Coffee is increasingly at risk from the climate crisis, and corporate-driven incremental change won’t save it. The theory of degrowth offers hope for a better world and a fairer coffee industry.
For paid subscribers: Coffee is increasingly used to burnish the United Arab Emirates’ international image. Now it is being supercharged by merging with the popularity of the Dubai chocolate trend.
Single-use coffee cups are choking the planet. From discounts to levies to bans, solutions are out there—but changing consumer behaviour is the bigger challenge.
FairWave Specialty Coffee Collective is acquiring coffee brands across the Midwest, promising a localised approach to growth. Is this a model for the industry—or just another consolidation strategy?
Coffee roasters are expensive and slightly intimidating, but they are also fundamentally simple machines. As startup costs increase, no wonder people are building their own.
Despite evolving tastes and increased competition, India’s oldest and largest coffee chain—a communist-founded, worker-owned cooperative—is still going after 70 years.
For many, elite coffee competitions represent the pinnacle of the industry. But the huge costs to compete prevent those without financial support from participating—and harm the industry as a whole.
Coffee collected from the droppings of civets is sought after by the rich and deplored by animal welfare advocates. Caught in the middle are the farmers who produce it.
It’s hard to shake the feeling that all the money that has flowed into specialty coffee over the past decade or so is warping the industry in ways that we haven’t yet begun to grasp.
