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Coffee

Caffe Luxxe Adds Rare Rock Photos

Via Roast Magazine:

If you like American craft-roasted coffee, neighborhood cafés with European design sensibility in sunny SoCal, and early British pop-rock of the mid-1960s inspired by the American blues traditions of the decades prior, have we got the thing for you.

One of contemporary coffee trailblazers in the Los Angeles area, Caffe Luxxe is celebrating its 10th anniversary this July. As part of the celebration, the company founded by Gary Chau and Mark Wain is presenting a curated collection of rare photographs of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

The Beatles — the most popular rock band in the history of the world — managed to stay together for just 10 years, adding a certain notability to Luxxe’s accomplishments thus far. The company’s Los Angeles roasting headquarters continues to supply the two Luxxe locations in Brentwood, as well as the Santa Monica café, where the photographs will be on display for an opening reception on Thursday, July 21, from 6-8 p.m., and will remain at the shop through October.

“This is an unprecedented exclusive opportunity for all fans of The Beatles and Rolling Stones to see what experts have called the most important never-before-seen archive of rock and roll photographs ever discovered — here in our neighborhood cafe in Santa Monica,” Chau and Wain said in an announcement of the exhibit, which coincides with Santa Monica’s one-night Montana Avenue Art Walk & Music Festival.

Full article here.

Coffee, Sustainable Farming

Coffee Farmers and the SCAA Sustainability Council

Labor is a key factor for the success and viability of the coffee industry, yet farms are currently struggling to recruit and retain field hands due in part to urban migration and low incentives for performing rural work.

Aware of this problem, the SCAA Sustainability Council has been developing a strategy in order to gain a greater understanding of the situation and intended to inform the industry in general. One component of this strategy was the commissioning of a study that could answer the following questions:

How is the situation of field hands who work on coffee farms perceived by both producers and workers, taking into account such factors as labor conditions, wages (expectations vs. paid), dangerous work-related activities, housing conditions when they reside on the farm, compliance with labor laws, and understanding their contribution to coffee quality?

How distant is the actual situation of farmworkers from that stipulated by national labor requirements?

What are the main threats and opportunities that workers and producers see for the coffee industry in the current or future situations of farm workers?

What strategies do corporate and family farms employ to recruit and retain their labor? What are the most common mistakes coffee estates make that lead to farmworker attrition­?

What can the coffee chain do to support the retention and motivation of the workforce?

From the workers’ viewpoint, what do they most value when deciding to keep working on a farm?

Full article here: Coffee Farmworkers: The Next Step, from Research to Action | Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine

Coffee, Sustainable Farming

Let’s Talk Coffee : Mexico

Early bird registration is now open for Let’s Talk Coffee Global, the annual industry event produced by green coffee importer Sustainable Harvest.

After missing a year due to logistical issues, the 13th edition of the event will take place this year Oct. 13-16 at the CasaMagna Marriott in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The event brings together stakeholders from throughout the coffee supply network, including producers, roasters, financiers and others for collaborative thought-sharing and relationship building, while the program focuses on pressing issues throughout the industry.

“Program content will include an exploration of roya and other challenges to Mexico’s coffee supply chain, as well as sessions on innovations in micro-lot differentiation, effective branding lessons from other industries, women’s leadership in coffee production, and much more,” Sustainable Harvest said in an announcement yesterday.

Let’s Talk Coffee typically includes optional field trips to coffee farms. This year, event-goers have the option to tour a Chiapas coffee farm, or they may opt for a trip to Tequila to tour agave farms and learn about tequila production.

Source: Registration Opens for Let’s Talk Coffee Mexico | Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine

Coffee, Sustainable Farming

Farmworker Inclusion: The New Frontier

The specialty coffee industry has earned a sterling reputation for social inclusion through more than two decades of relentless innovation to develop strategies for meaningful, transparent and mutually beneficial engagement with smallholder growers. The smallholder farmers who have helped to create, implement, refine and improve those strategies over the past 25 years are certainly worthy of the industry’s attention. They produce most of the world’s coffee and are structurally disadvantaged in a global marketplace that rewards efficiency and scale.

But the tens of millions of people who work as wage-earners on coffee farms around the world each year represent the most vulnerable actors in specialty coffee supply chains, and they have mostly existed outside the scope of those efforts. Today, intentional engagement with farmworkers and issues of farm labor in the coffee sector represents a new frontier in sustainable sourcing, and presents extraordinary opportunities for specialty coffee.

These are opportunities to mitigate brand risk in a media environment that loves scandal, and to mitigate legal risk in a regulatory environment that is cracking down on the worst forms of labor abuse; opportunities to secure supply and to identify hidden sources of value in a market environment characterized by intense competition; and, ultimately, opportunities to renew the specialty coffee brand by including tens of millions of people on whom the specialty enterprise depends in the benefits it creates.

The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), through its Sustainability Council, has been working over the past year to help its members seize those opportunities.

Full Article Here: Farmworker Inclusion: A New Sustainability Frontier in Specialty Coffee | Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine

Coffee, Curibamba

Real People, Really Good Coffee June 2016 Update

June was a busy time in the Coffee World with Coffee Fest Dallas, and World of Coffee in Dublin, Ireland. Check out our link to upcoming coffee events here.

We’ve been spending our time promoting the last of the current crop, and if all goes well, we should have new crop by the end of September. Meanwhile, it’s been a hectic flurry of everything from emails & phone calls, to select mailings and personal visits. All is being done to keep A Little Further South Coffee fresh in the minds of coffee lovers and specialty coffee roasters all over the Southwest. Our first container has been moving, but there’s a lot of work that goes into getting a commitment to buy from new clients. Our coffee is a minuscule amount in the big world of coffee, but it’s also huge amount, when it’s up to one to sell it.

