Coffee News Roundup: Week Ending February 2nd

It was another big week in coffee news. Featuring:

• The launch of the 2023 Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide, which aims to demystify specialty coffee pricing and allow “sellers and buyers to look beyond commodity reference prices.”
• Coffee growers are helping to slow deforestation and soil erosion around the Panama Canal. It’s part of an ongoing effort to address the major drought that has impacted cargo travel through the crucial waterway.
• Robert Downey Jr. and some other rich guy have launched a coffee company to “add a jolt of joy to the marketplace,” whatever that means. They then spent their first interview insulting the rest of the industry, even making up a new word—“baristacrats”, rolls off the tongue—to describe people who care about coffee.

Read the full Roundup over at Fresh Cup Magazine:

If you missed it, you can check out my latest article here:

'Capitalism on Steroids': Private Equity and the Future of Specialty Coffee

It’s hard to shake the feeling that all the money that has flowed into specialty coffee over the past decade or so is warping the industry in ways that we haven’t yet begun to grasp.

The PouroverFionn Pooler

And I also wrote a feature for Fresh Cup about the importance of animals to coffee production:

Until next week, here’s Merlin to play us out: