We’re never entirely sure what the future holds, but the past few years have made it feel particularly unpredictable.

Read, 25, AnnouncementsSpecialty Coffee AssociationMay 2, 2023Welcome, Issue 19

Our Sustainability Agenda: Making Coffee Better, for All | 25, Issue 19

The Specialty Coffee Association is the world’s largest coffee membership association, with a sustainability-driven purpose deeply ingrained in its structure as a non-profit trade organization: to make coffee better.

Read, 25Specialty Coffee AssociationMay 2, 2023Issue 19, Program Spotlight

From Value to Values: Determining the Worth of Coffee | 25, Issue 19

Anthropology Professor EDWARD F. FISCHER, author of Making Better Coffee: How Maya Farmers and Third- Wave Tastemakers Create Value, explains the different types of value, ways of determining worth, and how we create economic value by drawing on other sorts of values (moral, social, political, and other cultural values) through the lens of his fieldwork in Guatemala.

Teawords: Rendering Quality in the India Tea Industry | 25, Issue 19

Anthropologist SARAH BESKY, PhD considers the relationship between tea’s sensory lexicon and ideas of quality across tea’s colonial history and current-day trading practices, highlighting that quality is far from an objective measure—and that it must be constantly reproduced in practice, including how we choose and use words to adjudicate quality over time.

Read, 25Specialty Coffee AssociationMay 2, 2023Issue 19, Sustainability

New Year, New Relationships—Same Cup of Coffee? | 25, Issue 19

CHERYL HUNG, lead researcher for the NCA's National Coffee Data Trends studies, traces the impact of the pandemic on coffee consumption in the US and Canada, highlights the collective urge to reconnect, and calls for the coffee community to focus on marketing the emotional benefits and the “softer” aspects of America’s favorite morning beverage.

Read, 25Specialty Coffee AssociationMay 2, 2023Issue 19, Research

Cold vs. Iced: Using Sensory Analysis to Test the Claim that Cold Brew is Sweeter and Less Acidic | 25, Issue 19

Lead author Dr. MACKENZIE BATALI shares the results of a controlled and systematic study exploring the impact of the cold brew process on the sensory profile of the beverage it produces, recently published in MDPI’s open access journal, Foods.

Mapping the Market: An Overview of Plant-Based Beverages’ Sensory Attributes | 25, Issue 19

Corresponding author HELEN VAIKMA shares the results of a study market mapping the sensory attributes of five different categories of plant-based beverages.

Read, 25Specialty Coffee AssociationMay 2, 2023Issue 19, Insight

Managing Uncertainty: The Value of Intermediaries | 25, Issue 19

VAUGHN TAN highlights where uncertainty (which is not the same thing as risk) exists within specialty coffee’s supply chain, and questions whether the industry’s previous emphasis on the “direct” in “direct trade,” combined with a drive to rebuild leaner coffee supply chains, has had unintended side effects.

Read, 25Specialty Coffee AssociationMay 2, 2023Issue 19, Insight

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