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.
Over the past two weeks, I have been writing about the response of Colombia’s coffee authorities to the current coffee leaf rust epidemic – a massive effort to replace the country’s traditional coffee varieties with the disease-resistant Castillo cultivar. Today we profile a decidedly more modest effort – our support for farmers who are determined […]
Yesterday I referred here to some recent salvoes in the escalating debate over the appropriate role for Robusta coffees in the U.S. specialty market. Today, some reflections on our modest role in support of the fine Robusta project.
Earlier this month in Colombia, we worked with Sustainable Harvest to stage an event-within-an-event during its annual Let’s Talk Coffee gathering. Our event, which focused on “the other coffee,” was a three-part program called “Let’s Talk Robusta” that culminated in a fine Robusta cupping led by the great Sunalini Menon. Video coverage of the cupping […]
Last October, I wrote the R-word on this blog for the first time. I was explaining our collaboration with smallholder farmers in Ecuador’s northern Amazon region to explore the emerging market for specialty Robusta coffees. It took us more than a year to re-engage publicly with the idea of fine Robusta, but we think it […]
A lot has been said already in social media about “Let’s Talk Robusta,” a three-part program we sponsored as part of Sustainable Harvest‘s 10th annual Let’s Talk Coffee event earlier this month in Colombia. I will share more in the coming days about the event, and I am confident that the contested concept of fine […]
I have been so busy preparing for and participating in Sustainable Harvest’s 10th annual Let’s Talk Coffee in Colombia last week that I am just getting caught up on some recent news in coffee. Here are some of the biggest stories in specialty coffee from the last month.
I am in Colombia this week with 20 CRS colleagues, partners and project participants from Latin America and the Caribbean to participate in Let’s Talk Coffee, the innovative value chain event that Sustainable Harvest created 10 years ago. I see lots of opportunities for learning in the event’s exciting agenda, which includes a wide range […]
Today I travel to Medellín with 20 CRS colleagues, partners and project participants from Colombia, Ecuador and Haiti for Let’s Talk Coffee – the annual coffee value chain event that Sustainable Harvest created 10 years ago. The first Let’s Talk Coffee was a groundbreaking innovation, creating an annual space for face-to-face communications among farmer organizations […]
Over the past week and a half, I have been posting on the issue of how coffee companies are investing at origin. Today: what they are investing in, and how that may be changing.
