Fresh Cup Magazine | The Green Issue | April 2020

The GREEN ISSUE Contents A P R I L 2 0 2 0 | v o l . 2 9 . n o. 4 | F R E S H C U P M A G A Z I N E

10

20

22

RIDING THE WAVE OF CBD

REPURPOSING GYOKURO LEAVES

MICHELLE BHATTACHARYYA

Trending

By Janae Easlon

The Whole Leaf

By Greg Goodmacher

Do You Know?

By Caitlin Carter

28 NEWS YOU CAN USE The Filter

By Fresh Cup Staff

FRESH CUP’S GUIDE TO PORTLAND

GREEN CERTIFICATIONS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

A little ditty about this beautiful city.

By Fresh Cup Staff

In House

By Fresh Cup Staff

36

38 Sustainable Sourcing

40

Five Pacific Northwest coffee companies share why their approach to sustainability begins by building fair relationships with farmers.

By Robin Roenker

Becoming a Carbon Responsible Coffee Business

48 Trade Winds

Individual coffee roasting and café companies take responsibility for the carbon footprint of their operations and supply chains.

By Rachel Northrop

54

The modern specialty coffee industry is adept at informing the consumer of all the varied aspects of the supply chain.

But there’s a step usually left out, a step that is so ubiquitous in modern trade that it is barely thought about: shipping.

By Fionn Pooler

Editor’s letter, PAGE 7 | Contributors, PAGE 9 | Counter Intelligence, PAGE 60 | Calendar, PAGE 64 | Ad index, PAGE 66 COVER ILLUSTRATION by Cynthia Meadors

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Fresh Cup Magazine FRESH CUP PUBLISHING Publisher and President JAN WEIGEL jan@freshcup.com EDITORIAL Editor CAITLIN CARTER editor@freshcup.com Associate Editor JANAE EASLON janae@freshcup.com ART Art Director CYNTHIA MEADORS cynthia@freshcup.com ADVERTISING Sales JAN WEIGEL jan@freshcup.com Ad Coordinator DIANE HOWARD adtraffic@freshcup.com ACCOUNTING Accounting Manager DIANE HOWARD diane@freshcup.com FRESH CUP FOUNDER WARD BARBEE 1938-2006

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD ALFONSO CARMONA Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers

CHUCK JONES Jones Coffee Roasters

JEN HURD Genuine Origin

BRUCE MILLETTO Bellissimo Coffee Advisors

BRAD PRICE Phillips Syrups & Sauces

MICHAEL RYAN Threadbare Coffee Co.

MANISH SHAH Maya Tea Co.

LARRY WINKLER Torani

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Fresh Cup Magazine is distributed worldwide each month by post. Available by subscription: price—one year US $48, two years US $68, one year Canada $55, all other countries $85 per year. Single issues—$5-$10 each, plus shipping. (Checks must be drawn on a US-affiliated bank.)

PLEASE ALLOW 6–8 WEEKS FOR DELIVERY OF FIRST ISSUE.

EDITOR’S Letter

A

s I write this letter, cafés across the country have begun shuttering their doors. Baristas are facing cut hours, wage insecurity, and potential unemployment. Instagram has been flooded with posts about what precautions coffee shops are taking amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, and how customers can continue supporting local businesses. Here in Oregon, where more than 200,000 jobs are at risk, foodservice and hospitality workers have written an open letter to the governor calling for her to immediately shut down restaurants and provide financial support.

“We find ourselves faced with the impossible choice of putting our staff at risk physically or financially,” the letter states.

We’re at an unprecedented moment in recent memory.

Whether you’re a café owner on the brink of an inevitable forced closure or a barista unsure of when the next paycheck will be, the future holds much uncertainty.

“I don’t know the future for coffee,” Sam Spillman declared in her U.S. Barista Championship routine back in February.

“But what I do know is it starts with these seeds. And if we want a better future for coffee, we need to progress what’s right in front of us.”

This issue was meant to serve as Fresh Cup’s epistle for Specialty Coffee Expo, which, as of this writing, has yet to announce an update on postponement or cancellation.

We thought that a special theme, “The Green Issue,” would encapsulate so much of what is happening in our industry now, from companies looking to improve their sustainability measures (p. 48), to discussions about fair wages for coffee workers across the supply chain (p. 22), to highlighting innovation and advocating ethical consumerism in new trends (p.

10)—topics bound to be discussed at Expo, and ideas that, as Spillman addressed, need to be progressed in order to secure a better future for coffee.

“Coffee has always seemed to be…looking to always better itself,” says Ben Decosse of Timbercoast (p. 54).

We are a resilient industry. Remember that we are all in this together as we fight for our future.

Copyright ©2020 by Fresh Cup Publishing Company Inc. Contents may not be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. ISSN: 1094-8228 SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS? EMAIL: freshcup@pfsmag.com CALL: 888-881-5861 PO Box 92735, Long Beach, CA 90809-9639 FRESH CUP OFFICES 5520 SW Macadam Ave., Suite 220, Portland, OR 97239 PHONE: 503/236-2587 | FAX: 503/236-3165 FRESH CUP PROUDLY SPONSORS NONPROFITS

CAITLIN CARTER, EDITOR

editor@freshcup.com FRE SH CUP.COM FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 7

Contributors GREG GOODMACHER has savored various teas in over 20 countries on four continents. He teaches cultural and global issues at a college in Shibata, Japan, and takes green tea to classes, mountain peaks, and hot springs. In addition to studying, enjoying, and writing articles about tea and Japan, Goodmacher also blogs about Japanese hot springs.

In this issue, he shares time-tested recipes for repurposing used green tea leaves, on p. 20.

Based in Miami, Florida, RACHEL NORTHROP is content manager for Ally Coffee and the author of When Coffee Speaks: Stories From and Of Latin American Coffeepeople. Read her piece on how coffee companies are moving toward carbon neutrality, on p. 48.

FIONN POOLER is a freelance writer and former coffee professional originally from Scotland and now based in Southeast Michigan. He writes about coffee, culture, and sustainability for a variety of publications and his own website, The Pourover. For this issue, Pooler takes a look at sustainability in the shipping industry, on p. 54.

Lexington, Kentucky-based freelance writer ROBIN ROENKER has extensive experience reporting on business trends, from cybersecurity to real estate, personal finance, and green living.

For Fresh Cup, she covers sustainable and eco-friendly trends in cafĂŠs and the coffee industry in her regular column, Sustainable Matters. This month, however, she pens a feature highlighting various green coffee businesses of the Pacific Northwest, on p. 40.

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 9

Trending RIDING THE WAVE OF

CBD

By Janae Easlon

I

t seems as if overnight CBD, short for cannabidiol, was slapped on product labels from skincare to pet treats. By the end of 2019, CBD had become a $4 billion dollar industry—a 560% increase from the previous year—and is projected to be worth $22 billion by 2022, according to the Brightfield Group, a market research firm for cannabis and CBD. CBD continues to rapidly grow within the specialty coffee and tea industry.

Many cafés, if their state allows, have started adding it to their drink menus as an opportunity to make an extra couple dollars per beverage and share it with their customer base.

Is CBD on its way to becoming the new normal, or will it remain a flash-in-the-pan trend? Brands and researchers weigh in on how CBD and beverages can coexist, what to think about when purchasing CBD products, and what the landscape for CBD beverages looks like today.

Fresh Cup notes that laws speaking on CBD and cannabis are changing.

Information here should not be taken as medical or legal advice.

10 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

WHAT IS CBD? Before diving into CBD, it is essential to note where it comes from, how our bodies respond to it, and what is considered legal to sell in the United States.

CBD can originate from two places: hemp plants, which produce hempderived CBD, or cannabis plants, which produce cannabis-derived CBD. Regardless of the source, both derivations of CBD look the same on a molecular level and will react the same on a biological level. Though CBD is extracted from these plants as an oil, it can be sold in a variety of forms, including gels, oils, gummies, and supplements.

THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, and CBD both interact with a person’s endocannabinoid system, which plays a role in regulating mood, appetite, and sleep. For CBD products to be legal on the federal level, they need to contain less than 0.3 percent of THC, the compound found in the cannabis plant that produces “high” feelings.

Two years ago, the 2018 Farm Bill stated the sale and production of hemp and its extracts are legal, but cannot contain more than 0.3 percent of THC, or it would be seen as cannabis, which

is currently federally illegal in the United States.

In short, CBD for commercial use must come from the hemp plant to purchase under federal law.

ENTOURAGE EFFECT Zoe Sigman is a Portland, Oregonbased cannabis researcher and science editor for Broccoli magazine, a cannabis publication. She served as the program director at Project CBD, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting and publicizing research into the medical uses of CBD, and regularly speaks about cannabis and cannabis science to patients, medical professionals, and consumers.

After spending time in the coffee industry, Sigman started working at dispensaries and doing her own research as a budtender because customers were coming to her with difficult questions about cannabis and chronic illness.

She came across one study early in her research about cancer patients who did not respond to opiates; instead, they were prescribed a medication containing isolated THC and CBD for their pain, and found that the combination was more effective together than when

PHOTO BY CBD INFOS

Trending: Riding the Wave of CBD

ZOE SIGMAN

the compounds were taken separately.

Since hemp-derived CBD is now legal, another common question that comes up among consumers is: Can CBD really work without THC? It can, says Sigman—but it doesn’t “have to.”

“There is this theory called the ‘entourage effect’: that the sum of all of the active compounds in the cannabis flower working together is greater than individual compounds alone,” she says. “That is not to say individual compounds are not effective—they are, but when you combine them, there is significant synergy.”

Products often list CBD content in milligrams, but effective dosage can differ greatly from person to person.

Researchers and doctors haven’t established dosing guidelines yet, and that lack of guidance is reflected in the concentrations of CBD found in CBD products. This is why the amount of CBD per serving in caffeinated beverages varies so widely: there is no standard on how much to add.

“Caffeine reduces the expression of adenosine receptors, which are

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responsible for us feeling tired,” says Sigman. “High dosages of CBD, on the other hand, can activate them, making us feel tired.”

While CBD could partially negate the energizing effects of caffeine, both compounds likely retain some action within the body. More research is needed in order to better understand the interaction of CBD and caffeine.

