by Rich Futrell (Wait…Single Origin Blend?) The popularity of blends in the coffee industry has come and gone and come back again. Blends have their rightful place in any roaster’s catalog, as they provide roasters with an opportunity to present a consistent product to wholesale and retail customers who are looking for a good cup of coffee that they can…

Costa Rica has made a name for itself by being at the forefront of innovation in coffee processing methods. Particularly famous for the honey process, producers and mills around the country are enthusiastically pursue innovations that can enhance their coffee’s flavor profile. Recently a new processing method called anaerobic processing has been turning heads, causing cuppers to ask, “What is…

In 2017 we were determined to help female coffee producers, so we reached out to the International Women’s Coffee Alliance. We invited Women coffee producers who were part of the IWCA in Guatemala to send samples of their best lots and we selected three of our favorites to feature in our inagural offering of La Morena Reserve. They were from…

Since the discovery of the decaffeination process in the 1900s by Ludwig Roselius, progress has been made to enhance and preserve coffee’s flavor in addition to removing the caffeine. Approximately 12% of coffee drinkers are sensitive to the effects of caffeine, and these individuals are frequently met with less than delicious decaf coffee. While the average six-ounce cup of coffee…

Modest Coffee, in Aurora, Ill., has dubbed 2017 the Year of Women. “This year began with women across the country marching against misogyny and inequality and is ending with women personally and publicly speaking out against sexualization and assault,” Modest explains on its web site. “On paper, women may have earned equal rights, but culturally we have a long way…

Hotels, taxis, groceries — lots of industries have been “disrupted” and are now far more efficient, transparent and user-friendly versions of what came before them. Genuine Origin is a start-up, born from a 200-plus-year-old coffee company, because a handful of folks believed green-coffee buying was aching for disruption — for a far better version of what it's been for centuries. So, 65-lb. boxes a person can lift…

Riley Thomson, head of the Volcafe Way program in Costa Rica, recently interviewed Carol Mata Gutierrez, a coffee producer in Tarrazú, about how coffee farming has changed — and what she hopes more producers will come to understand. In addition to agronomy strategies, a major focus of Volcafe Way is sharing business best practices with producers — a message that resonates with Carol, who has a…

 Riley Thomson, head of the Volcafe Way program in Costa Rica, spoke recently with Victor Hugo Sanchez Fonseca, a coffee producer in Perez Zeledon, about how coffee growing has changed and why he joined the Volcafe Way program. Good afternoon, Don Victor Hugo. What is the size of your farm? Good afternoon, the size of the farm is 4.5 hectares. I currently have coffee…

There are some pretty flexible definitions in coffee, and microlots and macrolots (or community lots, as we refer to them) are among the terms that differ, depending on whom you ask. It’s easier to start with microlot. Coffee Shrub has defined it as “a lot produced separately, discretely picked or processed to have special character.” Similarly, The Roasterie blog uses…

Jeremy Moore says he found his taste for coffee following his parents around the coffee shops of Europe. Much later, he and his wife Erika turned their shared love of coffee into a wholesale roasting business and later also cafes. The guiding idea behind both enterprises is that it's not enough to just serve good coffee or do a good…