Join the Coffee Roasters Guild (CRG) on Friday, May 8, for a conversation with North Central College on their direct trade relationship with coffee farmers in Guatemala.

In this issue, we’re taking a step back and focusing on some big questions that could shape the future of our industry.

Dr. ILJA CROIJMANS explores why the vocabulary we use to describe aromas matters, sharing findings of previous research on the evolution of sensory language from hunter-gathers to wine and coffee professionals.

JENN RUGOLO distils findings of the SCA’s Price Crisis Response (PCR) report and offers some ways we can begin to put some of the report’s recommendations into practice immediately.

Specialty Coffee Association CEO YANNIS APOSTOLOPOULOS shares findings from the recent Coffee Growth Dynamics Report from Euromonitor International.

We know that high-quality coffee comes at a cost, but what are the unseen costs of selling that coffee with a story? EVER MEISTER asks herself this question every day—and now she’s asking all of us.

NOA BERGER explores some of the different ways packaging helps to construct different types of authenticity.

Sitting at the crossroads between Scandinavia and the Baltics, Helsinki has this wonderfully Finnish feeling about it while remaining accessible, vibrant, and dynamic.

“An update on the status of coffee vocabulary is very much called for,” wrote Ilja. And so, when presenting this work at Sensory Summit in Zurich—complete with wine and coffee samples—Ilja also collected data.

While many cafes and coffee businesses have seen a drop in business, grocery is going strong. In the sixth and final webinar in this series, we brought in several experts to discuss how businesses can break into grocery.

While we can’t join together in Portland as planned, we've been working hard in the background to bring some of Expo's features to all of you online throughout something we're calling #ExpoSeason.

As many businesses are adapting as quickly as possible to new ways of doing business, takeaway and delivery are becoming valuable options. We brought in several experts to discuss how businesses can successfully add or highlight delivery in their business model.

On Friday, April 17, CTG Chair Hylan Joseph and representatives from the guild discussed how to adapt to the changing business environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic in this special webinar.

This week in Recap: the ICO released a preliminary assessment of COVID-19 on global coffee consumption; reports of disruption to coffee's supply chain increase; anticipating its largest-ever harvest, Brazil may not have enough field hands to pick coffee; the FNC released a protocol for coffee growing families to help avoid the spread of COVID-19; the VOICE network has issued a call to action to mitigate the impacts of the global pandemic on farming families.

The fifth instance of the United by Sustainability open discussion series focused on the living income movement. Watch both discussions here.

As many businesses are adapting as quickly as possible to new ways of doing business, communicating these changes makes up a significant factor in moving forward.

This fourth webinar in the series looks at the Price Crisis with input from peer reviewers Iliana Delgado, Juan Pablo Solis, David Piza, Niels Haak, Dean Kallivrousis, and Kim Elena Ionescu, and moderated by Ellie Hudson.

Today, with help from presenter Chad Trewick, you’ll learn about the inception of and future plans for the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide, a project housed at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The Guide uses donated contract information about industry pricing behaviors that are anonymized and aggregated to create tables to serve as a guide to help both sellers (producers) and buyers (exporters, importers, roasters) land on pricing that does not rely on the volatile commodity price as a baseline.

The third instance of the United by Sustainability open discussion series focused on the living income movement. Watch both discussions here.

Many coffee businesses don’t have online presences or are struggling develop them during this time. Hear from experts in online commerce, including platform developers and coffee companies with strong online sales.