“What it does to your body is very similar to the processes that happen when you sit in a hot tub for 20 minutes—you get out and you feel different,” says Sigman. “You feel calm, relaxed, and chill. Alcohol does a similar thing in your brain before you get tipsy or drunk—you feel more open and less aware of social anxiety. CBD can feel very similar at high doses.”

LEAD WITH LABELS

TOGETHER LIKE OIL & WATER

Then there is the branding of it all.

Many CBD brands state their product is “non-psychoactive.” From a neurological standpoint, however, since CBD has well-established anti-anxiety properties that affect the mind, it is inherently psychoactive, says Sigman. What brands should instead claim is that CBD is “non-intoxicating”—it won’t get you high like THC can.

Companies use scientific terminology hoping to persuade consumers that they know what they’re talking about, says Sigman, but it’s frequently used incorrectly. While CBD isn’t intoxicating, per se, it can make the consumer feel “different,” depending on how much they take.

How companies add CBD to their product is crucial, says Sigman.

Coffee and tea are water-based, while CBD is oil-based, meaning separation occurs when they interact together.

“If you are adding things to a waterbased beverage, there are additional challenges,” she says.

Technology to make oil more watersoluble is available, but there is a lack of information on how water-soluble cannabinoids are processed in the body. Sigman believes many companies are doing their own research, but the science has not caught up yet with water-soluble CBD. She references a study about CBD in drinks that

PHOTO COURTESY OF ZOE SIGMAN

showed that it tended to stick to the product container.

“It isn’t the case for everything, but it is a good idea to shake it like salad dressing,” says Sigman.

“When you take cannabinoids like THC and CBD, the absorption is much higher with fat, almost two to three times higher,” she continues. “If you take coffee with cream, it could help your body absorb the CBD better. In just black coffee or plain tea, your body won’t absorb as much.”

MARY JOE’S CBD COLD BREW contains water-soluble broadspectrum extract, allowing it to mix well with the consistency of the coffee.

REGULATION While the status of CBD is still unfolding, it’s clear the demand for the product has been recognized by federal bodies: The Food and Drug Administration recently requested $5 million in the Fiscal Year 2021 budget under the Trump administration to continue to regulate the cannabis-derived products industry, including CBD. “Each state has its own regulatory structures. In some states, like Oregon and California, CBD has gone through some sort of testing, so what it says on the packaging should be in the product,” says Sigman. “Beverage companies are all over the map, meaning quality can be all over map too. There are no consumer reports really collecting information on different CBD products yet.”

Sigman is working with the Clean Label Project, a nonprofit that tests products for quality, with the goal to inform customers and raise industry awareness. Founded by Jackie Bowen, the organization tested CBD products for pesticides, heavy metals, actual CBD content, and more. The results revealed how inconsistent brands can be, pointing to the need for more regulation in the industry.

Last year, Sigman testified to the FDA hearing concerning CBD and cannabis regulation, and says she will continue to provide comments to the organization concerning the topic.

“It’s the Wild West,” she says. “It is almost completely unregulated at the federal level. Each state has regulations depending on whether or not they

PHOTO COURTESY OF MARY JOE

legalize medical cannabis or CBD or recreational cannabis...those regulations are in effect, but then you have nationally available brands that don’t really have to play by state rules. And the FDA has sort of turned a blind eye unless they’re making medical claims.”

HOW MUCH IS NEEDED? The amount of CBD needed to receive benefits varies from person to person.

Understanding how much you are taking is the first step when you start out trying CBD. “There is a massive dosage range that people found beneficial in regards to taking CBD,” says Sigman. “Consumers just have to start and see if you benefit. If they don’t feel anything the first time, they can continue to adjust their dose as they go along to see if it is helping.”

For café owners wanting to offer CBD on their menu, Sigman says awareness on how much CBD is being added to drinks and training baristas to speak about CBD to customers is vital.

“If you are adding it to a latte, how much are you adding? Do you know?” she says. “It might not be your responsibility to determine how much is appropriate, but you should be able to communicate how much CBD is going into a beverage.”

When buying CBD, there are a few things to keep in mind, including clearly labeling the dosing mechanism (a dropper, for example), making sure the label is backed up by a third-party certified lab, and knowing where the hemp is grown.

“You want to make sure you are getting what it says you are getting,” she adds. “Be familiar with the brand.”

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 13

Trending: Riding the Wave of CBD

OPPORTUNITIES TO SHARE Coffee, cold brew, tea, lemonade, sparkling water— there are myriad beverage brands with CBD proudly featured. While regulation is at the forefront of navigating this industry, many businesses are aiming to make the CBD experience as enjoyable as possible.

Mary Joe in Costa Mesa, California, launched in 2017, after the founders personally tried out CBD for themselves and envisioned an opportunity for it to merge with coffee.

Mary Joe’s CBD Cold Brew contains water-soluble broad-spectrum extract, allowing it to mix well with the consistency of the coffee.

In the beginning stages, cofounder Ryan Rankin and his team experimented with combining the coffee and hemp oil to eliminate the chances of an oily aftertaste.

They wanted to perfect the mixture so consumers could appreciate both, says Rankin.

KICKBACK offers hempinfused lemonade.

“When we started, not many people knew about CBD and just going out and buying a dropper of it for them was daunting,” he says. “It was taking something new like CBD and something familiar like cold brew.

Combining them really makes for a great start to your day. We get messages from customers saying their first introduction to CBD was our product.”

CBD’s draw for consumers ranges from simply wanting to try something new to finding personal lifestyle benefits, as it can help alleviate pain and manage anxiety, PTSD, and OCD.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF KICKBACK

MOOD33’s line of hemp-infused herbal teas

Brightland Coffee in Pennsylvania found many customers wanted a healthier alternative to manage a variety of symptoms, says owner Gary Lambert, who goes to chemotherapy treatment and introduced CBD into his lifestyle before starting his own cold-brew brand.

“I have customers who say they take it because they suffer from chronic migraines and they don’t like the current regimen of medications they have to take,” he says. “A lot of my customer base are usually in the older category who are long-time coffee drinkers, seeking an alternative to managing their pain.”

Beyond coffee and tea, Kickback, based out of Los Angeles, offers hemp-infused lemonade among its line because they wanted to target a wide audience.

“Lemonade is in a lot of grab-and-go spaces and many people will drink juice if they don’t regularly drink coffee or tea,” says Kickback founder, Pierre Real.

“That with CBD is like friendly universal batteries that everyone can enjoy.”

WORKING TOGETHER In late 2019, California’s Mood33 launched a hempinfused beverage line. Its six flavors marry iced tea, botanicals, and fruit juices to appeal to a variety of taste palates, ranging from peach and mate to watermelon and basil.

Mood33 works with Evo Hemp, a hemp foods company out of Boulder, Colorado, whose hemp is grown on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation by Native American farmers in South Dakota. In 2017, the company partnered with Lakota tribal member and

PHOTO COURTESY OF MOOD33

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 15

Trending: Riding the Wave of CBD BOTTLED CBD: Forest Coffee Trading Co. and Brightland Coffee Co. both carry CBD-infused ready-to-drink cold brew in bottles.

entrepreneur Alex White Plume to bring back local jobs.

“For us, when we started, it was all about the supply chain,” says Mood33 cofounder Eric Schnell. “We chose to partner with Evo Hemp and basically have a fair trade supply economy created in the United States, which is the first of its kind, [partnering with] Alex White Plume and the Lakota Tribe from South Dakota. We felt that the story would resonate with consumers and resonate emotionally.”

Today, Evo Hemp’s products are offered at thousands of retailers, and they are business partners with other CBD ventures like Forest Coffee Trading Company, which makes CBD cold brew.

Interested customers have started approaching brands with their questions, putting some companies in the hot seat as they serve as gateway educators for CBD.

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“I definitely had to read up,” says Garrett Kidd, the founder of Forest Coffee Trading Company. “Evo Hemp has been a great resource for us and a great partner for us to help educate our audience...I think the biggest question we get is, ‘What are the effects of caffeine with the effects of CBD going to do to my body?’ And really it’s nothing but a very harmonious relationship with the two. With something new like CBD that still has a lot of question marks, I think it’s in everyone’s interest to read up on it with an independent source and really understand what it is, because it is a fantastic supplement with a lot of benefits.”

IS CBD REALLY JUST A TREND? Because of CBD’s presence in beverage retail right now, it’s at the fingertips of a wide cross-section of consumers.

Boulder, Colorado’s SteepFuze started because founder Devin Jamroz wanted to provide people with an accessible form of a daily hemp extract dose.

“Right now, I think this is definitely a trend,” says Jamroz. “Last year alone, I read that about 20 new LLCs [were] forming per week in Colorado alone.

We’re in the transition from the trend to mainstream right now. We’re not completely there with the FDA not providing clear regulations and oversight, and we will be in the gray area until that happens.”

But Jamroz believes CBD can survive in the beverage space.

“We really started as coffee people and being really into coffee, sourcing, roasting,” he says. “The idea that the interplay of the cannabinoids and the caffeine and the coffee creates a very unique experience. We’re not as focused on CBD’s effect on the person as we are

LEFT PHOTO COURTESY OF FOREST COFFEE TRADING COMPANY, RIGHT PHOTO COURTESY OF BRIGHTLAND COFFEE

STEEPFUZE: Small-batch roasted coffee infused with CBD extract.

about CBD’s effect on the coffee. We endeavor to create a world that views hemp extract as less of a trend, and more like, say, vitamin C.”

EDUCATION IS KEY Elizabeth Bennett is an associate professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and has spent her career studying and specializing in topics including ethical consumerism and fair trade in the coffee, cannabis, and clothing industries. Throughout her research, she found many cannabis edible companies using fair trade and organic ingredients, but not including information about which farms or conditions the cannabis product was grown under.

“There’s a missed opportunity to really privilege and highlight growers that are doing a great job [growing cannabis for] edibles,” says Bennett. “One thing to note is that if coffee companies are

PHOTO COURTESY OF STEEPFUZE

going to be doing relationship trade, fair trade, or direct trade, all of which is important in the specialty coffee industry, they might also think about how to source their CBD.” Her concern about CBD appearing in coffee shops is the limited amount of information provided to consumers.

