Moving Mountains Starts in Hawaii
By Nora Burkey One of the most inspiring conversations I had this year was inside of a small room at the Georgia World Conference Center with Michael Sheridan, Kim Elena Ionescu, and Carla D. Martin, where we discussed the issue of coffee farm workers. Malian Lahey, a coffee farm owner in Hawaii, stood up to …
Kim Elena Ionescu: Working for Workers: Lessons of Labour Shortages
Coffee production is facing a labor crisis at the farm level, with pickers in particular abandoning coffee work.
Cristina Talens | The UK Modern Slavery Act & Coffee
The recently-passed UK Modern Slavery Act has spurred much discussion around labor issues and how we can encourage more responsible sourcing.
Solomon Edossa | Traceability in the ECX: A pilot study
Solomon Edossa is the CEO, DESS INC and former CIO and Technical Advisorto the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX), which coordinates the auctioning and marketing of Ethiopian coffee.
Martin Wiesinger | Technology’s Impact On Quality
Martin Wiesinger, co-Founder of Cropster, explains how data has the potential to revolutionize coffee quality. A computer scientist, Wiesinger explains data-driven approaches and how advances in computing are pushing us into new territory, starting with “rate-of-rise” and correlating cupping and roasting data.
Hanna Neuschwander | The Coffee Seed: A Forgotten Technology
Hanna Neuschwander of World Coffee Research gives an illuminating talk on our most fundamental of coffee technologies: the plant itself. She calls attention to the disparities in innovation between the coffee plant and other technologies, and the critical need for more research and development.
Back to School: Coffee Education and Academia | Letter From The Editor
Since I was a kid through my college years, I was always eager to go to school. I like learning, being exposed to different ways of thinking about things, and looking at life through the perspectives of those who have come before us. Sometimes history repeats itself and it becomes clear that we need to …
East Meets West: Everything Old is New Again
By Andrew Hetzel Earlier this year, I voted alongside fellow SCAA Board Members unanimously in favor of pursuing unification with SCAE. We recognize that such momentous change will not be easy. In return, the price of that effort promises a new world of benefits for our members. Yet, it wasn’t until weeks after this vote …
Coffee Education Programs: From Equivalent to Exceptional
By Todd Arnette When we created Educational Pathways, in order to develop programs that would be relevant and useful to our community, we asked ourselves, “What are the skillsets our member companies in the industry expect and require of a given position?” Each discipline where we have a Pathway had the same basic requirement of …
The Potential of Introducing Coffee to Academic Research
By Molly Spencer The coffee industry had been established long before it was introduced to the academic world. The industry had mostly operated on empirical observations based on what worked and what didn’t work. However, in this day and age, the industry faces complex issues such as sustainability and environmental production challenges, the need for …
Coffee Wastewater Through the Lens of an Environmental Engineering Graduate
By William Garde In the winter of 2009, I was in South Africa with a missionary—little did I know the short trip we were about to take would change my career path. Piling into the Land Rover, we soon passed a sign that read “Zimbabwe.” Only ten years had passed since I had visited Zimbabwe, …
Committee Spotlight: Meet Your SCAA Technical Standards Committee
The Technical Standards Committee is one of the longest continuously functioning volunteer committees within the SCAA. Our responsibility is to conduct research to establish specialty coffee standards and determine industry best practice for publication on behalf of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. We serve the members of the SCAA and the coffee industry as …