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Though there is no Ctrl-Z for much damage done to the Earth, there are ways to boost environmental sustainability. In this spirit, one product making a splash in and around the Netherlands is SOOP, a hand and body soap made from coffee grounds and orange peels.

SOOP is the signature product of BeeBlue, an Amsterdam-based collective working to upcycle organic waste streams, converting them into ecological, social, and economic resources. Robert-Willem Dol and Noor Buur co-founded the company in September 2016. Two years later, SOOP became available internationally. It comes in three bar variants (coffee with orange oil, coffee with orange oil and peels, and orange peels with orange oil) and two liquid (orange and coffee, which both contain orange oil).

To learn more, Sprudge spoke with Buur and, at BeeBlue headquarters, got the opportunity to witness coffee’s full sudsy potential.

Your website describes how in his own kitchen, Robert-Willem started playing around with coffee grounds and orange peels to come up with the idea of using them in soap. What prompted the experimentation in the first place?

Robert-Willem started experimenting with the idea of “stop wasting my waste,” which was sparked by frustration with how we treat waste in our societies. Waste is a human concept; nature does not “produce” waste. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands alone, the consumption of coffee and fresh orange juice produces 155 million kilos of coffee grounds and 250 million kilos of orange peels each year. These resources are widely considered an inevitable part of our day-to-day consumption and get discarded into organic waste streams. But this can be handled better if we see waste as a resource and use it in a circular way. Coffee grounds are a powerful natural scrub, and orange peels work as a natural skin booster and fragrance. The shift towards a circular economy and a more sustainable economic system feels abstract and big, but SOOP, as circular soap, makes it tangible.

Robert-Willem Dol and Noor Buur

What sets SOOP apart from other soaps?

SOOP is made of palm-oil-free certified resources, is biodegradable, and does not contain microplastics. In this regard, SOOP stands out but is not unique (fortunately!). SOOP is unique, however, in using “waste” as a valuable, function-serving resource.

How exactly do the coffee SOOPs get made?

SOOP is produced by existing soap-processing factories in the Netherlands. The bars are produced using a palm-oil-free soap emulsion; the liquid is a Marseille soap. Our coffee grounds and orange peels are treated in a way that makes them safe, functional ingredients in accordance with Dutch laws on soap and cosmetics. The smooth coffee bar is made with dried coffee grounds and orange oil extracted directly from orange peels; the textured coffee bar also contains pieces of orange peel. Both are effective as an exfoliant, colorant, fragrance, skin booster, and cleaner.

Where do you source the grounds and peels?

Our innovation in the field of the circular economy started with product development, yet in order to actually produce SOOP, we quickly had to get familiar with the world of waste. Because the logistics involved in collecting, drying, and treating coffee grounds and orange peels are so major, we cooperate with professionals in different fields. We work with PeelPioneers, an orange peel-recycling company in the Netherlands, which sources peels from Dutch retailers (for example, supermarkets with a fresh juice press in store). The coffee grounds are currently collected for us by a production company, but we are in the process of trying to find waste management companies to team with. Presently, the coffee grounds come from everywhere, but for the future, we’re focusing on collecting them mainly from the offices of companies, organizations, and hotels.

BeeBlue has made clear that the organization also values social return. How is that incorporated into the SOOP business model?

SOOP partners with Amsterdam’s social-return employment company Pantar (which gives jobs to people who for circumstantial or personal reasons experience disadvantages on the labor market). Individuals employed through Pantar service the coffee machines at the City of Amsterdam’s various offices, and collecting the grounds had been part of their daily work. Due to our scalability needs, we eventually had to turn to another, larger-capacity service that could collect the grounds, but Pantar currently does the handling for SOOP, which includes packaging, product labeling, and part of the transport.

Tell us about the packaging.

Incorporating sustainability into packaging is a challenge, but it is very much needed. The SOOP bar’s cardboard wrapping is made of recycled carton, which can, in turn, be recycled. The SOOP liquid bottles are made of recycled PET, which can also be recycled. The product labels are FSC-certified.

Your Facebook page shows photos of SOOP at the Dutch Embassy in Ethiopia and at a Hotelschool The Hague presentation. How did SOOP find its way to those events?

SOOP finds its way all over the world, and that is simply because people we talk to and work with see themselves as ambassadors of SOOP and tell our story. For example, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency arranged to have SOOP sent to Dutch embassies worldwide as a leading example of circular innovation that has sprung from Dutch soil. SOOP was a part of the Next Way of Living pop-up store at Dutch Design Week. SOOP has also found its way into the promotional and Christmas package sector, such as through sustainability-focused gift companies and Geschenk met Verhaal.