“One of the primary sources of information that consumers have is the retailer that sells to them,” says Bennett. “The role of someone who works in a coffee shop, the role that they play in explaining where coffee comes from, and how it’s produced is extremely important....In the same way we would want budtenders to be able to provide great information about cannabis, we would want baristas to be able to provide great information about CBD.” But information on CBD has a chance to be looked at intently in the future as

the sector continues its growth in the United States.

“A really optimistic finding I have is that in 2016, we gave each dispensary we visited a grade of an A or a B or a C based on the quality of information they provided about ethics and the supply chain they were selling,” explains Bennett. “Very few dispensaries back then got an A, but in 2019, when we visited again, we not only had a large number of dispensaries getting an A, but we created an A+ category because so many dispensaries were able to provide highquality, accurate information about ethics and supply chain in a way that almost no dispensary was able to in 2016.

“We’re seeing improvements,” she adds, “over the last three years in the quality of information about social responsibility and environmental stewardship and cannabis supply chains in talking to baristas and budtenders.” FC

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 19

The Whole Leaf REPURPOSING

GYOKURO LEAVES Story and photos

by Greg Goodmacher

SALTY SNACK: Gyokuro tea leaves prepared with rock salt.

A

fter savoring a pot of highquality, organic Japanese green tea, don’t discard the wet leaves—eat them!

High-end tea cafés and tea specialists are transforming gyokuro tea leaves into a pleasant ritual of tea drinking and, as a pièce de résistance, savory dishes.

EATING GYOKURO LEAVES Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture, is not only one of the best gyokuro teaproducing areas in Japan; it is home to the Tea Culture Museum, one of the country’s best places to drink gyokuro tea and eat gyokuro tea leaves. Staff in the museum’s on-site restaurant teach guests to brew Yame-grown gyokuro tea and eat the leaves. Their process brings forth a more extensive range of

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flavors than most tea drinkers imagine possible from one tea variety. The management of the museum permitted me to share their copyrighted recipe for “Shizuku-cha” (shizuku means “dripping”) with Fresh Cup readers.

Directions 1. Spoon 3g (one heaping teaspoon) of Yame-grown gyokuro into a teacup.

2. For the first cup of tea, gently pour in 20ml of hot water that has been left to cool to body temperature, starting from the outside and working your way to the center. Cover and let steep for 2 minutes. To drink the tea, shift the lid slightly to create a small gap, then take small sips. Relax and enjoy the rich flavor and aroma.

3. For the second and third cups of

tea, pour 20ml of 60° C/140° F hot water and wait 15–20 seconds before drinking.

4. For the fourth cup of tea, fill the cup with 80° C/176° F hot water and wait about 15 seconds before drinking.

5. The leftover leaves are chock-full of vitamins and minerals. You can dip them in vinegar sauce, dashi soy sauce, or rock salt, and eat them up.

I personally prefer eating gyokuro with just a little rock salt, which enhances the natural tastes of the leaves while adding some zest. Eating gyokuro in the fashion described above is still rare, but it is growing in popularity among tea connoisseurs. Tea museum staff report that high-end tea drinkers in China have a similar practice.

FURIKAKE made with gyokuro tea leaves, sesame seeds, and salt can be sprinkled on top of cooked rice, vegetables, tofu, and much more.

FURIKAKE MADE WITH TEA LEAVES Many Japanese restaurants serve white rice with various seasonings dusted on top, which are known as furikake, the Japanese word meaning “to sprinkle.” Generations ago, most families made their rice seasonings.

Now, the mass-produced furikake found in the Asian foods sections of many grocery stores and served in many Japanese restaurants usually contain a mixture of the following: monosodium glutamate, salmon flakes, dried bits of tuna, sesame seeds, sugar, salt, dried egg particles, and powered miso.

However, a few tea companies are producing and selling high-quality green tea furikake. And, some families still make their rice toppings, which are almost always more delicious and healthier than the mass-produced versions.

My Japanese mother-in-law, who learned from her mother, taught my wife to transform wet tea leaves at the bottom of the teapot into furikake.

This family recipe has passed with little variation across many generations.

Green tea is the main ingredient, but the type of tea varies. Most recently, we

enjoyed sencha furikake; before that, it was hojicha furikake. Hojicha gives a strong roasted tea flavor while genmai tea (green tea mixed with rice kernels) adds the flavor of roasted rice. Gyokuro and sencha produce the most robust green tea flavors. Experiment to find what best matches your taste preferences. Except for powdered teas, any tea will work.

Start by making a large pot of green tea and slowly enjoy it. The amount of dry loose leaves you use depends on how much tea you want to drink, how strong you enjoy your tea, and how much furikake you want. The last time we made our furikake, we put one rounded tablespoon of sencha into our teapot.

Directions 1. Make a pot of tea, using 1 Tbsp of high-quality green tea such as sencha or gyokuro. Drink and enjoy it.

2. Heat a frying pan.

3. Place the wet leaves on the frying pan. The heat should be between low and medium so the wet leaves dry but do not burn.

4. Stir until the tea looks dry.

5. Add a pinch of salt. Resume stirring.

6. Add sesame seeds, about half the amount of the tea. Fry all the ingredients for about 30 seconds. You should smell the aroma of sesame seeds.

7. Sprinkle over rice

VARIATIONS OF FURIKAKE As mentioned above, experiment with different ingredients. Be creative.

For example, one could add ginger flakes or shaved dry tuna or nori to the list of ingredients above. Start with small amounts because the flavors of some elements, such as dry tuna, can overwhelm the tea taste. Find a balance that pleases you. My family enjoys a simple furikake that allows us to enjoy the slight bitterness of tea with the natural sweetness of rice.

Throwing away the tasty leaves would be mottainai in the eyes of some Japanese tea lovers. “Mottainai” is a Japanese saying that expresses regret at the waste of a valuable resource. The mottainai ethos, prevalent decades ago, seemed to be lost, but with the growing environmental movement, younger generations are starting to adopt it into their daily lives. Why not repurpose your used tea leaves? FC FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 21

Do You Know?

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PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHELLE BHATTACHARYYA

MICHELLE BHATTACHARYYA, On-Up LLC

By Caitlin Carter

F

or more than a decade, Michelle Bhattacharyya has focused on the intersection of corporate and public good.

Having worked at the director-level at organizations including NYC Business Solutions, Social Accountability International, and Global Living Wage Coalition, and now the CEO of On-Up LLC, dedicated to creating incentives for employers to pay living wages, Bhattacharyya has carved her career out of the foundational belief that sustainable change can be achieved when business works together with social and environmental moments.

Set to deliver a talk at the upcoming Re:co Symposium on “Driving Toward Living Wage and Living Income: An Action Oriented Path to a Sustainable Industry,” Bhattacharyya connected with Fresh Cup to discuss a living wage in the specialty coffee industry, advice for café owners, and the long-term benefits of a standard living wage across sectors.

Fresh Cup: What sparked your interest in labor issues and policy?

MICHELLE BHATTACHARYYA: Honestly, my interest has always been at the intersection of the for-profit, nonprofit, and public sectors. It always seemed to me that to achieve sustainable change for a better world, we would have to have a variety of stakeholders commit to a solution that worked for everyone. Labor issues were an obvious fit. And while I was working as Director of Operations at Social Accountability International, home of the

SA8000 Certification, I really started to focus in on how living wage provided the ideal issue to pull together diverse interests with shared benefits for all actors, and in a way that could impact most of the Sustainable Development Goals that we have today.

Living wage is a concept that works best when it becomes part of an overall culture.

FC: What is a living wage in the year 2020? How has it changed in the last decade, and how do you think it will change in the next decade—what past, current, or emerging factors do you think will affect it?

MB: A living wage is really never stagnant or universal in terms of value. It is, as defined by the Global Living Wage

Coalition (GLWC), “The remuneration received for a standard workweek by a worker in a particular place sufficient to afford a decent standard of living for the worker and her or his family. Elements of a decent standard of living include food, water, housing, education, health care, transportation, clothing, and other essential needs including provision for unexpected events.” This means that a living wage varies based on where in the world you are and changes every year adjusting for inflation in that specific location.

And a living wage is important for both supply chains and an employer’s own workers. Often these elements are separated, but really it is a concept that works best when it becomes part of an overall culture.

So if you are looking to make sure that baristas, a major contact point to consumers, are earning a living wage and can communicate the concept in order to drive customer support for living wages, you’ll want to look at the cost of living where their work is located. In a scenario where a barista works in Portland, Oregon, for example, a living wage that aligns with the definition above would be $20.16 per hour (MIT Living Wage Calculator + 5% for unexpected events). Tips can be counted toward that amount, but only if they are regular and dependable. And these estimates assume you are providing those baristas health insurance. The picture is altogether different in Memphis, Tennessee, for example, where living wage if insurance is provided would be only $15.26 per hour because the cost of living is so much lower.

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Do You Know? Michelle Bhattacharyya Supply chains create quite a different set of living wages, depending on the location. In Guatemala the monthly living wage for the rural central departments today is GTQ 2,981 or US $387, up from GTQ 2,689 or US $359 three years ago [per a GLWC study]. It is a figure based on the concept of the cost of a decent yet basic life, and as that is locally specific and ever evolving, so is the living wage around the world.

We are seeing an upswell in interest around the world in paying a living wage because businesses across the supply chain are beginning to understand that paying a living wage has benefits that secure the long-term sustainability of an industry.

Living wages are not only time specific, but they are also place specific. Not all supply chain locations weigh in at the same living wage just as different locations across the U.S. or Europe would have different living wage levels. The GLWC estimated monthly living wages for Northwest Nicaragua at C$8,048 or US $265 (in 2017) and in Rural Kenya at KSh 13,943 or US $138 (in 2016).

The important thing to note is that although the value of a living wage changes with time and place, the concept is consistent.

Currently, we are seeing an upswell in interest around the world in paying a living wage because businesses across the supply chain are beginning to understand that paying a living wage has benefits that secure the long-term sustainability of an industry. Ensuring that prices cover living wages offers a way to combat the coffee price crisis for example. Workers are often more productive and have fewer health issues as they are able to afford proper nutrition, medical care, and don’t have to work multiple jobs when they earn a living wage.

The recognition of these benefits feeds an ever-growing movement to ensure that workers earn a living wage around the world. And as more and more companies start to really attack the issue of incredibly low wages for their own workers and throughout supply chains, industries like coffee will move toward a tipping point where those slow to respond will become obsolete or be forced to follow the industry trend toward a decent living wage.

