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But first, coffee
My mind is muddy and I yearn for the caffeine to cross the blood brain barrier. The first sip starts with an invigorating smell as the veil begins to lift. Quietly, I long for this black devilish brew to work its magic. As if waking from a deep sleep, the imprint of a long-forgotten dream lingers like a wing-clipped butterfly waiting to escape its ghostly cage. The door creaks open and the memories take flight, scattering amongst the fuzzy nostalgia of a collapsing world gone by. The only world we were told we could save. And as my heartbeat quickens and my mind focuses, I dust myself off to emerge blinking…
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The future of coffee is in our hands
Let’s get straight to the point: Coffee is in crisis. This may sound alarmist especially when the world’s largest producer of coffee, Brazil, has recently announced a bumper crop that has defied all expectations. So surely this should be cause for cheer? Well, yes and no. The good news is that Brazil has just recently reported a bountiful coffee harvest with a record 60.2m bags, up nearly a fifth from the year before. If we combine this achievement with improved processing methods and introduction of more disease resistant varieties, the increase in production now confidently puts global stocks back into surplus for the crop year 2018/19; even against a backdrop…
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Roasting royalty looks to the future
Many family-run roasteries attach a proud sense of heritage and tradition to their brand, but it is rare that a family can lay claim to an invention that went on to change the coffee roasting world. Following in the footsteps of his father, Lutz Reinhart-van Gülpen is now the sixth generation to keep the flame burning when he took over the reign of his family-run business eight years-ago. The father-of-four and current business manager of Van Gülpen Kaffeerösterei, established in 1832, explains his connections to roasting royalty: “We had two founders, Carl Lambert van Gülpen and J.H. Lensing, who imported green coffee from Holland which was transported down the Rhine…
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Amazon tribe protects rainforest through coffee and tech
Less than half-a-century ago, first contact from the outside world was established with the indigenous Surui people of the Amazon rainforest. Ever since that fateful moment, the community has been facing an existential crisis as tree logging and mining companies seek to exploit their ancestral lands. Almir was just ten years-old when the loggers first arrived, but his fight to protect his people’s culture and territory has become a lifelong struggle for survival. At the age of 17, Almir Narayamoga Suruí was the first person from his tribe to attend college when he inherited the title of Leader of the Suruí Paiter Indigenous People from his father. He grew…
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Going the extra mile
Behind the curtain of the coffee supply chain is a herculean challenge that requires efficient logistics backed up by an accurate flow of information. From the time it leaves the farm gate to the moment it is brewed, the bean has more than likely spent months in transit crossing borders, clearing custom checks and even continents. Out of the estimated 159m bags (60kg) of Arabica and Robusta coffee that was produced last year, a large volume will have been transported large distances by land, sea – and occasionally by air – from the country of production to its final destination in your cup. Vollers, a family-owned business that has…
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Hondouras’ coffee producers bridge the digital divide
For a relatively small country, Honduras’ reputation as a producer of high quality Arabica coffee is a big success story. It is estimated that more than a quarter of the Central American country’s population – or approximately two million people – are engaged at some point in the seasonal coffee harvest between November and March each year. And since the turn of the late 20th century, production has steadily grown to the point that the country now ranks in the top ten of exporters of coffee globally. However, the Honduran coffee sector has also faced its fair share of setbacks and challenges. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch devastated 80% of the…
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Switzerland goes bananas for sustainable trade
In the early 1970s, a group of forward-thinking women in Switzerland were brought together by a simple but far-reaching question. They wanted to know why bananas imported from the tropics were cheaper than apples grown in Europe. The question went to the heart of the exploitative trading practices of the banana trade and a movement was born. Led by social activist, Ursula Brunner, the Banana Women – as they came to be publicly known – continued to ask questions about unfair trade and how to address it. Their campaign grew to become the Working Group for a Fair Banana Trade – or Gebana for short. Today, Gebana has diversified into other foodstuffs but…
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One family’s gift to the coffee world
Still recovering from a brutal civil war in the 1980’s, the eventful story of coffee production in El Salvador stretches back to the early 19th century. It starts when Bourbon, a classic cultivar, was introduced to the Central American country in the early 1800s and first grown for domestic consumption. But the favourable climate, mountainous topography and volcanic-rich soils offered the perfect conditions and coffee production went on to become one the most important permanent cash crops for the countries’ economy. Bound to the history of El Salvador’s coffee production is the celebrated Pacas variety, a natural mutation of Bourbon that has established a reputation for being high yielding,…
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Opening the black box for a sustainable coffee future
Supplying more than a third of the world’s coffee production each year, developments in Brazil have the potential to affect coffee markets worldwide. And due to its sheer size as a coffee producing powerhouse, the country has earned – rightly or wrongly – a reputation for quantity over quality. But the reality on the ground is a different picture as producers respond to market pressures by setting their sights on specialty, rather than a race to the bottom. Henrique Dias Cambraia, the current generation of a century-old family tradition and Head of Fazenda Samambaia is one of the early pioneers of specialty coffee in Brazil. In 1999, he established San Coffee with a…
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Reinventing the coffee menu for restaurateurs
The disconnect between the attention to detail in the kitchen and the coffee on the restaurant menu can be a bone of contention for many coffee professionals. After all, the disappointment of a bitter-tasting espresso rather than the sensory climax to conclude a gastronomic experience can be all too common. Considered by many in the hospitality industry as an afterthought, this disconnect is what drove Olga Sabristova of Die Kaffee Privatrösterei to make a difference. “For a lot of restaurateurs, coffee is still a stepchild. It is prepared without love or passion and where nobody attaches great importance”, says Olga. Her fightback came after more than a decade’s worth of experience…