Tag Archives: quality

411. The case of the yellow Maragogype

2014-06-16 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

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, […]

406. Counter Culture’s new approach to quality incentives

2014-04-17 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

Last week I told the market here that if it wants meticulous selection, conservation of heirloom cultivars and improved cup quality, it needs to create incentives for them. Today, I explore the extraordinary efforts of one roaster to do just that. Counter Culture Coffee is reengineering its financial incentives for quality with some remarkable results: […]

404. “Meaningful economic benefit”

2014-04-01 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

Tracy Ging, Director of Sustainability at S&D Coffee, has contributed an article to The Producer Issue of the SCAA Chronicle titled “Sustainable Coffee and Meaningful Economic Benefit.” It seems to be almost an editorial afterthought, appearing near the very end of the issue and amounting to barely a full page of text. Bu the author packs […]

396. SCAA Expo: The view from the coffeelands

2014-03-10 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

SCAA’s 2014 Expo opens in a little more than a month, which means it’s time for the annual CRS Coffeelands Blog SCAA preview. After a careful review of the lecture program, I wonder whether this year’s Expo may the best ever for folks like me coming in from the coffeelands.

386. Mind the (quality) gap

2014-02-12 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

This post is a featured comment from Thomas Oberthur, a Ph.D. who has been involved in ground-breaking research on a broad range of issues in coffee. He was part of the research team at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) that worked with Green Mountain to reveal the scope of seasonal hunger in the […]

383. Stumptown releases Borderlands microlot

2014-02-06 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

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; […]

381. Introducing the farm-facing cupping form

2014-01-20 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

When I published this list of New Year’s resolutions earlier this month, there was one I forgot: create a cupping form for farmers.

374. Five survival strategies for smallholders

2013-12-02 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

Two weeks ago, I suggested that the coffee business is broken and that we need to take extraordinary measures to fix it: create alternative pricing mechanisms, build a permanent institution to foster cross-sector collaboration and send explorers to the frontiers of coffee to search for new insights. We have our work cut out for us, […]

372. Is the coffee business broken?

2013-11-18 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

David Griswold, ex-President of the SCAA and co-founder of the innovative coffee importer Sustainable Harvest, asked a panel of coffee luminaries at last month’s Let’s Talk Coffee event in El Salvador if the coffee business is broken. The answer was a resounding yes.

367. The economic impacts of microlots

2013-06-26 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

The impacts of microlots on smallholder farmers has been a topic of discussion on this blog dating back to 2010. The research on the issue to date is largely inconclusive, and powerful critiques of the microlot model have been leveled by influential actors in specialty coffee who question the inclusiveness and impact of the Direct […]