Last Friday marked 14 years from the day I started at CRS. Yesterday was my last day. For nearly half that time, I have been writing this blog. More than 500 posts. Nearly a half-million words. Over 1,000 comments online and some multiple of that number offline. I want to thank you for reading it, […]
In August, after 14 years with CRS (more than 12 of them leading the agency’s coffee programming), I will be leaving CRS and transitioning to a new role as Director of Sourcing and Sustainability at Intelligentsia Coffee based in Chicago. In the meantime, I need to help hire a replacement to lead the CRS Coffeelands […]
Nearly two months have passed since the curtains closed on the 2016 SCAA events in Atlanta, but like the great Ray Charles, I still have Georgia on my mind. Three Ps stand out in my reflections: Policy, Progress and Paul Katzeff.
Caravela Coffee, the vertically integrated exporter/importer formerly known as Virmax, has been a key CRS partner in our Borderlands project in Colombia, delivering dozens of single-farm and community lots to Counter Culture and Stumptown over the past three years and delivering quality premiums to hundreds of smallholder growers who had never earned them before. This […]
Mostly lost last week amid all the excitement of Re:co Atlanta and The SCAA Event was the release of A Blueprint for Farmworker Inclusion. Download the publication here, and read on for additional context. . .
Back in Februrary, after watching the USBC Qualifying Event in Kansas City, I committed myself to this, an initiative I called the “USBC Origins Project.” I found myself wanting more info on the coffees that baristas had so carefully chosen for their routines—who grew those coffees? where? how? which exporters and importers took such good […]
In less than one month the gavel will sound to open The SCAA Event. That means it’s time for the annual Coffeelands preview of The Event’s best “origin content.” In my 2012 SCAA preview post, I divided my picks into three “streams of enlightenment”—“downstream” presentations that push knowledge of origin toward the marketplace, “upstream” presentations […]
When I was a kid, I collected coins. I know, I know. TOTAL nerd. Eventually, I stopped collecting them. But I never really got over them. And I never got rid of them. They are still in a bedroom closet in the house where I grew up. Next to my baseball cards. Over the past […]
What’s in a name? Apparently, a whopping $9.56 per pound. In December 2015, that was the difference between the average retail price that select specialty roasters charged for lots that included growers’ names and the average retail price of those that didn’t, according to the folks behind Transparent Trade Coffee (TTC). Whoever they are. (Am I the only one […]
Two days ago I announced our USBC Origins Project, an initiative designed to honor the growers behind the extraordinary coffees that will be served by the country’s best baristas at the USBC Finals in Atlanta in April. Today, I pause to celebrate the growers behind four coffees from our Borderlands project in Colombia and four […]
