University of California Davis Coffee Center scientists LAUDIA ANOKYE-BEMPAH, IRWIN R. DONIS-GONZÁLEZ, and WILLIAM D. RISTENPART describe research undertaken in 2023 with a goal of developing new roast color standards for the coffee industry.
Read MoreDrs. JOSHUA MÉNDEZ HARPER and CHRISTOPHER H. HENDON discuss the chemistry and physics behind the electrification of coffee during grinding, its effect on extraction, and strategies to mitigate it. All images are adapted from their recent academic publication “Moisture-Controlled Triboelectrification During Coffee Grinding,” published in Matter.
Read MoreCorresponding author MATEUS MANFRIN ARTÊNCIO shares the findings of a recent paper, “The Impact of Coffee Origin Information on Sensory and Hedonic Judgment of Fine Amazonian Robusta Coffee,” published in the Journal of Sensory Studies, confirming the significant influence of origin information on the sensory perception of professional coffee tasters.
Read MoreALEXA ROMANO explores the emergence of specialty coffee culture as an embedded subculture within the broader coffee industry, and how the resulting shift from passive to active consumption asks us to rethink the consumer’s role in value creation and distribution.
Read MoreIf you’ve been following along with the SCA’s project to evolve the 2004 cupping system into a Coffee Value Assessment, there’s a good chance you’re already aware of the importance of extrinsic, or symbolic, attributes.
Read MoreThe 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 MoreSARAH CHARLES, writer, Communications Officer at the International Trade Centre, and author of a recent dissertation on mandatory supply chain due diligence, outlines the history, opportunities, and challenges of regulatory sustainability approaches while offering a path forward for coffee businesses grappling with the shift from a voluntary to a regulatory approach.
Read MoreNeuroscientist Dr. FABIANA CARVALHO shares the recent results of a Coffee Science Foundation study, supported by Savor Brands Inc., to understand how packaging color influences consumer behavior.
Read MoreEconomists DAVIDE DEL PRETE and ROCCO MACCHIAVELLO recently completed a literature review of sustainability interventions for the Coffee Science Foundation; here, with PETER GIULIANO, they summarize its findings.
Read MoreCognitive psychologist BENTE KLEIN HAZEBROEK and language professor ILJA CROIJMANS explore the role and construction of coffee’s linguistic descriptions—those flavor notes and descriptions across coffee packaging and websites!—in a consumer’s willingness to pay.
Read MoreNOA BERGER explores how the “field” of coffee was inspired by (and inspires) related industries like fine wine, cacao, and—more recently—vanilla, and queries its impacts.
Read MoreWe’re never entirely sure what the future holds, but the past few years have made it feel particularly unpredictable.
Read MoreThe 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 MoreAnthropology 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.
Read MoreAnthropologist 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 MoreCHERYL 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 MoreLead 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.
Read MoreCorresponding author HELEN VAIKMA shares the results of a study market mapping the sensory attributes of five different categories of plant-based beverages.
Read MoreVAUGHN 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.
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