We ended 2015 with nine posts on the issue of modern slavery in the coffeelands—this eight-part series on our research into wretched labor conditions on a small number of Brazilian coffee estates and this reflection on how that work is inspired by our mission to serve the poorest and most vulnerable people. Those posts were […]
As an SCAA member, I receive every issue of the SCAA Chronicle. As an international aid worker based in Ecuador, I get my copy several weeks after everyone else, since it is sent first to our headquarters in Baltimore then batched and sent along with other mail every few weeks to our office in Quito. […]
Since I first attended the SCAA Symposium back in 2011 in Houston, I look forward to it every year with great anticipation–a welcome opportunity to step back from all the busyness of the daily routine to reflect and think and engage on the big issues in coffee. Yesterday the SCAA announced the speakers for this […]
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.
Over the years, one of the most rewarding aspects of publishing this blog (and its related Twitter feed @coffeelands) has been the dialogue it has invited with thought leaders in the coffee industry. The online discussions here have been joined by tastemakers from lots of different places along the coffee chain—SCAA presidents, Roasters of the […]
Stephen Macatonia directs Union Hand Roasted in London, one of the UK’s leading Direct Trade roasters. Last week he published this thoughtful piece in the Guardian — the latest contribution to the ongoing debate between advocates and practitioners of Fair Trade and Direct Trade over whose trade is fairest of them all. For our part, we […]
During last year’s SCAA Symposium, Liam Brody of Root Capital urged participants to be “pathologically collaborative” in addressing the ills that continue to ail specialty coffee. Peter Giuliano suggested soon afterward that Liam had “blown up the Twitterverse” with the memorable call to cooperation. But the full echo of that call may only be sounding […]
A noted coffee breeder at the French research institute CIRAD has suggested that the coffee leaf rust emergency in Central America is the result of a “perfect storm.” Is there a silver lining anywhere in those storm clouds?
One overcast Sunday last September, Nick Cho published this searching reflection on the relationship between coffee quality and social impact. Somehow it managed to escape my notice until this past weekend. Nick’s post is beautiful in its candor, frankly acknowledging the limitations of specialty coffee and honestly exploring “the true human condition of the coffee […]
I have been writing this summer on the relationship between coffee and water resources in the coffeelands — a sleeper issue that hasn’t attracted as much attention among the coffee industry’s sustainability leaders as poverty, hunger, biodiversity conservation, and other pressing issues. But that may be changing. Ben Corey-Moran, president of specialty coffee pioneer Thanksgiving […]
