Recent years have seen a spike in the retail price for coffee paid by consumers in their local stores and cafes. But, despite that, the price farmers get paid for coffee hasn’t meaningfully changed in four decades.  Coffee farmers are at the whim of a complex global commodities exchange that leaves them powerless to set their own prices and subject to massive instability from season to season. In many countries, the price for a pound of coffee falls well under the cost to produce that coffee, leaving farmers at a loss financially, dependent on predatory bank loans and uncertain about the ..read more

Owning a small business is hard. Like, really, really hard. The last two years have made it almost impossible.  Even before COVID upended the independent cafe model and turned all our coffee shops into sidewalk cafes and mini bodegas, coffee businesses have had to get creative to continue thriving in a crowded field, and survive in a world of high costs and low margins.  We speak to three companies who each found unique ways to future-proof their businesses from the risks posed to today’s cafes, and come out better, healthier and more resilient than before.  Learn how nurturi ..read more

Almost all of the carbon footprint in your morning cup of coffee is created after it leaves the farm, and yet farmers are the ones experiencing outsized, immediate impacts of carbon related climate change.  Sustainability experts, coffee farmers and climate researchers weigh in on where carbon lives in the coffee lifecycle (and where it doesn’t), the surprising ways cafes can mitigate their impact immediately (hint: it’s not compostable straws), and what the future looks like for coffee farms if we don’t act today.  Featuring:  Marianella Baez Jost, Founder, Farmers Project C ..read more

In the coffee industry, we associate quality with craft, and craft almost always means manual, handmade, and low tech. However, some cafe owners and coffee professionals are discovering that manual and handmade can mean inconsistency, inefficiency and inability to scale.  In an industry that’s increasingly competitive, where labor costs more but prices stay the same, are the old ways of high-touch manual work still working?  ​​Craft and innovation are often seen as polar opposites, but in reality, you can have both. In this episode, we explore how to run better, more efficient busi ..read more

Perhaps the most controversial topic in all of modern coffee, we dive deep into the question of flavor and ask the questions we’ve all been wondering -  Who gets to decide what tastes good?  Why does it seem that so many cafes are suddenly serving coffee that only appeals to a certain palate? And how, exactly, did flavor become a matter of taste.  Part coffee history, part food anthropology, and part data science, we explain the evolution of coffee flavor over time and learn what really makes a coffee menu that appeals to everyone.  Featuring: Peter Giuliano, Executive D ..read more