SOOP at Hotelschool The Hague

Sales of SOOP began in late 2018 at Dutch and Belgian home goods chain Dille & Kamille. Your products have also been made available online through Next Way of Living. What’s in store for the future?

We’re developing SOOP for institutional dispensers, so it can serve as a day-to-day soap in offices and hotel settings. To reach individual consumers, we will continue partnering with our existing webshop and retail partners. This is not a regular soap, but we want it to become your regular SOOP!

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge. 

The post From Amsterdam, A New Soap Made Of Coffee Grounds And Orange Peels appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

After a successful inaugural event last year in Seattle, Womxn In Coffee is taking a three-hour road trip down I-5 to Portland. Taking place Friday, February 15^th at Black Rabbit Service Co., Womxn In Coffee will feature candid conversations about the hardships faced by underrepresented members of the coffee community and ways to address these issues head-on.

Using the first Womxn In Coffee as an outline, event creator Tatiana Benitez will use a panel format to give a voice to firsthand experiences of injustice faced by members of the (mostly) Portland-based coffee community, not just women but people of color, queer, and non-binary individuals as well. For the panel, Benitez has enlisted the help of #CoffeeToo co-founder and coffee professional at Seattle’s Broadcast Coffee Molly Flynn, a return guest from the first Womxn In Coffee. The panel will also include local professionals Sara Reynolds of Good Coffee, Alejandria Acereto of Stumptown, Paxton Ogwaro of Never Coffee, and Camila Coddou, the former Ristretto Roasters barista who made news for taking a stand against #MeNeither, a YouTube channel created in part by Nancy Rommelmann, the wife of Ristretto owner Din Johnson.

The goal of the event, according to Benitez, is to “raise awareness about these injustices and to start the conversation” as well as “[discuss], along with the audience, solutions, and ideas that we may all have on how to stop this from happening within their cafes.”

Food and drink—both alcoholic and non—will be provided on a first come first served basis. The event is completely free and open to the public. It all gets started at 6:30pm at Black Rabbit Service Co in northeast Portland. For more information and to review the code of conduct, visit the Womxn In Coffee Facebook event page.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via Womxn In Coffee, designed by Chris Hulsizer.

The post Womxn In Coffee Is Heading To Portland appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

The current coffee scene in Mexico is facing a bit of a conundrum: production in the country has declined as consumption has increased. Mexico has gone from producing more than double what it used to consume (1.69 million tons in 2003) to producing almost only what is necessary to cover the national demand (0.82 million tons in 2016).

Along with the drop in production, demand has been increasing both globally and nationally (per capita consumption has gone from 29 oz. in 2005 to 49 oz. in 2017). It has been driven mainly by the millennial market and the rise of specialty coffee in the country.

But if Mexico City already boasts a large number of great coffee shops, other big cities in the country, such as Guadalajara and Monterrey, are just beginning to crawl in this direction. The latter has emerged as one of the most important cities in Mexico, and gradually, the industrial and technological city has seen its gastronomic scene also rise—and with it, the culture of specialty coffee.

One of the pioneers in this area is Café Pistola, run by a group of friends that names among its partners the founders of BreAd Panaderos—a local sourdough bakery that has changed the scene of loaves in the city—and a businessman with a wide history in the coffee market: Antonio Alanís comes from a family that started producing quality coffee in Mexico many decades ago.

“Our brand, Don Emilio, was born with my father,” Alanís says. “We focus on providing beans to cafes, restaurants, and other businesses. It’s good quality coffee, but it was not in this range of specialty coffees. Café Pistola was the chance to enter this new market thanks to a partnership with the guys from BreAd,” he explains. Alanís says that despite being a new brand, the concept of Café Pistola had been in his mind for at least five years.

Alanís has worked in his own roasting company long enough to acquire the know-how to develop the sensorial profiles of the coffee beans served to pair well with all the bread and other dishes created by the founders of BreAd: Alejandro Reyes, Juan Carlos Galán, and Bernardo Flores (who is Alanís’ cousin).

Café Pistola exclusively works with beans from Mexican farmers, from regions such as Chiapas and Veracruz, and different varieties like Bourbon, Caturra, and Catuaí. One of the partners’ main goals is to serve good, but also affordable, coffee. “In general, Mexican coffee is still expensive compared to other producing countries. But since we have a good production capacity, unlike other local micro-roasters, we have been able to offer coffee cups at a lower price, so more people can have our coffee,” he adds.

Café Pistola serves four types of coffee, with different flavor profiles (Magnum, Parabellum, Nambu, and Revolver) that vary from those with more acidity, with a tangy, fruity taste, to those more intense and bitter. The main goal is to keep coffee unpretentious, so as not to frighten the novice drinker. “Few know the difference between a Geisha and a Bourbon, or how the altitude impacts quality… Our coffee needs to be democratic to both help shape the new local consumer taste and please connoisseurs,” Alanís points out.

