World Coffee Research has spoken. Lempira, a high-yielding, popular variety planted throughout Honduras is no longer what thousands of farmers hoped that it would be: resistant to coffee leaf rust. While there is not yet any conclusive scientific evidence that la roya has evolved into a new race or strain, all indications are pointing to […]
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 […]
Yesterday our friends at the Specialty Coffee Association of America uploaded this video of my Colombia Sensory Trial presentation to Re:co Symposium in Gothenburg, Sweden, in June. . . It was the second time in three months I had the opportunity to deliver to industry leaders the results of our sensory research collaboration with the […]
Two weeks ago, I introduced the G (genotype) x E (environment) x M (management) framework here, and told you about a key finding from the Colombia Sensory Trial: although we designed the Trial to examine the impact of G on cup quality, we found G to be less correlated with cupping scores than E and […]
I explained here last week that we subjected the Castillo and Caturra samples we collected for the Colombia Sensory Trial to two different kinds of sensory evaluation: two cupping panels at Intelligentsia Roasting Works in Chicago that applied the CQI’s Q protocols and two sensory panels at the Sensory Analysis Center at Kansas State University […]
The first part of the Colombia Sensory Trial featured coffee buyers and quality control experts from some of the most important coffee organizations in the Americas. During two cupping panels at Intelligentsia Roasting Works in Chicago, they scored pairs of Castillo and Caturra samples collected from 22 farms in Nariño, Colombia. The second part enlisted […]
Tonight is the last broadcast of the Late Show with David Letterman. In homage to his 33 years on the air, I offer this coffee-focused mash-up of the venerable “Top 10 List” and the comparatively lesser-known sketch “Is this anything?” The first needs no introduction; the second featured oddball performances by guests, then banter between […]
A reaction to: Protecting coffee from intensification – Science Magazine, January 8, 2015. In the highlands of Ethiopia, farmers’ successes are putting in peril one of the most important resources to the global coffee industry in the face of a changing climate: the wild coffee forests. Arabica coffee, as you all know, has its origins […]
Yesterday SCAA Symposium organizers posted a video of my presentation “A Simple Question: Castillo or Caturra?” Watch it in its entirety here. .
For my first few posts on Coffeelands, I’d like to explore a number of issues regarding coffee varietal development and farmer adoption. This week’s post will look at the undercard of the Caturra vs. Castillo bout.
