The Future of Coffee Farming: Letter from the Editor
So often in our niche specialty coffee circles, we talk about the experience of coffee. We wonder whether we are providing our customers with the best, most authentic specialty coffee experience. We muse on the benefits or drawbacks of certain cafe layouts, and how each will improve or detract from the consumer’s experience, or how these …
What is Coffee Worth to You?
By Luis Rodríguez Ventura So, Luis… Why do you grow coffee? It’s a question I hear a lot. And it’s a hard one to answer, believe me. My coffee life began after being hired as an analyst for the economics department the Salvadoran Coffee Council back in 2001. For the first couple of years my job …
Farmer Profitability: Managing Risk in the Supply Chain
By David Piza Currently, 80 percent of the world’s coffee–specialty and otherwise–is produced by only 25 million smallholder farmers. The average age of these farmers is 56 years old. As the younger generation sees less and less to attract them to coffee farming, and more and more to attract them to the big city—it is …
Voices From Origin: A Producer-Driven Approach
By Mayra Orellana-Powell, Catracha Coffee Company At the recent SCAA Symposium, I was honored with the opportunity to speak about small coffee producers from my hometown in Santa Elena, Honduras. Using the experiences of my cousin Rosibel and her husband Toño, I talked about how importers, roasters, and consumers working together with small producers can impact the …
Emergence of a Coffee Origin: Dalat, Vietnam
By Will Frith High on the Lang Biang plateau near Dalat in Central Vietnam, Rolan Colieng and Josh Guikema’s picturesque coffee farm lies in the shade of the country’s third highest peak. Josh and Rolan are a couple of the change-makers in this region, with a shared dream that Vietnam’s coffee can come to be …
Castillo or Caturra? A Simple Question
By Michael Sheridan, CRS Coffeelands CRS is working with friends and allies in the specialty coffee and research communities to compare the cup quality of Castillo and Caturra, the two leading coffee varieties in the fabled Colombian coffee origin of Nariño, as part of The Colombia Sensory Trial. I presented the preliminary results of our research …
The Intensification of Women’s Labor and the Future of Sustainable Coffee Supply
By Colleen Anunu When coffee buyers voice concern over the future of supply, they often list declining natural resources, market inefficiencies, and limited access to capital resources among many of the challenges that farmers face. Development economists argue that these constraints are further amplified by the “growing pains” of structural adjustment and economic transformation. Developing …
SCAA Sustainability Award Recognizes Leadership and Innovation in the Coffee World
As part of its mission, SCAA is actively involved in issues related to sustainability, and looks to its members to take leadership roles in sustainable practices. With this in mind, the Sustainability Council created the Sustainability Award in 2003 to promote, encourage, and honor the efforts of those serving as role models in fields of sustainability. …
People of Specialty Coffee: An Interview with Juan Luis Barrios
What are the biggest obstacles that today’s coffee farmers need to overcome to stay in coffee? Regardless of the size of one’s farm, I believe the biggest obstacle is being profitable on a consistent basis each year. This is quite challenging because there are many factors that are beyond our control: C-contract prices, climate, diseases …
Tibor Varady – On Hiring and Getting Hired in Specialty Coffee
We’re beyond excited to release the video of Tamper Tantrum’s third speaker at our CoLab: Prague event last May. Tibor Várady is the owner of Espresso Embassy, one of the pioneer specialty coffee shops in Budapest, Hungary. Having dropped a career as environmental lawyer, Tibor jumped on the specialty coffee bandwagon “arrogant, ignorant and enthusiastic,” earning himself a finals …
Emergence of a Coffee Origin: The Complete Interviews
Interviews by Will Frith Quang, La Viet Specialty Coffee Why do people leave coffee farming in Vietnam? All the young guys want to discover a new world; they’re attracted the bright lights of the city – even if they have to rent a house and get a very low salary, just enough to cover their …
Women Farmers Top First Myanmar Coffee Competition
Today we received news of the first national coffee cupping competition, held in Myanmar this past May, where two women smallholder farmers were awarded first and second place in their category and the overall event at Myanmar’s first national cupping competition held in Yangon. Results were announced and trophies presented at a formal ceremony last week in …