We look back at the last few years of importing and  roasting, and how far we’ve come in not only practical experience, but true knowledge of coffee and the many facets that bring these wonderful beans to our table every day.

We’re anxious to get back to Peru, and taste this year’s finest Peruvian coffees. We thank you for all your support as we build long term relationships with growers in an economically fair, and sustainable manner. (As much as we possibly can, it certainly is a daunting task.)

From the Farms

As I write this, workshops are progressing for this years’ Curibamba Coffee Project. More samples will soon be on the way for cupping, and we expect to have the highest quality scores ever. It’s been an impressive run, with cupping scores of just a couple of years ago rarely finishing over 81-82.5, but now there are many lots in the 83-84 range, and some breaking over 85, which is very good indeed.

The last workshops focused on selective harvesting, washing, proper fermentation techniques, and peparation for drying the parchment coffee in solar drying tents.

Here are a few photos from the last workshops:

 

Separating the Coffee Cherry from the Parchment Coffee
Temperature is Carefully Monitored during Fermentation

 

Coffee on the Solar Drying Table

===

And Now

We’re planning logistics & timing, and staying super busy.

Happy 4th of July! Stay tuned for more news as we receive it!

 

 

Coffee, Sustainable Farming

Sustainable Coffee Challenge Kicks Off in Dublin

The Sustainable Coffee Challenge is working to having coffee be the first truly sustainable product. At the SCAE World of Coffee event in Dublin this week, the official kickoff begins.

From The Sustainable Coffee Challenge:

On Thursday, June 23rd we will officially launch a beta version of the Sustainable Coffee Challenge Commitments Hub at the SCAE World of Coffee in Dublin. The Hub will help us to showcase our collective investments and actions made across the coffee sector.

Commitments generally take the form of investments and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific targets or outcomes. Within the Sustainable Coffee Challenge, partners have agreed that the following principles should guide commitments:

  • New or active commitment: Every commitment that is stated via the Sustainable Coffee Challenge should be either a new commitment or an existing commitment that has yet to be achieved.
  • Incorporates SMART objectives: Commitments should be specific in what they set out to achieve, incorporate measureable targets, be ambitious in nature, relevant for the industry, organization or supply chain that it is targeting, and time-bound.
  • Aims for impact: Commitments should consider the contribution to one or more of the North Star elements – prosperity & wellbeing of producers; forest, water and soil conservation; and/or sustained supply of coffee.
  • Can be reported at set intervals: Organizations should enter commitments that can be reported on in the system on an annual or semi-annual basis with 1st, 2nd or 3rd party data.

For more information, or to join the growing community of supporters, please visit their website at:

http://www.conservation.org/stories/sustainable-coffee-challenge/Pages/overview.aspx

Coffee

Upcoming Coffee Events

In the world of coffee, there are many opportunities to meet with like minded coffee lovers. Here’s a handy list of upcoming events. Via Barista Magazine:

JUNE

Caffeine Crawl Chicago   Chicago
June 3-5

 

Coffee Fest Dallas
Dallas, Texas
June 10-12

 

World Barista Championship, held in conjunction with the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe’s World of Coffee
Dublin, Ireland
June 22-25

 

Caffeine Crawl Twin Cities
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
June 24-25

 

JULY

Café Show China
Beijing
July 8-10

 

Costa Rica Expo Café
Heredia, Costa Rica
July 8-10

 

Barista Nation New Orleans
New Orleans
July 14

 

AUGUST

Caffeine Crawl Boulder & Ft. Collins
Boulder & Ft. Collins, Colorado
August 6-7

 

Caffeine Crawl Colorado Springs & Denver
Colorado Springs & Denver
August 13-14

 

Roasters Guild Retreat
Delavan, Wisconsin
August 18-21

 

Caffeine Crawl Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
August 27

 

SEPTEMBER

Caffeine Crawl Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, Utah
September 10

 

Compass Golden Bean North America
Portland, Oregon
September 14-16

 

New York Coffee Festival
New York, New York
September 15-18
Canadian Coffee and Tea Show
Toronto, Ontario
September 25-26

 

Coffee Fest Anaheim
Anaheim, California
September 30 – October 2

 

OCTOBER

ExpoEspeciales 2016
Bogota, Colombia
October 4-7

 

Istanbul Coffee Festival
Istanbul, Turkey
October 6-9

 

Let’s Talk Coffee
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
October 13-16

 

NOVEMBER

International Coffee and Tea Show
Dubai, UAE
November 2-4

 

Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Coffee Conference (MANE)
Providence, Rhode Island
November 3-5

 

World Coffee Leaders Forum
Seoul, Korea
November 10-12

 


Cafe Show
Seoul, Korea
November 10-13, 2016

 

Charleston Coffee Cup
Charleston, South Carolina
November 13

 

Golden Bean Australia
Port Macquarie, New South Wales
November 16-19

 

Coffee

CoffeeFest Dallas Coming June 12-16

CoffeeFest Dallas will be starting soon. Scheduled from June 12-16, this event will feature the best of local baristas, and vendors of coffee products from an industry wide pool. Also featured are classes in a variety of topics for everyone. Besides a variety of educational opportunities, there will be networking opportunities, and even roasting tours. Enjoy!

Welcome to Coffee Fest Dallas 2016 Where passionate coffee and tea professionals will learn skills, receive education and experience new products, alongside great networking.

Registration Info Early Bird Registration Deadline:

Register before May 23, 2016 for a General Admission price of only $30. After this date, General Admission is $40. *Please Note: No children under 13 (including infants) are admitted to Coffee Fest. Registration Questions? Send us your inquiries.

Source: Coffee Fest Dallas 2016 | Coffee Fest | Specialty Coffee Tradeshow