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Traded volumes of high-quality specialty coffee declined as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic while volumes of lower-quality specialty coffees increased, according to a recent analysis from the authors of the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide. Peter W. Roberts and Chad Trewick penned the 19-page report documenting the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on specialty coffee purchasing behaviors

The Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo by Susan Heller Evenson. Hours before Myanmar’s new parliament was set to begin session on Monday, Feb. 1, Myanmar’s armed forces known as the Tatmadaw staged a coup d’état. State Counsellor and de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and other elected members and high-ranking officials of

A scene from a Fincas Mierisch farm in Nicaragua. All images courtesy of ACE/Fincas Mierisch. Renowned Nicaraguan specialty coffee producer Fincas Mierisch and the Portland, Oregon-based Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) have re-teamed up to relaunch the Los Favoritos auction. Taking place online on Tuesday, May 18, following international judging led by ACE, the auction

Researchers are exploring the potential of coffee growth in areas currently suitable for citrus growth. For centuries, coffee has been grown between two somewhat arbitrary lines above and below the equator. The stretch between roughly the 23.43°S and 23.43°N parallels — also known as tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, respectively — is also often referred

Cup of Excellence courtesy photo. After a year of leaning more heavily on the internet to deliver its flagship competitions and auctions, the nonprofit Cup of Excellence is offering some new coffee sensory training to the public at large through online events. Two new education- and calibration-focused programs are forthcoming from COE, and both refer

CIRAD photo from a coffee farmer survey in Nicaragua. Several of the world’s largest coffee roasting and trading companies have joined a pre-competitive research initiative with the goal of progressively reducing pesticide usage in coffee farming. The initiative, called Ecoffee R&D Initiative (styled as ECOFFEE by the group), is being coordinated by the pioneering French

Coffee pulp being delivered to the test site in Costa Rica. All images by Rebecca Cole, courtesy of the British Ecological Society. New research has found that coffee pulp, a natural organic byproduct of post-harvest coffee processing, can exponentially speed up tropical forest recovery on previously deforested lands. Researchers from the British Ecological Society reported “dramatic

Cargo ships at port. A rare mainstream international cargo shipping story reached a welcome turning point today as the skyscraper-sized container ship the Ever Given was finally dislodged from the banks of the Suez Canal in Egypt. The nearly weeklong blockage of the canal — a vital trade route between Asia and Europe — will

The Samayoa family receiving a green coffee shipment in Central Georgia. All images courtesy of Over The Border Coffee. A seventh-generation, 200-acre coffee farm in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, has gained a foothold selling its coffees directly to consumers and wholesale accounts in Georgia through Over The Border Coffee. The family-run startup coffee company, founded by Tabitha

Coffee in Yemen is typically grown on terraced hillsides. All images courtesy of Amal Yemen. A growing number of coffee companies and volunteers have banded together to launch Amal Yemen, a consortium and event platform to promote Yemeni coffee and culture. Amal Yemen, which translates to “Hope for Yemen,” will debut with a Friday, April

Courtesy photo from the Alliance for Coffee Excellence in 2017. The nonprofit Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) has announced that the Cup of Excellence (COE) program and coffee genetics research firm RD2 Vision have signed a memorandum of understanding for genetic testing of COE-winning coffees. In an announcement yesterday, COE organizer ACE said the partnership

Mutima Coffee Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Sharon and Sheila Kasasa. All images courtesy of Mutima Coffee. Two sisters born in Uganda and raised in the United States have launched Mutima Coffee, an online retail company offering high-quality coffees grown in the East African country. The Mount Elgon region of Eastern Uganda near the Kenyan border is

Coffee Shift Co-Founder Tyler Pinckard (left) checking out some coffee drying in Chinchina, Colombia. All photos courtesy of Coffee Shift. A new subscription coffee roasting company called Coffee Shift is using blockchain technology to send consumers’ money directly to the producers behind the coffee. The Bay Area-based startup views its model as a means to

A view of coffee fields in the Kona region in Hawaii. “Kona Coffee plantation road.” by jai Mansson’s photography. is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Costco, Marshalls/T.J. Maxx parent company TJX and Gold Coffee Roasters have joined the list of defendants reaching settlement agreements with a group representing farmers from Hawaii’s Kona region. Thus far, settlement agreements from the class

The Caravela Coffee Compass. Courtesy photo. Vertically oriented green coffee trading company Caravela Coffee has introduced El Compás del Café (Coffee Compass), a calendar wheel designed to help coffee growers with farm monitoring and maintenance cycles. “With this tool, they can schedule all their farm’s activities, ensuring that all critical tasks are taken care of