Living wage is one of those rare goals that when achieved, benefits workers, business, and communities. This beneficial nature for a variety of stakeholders means that it is an achievable goal if leaders across industry continue to be willing to take the first steps and provide examples for others to follow. It

24 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

Do You Know? Michelle Bhattacharyya

creates a scenario of incentives where in 20 years, living wage payment will be the norm, and the impacts in terms of sustainability will be significant, not only in terms of eradicating poverty and stabilizing prices, but also by contributing to less global social upheaval and more stable economies overall.

surprised but

FC: Why is coffee a key industry when discussing the living wage?

communicating

MB: Coffee, and specifically specialty coffee, is a really important industry to start proving the benefits of a living wage. This is due to the fact that roasters and coffee shops are often directly connected to the farmers from whom they source. Information can flow more transparently and price increases can be followed to workers and explained to an already discerning customer that values sustainability and living wages. Coffee also provides a setting for a living income to be considered for smallholder farmers that are struggling themselves to make ends meet.

26 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

You may be if your staff is happy and why prices may change with your customers, you may see profits increase.

This primes coffee to set an example of how living wages really can result in overall benefit to all stakeholders. It sets a perfect stage for proof of concept at a large scale. And the coffee price cri-

sis creates an obvious example of why this could be important and valuable that provides motivation for a precompetitive collaboration on living wages and living incomes.

FC: What is your advice for café owners when it comes to providing a living wage to employees?

Does that advice change when it comes to coffee workers at origin, or elsewhere in the supply chain?

MB: My advice is to get your own house in order first for your own employees.

And don’t be daunted if you are far off the mark. Just start moving steadily toward the goal of a living wage by doing an assessment. Consult the MIT living wage calculator for your location and understand what a living wage is for a worker in a family with two children and two working parents. Then add in 5% for unexpected events to fit with the global definition of living wage. If you pay for health insurance for your workers, you have your estimate. If you don’t, take a look at the health

PHOTO BY SHARON MCCUTCHEON

exchanges and get an estimate of what a silver-level plan costs on the open market with an income that MIT states as the cost of living for the family make-up we just described. In this way you can include expected government subsidies. Add that amount to the MIT estimate, and you have a target for your staff.

Next, you want to understand how much everyone is dependably taking home in tips so you can add that to the pay you are giving. Track this over time. Ask everyone to report it in for you. This should give you a good sense of the gap to a living wage. If you find you are short, and that a pay increase may be necessary to cover the additional costs of paying workers a living wage, then start talking to your customers. Ask them if they would be willing to pay whatever you calculate you would need to charge extra to make sure everyone working at the cafe can support themselves and their families. Get comfortable with what is possible and raise wages as quickly as you can to meet your goals. Have a clear timeline, and track how it impacts your business. You may be surprised but if your staff is happy and communicating why prices may change with your customers, you may see profits increase.

Then move to the supply chain, having learned from this experience. Think about whether the price you pay for the coffee you buy actually makes a living wage even possible. Ask your farmers what percentage of the price of coffee you buy is accounted for in labor. If it is, say, 70%, then ask what they are paying workers and compare that figure to living wage estimates available through the Global Living Wage Coalition for example. If they aren’t available, work with others to move forward in finding this research as a larger collaboration for your sourcing locations. If you are 20% short of a living wage, you can build a plan toward a 20% increase in price on the 70% of the price of coffee that is paying for labor. And talk to your producers. Make sure you can create a scenario where you know this extra money is going to workers. You can roll it out in the

same way you did for your own employees. Talk about it to your customers and market the idea. Let the living wage work for your business and your customers support your move.

FC: What else do you want the specialty coffee community to know about a living wage?

MB: Although you can move on living wage today, we will all benefit from greater collaboration. Get actively involved in supporting living wages across the coffee sector and share your stories and your experience. FC

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 27

The Filter

MEET A PALM OIL ALTERNATIVE IN THE WORKS

B

ill Gates’ investment firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, has invested in a New York-based startup that wants to make lab-grown palm oil.

C16 Biosciences aims to create a sustainable alternative to palm oil by

28 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

growing yeast in steel tanks, allowing the oil to grow within yeast cells, according to its website.

“Our real mission is ending the need for deforestation that’s driven by the palm oil industry,” Shara Ticku, CEO and cofounder of C16 Biosciences,

tells Fast Company. “We believe that it is totally unacceptable to be burning the planet to make a vegetable oil. It just doesn’t make any sense, and it’s totally unacceptable. There has to be a better way. And we want to provide that solution.”

PHOTO BY MADHUSHREE NARAYAN

Several industries use palm oil in their products, which comes from the fruit of the palm tree and grows in tropical climates. The palm oil industry has caused the destruction of rainforests, meaning many animal habitats have been removed, as well as a significant amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 29

The Filter

CREATING A PLANT-BASED SPACE

O

nyx Coffee Lab has joined forces with Pacific Foods in a one-of-a-kind sustainable space in Bentonville, Arkansas.

At the coffee company’s new and fourth location, the base of all drinks served is Pacific Foods Barista Series Oat Original Plant-Based Beverage.

Onyx will still serve dairy-based drinks on request with an additional “carbon tax.”

“Onyx Coffee Lab is known for their extraordinary pairing of quality and innovation—and using our Oat as the main beverage option exemplifies that,” says Nathanael May, Pacific Foods Barista Series customer marketing manager for specialty coffee. “The emphasis on plant-based beverages and the unique service possibilities with a mechanized to-go option is exciting, and we’re thrilled to be part of it. Onyx, like Pacific, is never satisfied with good enough. They’re always pushing the industry forward.”

The new space is on the east side of the Momentary building, a recently opened contemporary art space.

The café has room for 30 people indoors, 18 behind the bar, and 20 outdoors. It is open Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Thursday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF ONYX COFFEE LAB

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The Filter

COFFEE ENTERPRISES INTRODUCES ITS PESTICIDE TESTING

P

esticide testing for organic products is now available through Coffee Enterprises, a consulting and laboratory service for the coffee and tea industry operating since 1992.

The company offers a quantitative chemical analysis for more than 180 pesticides that can be found in coffee and tea that are intended to be labelled as “100% organic” under the National Organic Program guidelines.

Called the Pesticide Multi-Screen Package #4 (NOP) Test, the tool will verify if coffee and tea follow USDA regulations for labeling purposes. Contact spencer@ce.coffee for information.

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PHOTO: FACEBOOK @COFFEEENTERPRISES

RONNOCO BEVERAGE SOLUTIONS LAUNCHES NEW LINE

R

onnoco Beverage Solutions announced the launch of its new brand, Concentric Coffee. Ronnoco specializes in providing products for convenience stores, hospitality, and foodservice companies, among others.

Concentric Coffee is the label’s “sustainable Third Wave” coffee offering, supporting education, clean water, and agronomy initiatives in origin countries through Mercon Coffee Group’s LIFT program, which helps smallholder farmers increase productivity in an environmentally conscious manner.

The product lineup includes a fair trade dark roast, a light roast blend of coffees from LIFT farms, a single-origin from Guatemala, and more.

PHOTO: CONCENTRIC-COFFEE.COM

A portion of the proceeds will go to Ronnoco’s local partner, Mission: St. Louis, a nonprofit fighting poverty.

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The Filter

UPDATE ON RAINFOREST ALLIANCE-UTZ’S MUTUAL RECOGNITION PROGRAM

B

eginning in July, the Rainforest Alliance will expand its Mutual Recognition Program to coffee, vanilla, and herbal infusions, including rooibos. Last year, it launched mutual recognition for tea, hazelnuts, and cocoa.

The Mutual Recognition Program allows companies “at the end of the supply chain for these crops will be able to source Rainforest Alliance Certified or UTZ certified ingredients (or a mixture of both), and then use either the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal or UTZ label on pack, in accordance with the corresponding labeling rules.”

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In 2018, UTZ and Rainforest Alliance joined forces and formed a single standard that addresses environmental and social issues. FC

PHOTO BY JUNGWON KIM/COURTESY OF RAINFOREST ALLIANCE

PHOTO COURTESY OF RAINFOREST ALLIANCE

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In House

GREEN CERTIFICATIONS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

A

s more and more consumers are demanding corporate environmental responsibility, it’s a smart move as a business owner to begin implementing and evaluating your own sustainable strategies. But with so many certifications out there, it may be hard to know where to get started. Be sure to check in with what your customers prioritize and what your competitors are doing to determine which certifications make the most sense for your business. And remember, certification is an investment—not just for your bottom line, but for our planet’s future.

BECOME USDA CERTIFIED ORGANIC Adopting organic practices for an organic product ams.usda.gov/services/organiccertification/becoming-certified

BECOME PALM OIL FREE Protect wildlife by going palm oil free gopalmoilfree.org or orangutanalliance.org/ certification-program

GO B CORP Measures social and environmental performance bcorporation.net/certification

BECOME A GREEN BUSINESS Meet high standards for social and environmental impacts greenamerica.org/certified

BUY BIODEGRADABLE Find certified biodegradable products like cups and cutlery bpiworld.org

SHOW YOUR COMMITMENT TO GREEN Small- and medium-sized businesses committed to sustainable practices greenbusinessbureau.com

CHOOSE CERTIFIED HUMANE Using animal products from responsible farms certifiedhumane.org JOIN WASTEWISE Measure recycling and waste reduction efforts epa.gov/smm/wastewise TRY FAIR TRADE USA Sets standards and certifies sustainable products with trade in mind fairtradecertified.org BE PROMOTED FOR YOUR EFFORTS Canada’s Institute for Green Business Certification helps promote your green practices gbcertified.ca 36 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

BAY AREA BUSINESSES GO GREEN Bay Area-based small- to mid-size businesses’ opportunity to be green-certified greenbusinessca.org DISCOVER THE GREEN SEAL OF APPROVAL Recognizing waste reduction and conservation resources greenseal.org/certification SPEAK TO A FOOD WASTE SPECIALIST Portland, Oregon, metro area businesses can collaborate with food waste specialists oregonmetro.gov/tools-working/ reducing-food-waste

FOLLOW THE FROG Rainforest Alliance certified products help farmers rainforest-alliance.org/find-certified LEARN ABOUT SCS GLOBAL SERVICES Numerous third-party certifications promoting environmental stewardship scsglobalservices.com TRULY TRUE CERTIFIED Become zero-waste certified by keeping trash out of the environment true.gbci.org/true-zero-wastecertification-program TRUST TRUSTEA Indian sustainability code and verification system for the tea sector trustea.org

LEARN MORE ABOUT SUSTAINABLE MOVEMENTS GLOBAL COFFEE PLATFORM Join and engage in sustainability dialogue globalcoffeeplatform.org GLOBAL REPORTING INITIATIVE Find out the climate change impact in your organization globalreporting.org GLOBAL TEA INITIATIVE Promoting tea knowledge with a focus on ethical supply chains and sustainability globaltea.ucdavis.edu SUSTAINABLE COFFEE CHALLENGE Follow the collaborative effort for transparency sustaincoffee.org READ THE @WASTINGCOFFEE GUIDE TO NOT WASTING COFFEE Learn about coffee sustainability umeshiso.com FC

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 37

Fresh Cup’s Guide to

PORTLAND

Rip City, Stumptown, Rose City, PDX—while it has many different nicknames, Fresh Cup has called Portland “home” for 28 years.

