) When Deciding Not to By Tim Castle No matter who they are or what they do, people look for connections and community. After all, it’s not for nothing that we call ourselves “social animals.” right now, it’s “social media” and a digital “social network,” but 10,000 years ago it was …
Creating Geographical Indications for Coffee By Laura Everage In this Symposium session, Paul Songer of Songer & Associates, Inc. and Luis Fernando Samper of Colombian Coffee Growers Federation presented two separate approaches to creating geographical indications. In Rwanda, the analysis was made purely on a cup basis, while in Colombia extensive lab testing and verification …
Thanksgiving Coffee Company’s Ben Corey-Moran, a member of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), looks at traceability in the global coffee market. Corey-Moran is the president and director of coffee at Thanksgiving Coffee, based in Fort Bragg, Calif., and a past member of SCAA’s Sustainability Committee. The Chronicle chats with Corey-Moran to learn more. …
Much Accomplished, But Our Work Continues By Chad Trewick The specialty coffee industry has always been close to our sourcing partners—much closer, it seems, than in many other industries. We recognize that those relationships and our presence at origin lead to mutually beneficial transactions and, most important, the high-quality coffees we seek in the global coffee …
There’s No Sustainability Without Traceability By Juliette Caulkins Strong consumer demand for sustainable products is driving the introduction and expansion of a fast growing market segment: sustainably and responsibly produced and sourced products. The attractiveness of sustainable products gives market players a competitive benefit and last but not least, it leads to better margins throughout …
By Judith Ganes-Chase An escalating cost of production, labor shortages and climate change could hinder long term production growth. As it is already, gains in world coffee output have failed to keep pace with rising global consumption the past two decades, resulting in world coffee stocks reduced to cover the ongoing gap in supply. Ill …