A year ago we made three New Year’s resolutions on this blog: Generate more results-based evidence. Help the coffee sector navigate uncharted waters. Borrow a page from the microfinance playbook. Today we revisit those resolutions to see how we did on each one in 2014.
The CRS Coffeelands Blog turned five in November. Here is the content from the blog’s fifth year that you, the readers, liked the best. Or rather, it is is the content you read the most, since in some cases you did not care too much for what I had to say.
Over the past six weeks, this blog has been devoted exclusively to the CRS Colombian Varietal Cuppings–a series of comparative cuppings of Castillo and Caturra samples from our Borderlands project involving leading roasters and importers in the United States, Europe and Australia. Even when I took a week off from reporting on the results of […]
Today I publish an interview with specialty pioneer George Howell–my fifth post in the CRS Colombian Varietal Cuppings series. This year marks 40 years since he started The Coffee Connection in Boston. The SCAA gave him a lifetime achievement award in 1996 for his uncompromising commitment to coffee quality, but he was hardly done innovating […]
Today I interview Adam McClellan, green coffee buyer for the iconic Portland-based roaster Stumptown, as we resume our series of conversations with specialty coffee tastemakers regarding their participation in our Colombian Varietal Cuppings. In September, together with Stumptown’s head roaster and quality control manager, Adam cupped sample pairs from 10 farms in Nariño participating in our […]
When I read this article by Kenneth Davids in The Coffee Review assigning Caturra to the second tier of varietal quality, I thought immediately of Alejandro Cadena, whose pioneering Colombian exporter Virmax can stake a solid claim to intellectual and material authorship of the microlot model. Why did I think of Alejandro? Because when he […]
We interrupt our series on of interviews on the CRS Colombian Varietal Cuppings to bring you an important reflection on the future of Caturra. Are its days numbered?
Today, a conversation with Intelligentsia QC manager Chris Kornman and coffee buyer Geoff Watts regarding Colombian coffee varieties—the third weekly installment in my series on the CRS Colombian Varietal Cuppings. Earlier this month, Chris and QC Lab Assistant Amanda Seaver staged the CRS Colombian Varietal Cuppings at the Intelligentsia Roasting Works in Chicago. Six different Intelligentsia […]
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 […]
Counter Culture Coffee is a roaster that needs no introduction. Its innovations in coffee sourcing, quality and sustainability have outsized influence in the coffee industry. Counter Culture is, in short, a tastemaker. And Counter Culture likes Caturra. A lot. As part of the CRS Colombian Varietal Cuppings, Counter Culture’s QC Director Timothy Hill cupped 22 […]
