If you choose to read one publication about coffee this year, I suggest it is the new book by Karl Wienhold called ‘Cheap Coffee: Behind the Curtain of the Global Coffee Trade’. This book provides an overview of how and why the coffee industry as it is today is not sustainable – as the headlines on the website suggests:  ”The green coffee value chain is broken….. Bold ideas and actions are needed to fix it. But a thorough understanding of the context is required for any efforts to be successful.” The book explains the different elements of how the coffee industry works, highlighting the ..read more

In 2019 the International Coffee Organisation launched their first Coffee Development Report. This focused on supporting economic viability in the coffee industry. I found this an incredibly valuable report, not only in terms of demonstrating the breadth of issues affecting the sustainability of the coffee sector, but also in terms of seeing where there was a need to find out more. It has been an incredibly useful document in terms of my own research projects, but also as a tool for teaching different aspects of the coffee industry. The ICO has now published their second coffee report, the Val ..read more

One of the earliest ideas I wanted to write about related to coffee shops was the different roles they played in everyday lives. This was the focus of one of my earlier projects, and finally we have an article published on the topic in the journal Geoforum: Spaces of consumption, connection and community: exploring the role of the coffee shop in urban lives. The research for this article, and indeed the writing of the article itself, was completed long before the covid-19 pandemic had begun. There is much more to write about how the pandemic has affected the coffee shop industry, with current ..read more

I used to spend a lot of time in coffee shops. It was the time spent in these spaces where I observed the multitude of social activities and interactions taking place. It was these observations, combined with an interest in why there were so many coffee shops appearing that prompted my journey into researching and writing about this industry. One of the first ideas I wanted to write about related to coffee shops was how they acted as ‘spaces of community’. I wrote a brief report about this, and have some articles on this concept under review, and who knows they may actually get published at so ..read more

Before coronavirus hit, the UK had a thriving coffee shop culture, with around 26,000 coffee shops across the country. But by the end of March 2020 many coffee shops were closed, or only open for takeaway. Up to 92% of coffee shops are estimated to have closed at some point during the lockdown, as it was not viable, or possible, to continue on a purely takeaway basis. By September 2020, many have reopened, although it is thought that around one third of coffee shops remain closed and some may never reopen. The Eat Out To Help Out scheme, which gave diners big discounts, boosted sales in August ..read more

As Covid-19 lockdown restrictions were eased in the UK, and more coffee shop branches began to reopen there were reports of long queues to drive-thru coffee shop branches, as people sought to purchase the food and drinks in places they would have once took for granted. According to Allegra’s World Coffee Portal after visiting family, going to a café or coffee shop was the most popular reason for going out. Despite this optimistic view, the coffee shop industry, and the hospitality sector more broadly has been severely affected by the Covid-19 crisis, with challenging times ahead. Until March 2 ..read more

Since we’ve been spending so much time at home recently, we decided to try growing our own mushrooms again. If you have read some of my blog posts on coffee and the circular economy here on the ‘cafespaces’, you may well have already heard about GroCycle who I have mentioned before. GroCycle produce kits for growing mushrooms at home using recycled coffee grounds, alongside helping others to start their own mushrooms farms, and providing various mushroom cultivation courses. I have tried this before and was impressed with the results. Given I could guarantee I was going to be at home to use th ..read more

Until recently the UK had a thriving coffee shop culture, with most high streets offering a range of different independent and chain coffee shop outlets. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to take hold, fewer people were leaving home until the country was placed in lockdown and travel was only possibly for a much smaller number of people. The high street coffee shop culture that was present in so many towns and cities across the country completely changed. Many coffee shops, including the large chains closed, while some tried to implement new takeaway only models. As the lockdown restrict ..read more

Until recently the UK, like many other countries across the world, had a vibrant coffee shop culture. Towns and cities filled with bustling coffee shops, with many people visiting them on a regular basis as part of their daily lives. In the last few months, this has all begun to change as COVID-19 began to spread and countries sought to implement progressively stringent measures of social distancing, culminating in lockdowns for many populations. The high street coffee shop culture that has become an integral part of many places abruptly receded. Some stores tried to limit customer numbers to ..read more

Several times over the last few weeks I have started to write a blog post, but I’ve never been able to finish it, the world keeps changing at a rapid pace. Many countries around the world are dealing with the impacts of covid-19. Inevitably this has had a huge impact on the coffee industry from producers to the coffee shops. For our research project on sustainability in Indonesia-UK coffee supply chains we have had to move to alternative activities than had originally been planned. I will try and provide an update soon. We weren’t able to hold the workshops we had planned, but are con ..read more