The Biggest Coffee Sustainability 2019

The Forecast is Bleak: Inside the 2018 Coffee Barometer

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An increasingly consolidated, profit-driven coffee industry in leading consumer markets like the United States and Europe is failing to respond to serious sustainability threats. In this failure — in which the short-term pursuit of profit is prioritized over long-term sustainable practices — the coffee industry is rapidly headed towards its own peril.

Most-Vulnerable Farmers Being Left Out of Certifications, Geographic Analysis Shows

“Certification appears to be concentrated in areas important for biodiversity conservation, but not in those areas most in need of poverty alleviation, although there were exceptions to each of these patterns,” a group of researchers from the U.K. and U.S. wrote in a recent paper in the journal “Biological Conservation” called “Where are commodity crops certified, and what does it mean for conservation and poverty alleviation?”

New Policy Report Tackles Voluntary Sustainability Standards in Coffee

The proliferation of the most popular third-party sustainability certifications in coffee has led to modest benefits to coffee producers overall, though many of the world’s poorest farmers lack the resources to participate, and supply of certified coffee may be outpacing demand.

Public Consultation is Open for Rainforest Alliance’s Sweeping New Standard

At first glance, two of the biggest differences in the new standards appear to be a mechanism by which producers can more easily work towards certification within the contexts of their given farms, and more individualized and data-driven auditing mechanisms both for producers and RA.

Coffee leaf rust swept over Latin America in 2012, and the economic reverberations continue to be felt today. Photo courtesy of World Coffee Research.

Coffee is Rapidly Losing Its Resistance to Rust, Says WCR Science Director

The coffee industry has traditionally and conveniently placed coffee varieties and cultivars into one of two simple categories when considering plants’ natural resistance to leaf rust disease: 1) resistant, or 2) susceptible. The line between the two blurred in a publicly revelatory way when the Arabica variety lempira, which was widely planted throughout Honduras, was discovered last year to have lost its resistance to leaf rust.

Starbucks Committing $20 Million to Farmer Assistance Amid Price Crisis

Starbucks has become the first major global coffee company to publicly put some big money where its mouth is, announcing today the commitment of up to $20 million in relief funds to coffee farmers being affected by the price crisis on the commodities market.

Five-Year, $36.4 Million Effort to Boost Coffee and Cocoa in Latin America

The international development nonprofit TechnoServe is leading the coffee-related efforts in a five-year, $36.4 million initiative designed to revive and bolster the coffee and cocoa sectors in six Latin American coffee-growing countries.

James Hoffmann Let's Talk Coffee

James Hoffmann speaking at the 2018 Let’s Talk Coffee Global event in Cartagena, Colombia. Photo by Bryan Clifton, courtesy of Sustainable Harvest/Let’s Talk Coffee.

A Radical New Social Contract Concept from James Hoffmann

Despite all of the best intentions and practical efforts of the specialty coffee sector’s progressive leaders, it seems little has changed in terms of the coffee trade’s fundamental dynamics of power and risk, Hoffmann contended. Hoffmann’s perspective here stems in part from his origin-focused country-by-country research for “The World Atlas of Coffee.”

New ‘Useful Plants Indicator’ Shows Conservation Lacking in Coffee

Coffee is behind in the ongoing race to protect wild plant species biodiversity as the earth faces increasing climate change, loss of habitat and other natural and man-made challenges, according to a new conservation research study.

Birds Are Good with Robusta or Arabica, As Long As There Are Trees

While the prevailing choice among discerning coffee drinkers is for arabica over robusta, birds seem equally fine with either, so long as adequate canopy cover is in place and pesticides are kept to a minimum.

coffee processing wet mill wastewater

From Coffee Wastewater to Clean Water and Electricity: Fuel Cell Gets Boost

Wastewater from coffee processing remains a persistent polluter, affecting waterways, soil health and entire coffee-growing communities. In the case of small, farm-level mills — like those found throughout Colombia and other Latin American coffee countries — coffee wastewater is often filled with with organic matter, it’s extremely acidic, and it has high biochemical oxygen demand.

Starbucks Committing $10 Million to Recyclable Cup Solutions

Paradoxically, the company is now investing in solutions to an environmental sustainability problem that it has long recognized, yet willfully perpetuates to this day. For example, Starbucks proudly trumpets the release of its annual holiday cups, mentioning neither the resources used to produce them nor the fact that the vast majority of them are to end up in landfills.