Each of their blends is named after a firearm, in reference to the coffee shop’s name itself: Pistola as a symbol of the world’s greatest revolutions—such as the specialty coffee revolution. They are also “fighting” for the Mexican coffee identity, taking advantage that the country is in a strategic location, with the potential and the chance to provide good coffee to neighboring countries, such as the United States, which is the largest consumer of specialty coffees in the world.

With their own ammunition (good quality coffee, affordable price, local beans), the founders of Café Pistola want to hit their target and help transform the scene of Mexican coffee. A revolution that is worth fighting for.

Rafael Tonon is a freelance journalist based in Brazil. Read more Rafael Tonon on Sprudge.

The post Starting A Coffee Revolution In Monterrey With Café Pistola appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Giving someone a nice, warm cup of coffee is a small act of kindness that, combined with other small acts of kindness, could increase your overall karmic quotient leading to some grand cosmic benefit at some unknown point in this or future lives. It may also have a more direct benefit for those looking to reap their just desserts in this lifetime. According to a study, holding a warm drink makes people more generous.

As reported by WPTV, the study suggests that “people are more likely to give something to others if they hold something warm” and that holding a cold beverage has the opposite effect. Performed by Yale University professor of psychology John A. Barg and PdD student Lawrence E. Williams, the study had participants hold either a hot or a cold coffee before asking them to assess the personality traits of an individual whom they knew nothing about beyond the “packet of information” given to them during the experiment. Questions were broken down into two categories: those related to warm/cold distinctions (generous/ungenerous, happy/unhappy, good-natured/irritable, sociable/anti-social, and caring/selfish) and those unrelated (attractive/unattractive, carefree/serious, talkative/quiet, strong/weak, and honest/dishonest).

The researchers found that participants who held hot drinks rated the subject as “significantly ‘warmer’” than those that held cold drinks for all questions related to the warm/cold distinction. They also found no difference in the responses from either group to the questions unrelated to warm/cold.

And it is more than just how others are perceived that is affected, but also how participants interacted with them. In a second study, participants could were told they could “receive a gift certificate for a friend or a gift for themselves.” Those holding the warmer item were more likely to give the gift to a friend, whereas those holding the cold item were more inclined to keep it for themselves.

“It appears that the effect of physical temperature is not just on how we see others, it affects our own behavior as well,” Bargh said. “Physical warmth can make us see others as warmer people, but also cause us to be warmer – more generous and trusting – as well.”

Now, I’m not saying that people who drink hot coffee are more generous, caring individuals or that iced coffee/cold brew drinkers are selfish curmudgeons only looking out for themselves. Science is. Science is saying that. If that gets your cold brew straw all in a twist, take it up with them. Though, I’m not sure giving them a piece of your mind is quite as generous as it sounds.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image © Emil Durov/Adobe Stock

The post Holding Hot Coffee Makes You More Generous appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Like so many of America’s smaller towns and second cities, Idaho’s capital has recently experienced a renaissance of specialty coffee shops, small roasters, and the kinds of spaces that look more San Francisco than Treasure Valley. But the city of more than 200,000 people has more than a half dozen colleges, an exceedingly welcoming view of immigrants, and far more progressive and forward-looking ideas than one may expect from an isolated mountain town. And at this moment in time, nowhere is that desire to keep up with the cutting edge of cities more obvious than the boom of coffee shops happening in Boise. In the last year, four new shops popped up to show the City of Trees just what it means to brew a great cup—even if the newspapers still compared the prices and wait times to Starbucks and Dutch Brothers when announcing the new kids in town.

Neckar

Before you’ve even had your first sip, this former farmers-market-stand-turned-bricks-and-mortar shop (as of July 2018) has revealed the kind of attention to detail it puts into every aspect of the shop. Owner Grant Shealy started roasting coffee (sourced from Oakland’s Coffee Shrub) in his parents’ garage a few years ago, before moving first to the back corner of a brewery, and now into his own 1,650-square-foot cafe.

The space, with big windows in front and a long, white counter, is muted but modern, with spare decoration, drawing the bulk of its aesthetics from the coffee and related equipment. Custom walnut-wood handles gleam from Bosco Sorrento espresso machine levers, pastries from the James-Beard-Award-nominated Janjou Patisserie sit under spotless glass-like jewels in a case, and handmade ceramicware cups from Guten Co. hold the coffee in the most stylish of ways.

