​It is frequently pointed out that Kenyan coffees are the best in the world. Also, that its cup profile is unique and that it must always be within certain parameters (blackcurrant, berries, winey, juicy), or else it would not be a good example of a good Kenyan coffee. It seems that the industry has preconceptions about what is a good coffee, and what flavors should be obtained from a certain origin; as if the production of coffee were an exact formula, similar to a highly efficient factory where economies of scale are generated and from which the same result is always obtained.

​Ethiopia exported 148,882 tons of coffee during the first six months of the current marketing year from August 21 to January 22, generating $578 million, 20% more than projected, according to the Ethiopian Coffee & Tea Authority.
 
Germany was the major importer of the highly-sought beans for the period followed by Saudi Arabia and Japan. This is important, because there are 5 different grades that are allowed to be exported from Ethiopia, so we need to understand the difference between them.

​Pseudoscience is a tendency to make claims without any scientific basis. For example, anti-vaccine activism can cause people to forego proven medical treatments, which can lead to death or serious health problems.
 
In our beloved industry, unfortunately, we often come across "pseudo-scientists" who make assertions that are not based on scientific methodology, but rather are based on "coffee mythology" (if such a thing exists), or ideas that are more fabrication of the industry, than serious scientific studies regarding a given topic.
 
Let's take the concept of a cup profile for a minute. How on earth, could someone assure what the cup profile of a given origin is?

The good news about Uganda is that there is great potential. Probably you have heard this many times, and I am sure that nobody reading this article, has ever cupped an outstanding Ugandan lot.
 
So, where is all that potential when it comes to cupping?

Sustainability is an ancient concept, but one that has been "modernized" in recent decades due to the great crisis of climate change that we are experiencing. In this century in particular, sustainability has ceased to involve a purely environmental aspect, and has been defined as the ability to coexist between the biosphere and human civilization, encompassing three large interdependent dimensions: the first social, second economic and third environmental.

​Uncertain! It would probably be the answer that most of us would have as a first option, but fortunately, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in various aspects that disturbed us in 2021. We have divided them into three main themes and we relate them to what unite us, which is specialty coffee.

This month we have received many messages from roasters asking when the new coffees we have selected in Peru and Indonesia will be arriving to our Barcelona warehouse. And the answer is not easy to articulate. 

We have recently read that due to the logistical problems that conflict the world these days, the American multinational Amazon is innovating in its logistics supply chain by reforming twin-engine aircraft to adapt them for cargo and leasing container ships to be able to fulfil their orders and avoid the traffic jams that we are seeing in all the ports of the five continents since last year.

​It is always important to remember that just 27 years ago, Rwanda was in the midst of one of the most horrible tragedies humanity has ever seen. The genocide against the Tutsi population killed almost a million people and displaced two million more. These events shook this small country and almost wiped out the entire coffee industry.
 
Remarkably since then, Rwanda has enjoyed strong rates of economic growth, creating new business prospects and lifting many people out of poverty. Thanks to an efficient government actively working to develop the economy and reform the financial and business sectors, Rwandan coffee has become a very important player, contributing significantly to foreign exchange earnings and the monetization of the rural economy. In 2019, agriculture accounted for 29% of Rwanda's economy, and coffee accounted for a third of this income, with 75% of the total population working in the agricultural sector.

A supply shock is an unexpected event that suddenly changes the supply of a product or raw material, resulting in an unforeseen change in price. Supply shocks can be negative, resulting in a decrease in supply; or positive, which produces an increase in supply; however, they are often negative. Assuming that aggregate demand does not change, a negative supply shock causes the price of a product to rise, while a positive supply shock reduces it.