Experimental Fermentation in Specialty Coffee
Producers and processors that experiment with what are essentially new products must understand and accept the risk involved with not finding a market.
The EU Deforestation Regulation and Its Impact on Smallholder Coffee Farmers
The EUDR represents a significant step towards addressing global deforestation. It’s imperative that its implementation does not come at the expense of small...
Organically Grown Coffee
The way I have positioned my offering of a coffee that was organically grown is this; the buyer is buying a coffee that was grown without the addition of for...
Lessons In Inventory Management
One of the challenges of being a small, start-up roastery is accurate and effective inventory management. And it isn’t limited to just raw, green coffee.
How Might AI Impact The Coffee Industry?
AI (or the algorithms and learning models we’re currently calling AI) will be disruptive. We just need to make sure we collectively benefit from the disruption.
Making Better Coffee by Edward F. Fischer
Edward Fischer's book "Making Better Coffee" explores the interplay of material and symbolic values in the coffee supply chain and their consequences.
Climate-smart production of coffee, edited by Professor Reinhold Muschler
Climate-smart production does a good job of describing coffee production as it currently is and provides several ways of improving social and environmental s...
Global coffee production and sustainability by Carlos H. J. Brando
This book is a great asset if you want a deeper understanding of the global coffee market and are looking for a foundation on which to understand ways to sus...
Coffee Roasting: Best Practices by Scott Rao
Coffee Roasting: Best Practices has 19 chapters spanning 90 pages, making it a quick and easy read. But it’s also full of details and specifics that will all...
Local Consumption In Nigeria
Getting local markets developed that can compete with export markets is a great way to support local farmers and help lift them out of poverty.
Coffee Grown In California
Frinj could provide the technologically advanced plant as well as production and business training to producers. This could be a huge benefit to producers in...
My Conversation With Johan Kwe
Johan is the wet-mill manager at Simalem Coffee & Tea in Sumatra. In this interview, he talks about what it means to him to produce Sumatran coffee.
The Central Dogma of Coffee
Without every step of the central dogma of coffee, we have no coffee and each discrete step requires an entire domain of skills to complete.
Transitioning Coffee Farmers Out of Coffee
Now is the time to start transitioning producers who simply can’t make ends meet through coffee production into a different product.
My Conversation With Suar Wisnu
Suar is one of the founders of the Wisnu Foundation, a non-govermental organization (NGO) in Bali, Indonesia. The foundation works with villages in Bali to h...
My Conversation With Wiliam Edison
Wiliam has a lot of experience in many different sectors of the coffee industry. In this interview he shares some of the wisdom he's gained over the years.
Improving Farm Gate Coffee Prices
The problem with farm gate coffee prices is not that coffee roasters are taking more than their fair share of profits. As long as that myth is perpetuated...
Local Consumption Wins in Brazil and Colombia
Specialty coffee markets are developing in countries like Brazil and Colombia and these markets are making it more expensive to export specialty coffee than ...
Where's Michael?
The goal is to be able to work with coffee farmers and help to improve their operations in production and processing.
New Website Structure
The overall appearance and experience isn't changing but all the the link addresses will be updated.
Coffee Prices: The Big Fix
The C market price is a global system with global impacts, but it is well established. We aren’t going to change the system (i.e., fix it) quickly or easily ...
Cup of Excellence Indonesia
I have high hopes for Indonesia’s first CoE because I think it will inspire Indonesian producers and processors. I also hope that the competition...
What Starbucks Means To Specialty Coffee
The hard work, time, and capital investments that Starbucks has put into the industry have benefited the entire industry and we should all be able to acknowl...
Ways To Achieve Flavor Complexity
We’ll talk about two types of complexity; complex acidity and complex Maillard flavors; the yin and yang of coffee flavors...
Understanding The Roast Profile
Gain a deeper understanding of the roast profile, the roast phases, and how to leverage them to improve the quality of your roasted coffee.