A

s industry professionals from all over descend upon our corner of the world for the annual Specialty Coffee Expo,

we’re pleased to highlight a few of our recommendations on where to eat, drink, and explore.

Two pages is hardly enough space to cover all that our city has to offer, which is why we’re focusing on easy-to-access locations around the Oregon Convention Center.

Whether you choose to visit businesses off this list, or discover favorites for yourself, DON’T FORGET TO TIP!

EAT Afuri Izakaya

Hat Yai

Creative, High-quality Japanese 923 SE 7th Ave 503-468-5001

Casual Southern Thai 605 SE Belmont St 503-206-8156

Broder Nord

Izakaya Kichinto

Popular Swedish Brunch Spot 2240 N Interstate Ave 503-282-5555

Contemporary Japanese Hotspot 102 NE Russell St 971-255-0169

Dóttir Thoughtful Nordic Cuisine 100 NE MLK Jr. Blvd 971-346-2996

Kachka Fine Russian Dining 960 SE 11th Ave 503-235-0059

Kargi Gogo Casual Georgian in a Cheerful Space 3039 NE Alberta St 503-764-9552

Ned Ludd New American Craft Kitchen 3925 NE MLK Jr. Blvd 503-288-6900

Nong’s Khao Man Gai Eem Thai BBQ & Cocktails 3803 N Williams Ave 971-295-1645

Hak Streamlined Korean Comfort Food 912 NE Broadway St 360-521-1758 38 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

Humble Chicken & Rice 609 SE Ankeny St 503-740-2907

OX Restaurant Stylish Argentinian-inspired Fare 2225 NE MLK Jr. Blvd 503-284-3366

PORTLAND PHOTO BY UMIT ASLAN, EEM: FACEBOOK @EEM.PDX

EXPLORE

CAFFEINATE Queen of Sheba

The Arrow Coffeehouse

Saint Simon Coffee Co.

Forest Park

Long-standing Ethiopian Restaurant 2413 NE MLK Jr. Blvd 503-287-6302

High-quality Coffee & Fresh-baked Pastries 4943 NE MLK Jr. Blvd 503-764-9727

Handcrafted Coffee in an Intimate Space 2005 NE Broadway St 971-703-4993

Salt & Straw

Case Study Coffee Roasters

See See Moto Coffee Co.

One of the largest urban forests in the U.S., with more than 80 miles of trails 4099 NW Thurman St www.portlandoregon.gov/parks

Artisanal & Seasonal Ice Cream 2035 NE Alberta St 503-208-3867

Locally Roasted & Seasonal Coffees 1422 NE Alberta St 503-477-8221

Coava Flagship Craft & Hospitality 1300 SE Grand Ave 503-894-8134

Engines & Espresso Under One Roof 1642 NE Sandy Blvd 503-894-9566

Water Avenue Coffee

OMSI Oregon Museum of Science and Industry—fun for kids of all ages 1945 SE Water Ave www.omsi.edu

Community Café with a Global Perspective 1028 SE Water Ave 503-808-7084

Cup & Bar Coffee & Chocolate Tasting Room 118 NE MLK Jr. Blvd 503-206-8924

Tamale Boy

Either/Or

Authentic & Fun Mexican 668 N Russell St 503-477-6706

Coffee, Cocktails & Chinese Fare 4003 N Williams Ave 503-235-3474

Toro Bravo

Guilder

Modern Spanish Cuisine 120 NE Russell St 503-281-4464

House-roasted Coffee & All-day Menu 2393 NE Fremont St 503-841-6042

Tusk Middle Eastern-inspired 2448 E Burnside St 503-894-8082

Kopi Coffee

Twisted Croissant

Freshly Roasted Southeast Asian Coffee 2327 E Burnside St 503-234-8610

Outrageously Delicious Pastries 2129 NE Broadway St 503-477-5514

Portland Coffee Roasters Direct Trade Coffees in a Beautiful Space 815 SE Oak St 503-334-4685

Proud Mary Specialty Coffee & Aussie Fare 2012 NE Alberta St 503-208-3475

Push X Pull Unique Coffee Offerings & Craft Beverages 821 SE Stark St pushxpullcoffee.com

GETTING AROUND Between public transportation, Lyft/Uber, and its walkability/bikeability, Portland is extremely accessible, even without a car.

The MAX light rail and buses (www.trimet.org) provide transportation throughout the city, including stops at the Convention Center, while the Portland Streetcar (www. portlandstreetcar.org) stops at the convention center every 15 minutes.

Depending on the weather, you can also consider renting bicycles through Biketown (www.biketownpdx.com).

PHOTOS: FACEBOOK @TAMALEBOYPDX, INSTAGRAM @TWISTED_CROISSANT, INSTAGRAM @WATERAVECOFFEE, POWELL’S BY ANDI WHISKEY

Powell’s City of Books No trip to Portland is complete without visiting the largest independent bookstore 1005 W Burnside St www.powells.com

Tom McCall Waterfront Park Walk or ride bikes along this park in downtown Portland that stretches along the Willamette 98 SW Naito Pkwy www.portlandoregon.gov/parks

Washington Park Home to the Oregon Zoo, Portland Children’s Museum, World Forestry Center, Hoyt Arboretum, Portland Japanese Garden, and International Rose Test Garden, with plenty of walking paths in between 4033 SW Canyon Rd www.explorewashingtonpark.org FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 39

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PHOTOS CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SUSTAINABLE HARVEST, MERCANTA, OPTCO, ATLAS COFFEE IMPORTERS, SHARED SOURCE

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Sustainable Sourcing

S

ustainability, as it relates to the coffee industry, is a broad term, and it can mean many things, from ethical pricing and environmental stewardship to energy-efficient production and green packaging.

But for many companies on the front lines of sustainable practices, the term—and the mission behind it— begins, primarily, by prioritizing fair dealings with farmers.

JORGE CUEVAS (center) with farmers at Sustainable Harvest’s Most Valuable Producer training event in Nicaragua.

BEGINNING WITH A MISSION Portland, Oregon-based, specialtygrade green coffee importer Sustainable Harvest, which launched in 1997, “was never truly formed to be a coffee trading company first,” says Jorge Cuevas, the company’s chief coffee officer. “It was designed and built to be a company to deliver positive economic or social impact to coffee-growing communities.”

In other words, the leadership team at Sustainable Harvest views the coffee trade as a mechanism for doing good, rather than the end goal in and of itself.

“We never buy or sell coffee for the sake of it,” says Cuevas. “There’s always a higher purpose.”

For Sustainable Harvest, that higher purpose manifests in avoiding commodity pricing and focusing on areas where the company can add value to the coffee supply chain.

“Sometimes it may mean [seeking] certifications—Organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, or any variation of those,” says Cuevas. “Sometimes it may mean [supporting] project coffees, like Youth Initiative or NextGen coffees— supporting folks 35 and under getting into coffee farming—which are coming on very strong.”

FAIR PRICING One critical way that mission-minded companies can add value to the coffee supply chain is, of course, by paying fair, sustainable prices for the coffees they are sourcing.

“We don’t buy anything below $1.80/pound. None, ever. That’s going back years,” says Stephen Hurst,

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who launched Mercanta, a United Kingdom-based specialty coffee supplier, in 1996. (Mercanta’s North American base opened in Seattle in 2006.) Today, the company has relationships with growers in 20 countries and sells to roasters in 40 countries across the globe.

“The only way to guarantee a fair and sustainable outright final contract price is to only buy at outright prices, and that is what Mercanta does. Our global average purchase price actually ranges annually between $2.25 and $2.50/pound and is currently easily double the current commodity price for coffee,” Hurst wrote last April in a Mercanta blog post explaining the company’s dedication to price guarantees.

Speaking recently by phone, Hurst further stressed his conviction that the current commodity price is simply too low for farmers to make a sustainable living wage.

“Ninety percent of the business is probably done on the commodity market,” he says. “People say, ‘That’s the way of the business, and everybody does it like that.’ But I disagree.”

“Being a good buyer means paying above market prices,” agrees Michelle Stoler, who handles green coffee purchasing and sales for Shared Source,

a coffee buying team based in Melbourne, Australia, with U.S. operations in Portland, Oregon.

Shared Source’s team works to build candid dialogue with farmers in the four countries from which they currently source (Guatemala, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Kenya) to understand precisely “what kinds of prices they need not just to cover their costs of production but also to invest in their farms—and not just to invest in their work, but to thrive,” says Stoler.

Similarly, at Atlas Coffee Importers based in Seattle, the company “pays a price that’s not based on the market for the vast majority” of its coffees, says founder and CEO Craig Holt. “It’s based on cost production plus profitability.

Working with growers, we find out what’s the baseline of their profitability, and we set our floor prices there.”

BUILDING REAL RELATIONSHIPS Most mission-oriented importers agree: a sustainable coffee supply chain, in all its dimensions and tangents, can’t exist unless it first begins in a relationship with farmers based on trust and fairness.

“For us, being a good buyer means a lot of things, but specifically, returning

PHOTO BY BRYAN CLIFTON

Sustainable Sourcing

MERCANTA: (from left) Alda, Megan, Juan, and Stephen at the Finca La Falda mill in Colombia.

year after year so that producers can count on us to make purchases from them,” says Stoler.

