Tag Archives: Geoff Watts

4 Perspectives on the Colombia Sensory Trial

2015-05-06 Comments Off on 4 Perspectives on the Colombia Sensory Trial

I have been writing here about the Colombia Sensory Trial for more than a year.  With presentations of the findings coming up at Re:co Symposium in Sweden and the Nordic Roaster Forum in Denmark, there will certainly be more to say in the coming months. For now, however, I will let this topic rest, leaving […]

451. Intelligentsia releases first lot from the Borderlands

2015-03-04 Comments Off on 451. Intelligentsia releases first lot from the Borderlands

Intelligentsia wasn’t just a charter member of the Advisory Council for our Borderlands project in Nariño, Colombia–conversations with coffee buyer Geoff Watts dating back to 2010 helped shape the project’s design and planted the seeds for the Colombia Sensory Trial, our partnership with leaders in specialty coffee, research and philanthropy on a rigorous comparative analysis […]

441. Getting by with a little help from our friends: The Borderlands Advisory Council

2015-01-07 Comments Off on 441. Getting by with a little help from our friends: The Borderlands Advisory Council

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.

438. The CRS Colombian Varietal Cuppings series adjourns (for now)

2014-12-17 Comments Off on 438. The CRS Colombian Varietal Cuppings series adjourns (for now)

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 […]

434. The variety play (and the future of Caturra)

2014-11-24 Comments Off on 434. The variety play (and the future of Caturra)

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?

433. The CRS Colombian Varietal Cuppings: Intelligentsia

2014-11-20 Comments Off on 433. The CRS Colombian Varietal Cuppings: Intelligentsia

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 […]

425. And so it begins

2014-10-01 Comments Off on 425. And so it begins

When we published our 2014 New Year’s resolutions back in January, at the top of the list was this: “enlist industry leaders and research institutes in a comparative cupping of two leading Colombian coffee varieties, Castillo and Caturra.” That public commitment set off nine months of frenetic activity during which we collaborated with the International […]

416. Colombia Sensory Trial

2014-07-14 Comments Off on 416. Colombia Sensory Trial

Back in January, I described our plans to stage a side-by-side sensory analysis of Castillo and Caturra samples grown by participants in our Borderlands Coffee Project in Colombia.  Originally, we had planned to do this exercise independently. But as we moved forward in our planning and began talking to more and more friends in coffee […]

410. What generation gap?

2014-06-09 Comments Off on 410. What generation gap?

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 […]

374. Five survival strategies for smallholders

2013-12-02 Comments Off on 374. Five survival strategies for smallholders

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, […]