F1 Hybrids: A Bigger Picture
Farmers who purchase F1 seeds and plant only F1 seeds will in effect be dependent on the seller of those F1 seeds.
Increasing Local Consumption
Local consumption increases the flow of money in-country and creates a virtuous cycle of pride in local production that further increases local consumption.
My conversation With Adi
There is so much in this interview, a few quotes don't do it justice. The full audio and transcript is available or you can watch the interview on my YouTube...
French Press And The Bloom
The bloom is a rapid release of gases, mainly CO2, when hot water comes in contact with freshly ground, freshly roasted beans. This double-freshness is impor...
The Craft and Science of Coffee By Britta Folmer
The goal of the book is to create new value in coffee by strengthening the ties between craft and science. In order for this to happen, the book needs...
My Conversation With Mary Halbrooks
Mary talks about coffee production in Costa Rica, some of the deep-rooted problems with coffee prices, and her next steps in the coffee industry.
Roaster's Guild Retreat, 2018
The roasting tent was great, as usual. The number of machines available to play with is always one of the key draws for me. I always try to get my hands on a...
My Conversation With Neal Wilson
This article is the first in a series that is the result of talking with Neal and getting some early info before interviewing him at this year’s Roaster’s Gu...
Pour Your Heart Into It By Howard Schultz
I enjoyed the book thoroughly because it was part motivational and part historical. As a coffee geek, understanding where Starbucks started and what they wer...
In Defense of Tastemakers
The coffee market needs tastemakers. We need experts who explore coffee and inform us on what they have learned and how we can use that knowledge to become b...
Roasting As A System
The process of roasting coffee is a complex task with many interdependent systems, some of which (many?) we don’t completely understand. For example, roastin...
When Coffee Is Too Expensive
What is currently happening in a lot of Kintamani, is farmers are taking shortcuts to save time and labor expenses, at the cost of quality. This comes in the...
Coffee and Developing Countries
A stable economy is critical to a developing country. And for a coffee producing country, the coffee sector can be instrumental in supporting a stable economy.
Coffee, Cancer, and California
To get our collective head wrapped around this one, I think its good to break it down into the following areas; 1) the facts as we know them 2) the law as it...
The Coffee Roasters Companion By Scott Rao
Since reading this book and incorporating large chunks of Rao's roasting philosophy into my own, my roasts have improved.
Technology And The Future of Coffee Production
It is inevitable that science and technology influence coffee production and it’s in our best interest, as the specialty coffee industry, to help steer and g...
Achieving Sustainable Cultivation of Coffee
I’ve read several chapters already and am bouncing around rather than reading it cover-to-cover. I think this book will be a great resource to have and one I...
UK Proposes Latte Levy
I think too many people have focused solely on the sins of k-cups and missed the forest for the trees. The industry has a lot of wasteful plastic that can be...
My Take On The SCA Dubai Kerfuffle
I see this as an opportunity to include more people in the competition and to show a small part of the world that LGBT people are just like them...
Considering Competition Among Farmers
Removing competition is a fast-track to mediocrity, as producers will have little incentive to innovate and produce new and/or novel products.
Bill Clinton Knows A Thing Or Two About Coffee
His best advice might have been a buried nugget: 'have a comprehensive strategy and take it one step at a time.'
Determining the Price Of Green Coffee
Telling a group of farmers that they should negotiate a better price is certainly a hard truth, but one that over-simplifies the problem. The same goes for t...
World Coffee Producers Forum, Day 1
When it came time for Q&A, the farmers were asking for concrete answers; actionable solutions. They wanted to know how their situation was going to be improv...
Coffee Leaf Rust In Honduras: Lessons Learned
Honduras is possibly facing a new outbreak of coffee leaf rust. There are reports that this incidence is of a new race able to infect breeds resistant to pre...
The Maillard Reaction: A Practical Guide
The maillard reaction may be the single most consequential event in determining the sensorial aspects of the final product, be it a brewed coffee, an espress...
As Indonesia Rediscovers Quality
There is already a lot of inherent quality in a lot of regions in Indonesia; this means quality breeds of coffee trees, favorable soil and climate, and in ma...
