I was pleasantly surprised on Monday when I received — along with every other member of the SCAA, I presume — a link to the SCAA’s Philanthropic Activity Survey. It is encouraging that the industry is beginning a broader dialogue within its membership about spending at origin, and seeking more information about on-the-ground partnerships in the coffeelands that work.
Then this morning I woke up to news that seems to confirm my suspicion that there is a growing market here for something that is a notch above the traditional local swill: Starbucks will be moving into Central America in 2010, and its first stop is El Salvador.
I have posted references here to some of the great coffee-drinking experiences I have had in the coffeelands over the past year. Beyond their travelogue value, those posts point to an underlying market trend that may make tight markets for quality coffee even tighter — the growing number of quality-focused coffeeshops in producing countries paying premiums for exceptional coffees.
I have been traveling to El Salvador frequently since 2007, but only last week made my first visit to Viva Espresso. My loss! Viva Espresso is easily the best of the growing class of quality-focused cafés serving up good coffee in Central America.
When farmer organizations are able to include a roaster’s social investment agenda as one criterion among many in their commercial decision-making, we may be making progress toward greater sustainability in the coffee trade.
FLO-CERT recently sent the following letter to smallholder farmer organizations regarding its new policy on unnannounced audits. While the idea of a surprise inspection seems reasonable, some of the conditions of the new FLO policy — both stated and unstated — raise some concerns.
Fair Trade organizations struggling to keep pace with the changing and increasingly rigorous requirements for Fair Trade Certification may be wondering how concerns over technical compliance have come to compete for their attention with efforts to ensure social impact.
Food Security Solutions revolved around hands-on workshops designed to reduce hunger in the coffeelands. It had little coffee-specific content and was not designed to conduct coffee-related business. But if the experience of one CRS partner organization is any indication, this kind of non-coffee activity can have a big influence on the
Monday’s photo essay on my holiday coffee-drinking adventures featured only some of the great coffeehouses I visited during my holiday. Here is the complete list with some notes on each.
In the tradition of the back-to-school composition on the theme “What I did this summer,” here are some images from a few of the cafés that kept me plied with extraordinary coffees at each of the many stops on my whirlwind holiday.