The Teaching Triangle: 3 Ways to Educate Consumers
Imagine a class called Coffee 101. Now imagine that you are the teacher of said class, tasked with imparting coffee information to a classroom full of consumers. As you teach, you notice some of them are reading from their textbooks, many are looking out the window, a few are doodling in their notebooks, at least …
Coffee in Cyberspace: Bridging the Gap Through Digital Engagement
By Jennifer Gyllenskog While this can be a great opportunity, it also comes at a cost, precisely because people do act different when they’re online. They have a shorter attention span and higher expectations. If you don’t connect them with what they’re looking for in the first few seconds, they bail. Not to mention that …
Getting the Story Straight
Communicating what is Special about Specialty Coffee By Tracy Ging You know that famous quote, the one that says imitation is the sincerest of flattery? Well, if that’s the case, specialty coffee should be flattered because we have certainly been imitated. Most coffee—whether it’s specialty or not—now carries descriptors like gourmet, premium, coffeehouse-style, and others. …
Denomination of Origin
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 …
Coffee Slingers and Cheese Mongers
Learning from The Cheese Model By Ric Rhinehart Recently, I was listening to an interview with cheese monger Gordon Edgar in which he explained how critical it is to be able to educate his customers about cheese, while at the same time recognizing how difficult it is to impart the entire story of cheese to …
Connecting with the Consumer
By Peter Giuliano In coffee, everything that we do leads up to one single, important moment: when someone drinks a cup of coffee. This is the moment that we all work towards—it’s when the flavors we seek to reveal are appreciated, savored and celebrated. The economic activity that occurs in anticipation of this moment is …
Defining Specialty Coffee and the Case for Standards
By Ric Rhinehart For the past year or so, concerns about the supply of quality coffee demanded by the specialty market have swirled about with varying degrees of intensity. Shortfalls in Colombia and dramatic differential rises throughout Central America have raised the noise level on this topic considerably. The question at the heart of the …
A Question of Quality
Defining specialty coffee: Perspective from the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe By Mick Wheeler I am delighted to give a brief and hopefully succinct update on developments and initiatives being undertaken by the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE). As many of you are aware, the different specialty or speciality (as we in Europe like to call the …
Traceability Q&A: Ben Corey-Moran Thanksgiving Coffee Company
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. …
Traceability & Sustainability
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 …
Why is Traceability Important to the Global Coffee Market?
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 …
SCAA is hiring: Sales Associate part time position
POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED JOB DESCRIPTION | sales associate (part-time) Reports to: Marketing and New Media Manager, with a strong interrelationship with the Business Development Manager OVERVIEW & ROLE DESCRIPTION: We are a rapidly growing non-profit organization operating in the highly interesting and energizing world of coffee. While we offer a casual and flexible work …