Modulating The Flavor Profile of Coffee by Rob Hoos
This book has inspired me to further explore the reactions (actually the set of reactions), which has led to a better understanding of driving factors of a r...
Solok, West Sumatra, Indonesia
Our first stop of the day was a for breakfast. We had lontong (pressed rice) with a curry sauce and veggies poured over top. After a quick fuel-up and waitin...
What Makes SE Asia An Emerging Coffee Market?
The combination of favorable trade conditions, control of the entire supply chain, and most importantly; a growing middle class bodes well for the coffee ind...
How To: Avoid The Flick And Crash
The flick and crash is a roasting term coined by Scott Rao in his book titled The Coffee Roaster's Companion. The term is part of his second commandment of r...
Revisiting K'Ho Coffee
Despite their uphill battle, Rolan and Josh are making great strides in preserving the rich, cultural heritage of the K'Ho people through their coffee and ha...
Supply Chain In A Box
A unique coffee establishment where under one roof you have a dry mill, a warehouse, a roastery, a retail production space, a coffee lab, an education space,...
How To: Minimally Automate Artisan
Even if you don't want to or can't automate your roast via Artisan, there are tasks you can have Artisan perform to improve your experience.
On Roasting: Effects of Airflow
The converging temps illustrate the effect increased airflow has on reducing pockets of hot air in the drum. At a certain sweet-spot of air flow + heat appli...
West Java, Indonesia
It's refreshing to find a group of farmers actively exploring and pursuing quality. Improved quality often leads to improved marketability and eventually.
An Intimate Coffee Conversation
Spending time with a group of people like this, who really want to learn more about coffee, made my day!
Latest HotTop Upgrade Project: HTRI Mounting Bracket
The intention is to attach the bracket horizontally or perpendicular to the side of the HotTop chassis, just above the main board. Currently...
Level Up Your Brew in Jakarta
This article is about a class in the past.
One Man's Campaign Against Cold Brew
While cold brew isn't going to showcase a coffee's more subtle nuances, it is still a product in-demand by a great-many customers.
We Are All Tribalists
Normal tribalism is neither bad nor good. It simply is something to understand and be aware of and doing so—understanding and being aware of tribalism—is a c...
Flavor Images and Meta-Flavors
One theory is that our brains create mental constructs that represent or codify a particular flavor—a sort of short-hand for the complex flavor of, say a giv...
Flavor, Subjectivity, and Cultural Biases
The actual act of tasting and smelling something is the act of collecting and interpreting data. The collection part is largely the same across all people...
How To: Utilize Artisan Alerts
With the combination of condition-based rules and roaster automation, it's possible to create a program that goes beyond simply hitting time and temperature ...
Roaster Automation: One View
Automation may seem contrary to what it means to be an artisanal, craft roaster but the two don't have to be at odds. Automation can help a craft roaster in ...
How To: Install HotTop HTRI Control Board
When stacked, the two boards allow one to control the roaster and simultaneously read up to four thermocouples. Using roast-profiling software and the HTRI, ...
Balinese Coffee: Where To From Here
The need to advance Balinese coffee must come from non-economic incentives such as the preservation of their agrarian heritage, retention of farmland as farm...
Legislators in Hawaii Push Change For Kona Labelling
At least Hawaii is fighting to keep the geographical indicator alive. I fear Indonesia is letting the Kintamani Arabica Coffee GI die a quick and early death...
Producers' Optionality
The monoculture farmer has no optionality and is thus fragile to stress on that one product. If that single product suddenly falls out of favor with his cus...
Antifragile Coffee Farms
How would we get coffee farms that are already robust and resilient advanced to an antifragile state, and what does that even look like?
Coffee Should Be More Expensive, Or Not
To say that 'coffee should be more expensive' is an oversimplification of the problem, not to mention the fact that arbitrarily raising the price of a given ...
