Today I watched thousands of runners power through the NYC Marathon; a few weeks ago I rode 30 miles around … More
Category: Field Notes: what it looks like on the ground
Posing vs. Dancing
There is much to love about the trend toward differentiated coffee bought and sold according to uniqueness of flavor profile … More
Things Craft Coffee Can Teach Us About Forever Young America
I recently watched the Netflix docu series Chef’s Table for the first time, and suddenly everything about craft coffee trends … More
About that $18 Cup of Coffee
About that $18 cup of coffee in Brooklyn that went viral. What’s up with it? Why does it cost $18 … More
The Importance of Inefficiency and the Danger of Detail
Specialty coffee is overwhelmingly inefficient. This inefficiency might be the one unilateral criterion that makes certain coffee special and … More
Southdown: A Place You Want to Be
Southdown: A Place You Want to Be One of the unexpected benefits of working for an importer is that … More
Fat Neighbors
Some people have more money, resources, good looks, connections, and formative educational training than others. That’s life. In the case … More
Coffee in 2016
It’s a new year and there is everything to look forward to in life in general and especially in world … More
Celebrate the Good
Coffee, like everything else, is not perfect. Coffee regularly gets negative press of being exploitive on one end and elitist … More
Celebrity Farmers
Way back in the post Division of Decision I suggested that we don’t always know what me mean by the … More
When Coffee Connects
Vague generalisms like “coffee connects people” or “coffee shops are a third space that builds community” are tired clichés. … More
The Coffeepeople Event: SCAA 2015
Seattle, Take 2 From April 8th-12th the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) held its 27th annual Event, and for the … More
Soundbytes from When Coffee Speaks
“When I was twelve my family had come here [to Cedral] to pick coffee on a man’s farm. I dreamed—we came up here to pick coffee, and I could hear the cows and the calves and everything, because there used to be more dairies. And I dreamed of one day coming back, to be able to hear the cows, to come back here to live. I wanted to live here. I prayed to God that I could live here!
Action, Impact, and a Dose of Serendipity
From the trajectory of its debut month, 2015 seems to be the year of serendipity. One such example came yesterday … More
Another Year Later
At the end of October 2013 I self published 400 copies of “When Coffee Speaks: Stories from and of Latin … More
When Coffee Speaks 