Ranking Certifications: German Rersearchers Create VSS Index for Coffee

In general, the index (called VOCSI) showed that third-party certifications, particularly those with support from NGOs, outperformed standards utilizing self-assessment. Examples of the former include UTZ, Rainforest Alliance and Fair Trade USA, while examples of the latter include Starbucks’ C.A.F.E. Practices and Nespresso AAA.

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Brewing a perfect cup of coffee requires the right water

Brewing a perfect cup of coffee requires the right water — and pure H2O is the worst kind

• Water — the biggest ingredient in coffee by weight — can make or break the flavor of a freshly brewed cup, according to a chemist-barista research team.
• Tap water brings out better flavor in coffee, though there are trade-offs between hard and soft water.
• Some beans are better suited to being brewed in hard or soft water.

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Making a truly great cup of coffee requires great beans, an expert roaster, the right grind, and proper technique.

But an often-overlooked element of brewing coffee at home is what constitutes perhaps 99% of the delicious drink's weight: Water.

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To craft the tastiest cup o' joe, you shouldn't buy jugs of distilled or "pure" water, or spend money on expensive water-filtration devices.

In fact, in most parts of the country, the stuff out of our taps is probably the best kind of coffee-brewing H2O you could hope for.

In search of a better brew

Chemist Christopher H. Hendon (left) and barista Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood (right).

Christopher H. Hendon, a chemist at MIT, discovered the importance of water in coffee after overhearing a conversation between two frustrated baristas.

"They were having problems with coffee that tasted good one day and not another," Hendon previously told Business Insider. While that's a frustrating mystery for a coffee shop with exacting standards, but "from a chemistry point of view, that's an interesting problem," Hendon said.

Water can be "hard" (full of minerals like magnesium) or "soft" (most distilled water falls into this category).

Below is a map of the US that shows how water hardness varies from place to place. Dark-purple areas show where the softest water flows, red shows the hardest water, and white and blue are somewhere in between. Hardness can also vary over seasons, as the dissolved minerals can be diluted by a flood of spring rain or amplified by road salts and melting snow.

Hendon teamed up with baristas Lesley and Maxcell Colonna-Dashwood — who won the 2015 UK Barista Championship — and they found that different kinds of "hardness" in water bring out significantly different flavors in coffee. (Hendon ran the experiments using a computer, while the coffee shop owners actually brewed sample cups.)

Why water hardness matters so much for brewing coffee

Roasted coffee beans are packed with compounds that give coffee is distinct aroma, mouthfeel, and taste. Those include citric acid, lactic acid, and eugenol (a compound that adds a "woodsy" taste). The amounts vary from one roasted batch of beans to the next, giving you an enjoyably different sensory experience each time.

Water, meanwhile, has a complexity all its own — higher levels of ions like magnesium and calcium make it "harder."

Here's the key: Some of the compounds in hard water are "sticky" and preferentially grab certain compounds in coffee when they meet in your brewing device. The more eugenol the water hangs on to, for example, the woodsier the taste of your coffee will be.

Magnesium is particularly sticky, so water that's high in magnesium will make coffee with a stronger flavor (and higher levels of caffeine). Hard water can also have high levels of bicarbonate, which Hendon found could lead to more bitter flavors coming through.

But while hard water is a bit of a gamble, depending on which minerals are present in higher concentrations, soft water seems to have no benefits at all. Its chemical composition "results in very bad extraction power," Hendon explained.

Soft water often contains sodium, but that has no flavor stickiness (for good or bad flavors), Hendon found. That means that you'll get a much stronger flavor from the same beans if you use high-magnesium "hard water" in place of distilled or softened water.

Hendon and his barista colleagues published their research in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, and eventually wrote a book, "Water for Coffee," that explains why lovers of the drink should worry about more than just beans.

"Water can transform the character of a coffee," the team wrote. An updated second edition of the book hits shelves in early 2018, according to its website.

A chemically perfect cup

Unlike Hendon, the average coffee lover is not a chemist. You can't easily alter the composition of your water supply every time you want a delicious cup.

But you don't have to. Understanding that the kind of water you use matters will help you achieve the perfect brew — even if you're stuck with whatever comes out of your tap.

To start, you can look up the hardness of your water online (New Yorkers can call 311), and use that information to buy beans that are meant for "soft" or "hard" water. Hendon said that's the kind of thing upscale roasters will know.