Roast Physics: Moisture and Airflow
Airflow affects the humidity, which affects the temperature and water activity, which affects the rate of browning.
As Third Wave Coffee Matures
More people in the Specialty Coffee industry are talking about proper roast development versus under development and this is a good thing.
Who's Quality Is It Anyway?
If a producer is able to sell their coffee at a price acceptable to them and one that supports their desired lifestyle, is it in anyone's best interest try t...
Specialty Coffee Needs To Get Over Itself
I simply don't agree with Nick Brown that this case represents Whole Foods throwing coffee under the bus.
Mill Project In Bali Complete
The project to build a coffee mill in Kintamani, Bali has completed. There were successes and failures but by-and-large I regard the project as a success.
Roaster's Guild Retreat, 2015
Each year the Roaster's Guild organizes a retreat to get folks from around the world together to learn, network, develop skills, and share information and ex...
Wet Processing: Using Starter Cultures
Using a starter culture can help standardize the dominate microbe strains over multiple batches, can help reduce soak time, and can possibly help normalize t...
Seeds Of Change
I started an experiment back in December by pre-germinating different coffee seeds from the same producer (K’Ho Coffee in Vietnam). One set of seeds were...
The Chains That Bind
Each link in the value chain needs to make a profit. With each additional link in the chain, the price of the product increases. The need for profitable trad...
Coffee is to Wine as Espresso is to Brandy
Espresso is similar to brandy in that less water is pushed through ground coffee at high pressure, resulting in a higher concentration of total dissolved sol...
Dalat, Vietnam
The co-op grows only Arabica coffee, which is rare in Vietnam, where 97% of coffee produced is the robusta. They grow several different high-quality varietie...
Coffee's Inherent Quality
All subsequent processing of the bean after cherry processing is manipulation of the existing bean ingredients; the organic acids, sugars, fats, carbohydrate...
Counterfeit Coffee
It's important to understand that Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is not from any one specific tree varietal or cultivar. Rather, it is legally defined as any...
Why Fair Trade Has Failed Coffee Producers
Fair Trade has failed to achieve its mandate; to demonstratively get more money into the hands of coffee farmers. It has outgrown its ability to affect meani...
Ethical Trade
Working with entities that pay quality premiums to their suppliers is one way to help improve the lives of those who produce coffee and who are vulnerable to...
Starbucks: Friend Or Foe
While Starbucks has done a superb job in creating a successful, global brand, which introduced espresso drinks to mainstream America, that brand has since dr...
Coffee Pruning — Early Quality Development
Pruning isn't an exact science. One of the first things the farmer told me as he was teaching me, was that when I talk to another farmer, he'll likely have a...
Specialty Coffee VS Coffee Snobbery
What the industry and we specialty coffee nerds find superior in coffee may not be what our customers want. I saw this time and again when providing samples ...
How To Upgrade Your HotTop Control Panel For Better Control
The upgrade is very straight-forward; you simply remove the 'P' panel and replace it with the 'B' panel. All the other electronic guts are the same between t...
Don't Leave Your Coffee High and Dry
The problem with high and dry grounds is that they are left behind in the brewing process and your final extraction rate is much lower, because you're only b...
Desa Ulian, Kintamani, Bali
It's harvest season, so I got to see red, ripe cherries, which have a very subtle, sweet flavor when eaten. I also tasted a coffee flower, which tasted like...
Change Is Brewing
The time has come to again announce a big change at Oil Slick. In just a few short weeks we'll be moving to Singapore and pausing online retail sales of cof...
Heat Transfer Methods Involved In Roasting
Convection is the dominant form throughout the roast and is the key driver for coffee body and flavor formation. Convection heat is...
Elevation and Quality
Coffee prefers high elevation in tropical regions where it can collect energy from the hot sun all day in order to grow slowly in the cool air at night. With...
Hacking Your Brew - Brewing Coffee By Weight
One of the most effective changes you can make to your brewing method is to weigh both your coffee and your water. In a previous blog post titled...