Building long-term partnerships with growers is key, agrees Holt.

“We are able to have very close personal relationships with our growers around the world,” he says. “We are

44 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

able to see—viscerally, physically— what’s happening on the ground.”

Holt referenced Atlas’ more than 15 years of work in Colombia as one example of the partnerships at the heart of his coffee sourcing. There, a community of farmers previously involved in the illicit coca trade have transitioned

into coffee thanks to a USAID initiative and other support.

“Their quality when we first bought it wasn’t good. We paid them well over the going rate for the coffee. And their first container wasn’t sellable at the price we paid,” says Holt. “We took a loss on it.

“But over the years, we kept working with them,” he continues. “We went back time and again over the years, and the growers embraced that education.”

At Vancouver, Washington-based Organic Products Trading Company (OPTCO), a commitment to long-term partnerships with farmers has been a hallmark of the company’s mission since its beginnings in 1990.

“Having a relationship with smallscale farmers, having a commitment to return year after year, that has always been our focus and our niche,” says OPTCO’s Connie Kolosvary. “We started working with our partners in Peru in the early 1990s, and they continue to

PHOTO COURTESY OF MERCANTA

OPTCO AND CAFÉ FEMENINO: Producer Paula Chavez Gómez in Naranjo, Peru.

be our biggest partners to this day, though we’re now in 14 countries.”

By investing in relationships that stand the test of time, a true trust develops between growers and buyers.

“There have been some hard years and some good years, but the long-term relationships help both sides get through them together,” says Kolosvary.

EDUCATION & TRAINING Through education outreach, coffee importers and buyers can help farmers equip themselves to earn higher per-pound prices attainable through the premium and specialty-grade coffee markets.

Shared Source, which prioritizes working with smallholder producers rather than large-scale coffee growing operations, often works to help its farmers transition away from synthetic fungicides and chemical-based fertilizers toward a more organic, “closed-loop” style of production, says Stoler.

Similarly, Sustainable Harvest is a “heavy believer in training and capacity building,” says Cuevas, noting that the company’s Coffee Quality Institute (CQI)-certified trainer has led workshops across the world to help farmers “learn how to do processing innovations responsibly—science-based and methodically.”

Similarly, Holt has been a frequent CQI Coffee Corps volunteer, helping to lead training and education at farm level, particularly for smaller growers “who actually haven’t gotten the quality there where they can get good money for it yet,” he says.

PHOTO BY JAN WEIGEL

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 45

Sustainable Sourcing So that its growers don’t have to shoulder the burden of production improvements alone, Shared Source often provides pre-financing to its producers ahead of the harvest season.

“We want to be able to help cover their economic needs ahead of time,” explains Stoler.

WORM JUICE rich with beneficial bacteria helps restore soil health while reducing the need for synthetic chemicals.

ADVOCATING FOR NEW GROWERS Part of the power of the coffee trade is its ability to open doors and new possibilities for farmers, particularly for those newly entering the industry.

Café Femenino, an initiative launched by OPTCO in 2003, works with women coffee farmers across the world as a means of ending cycles of poverty and domestic violence in their communities.

“We wanted to create an entity that was its own brand that would give women coffee farmers the focus, and it would also give them money and change their status [in their communities],” says Kolosvary, who directs the program.

Born out of OPTCO’s partnership with Peruvian farmers, the key goal of Café Femenino was “to get money into the women’s hands, which they could have some control of for the very first time in their lives,” she adds.

Café Femenino now partners with women growers in fair trade cooperatives across nine countries.

Through the partnerships, women have not only gained a source of their own income, but also leadership opportunities in the coffee cooperatives—and a platform that allows them to articulate the social and infrastructure needs of their local communities.

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PHOTO: INSTAGRAM @SHAREDSOURCE

Moreover, the initiative has significantly enhanced the women’s individual quality of life.

“Over the years, we have seen a significant decrease in domestic abuse and sexual abuse in the communities that our cooperatives work within,” says Kolosvary. “[This is] coffee that’s actually doing something good. A paradigm shift is happening.”

ATLAS COFFEE IMPORTERS cupping at Kenya Cooperative Coffee Exporters.

FINDING A LIKE-MINDED HOME In addition to their commitment to sustainable sourcing, the companies interviewed for this piece all have another commonality: they’re all based, either primarily or via their North American hub, in the Pacific Northwest.

The region, it seems, both energizes and attracts sustainably-minded businesses.

“People in the Pacific Northwest have a really good approach to quality of life, and there’s an interest in things that are done well,” says Holt. “I think that’s one reason that coffee has a home up here, and why, specifically, quality coffee has a home up here.”

Stoler agrees.

“I’d say that there’s a culture in the Pacific Northwest of thoughtfulness,” she says. “There’s a desire to poke at the meaning of what you’re doing beyond just profit, and beyond just making money for the sake of making money. There seems to be a culture here of interrogating the ripple effect of what you’re doing. I think that culturally progressive mindset has worked its way into the business mindset here.” FC

PHOTO: INSTAGRAM @ATLAS_COFFEE

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PHOTO COURTESY OF TAKING ROOT

“T

here is no such thing as one sustainable business,” stated entrepreneur Judy Wicks in her October 2014 lecture, “Building a New Economy: What’s Love Got to Do With It?” “No matter how many great practices we have in our company—recycling, paying a living wage, solar hot water—we can only be part of a sustainable system, and we have to share and cooperate in order to build that sustainable system.”

As individual coffee roasting and café companies take responsibility for the carbon footprint of their operations and supply chains, they are together constructing a larger sustainable system that both reduces new emissions and sequesters existing carbon.

“When roasting [and other coffee] businesses want to reduce their impact on climate change,” says Guillaume Nadeau, Deputy Director General of Sherbrooke, Canada-based agroforestry project developer ECOTIERRA, “there are a few steps to follow: identify emissions sources, quantify emissions, reduce emissions where possible, and offset emissions with the voluntary purchase of carbon credits.”

IDENTIFY SOURCES & QUANTIFY EMISSIONS

MANSICO, NICARAGUA: Farmer Justina Gutierrez Munos carries saplings to reforest her land as part of Taking Root’s carbon project.

In Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, that’s just what Amavida Coffee Roasters has done for their wholesale roastery and four café locations. Amavida is one of the 24 members of the Americus, Georgia importer Cooperative Coffees and has been a certified B Corporation since 2014.

“Our journey with carbon goes back to when we started with the B Corp,” says founder Dan Bailey. “I remember reading about ‘Do you measure carbon?’

Fast-forward many years and we made incremental improvements to our company in the various tenets B Corp advocates of being a responsible business.”

Further inspired by Cooperative Coffees’ initiative to measure the impact of carbon from grower to roaster, two years ago Amavida set out to answer the question, “What would it take to become a carbon neutral company?”

The exercise of calculating emissions—from employee commutes to electricity usage—obligates businesses to take a close look at their operations. Like all accounting, this process defines which activities are most costly, here in carbon terms, and requires parameters to ultimately strike a balance.

“You have a choice with what you will measure,” explains Will Sheldon, Commercial Director for Vancouverbased not-for-profit Taking Root. “It’s called scoping, asking, ‘What am I going to take responsibility for?’”

According to the standards outlined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, “Scope 1 emissions are direct

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 49

Becoming a Carbon Responsible Coffee Business emissions from owned or controlled sources. Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy. Scope 3 emissions are all indirect emissions (not included in scope 2) that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emissions.”

In New York, Driftaway Coffee used a free calculator from the nonprofit Carbonfund.org as a tool to calculate their emissions.

“Initially, we thought we would hire an outside agency or consultant, but we wanted to dive in ourselves and learn what our largest areas of emissions were and how to mitigate them ourselves. We spent time mapping out the workflow to calculate our carbon footprint,” says Suyog Mody, one of Driftaway’s cofounders. “We have a unique business model when it comes to coffee, with 100% e-commerce operations, so we have quite a customized calculator.”

Jeremy Manion, Carbon Development Manager for Corporate Partnerships at Arbor Day Foundation, a reforestationfocused nonprofit based in Lincoln, Nebraska, recommends the CoolClimate Network calculators developed by University of California, Berkeley.

“We use those to help individuals and small to medium businesses get a general sense of where they are from a footprint standpoint,” he says. Larger corporations, especially publicly traded companies, undergo formal carbon accounting to make verified claims to their shareholders. “Assessing emissions, especially in land use sectors— agriculture to beverage companies—is rapidly evolving. Historically, most companies haven’t tracked emissions from land use change.”

Deforestation is a major source of drastic changes to the natural landscape, which, he adds, “applies directly to coffee and the rest of the agricultural sector.”

For roasters and retailers, emissions from coffee production land use belong to Scope 3. Carbon responsibility starts back at Scope 1, with what a business can directly control.

50 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

ECOTIERRA: Jose Tinoco and Manuel Villalobos Perez map out future plantings in Peru.

“Most people think it’s complicated,” says Bailey of Amavida. “What we discovered is that we have to simplify it. If we’re not careful, perfection will be the enemy of progress here.”

The measurement stage can become complex, but companies can also use free calculators and industry averages to arrive at initial numbers.

“Offsetting should be done like your tax return”—annually at the end of the year, suggests Nadeau. The measurement stage is most important in that it identifies key areas to target in the next step: reduction.

REDUCE EMISSIONS WHERE POSSIBLE Jennifer Pawlik, the Program Manager and Benefit Officer at Amavida says, “Each of us has done something this week that made a reduction. We were just making decisions about packaging. Can we buy it down the road versus having it shipped in?”

“[At Driftaway], we’ve made a conscious decision to partner with reputable importers instead of visiting every coffee farm we source from and maintaining communication online as much as possible,” says Mody. “We roast 75% of our coffee on an incredibly efficient Loring Kestrel S35. This keeps our Scope 1 emissions from roasting to an absolute minimum.”

For companies that do want to tackle their Scope 3 emissions, Nadeau highly recommends sourcing organic coffee.

“In monoculture and conventional agriculture,” he says, “there is a loss in soil quality and carbon in the soil” that is released. Non-organic farming has additional emissions from fertilizers and agrochemicals that are eliminated when sourcing organic.

Sheldon at Taking Root stresses the importance of digging into reductions before considering offsets.

