Modest Coffee, in Aurora, Ill., has dubbed 2017 the Year of Women. “This year began with women across the country marching against misogyny and inequality and is ending with women personally and publicly speaking out against sexualization and assault,” Modest explains on its web site. “On paper, women may have earned equal rights, but culturally we have a long way…
There are some pretty flexible definitions in coffee, and microlots and macrolots (or community lots, as we refer to them) are among the terms that differ, depending on whom you ask. It’s easier to start with microlot. Coffee Shrub has defined it as “a lot produced separately, discretely picked or processed to have special character.” Similarly, The Roasterie blog uses…
Jeremy Moore says he found his taste for coffee following his parents around the coffee shops of Europe. Much later, he and his wife Erika turned their shared love of coffee into a wholesale roasting business and later also cafes. The guiding idea behind both enterprises is that it's not enough to just serve good coffee or do a good…
For a week in February, Volcafe Way Farmer Support Organization (FSO) leaders from Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala traveled together, playing host and guest in each other’s countries. They showed off their progress of the last year, considered what they do differently, and looked for successful practices to bring back to their teams. The day after their travels, we caught…
“I find a bit of excitement in telling other people about my country, and letting them know what it is we do here and what Honduras has achieved in the last three or four years,” says Carlos Umanzor, with Genuine Origin sister company Molinos de Honduras (MDH), when asked about his favorite part of his job. “Because, these aren't like other…
Matthew Harrison has a background in agriculture. And while he’s spent extensive time in the coffee fields, he now lives in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam, focusing on field operations and the trading side of the business for GO sister organization Taylor Winch. Last week, he stepped away from the cupping table to chat about coffee, culture and why there’s…
Coffee is a real opportunity for farmers in Uganda, and with assistance from Volcafe Way Farmer Support Organizations, they’re producing some of the country’s best coffees to date. In this conversation, Anneke Fermont, regional sustainability manager at Kyagalanyi (pronounced CHUG-uh-lani) Coffee, Genuine Origin’s sister organization in Uganda, describes finding meaningful work, efforts to end child labor, and the two carefully…
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Decaffeinating
The process of removing caffeine from green, unroasted coffee beans using direct or indirect chemical solvent exposure, liquid carbon dioxide in a high-pressure chamber, or water alone (the Swiss method).
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