Coffee Features
What We Say When We Say Nothing
Who the coffee industry chooses to support, and who it ignores, speaks volumes.
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Coffee Features
'Specialty Coffee Should be Enjoyed by Those Who Grow It': The Farmer's Daughter Joining Kenya's Coffee-drinking Revolution
Kenya is one of the world’s most renowned coffee-producing countries. Its coffees are sought-after by specialty roasters for their clarity, acidity, and complexity; but within Kenya, coffee consumption has remained a relative afterthought. Its colonial-dominated past means that tea is still Kenya’s drink of choice, and historically the
Coffee Features
Stealth Starbucks: A Premonition of Modern Specialty Coffee
Roy Street Coffee & Tea, one of the Stealth Starbucks that opened in Seattle in the 2000s. via Wikipedia In 2009 a Starbucks location in Seattle closed for renovations. When it reopened, much had changed: gone was the familiar mermaid logo, the baristas (er, partners) no longer wore their customary
Coffee Features
Can the Coffee Change Fund Save Coffee?
Coffee production is in crisis. Across the globe farmers struggle to make ends meet through growing coffee, and as the climate crisis intensifies it’s only going to get worse. An industry that generates hundreds of billions of dollars every year is built on the backs of smallholder farmers who
Coffee Features
Upcycled Coffeewashing
Coffee produces a lot of waste. Whether byproducts from the green processing at origin or used grounds after brewing, there’s always organic matter left over. Some of this waste goes into mulch or fertilizer on the farm or into compost heaps around the world. But a lot more goes
Coffee Features
From A Concerned Farmer
At the beginning of August I wrote about the turmoil in Kenya’s coffee sector as part of my weekly news roundup for Fresh Cup Magazine. In July the country’s central auction house, the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE), closed pending government reforms to the way coffee is traded. All
Coffee Features
Philly is a (Coffee) Union Town
Philly is a union town. The history of labor in the United States is entwined with the history of Philadelphia: the city was home to the country’s first labor union, as well as the first general strike. Now, Philly’s coffee workers are joining this labor tradition. Local 80
Coffee Features
South Korea's Coffee Wars
All coffee shop owners worry about another cafe opening in their neighborhood. Will you lose customers to the new place? Will they serve better coffee, or if not will you have to lower prices? Nobody likes competition, and margins are already so slim in the coffee industry. What will another
Coffee Features
Camp Coffee, Colonialism, and the Evolution of a Brand
We’re used to being able to grab a coffee at any time, from a cafe on every corner, made to our exact specifications in mere seconds. But this is a relatively new phenomenon. For hundreds of years coffee was hard to get hold of, expensive, and tasted terrible. That’
Coffee Features
Defiance and Gay Frog Donuts: How Strange Matter Coffee is Navigating the Anti-LGBTQ+ Backlash
For Cara Nader, founder of Strange Matter Coffee, the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ protests isn’t an abstract issue on Twitter. Since 2014, Lansing, Michigan-based Strange Matter has built a reputation for offering a welcoming, inclusive environment—flying a progress pride flag, hosting events, and raising funds for local LGBTQ+ organizations.
Coffee Features
Clean Air and Coffee Shops
Ah, June. One of the nicest things about early summer is being able to sit outside a coffee shop, enjoying the sun and sipping a cold brew or iced latte. But what’s this? Visibility is dropping and the air is getting thick? A sepia filter has descended over the
Coffee Features
"Carbon Neutral" Coffee: Climate Accountability or Marketing Spin?
Do you know the environmental impact of your morning cup of coffee? Coffee is an agricultural product produced in stages around the world, and every stage of the process emits carbon and other pollutants. At the farm there’s machinery, maybe pesticides, maybe water use and associated waste. There’s