“If you look at recent IPCC reports, not only do we need to get every

PHOTO COURTESY OF ECOTIERRA

Becoming a Carbon Responsible Coffee Business organization in the world to zero emissions, but we also need to remove a carbon from the air,” he says. “It is far better to not emit in the first place than to emit and then offset.”

AMAVIDA COFFEE ROASTERS is part of COOPERATIVE COFFEES, which works with Sol Y Café Cooperative in Peru.

OFFSET REMAINING EMISSIONS Offsets, also called carbon credits, represent one metric tonne of carbon that has either been removed from the atmosphere through sequestration or prevented from entering the atmosphere through avoidance. Sequestration often takes the form of reforestation and afforestation (planting new forests) while conservation prevents emissions from deforestation and degradation.

As Arbor Day’s Manion mentioned, agriculture is a major global driver of emissions from land degradation and deforestation. This also makes agriculture an industry well positioned to change its land use patterns in order to reduce emissions and ultimately capture carbon—which is precisely what project developers like ECOTIERRA aim to do by integrating agroforestry with the production of carbon offsets.

“A good carbon offset for us,” says Nadeau, “is an offset certified by a recognized certification standard like the Verified Carbon Standard; an expost offset from past carbon capture of emission reduction versus an exante carbon offset from future carbon capture or emission reduction, and from a project with positive social and environmental impacts.”

Nadeau likens the difference between ex-post and ex-ante credits as comparable to buying produce at a farmers market versus buying a share of a CSA to receive produce later. Carbon credits of both kinds can be traded (bought and sold) on the voluntary carbon market. Once they are sold to an “end user” as an offset, they are “retired” from the market. Retirement is documented in a public registry to prevent double counting. The certification process for carbon credit production is like that for coffee production, with a nonprofit

52 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

organization setting the standard and approved, accredited auditing companies checking against the standards.

Projects must both be validated in plan and verified in execution.

Marisa de Belloy, CEO of the nonprofit Cool Effect in Greenbrae, California, explains that “when purchasing an offset, it’s important to look for transparency in pricing details including due diligence documents to accurately track where your money is going.”

De Belloy cites the Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard, Climate Action Reserve, and American Carbon Registry as some of the world’s major carbon standards.

Beyond the act of purchasing an offset, Taking Root realized that “we had carbon offset buyers who were saying to us, ‘We’ve got this thing called a carbon credit, but it’s invisible. How do we know the impact?’’’ says Sheldon.

“So we created a tool called FarmTrace.”

Properties are mapped in the field as polygons on a mobile app that is connected to satellite imagery and other databases.

“We run machine learning algorithms so that we can automatically interpret and report against the

carbon stored and forest cover on the farm,” he says. “We can track impact on an ongoing basis.”

STAYING CLOSE TO THE VALUE CHAIN Coffee companies looking to offset their carbon footprint remaining after reductions can chose projects close to the coffee value chain.

“There are some cheap carbon offsets,” says Bailey at Amavida. “You can find them as low as three dollars per tonne. We pay almost twenty dollars per tonne for the quality of the program. We decided to partner with Taking Root because they’re doing land management programs and resiliency projects with coffee growers.”

“We finalized our partnership in September 2019,” adds Pawlik. “As a partner, we’ve offset for the whole organization,” meaning both the roastery and the cafés.

Meanwhile, Driftaway chose to collaborate with Cool Effect to offset its carbon footprint. “The [Peru Alto Mayo Protected Forest] project that we chose for our offsets is one that will help with carbon absorption and releasing oxygen, but it is close to

PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAVIDA COFFEE ROASTERS

DRIFTAWAY works with COOL EFFECT on the Peru Alto Mayo Protected Forest project.

our coffee hearts since it trains over 600 families to improve coffee yields,” says Mody.

Proximity to the value chain works the other way, too. Arbor Day Foundation is a major purchaser of carbon credits generated by agroforestry projects that also produce other crops, like coffee, and Arbor Day has long roasted and sold Arbor Day Coffee both to hospitality clients and directly to consumers.

“Sourcing from [ECOTIERRA’s Café Selva Norte project in Peru] demonstrates our commitment to the system of carbon insetting. If we’re purchasing carbon credits, we should be purchasing the coffee and leading by example in that process,” says Jon Ferguson, Arbor Day’s Coffee Specialist. On his sourcing trips, Ferguson has seen how farmers from Honduras to Peru fight to preserve their forests and to protect land that is actively managed or held in preserves from deforestation.

The insetting Ferguson refers to—building carbon offsets into a value chain, such as coffee production—is moving in the direction Wicks describes, where businesses work together to build a system that is sustainable in its cooperation. This way, something as daunting as responsibility for carbon emissions for the full coffee supply chain becomes the shared responsibility of every link. FC

PHOTO COURTESY OF COOL EFFECT

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 53

THE AVONTUUR sailing off the coast of Cuba.

54 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF TIMBERCOAST

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 55

Trade Winds

HEADS UP: Hoisting coffee from Honduras.

D

o you know how your coffee gets to you? You probably know which country it comes from; perhaps you even know the name of the farmer. The modern specialty coffee industry is adept at informing the consumer of all the varied aspects of the supply chain—from farm to mill, roaster to café. But there’s a step usually left out, a step that is so ubiquitous in modern trade that it is barely thought about: shipping.

The shipping industry is enormous and opaque, spanning the globe in a headache-inducing web of interconnected companies and middlemen, individual ships flying the flags of distant tax havens and huge fleets of floating cities. The vast majority of our products and commodities are transported via these behemoths, from all across the world, out of sight and out of mind.

While ocean shipping is more efficient than air or rail freight, it also accounts

56 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

for the vast majority of worldwide cargo transportation. And shipping is a notoriously dirty business: the shipping industry accounts for at least three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and by 2050, if left unchecked, could produce as much as 17%.

“International shipping is a major contributor to climate change,” says Simon Bullock, a PhD researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester in England. “It emits more carbon dioxide a year than Germany.” That’s not to mention other contamination, from wastewater to oil spills and localized air pollution.

With so much discussion within the coffee industry around the issues of climate change and sustainability, it is difficult to ignore the gigantic container ship in the room. But coffee has to get from point A to point B. With the realities of modern commerce and the

climate crisis, is there an alternative to cargo ships?

SAILBOATS: AN ANCIENT SOLUTION TO A MODERN PROBLEM Timbercoast, a German-based company that transports cargo across the Atlantic using its schooner Avontuur, is one of a small but growing number of enterprises looking to challenge the established shipping industry by offering a greener way to transport coffee.

Founded by master mariner Cornelius Bockermann, Timbercoast has been sailing rum, tea, wine, and other commodities back and forth from Bremen to Honduras, Mexico, and Canada for the past few years.

After finding the Avontuur in 2014 and refitting it with the help of more than 160 volunteers, the team began looking for cargo to transport. Ben Decosse, Director of Business Develop-

PHOTO BY DANIELA BUCHOLZ

ment at Timbercoast, says that coffee was always at the forefront of the company’s plans. [Editor’s note: Shortly before going to press, Decosse announced his departure from Timbercoast.]

“Coffee has always seemed to be one of those cutting-edge products that is looking to always better itself,” says Decosse, “and so we started knocking on a lot of coffee importers’ doors. We ended up buying some rum, because no one would ship stuff with us and we only needed to go down to the Canary Islands to do it.” Once in the Canary Islands, they were contracted to pick up 20 tons of coffee in Honduras, and set sail across the Atlantic.

The Avontuur, which means “adventure” in Dutch, can carry approximately 80 tons of coffee in its hold, according to Decosse. By comparison, the average 20-foot shipping container holds roughly 22 tons of green coffee, and the largest ships can haul thousands of containers at a time. Sailboat-based shipping, therefore, is not going to be competing with the big companies any time soon.

SLOW COFFEE Timbercoast’s might be a niche market, but their mission has inspired a loyal following. Slokoffie is a Bremen-based coffee company that was established specifically to import and

PHOTO COURTESY OF TIMBERCOAST

PRECIOUS CARGO aboard the Avontuur.

roast coffee via the Avontuur. Thomas Riedel-Fricke, alongside cofounder Maik Hembluck, was inspired to start Slokoffie after helping with the rebuild of the Avontuur and becoming motivated by the prospect of carbon neutral shipping. When it became clear that nobody else was going to fund the ship’s first voyage across the Atlantic, Riedel-Fricke and Hembluck founded Slokoffie and contracted 20 tons of coffee from Honduras.

“Both of us [were] thrilled by the idea to sail cargo, to accomplish ocean transportation in a completely environmentally friendly manner,” says Riedel-

Fricke. “No exhaust gases, no noise pollution in the water, just powered by wind and current.”

Taking a chance on 20 tons of coffee with zero coffee experience was a gamble, but today Slokoffie is planning their next shipment and is making new contacts in Colombia as they look to expand their offerings.

The movement towards carbon-free shipping is a small one, with only a handful of companies currently helming cargo sailboats; but with the increasing focus on the climate crisis and the vast amount of pollution caused by the shipping status quo it is sure to increase. To

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 57

Trade Winds

THE AVONTUUR at sea. The crew unloads bags of coffee at port (below).

aid this expansion, a European initiative is seeking to build small cargo hubs within ports around the North Sea to allow local businesses direct access to sustainably-shipped goods.

For Decosse, the sight of the tiny Avontuur sailing into port beside hulking cargo ships is a perfect encapsulation of what they are up against.

“These container ships, they can only dodge the world’s attention for so long before real change needs to take place,” he says. “There’s a lot of pressure starting to unfold on them because they’re burning the worst fuels, [fuels] that are illegal on land. Something has to give— if they’re not going to do it we need to do it. We need to create the demand, we need to raise the awareness.”

Honduras alone exported nearly 160,000 tons of specialty coffee in 2016, most of it by sea. For comparison, it would take the Avontuur 2,000 trips to transport all that coffee to Germany.

Obviously, small-scale schooners are not going to solve the problem of cargo shipping alone; it will take creativity from

58 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

innovators, oversight from regulatory bodies, and commitment on the part of traditional shipping companies to enact real change.

THE FUTURE OF OCEAN TRANSPORT Can sailboat shipping be part of the solution, at least on a small scale?