Minas Gerais state police vehicles. Photo by the Ministério Público de Minas Gerais. Prosecutors in the Brazilian states of Minas Gerais and Paraná yesterday carried out a widespread probe targeting numerous large coffee businesses, alleging tax evasion, money laundering and other criminal activities. Dubbed “Operação Expresso,” or Operation Expresso, the police action included 35 temporary

The new Farmer Connect logo. Swiss agritech startup Farmer Connect (styled by the company as “farmer connect”) has secured a €7.5 million (US$9 million) Series A funding round. The investment was led by one of the world’s largest materials trading companies, Japan’s Itochu Corporation, along with private investors in the Americas, as well as Farmer

Daily Coffee News Staff | March 15, 2021 Mathieu Theis and Emi Fukahori of Mame Coffee give a brewing demonstration during High Density. Screenshot. With its inaugural High Density event, The Barista League raised nearly $4,000 for the Vermont-based nonprofit Grounds for Health. Taking place last week — and now available in full here —

Coffee drying in parchment. Daily Coffee News file photo. The concept of financial transparency in the coffee industry may have been unimaginable a generation ago, but it has evolved quickly both in professional discourse and in marketing. In broad terms, the transparency movement originated when some coffee importers started more widely sharing free-on-board (FOB) prices

The new Berni Bean coffee shop in downtown Dallas draws from Costa Rican family roots. All images courtesy of The Berni Bean Coffee Company. A connection between Dallas and Costa Rica has grown like a verdant jungle vine with the opening of The Berni Bean Coffee Company cafe. The new downtown spot soft-launched last month,

Andrea M. Johnson, front row far left, with a group in Jamaica. Courtesy photo. An International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA) national chapter since April 2019, Jamaican Women in Coffee (JAWiC) is working to assist and uplift Jamaican women coffee producers through education and resources. The organization, an IWCA project partner, recently published its Field Survey

The “Moving Coffee Forward” mural at the Ally Coffee headquarters in Greenville, South Carolina. Courtesy photo. Greenville, South Carolina-based green coffee trader Ally Coffee has expanded its network of green coffee warehouses, adding its first location in the UK. The new warehouse is designed to more conveniently serve roasters throughout the UK and Ireland through

Daily Coffee News photo by Nick Brown. The United States Department of Labor is awarding a $5 million cooperative agreement with the multinational Atlanta-based nonprofit CARE for a project designed to reduce child labor and improve gender equality in the Ethiopian coffee sector. Specifically, the grant is part of the 50-month She Thrives project funded

The Demetria Match app. All images courtesy of Demetria. Israeli and Colombian agriculture tech startup Demetria has closed a $3 million seed funding round to support its artificial-intelligence-powered green coffee quality analysis system. The investment was led by Celeritas, a group of private investors split between Israel and Latin America, and the technology involves the

A blackburnian warbler perches on a coffee bush in a shade-coffee farm in Colombia. Photo by Virginia Tech’s Guillermo Santos, courtesy of Virginia Tech University. A survey of nearly 1,000 people who identified as birdwatchers and coffee drinkers found that only 9% have purchased bird-friendly-certified coffee, despite nearly half of all respondents identifying “conservation of

The Global Coffee Platform, which grew out of a restructuring of the 4C Association in 2016, maintains a Baseline Coffee Code for basic sustainability practices in coffee farming. The Global Coffee Platform (GCP) today opened the floor for public input on a forthcoming major revision to its baseline sustainability code for the coffee sector. Not

A house built with Woodpecker coffee lumber as part of a climate adaptation housing program. All images courtesy of Woodpecker SAS. From the third-largest coffee-producing country in the world, a company called Woodpecker is bringing new life to a coffee byproduct while providing sustainable building materials. The Bogotá, Colombia-based company is combining a recycled-plastic polymer

Now with more than a decade of experience, the Initiative for Coffee&Climate (styled as “coffee&climate” or “c&c”) is entering its third and final phase, designed to bring more climate resiliency strategies to more coffee farms. The organizers are seeking to build support for the farmer-focused climate initiative through an introductory webinar taking place on Tuesday,

The nonprofit Partnership for Gender Equity (PGE) announced it has received $105,000 from a group of private companies to develop a “Gender Equity Index” for the coffee and cocoa industries. The Gender Equity Index (GEI) is envisioned as a tool to benefit organizations that are already engaged in gender equity initiatives, specifically those related to

Ripe coffee from Rusty’s Hawaiian, producer of an anaerobic-natural-process typica coffee took fifth place in the competition. Photo courtesy of ACE. The Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) and Hawaiian green coffee company Isla Custom Coffees have announced 16 winning lots in a recent competition of Hawaiian coffees. Notably, a full three-quarters of those winners — ranging