A species of naturally caffeine-free coffee from the Cameroon, Coffea charrieriana, has been named one of the top ten new species described in 2008 by the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) at Arizona State University. The coffee was actually…
Coffee news and miscellany
My mug is on In My Mug
One of the best things to happen at the the Specialty Coffee Association of America expo in Atlanta this year was meeting coffee people I had only corresponded with up to that time. Surely one of the highlights was getting…
Sustainability at the SCAA expo
Here were the measures the SCAA announced they were taking to minimize the impact on the environment.
C&C hits the SCAA expo
Once again C&C will be at the SCAA’s Annual Exposition. This year it takes place in Atlanta on April 16 to 19. I’ll be there along with my husband Darrin, permanent member of the C&C tasting panel, fellow coffee farm…
Nicaragua's Finca El Jaguar in the news
On my recent trip to Nicaragua, I was fortunate to have a chance to meet Lili and Georges Duriaux-ChavarrÁa, owners of Finca El Jaguar, a forest reserve and shade coffee farm in Jinotega. They were completely charming, and I was…
Green Mountain climate change grant finalists
Last month, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters announced a request for proposals for four $200,000 grants to organizations working on climate change. The grants will be awarded in each of four categories: transportation-related emissions, threats to coffee-growing communities, building political will,…
Shade coffee article from Cornell Lab of Ornithology
BirdScope is the newsletter for members of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, one of the world’s best known bird research, education, and citizen science organizations. This latest issue has a short article on shade coffee. Yours truly is quoted in…
HowStuffWorks: coffee videos
The Discovery Channel program “HowStuffWorks” had an episode about coffee. There are short (under 3 or 4 minutes) video clips from the show on their web site. Some I thought were especially good were: Hand picking coffee Organic coffee Coffee…
My year in beans: Winners, losers, and the future
In a previous post I mentioned that I had kept track of all the coffee I had in 2008. That post emphasized the low price ($2.70 a day) of drinking only really good, sustainable, specialty coffee. Here, I’d like to…
My year in beans: The cost of coffee
At the beginning of 2008, I started keeping track of all the coffee I purchased. Since I drink (and share) a lot of coffee — all specialty coffee and some quite expensive — I was curious how many kinds I…
The Coffee Conference
My husband and I attended the Coffee Conference at Miami University in Oxford, OH.
Vietnam: Will replacing old coffee mean more deforestation?
Half of Vietnam’s half-million ha of coffee trees will have to be replaced in the next 5 to 10 years. So far, farmers have ignored expert advice and cleared forests to plant cheap robusta coffee. What will they do now?
Rainforest Alliance partners with the Coffee Quality Institute
A Problem Judging by the enormous market shares of the Big Four corporate coffee multinationals, a lot of people don’t mind drinking lousy tasting coffee. However, plenty of people won’t do it. But more imporantly, if it doesn’t taste better,…
"Best of" the SCAA conference
I have a lot to report on sustainability and certification issues from the SCAA conference, but it will be doled out over the coming weeks. Here, I thought I’d like to give some quick impressions of some of the most…
SCAA Sustainability Awards
The Specialty Coffee Association of the Americas (SCAA) presented its annual awards last night. One is the Sustainability Award, which honors individuals, businesses or organizations in the coffee industry that have created innovative projects to expand and promote sustainability. And…