“Shipping needs to decarbonize,” says Bullock, “and sails are part of the solution. Although sail-only ships are unlikely to replace a large proportion of oceanic trade, sail-assisted ships can deliver major gains in energy efficiency.”

At Timbercoast, they are taking this advice and looking to the future. In collaboration with students at Oldenburg University, Decosse says they are drawing up plans for a modern sailboat, one that would hugely increase their carrying capabilities while utilizing automatic sales and potentially hydrogen technology.

“That would be 330 containers and zero emissions,” explains Decosse.

“This is the kind of direction that we’re heading in at the moment—if we’re fast, that ship can be in the water in five years.”

Until then, the Avontuur and other small schooners will continue to navigate around leviathan cargo ships, using the trade winds to carry coffee, cocoa, and rum across the Atlantic in the most sustainable way currently possible. FC

TOP PHOTO COURTESY OF TIMBERCOAST, BOTTOM PHOTO BY FELIX KLABE

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 59

Counter Intelligence

Shake It Up, Baby, Now Twist & Seal Stainless Tumbler SX-FSE45 Zojirushi Zojirushi.com This vacuum-insulated stainless tumbler keeps your drink hot or cold, while keeping the exterior from getting hot and minimizing condensation. The twist-and-seal, spill-resistant lid has a removable tea leaf strainer for direct brewing and sipping. Matte finish interior makes scratches and stains less visible while minimizing odors and stains. Fifteen-ounce capacity, available in four colors.

Get Bissy Workin’ 9 to 5

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in Nigeria.

60 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

FRESH BUSINESSES & PRODUCTS

Spice It Up, Single-Origin Style Single-origin Spices Diaspora Co.

Not Bitter About Bitters

DiasporaCo.com Single-origin spice options are here with Diaspora Co.,

Bitters & Soda

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The Bitter Housewife

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flavorful, and fragrant. Its Aranya Pepper delivers

Zero-proof beverages never tasted so good! The Bitter

rich, fruity complexity with a balanced heat, while the

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Pragati Turmeric is the new “golden standard” with

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Cap-tea-vating Designs NEWBY x Matthew Williamson Newby Teas of London NewbyTeas.us Drink tea like royalty with the new NEWBY x Matthew Williamson line! Williamson is a cutting-edge designer known for his striking use of patterns and color, influenced by nature. This limited-edition collection features Maharaja’s Breakfast Black Tea, Exotic Earl Grey Black Tea, and Jasmine Rose Garden Green Tea. With floral, botanical, honey-like tasting notes, these teas are as captivating as the packaging, which draws from the heritage of the Rajasthan region of India, all featured in watercolors and eye-catching colors.

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 61

Counter Intelligence

Who Run The World?

“Girls Run the World” Roast Gorongosa Coffee GorongosaCoffee.com Give back while drinking coffee with a brand that gives 100% of its profits to support the people, wildlife, and environment around Mozambique’s Mount Gorongosa rainforest. Gorongosa Coffee roasts specialty coffee grown from small-scale producers, with the mountain’s soil supporting a highquality Arabica coffee bean. Its “Girls Run the World” medium roast supports initiatives to benefit girls education in communities surrounding Gorongosa National Park, and features milk chocolate, lemon, and toasted almond notes.

Available in 12-oz. and 5-lb. bags.

62 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

Flip It Good Flip-and-Go Stainless Mug Zojirushi Zojirushi.com Taking your Zojirushi Flip-and-Go Stainless Mug is now easier than ever.

The handle flips up for a convenient carry and folds down for a comfortable hold. The one-touch flip-open lid with easy-to-operate slide lock keeps the lid from accidentally opening when placed in a bag. The interior is SlickSteel polished, which resists corrosion and repels stain. Available in four colors, in 16- and 20-oz. capacities.

FC

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 63

Trade Show & Events CALENDAR APRIL 19-20

APRIL 21-23

APRIL 23-26

APRIL 24-26

NW FOOD SHOW

RE:CO SYMPOSIUM

SPECIALTY COFFEE EXPO

US COFFEE CHAMPIONSHIPS

Portland, OR

Portland, OR

Portland, OR

Portland, OR

nwfoodshow.com

recosymposium.org

coffeeexpo.org

uscoffee championships.org

MAY 8-17

MAY 16-19

JUNE 8-11

JUNE 17

KA’U COFFEE FESTIVAL

NRA SHOW

WORLD TEA EXPO

Ka’u, HI

Chicago, IL

Denver, CO

4C GLOBAL SUSTAINABILTY CONFERENCE

kaucoffeefestival.com

show.restaurant.org

worldteaexpo.com

Warsaw, Poland 4c-services.org

JUNE 26-28

JULY 23-26

AUGUST 9-11

AUGUST 9-11

COFFEE FEST

LONDON COFFEE FESTIVAL

COFFEE FEST

Chicago, IL

London, United Kingdom

Anaheim, CA

WESTERN FOODSERVICE & HOSPITALITY EXPO

coffeefest.com

Anaheim, CA

coffeefest.com

london coffeefestival.com

westernfoodexpo.com

AUGUST 13-15

SEPTEMBER 5-7

SEPTEMBER 16-19

SEPTEMBER 20-21

HONG KONG INTERNATIONAL TEA FAIR

PARIS COFFEE SHOW

GOLDEN BEAN

Paris, France

Hong Kong

goldenbean.com

THE CANADIAN COFFEE & TEA SHOW

pariscoffeeshow.fr

event.hktdc.com/fair/ hkteafair-en

64 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

Tempe, AZ

Toronto, Canada coffeeteashow.ca

SEPTEMBER 22-23

SEPTEMBER 24-26

OCTOBER 9-11

OCTOBER 15-17

FLORIDA RESTAURANT & LODGING SHOW

EXPO CAFE MEXICO

NEW YORK COFFEE FESTIVAL

WORLD OF COFFEE

Mexico City, Mexico

New York City, NY

Warsaw, Poland

Orlando, FL

tradex.mx/expocafe

newyork coffeefestival.com

worldofcoffee.org

OCTOBER 19-22

OCTOBER 22-24

OCTOBER 24-25

OCTOBER 31-NOV. 2

PIR EXPO Moscow, Russia

TRIESTESPRESSO EXPO

COFFEE FEST

pirexpo.com

Trieste, Italy

Tacoma, WA

CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL TEA FESTIVAL

triestespresso.it

coffeefest.com

Chicago, IL

flrestaurantand lodgingshow.com

citfest.com

NOVEMBER 3-6

NOVEMBER 3-6

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COFFEE EXPO

WORLD BARISTA CHAMPIONSHIP Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne, Australia

worldcoffeeevents.org

internationalcoffee expo.com.au

NOVEMBER 3-6

NOVEMBER 4-7

WORLD BREWERS CUP

CAFE SHOW SEOUL

Melbourne, Australia

Seoul, South Korea

worldcoffeeevents.org

cafeshow.com

FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 65

Advertiser Index

To view our advertiser list and visit the websites listed below, go to freshcup.com/resources/fresh-cup-advertisers

ADVERTISER

CONTACT ONLINE

AeroPress

650.493.3050 aeropress.com

PAGE 47

Amavida Coffee Roasters

850.213.1965

amavida.com

59

Barista Pro Shop

866.776.5288

baristaproshop.com/ad/fresh

14

Bellissimo Coffee Advisors

800.655.3955

coffeebusiness.com

57

Big Train

844.537.7937

kerryfoodservice.com

16

Cafe Creations

800.242.2423

cafecreations@hphood.com

Café Femenino Foundation

360.901.8322

cffoundation.org

51

Caffe D’arte

800.999.5334

2

caffedarte.com

46

Canadian Barista & Coffee Academy

canadianbaristaacademy.com

59

The Canadian Coffee & Tea Show

877.687.7321

coffeeteashow.ca

63

Caravan Coffee

503.538.7365

caravancoffee.com

30

Coffee Fest

425.295.3300

coffeefest.com

37

Coffee Kids

team@coffeekids.org

coffeekids.org

65

Curtis

800.421.6150 wilburcurtis.com

67

Davinci Gourmet

844.537.7937

17

Descamex

844.472.8429 descamex.com.mx

53

Ditting

810.367.7125 ditting.com

34

Divinitea

518.347.0689 divinitea.com

59

Dr. Smoothie

888.466.9941

drsmoothie.com

Food 4 Farmers

802.497.3304

food4farmers.org

30

Fresh Cup Magazine

503.236.2587

freshcup.com

62

Ghirardelli Chocolate

800.877.9338

ghirardelli.com/professional

68

Golden Bean

503.706.1330

goldenbean.com

Gosh That’s Good! Brand

888.848.GOSH (4674)

goshthatsgood.com

11

Grounds For Health

802.876.7835

groundsforhealth.org

46

iFill Systems

360.574.7737

ifillcup.com

45

Malabar Gold Espresso

650.366.5453

malabargoldespresso.com

27

Monin

800.966.5225

monin.com

Open Seas Coffee Roasters

443.924.6045

openseascoffee.com

57

Oregon Chai

844.537.7937

kerryfoodservice.com

16

Pacific Foods of Oregon

503.692.9666

pacificfoods.com/foodservice

Press Coffee

602.391.9340

presscoffee.com

32

Say When Beverages

604.940.9887

justsaywhen.com

43

SelbySoft

800.454.4434 selbysoft.com

31

SerendipiTea

888.TEA.LIFE (832.5433)

serendipitea.com

59

Service Ideas

800.328.4493

serviceideas.com

47

Steeped Coffee

831.316.4898

steepedcoffee.com/business

15

StixToGo

800.435.6789 stixtogo.com

33

Sustainable Harvest

503.235.1119

sustainableharvest.com

35

Theta Ridge Coffee

800.745.8738

thetaridgecoffee.com

59

Tiki Breeze

206.612.8030

tikibreeze.com

59

Toddy

970.493.0788

coldbrewcupping.com

Torani

800.775.1925

torani.com/puremade

Turkish Coffee Lady

202.492.4429

turkishcoffeelady.com

53

World Tea Conference + Expo

866.458.4935

worldteaexpo.com

44

Your Brand Cafe

866.566.0390

yourbrandcafe.com

29

Zojirushi America

800.264.6270

zojirushi.com

14

66 ] APRIL 2020 » freshcup.com

kerryfoodservice.com

24, 25

4

3

5

31 8, 9