Winning Hearts and Minds (And Palates)
It was my opportunity to attack the known problem of crummy restaurant and hotel coffee by educating the culinary professionals early in their careers about ...
Fair Trade Coffee
Fair Trade is an initiative that aims to improve the livelihood of small producers by ensuring a minimum price for their coffee. Farms participating in Fair ...
Coffee Brewing Temps
After reading Scott Rao’s book, I was curious what the temperature looked like at various points in the coffee mound of my Chemex, so I wired it up with ther...
Ethical Consumption
Ethical consumption is the act of consuming goods based on feelings of responsibility toward society but to truly affect change a premium must be paid
Organic Coffee
The organic coffee market has grown tremendously partly due to consumer interest in the conditions under which coffee is grown and also because of the premiu...
Sustainable Coffee Initiatives
The big question is this: are they successful at leveling the playing field for coffee producers or have they become a marketing ploy?
Three Ways You Are Ruining Your Brew
It's easy to fall into a routine with your coffee ritual, especially considering you're making the coffee in an under-caffeinated state. But if you eliminate...
Roaster's Guild Retreat 2013
I’ve just returned from a four-day retreat with the Roaster’s Guild, an official trade guild of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, or SCAA, and man...
Coffee Brewing Gear: A Buying Guide
Great coffee is more than just getting freshly roasted beans — it's also brewing the right way at home. It doesn't cost a lot to get the right gear and get ...
Our Farmer's Market Coffee Shop
We’re no longer in Virginia. I’ve kept this post, mostly for nostalgia.
What Is Specialty Coffee
The philosophical answer is that specialty coffee is the responsibility of everyone involved in the chain of custody of a coffee and that includes the consumer.
Able Brewing System
The Brewing System is also clean and elegant-looking in white ceramic. This is something that will look nice at a the table when you are entertaining guests.
Brewing Methods And Coffee Filters
Coffee body is one of the key elements to how much you enjoy the coffee and the primary way you can control body is through the filter.
Anatomy Of A Roast
Different roasters will have different names for them and not everyone follows the same theories, so if you talk to someone and they tell you the drying phas...
Why Use A Burr Grinder
Burr grinders are preferred over blade grinders for a couple of reasons. The most important reason is that a burr grinder crushes the beans between two burrs.
Why Lighter Roasts Are Sweeter
Light roasts bring out the specific flavors and aromas of the individual coffee varietal, whereas darker roasts tend to make all coffees taste similar; charr...
What Is Natural Processing
Coffees that have been processed naturally are often sweeter and have more body and a more complex flavor and aroma profile.
Brewing By Weight
Weighing your coffee and water is a more accurate and consistent way to determine your water-to-coffee ratio
Coffee Brewing Tips
Regardless of your brewing apparatus, the following rules will always apply.
Kone From Able Brewing
What I've found with the Kone is that it produces a coffee with slightly more body than what traditional paper Chemex filters produce, but not nearly as much...
Vario-W from Baratza
The other thing I really like about this grinder is the ease of transitioning between grind profiles.
Coffee Brew Ratio
One of the first concepts to understand if you want to make consistently-good coffee at home is the coffee-to-water ratio, or brew ratio. According to the re...
Summer Favorites: Iced Coffee
It’s very easy to use. The only difference between it and a normal pour-over is the ice chamber and the recipe you’ll use to brew iced coffee.
How To: Master The HotTop Element
If you know precisely when your element is on or off you can better manage the environment temp, which determines the bean temp and this gives you more contr...
How To: Clean The HotTop Exhaust Fan
Byproducts of the roasting process present in the smoke — namely tars such as creosote — collect on the fan as the smoke is ventilated from the drum. Therefo...
How To: Install HotTop ET & BT Probes
This step-by-step, illustrated guide shows you how to cleanly and permanently install two thermocouples in your HotTop to collect meaningful, useful roast data.
How To: Install ET & BT Probes The Easy Way
One of the primary advantages of using a thermocouple is that you can get it into the bean mass and get temperature readings from the outsides of the beans. ...