Today: how representatives of six leading specialty coffee companies who share our commitment to transform the coffee chain in Nariño, Colombia, are helping us create opportunities for smallholder farmers and developing new sources of extraordinary coffee.
Tim Wendelboe is a former world barista champion and one of the world’s premiere coffee celebrities. When he is not busy roasting coffee, he may be serving it at the coffee bar that bears his name. Or sourcing it as a partner in Nordic Approach, the Oslo-based importer promoting transparency in trade. Or writing books […]
Readers of this blog will know that we have partered with World Coffee Research (WCR) and some of the brightest lights in specialty coffee, research and philanthropy on the Colombia Sensory Trial–a side-by-side sensory comparison of Castillo- and Caturra-variety coffee samples taken from farms in Colombia growing, harvesting and processing both under virtually identical conditions. […]
Last week Root Capital published this issue brief on gender lens investing in the coffeelands. I posted some reflections on that publication here, and made reference to the fact that men and women experience the world differently as a result of the social construct of their respective gender roles. The data we collected in Colombia […]
Last November, the pioneering Colombian exporter Virmax published these photos from Oswaldo Acevedo’s Hacienda El Roble and wondered whether there is a strand of yellow Maragogype out there despite the science that says Maragogype produces only red cherry. Does yellow maragogype exist? Or is this another variety? @HdaElRoble pic.twitter.com/U1xblfMX2v — Virmax Café (@virmaxcafe) November 6, […]
In my travels in the coffeelands, I hear a familiar concern echoed by coffee growers: relevo generacional. All over the Americas, aging farmers are watching their children leave the farm for the city to pursue higher education and employment opportunities. With the coffee leaf rust epidemic, volatile market prices, a changing climate, low productivity, limited […]
Coffee may have something to learn from the mantra of the generals who ran the War Room during Bill Clinton’s 1994 campaign for president: it’s the economy market, stupid.
Stumptown Coffee yesterday released its first microlot from our Borderlands project in Colombia, comprised of small lots from four farms in Nariño. If you are interested in exceptional coffee, where it comes from, or both, we humbly suggest three actions: READ the post below for more detail about the amazing growers behind this amazing coffee; […]
When I published this list of New Year’s resolutions earlier this month, there was one I forgot: create a cupping form for farmers.
It’s that time of year again — the time we all make New Year’s resolutions that are destined to be broken. So here are three from the coffeelands: Generate more results-based evidence. Help the coffee sector navigate uncharted waters. Borrow a page from the microfinance playbook. Only we plan on keeping these.