Sure, you won't know the specific compounds in your water — that's the kind of rigorous coffee science Hendon and Colonna-Dashwood relied on to place fifth overall in the World Barista Championship. But you'll already be a step ahead if you buy from a local roaster.

When roasters test their beans, they do so using local water, so you can at least assume that locally-roasted coffee is optimized for the chemistry of your water. That's the opposite of a large chain like Starbucks, which, according to Hendon, uses totally pure water to ensure a completely uniform taste across the country.

"A lot of dark art has gone into coffee," Hendon said. "This is some real science."

Lauren Friedman wrote a previous version of this post.

Latest Coffee at four dollars a Cup Revives African Industry Left Behind

Julien Ochala can’t live without his morning cup of Joe.

But not just any coffee will do. For the past five years, the 37-year-old physiology lecturer at King’s College London has visited the same store every week to grab a pack of his beloved Kenyan brew. And he’s not put off by the cost: at 37 pounds a kilogram ($22 a pound), it’s more than double a similar supermarket product.

"I take Kenyan coffee every morning," said Ochala, who buys his beans from Monmouth Coffee Company in Borough Market. "I love it because of the relatively higher acidity level. It keeps me active in the afternoons."

Customers willing to pay a premium for African brews, known for their floral, fruity flavors, are driving purchases of coffee from the continent where the drink is said to have originated. One legend has it that Ethiopian goat herders discovered the plant more than a thousand years ago. Today, a cup of Kenyan coffee at Monmouth costs roughly $4, compared with about $3 for a standard Americano from Starbucks Corp. in London.

The renewed interest may be a blessing for farmers in Africa, where output is about three-quarters of what it was four decades ago. Growers of robusta, the cheaper variety favored for instant drinks, have found it hard to compete as major producer Vietnam boosted output at much lower cost. Brazil also provided more competition for medium-quality arabica beans.

“Ethiopian beans have been known in the West for a long time, but now we are seeing more Rwandan, Kenyan and even beans coming from Burundi, Uganda and Congo,” said Karl Weyrauch, the founder of Seattle-based Coffee Rwanda, a suppli

er of Rwandan beans to the American market. “African beans may also seem exotic to some coffee drinkers and that piques their curiosity.”

But output isn’t what it once was. In 1975, four African nations were among the world’s 10 biggest producers. Now, only Ethiopia and Uganda make the list.

“African production is under threat,” said Keith Flury, head of coffee research at Volcafe Ltd., one of the world’s top coffee traders. "In countries like Kenya, Nairobi is urbanizing fast and expanding into areas that were previously used for coffee. In other countries such as Rwanda and Burundi, coffee is being replaced with subsistence crops as population grows."

Younger Africans are shunning coffee farming for more profitable careers, according to the International Coffee Organization. It pegs the average age of an African coffee grower at 60. Political conflicts have also made farming difficult. Nestle SA’s Nespresso brand last year halted operations in South Sudan due to the civil war.

In Nairobi, farmers can make more money selling their land for property development than working the coffee trees, said Martin Maraka, program manager at the African Fine Coffees Association. Population growth and urbanization show little signs of slowing - the continent will account for more than half of the world’s population growth by 2050, adding 1.3 billion people, according to the United Nations.

While demand is rising, Africa’s coffee exports have mostly been flat since the early 2000s. In comparison, global shipments jumped about 37 percent in the period as world consumption grew by a similar amount.

Demand for African beans used in blends -- the regular products sold in supermarkets that are a mix of supplies from anywhere in the world -- has largely been steady, and the prospects for growth lie in so-called single-origin coffees that only use beans from one specific place.

That potential for niche brews is attracting trading houses to African markets, where margins are much wider than in Brazil or Vietnam. Singapore’s Olam International Ltd., one of the largest food merchants, last year paid $7.5 million for East African coffee specialist Schluter S.A., which had been family-owned since the 19th century. Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, Volcafe, Louis Dreyfus Co. and Ecom Agroindustrial Corp. are present in Africa.

Higher demand from western consumers for some African products is evident to Lars Pilengrim, who buys coffee for Swedish roaster Johan & Nystrom.

“The African taste profiles are very popular in and around Scandinavia,” Pilengrim said. “We are seeing growing interests for coffee from Africa and not only the classic origins such as Ethiopia and Kenya. We are increasing our presence and buying in and from Burundi.”

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