Form and Function

Like Neckar, Form and Function got its start serving coffee at the Boise Farmer’s Market before moving into its own, even larger, permanent shop. The subway tile backsplash, white walls, and matching white La Marzocco Linea keep the décor clean and spare, punctuated with color only by the labels on their bagged coffee. In the loft area upstairs, a black and white mural dominates the wall space, while the oversized menu board does the same on the main floor. Coffees come in HuskeeCups, vessels stylishly made from the hull of the coffee plant.

In many ways, Form and Function and Neckar are quite similar—minimalist, design-focused, and serving expertly roasted beans—but F&F does have a broader food menu, including a few porridges and a series of toasts, and also sources coffee with a strong social justice and sustainability bent in their approach.

Caffeina Roasting Company

What if…a brewery were a roastery? That’s the thinking behind this coffee shop from Boise coffee veterans Tammy Jenkins and her daughter Lyndsey Hopkins. Walking in, it’s a distinctly different feel from hyper-modern cafes: a large map covers one wall, there’s dark wood and color (mostly blue) all around the room, and big, comfortable chairs.

Though Caffeina roasts on-site on an Ozturk, offers multiple pour-over options, and makes its own cold brew, they also offer the full slate of coffeehouse classics, plus smoothies, beer, and wine—a far cry from the minimalism of many of the other newcomers to Boise. They also offer a full menu of toasts, breakfasts, and snacks.

The mother-daughter team comes from a more “Second Wave” coffee generation, as owners of the local Coffee Studio chain, but took a new direction in this space, utilizing old brewery equipment—on which they brew their own kombucha—and whose industrial feel the shop is designed around. They also use brewery inspiration to form their specialty drink—the brew-on-brew, which is espresso poured into a local stout.

Push and Pour

Professional skater Lucas Erlebach wanted to open a skate shop in the area when he moved back up from San Francisco, but there was already a good one. So he did the next best thing: he opened a coffee shop in a low brick building—a former auto shop—serving up his favorite local coffee, Maps, from Hailey, Idaho (though the shop is close to opening its own roastery next door). The coffee aficionado figured it was a way to participate in the community, to provide space for creatives, and still have his own business. His skateboarding background is part of the display, with old decks used as decoration, along with other vintage touches—including a bright red coffee grinder.

Espresso tampers have custom handles made from old skateboards, and murals feature, among other things, a skateboarding fish, giving the place the kind of whimsical and lighthearted feel the owner intended, but within the clean, elegant aesthetic one expects from most modern specialty cafes.

Naomi Tomky (@gastrognome) is an award-winning freelance writing for The Stranger, Saveur, Lucky Peach, Tasting Table and more. Read more Naomi Tomky on Sprudge.

The post A Coffee Lover’s Guide To Boise, Idaho appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

In the latest episode of the Coffee Sprudgecast we talk about The Sprudge Twenty Presented by Pacific Foods Barista Series, our brand-new initiative that celebrates influential voices and leaders in coffee. In the episode we interview Nathanael May, customer marketing manager of specialty coffee for Pacific Foods and friend of the podcast. Click here to listen to our very first interview with May on the ‘cast back in April of 2016.

A few items discussed this week:

• Why is the Sprudge Twenty important right now?
• Why is alternative milk against the rules at barista competition?
• Why don’t cafes have more board games?

Listen to the full episode below:

Check out The Coffee Sprudgecast on iTunes or download the episode here. The Coffee Sprudgecast is sponsored by  Oxo, Urnex Brands, Hario, IKAWA Sample Roasters and Swiss Water Decaf. 

Sign up now as a subscriber to the Coffee Sprudgecast and never miss an episode. 

Listen, subscribe and review The Coffee Sprudgecast on iTunes.

Download the episode here.

The post Coffee Sprudgecast Episode 67: The One About The Sprudge Twenty appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Specialty Coffee Association and World Coffee Events announced today that the World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup will return to Melbourne in 2020. This will mark the second time the World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup competitions have been hosted in Australia. The Melbourne International Coffee Event festival hosted the 2013 WBC and WBrC, where Americans Pete Licata and James McCarthy took home top honors.

More from the WCE presser:

The 2019 World Barista Championship happens this year in Boston, Massachusetts at the Specialty Coffee Association Expo on April 11-14. Catch all the action over at our sibling website, SprudgeLive, a dedicated worldwide hub for coffee sports. SprudgeLive’s 2019 competition coverage is made possible by Acaia, Baratza, Faema, Cafe Imports, and Wilbur Curtis.

Follow @SprudgeLive on Twitter and never miss a moment from the shows, and cruise over to SprudgeLive.com to read routine recaps, enjoy dynamic full-color photos, and check in on all the advancing competitors from the US Coffee Champs.

The post World Barista Championship Returns To Melbourne In May 2020 appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

It’s no longer news to say that coffee and beer—and their eponymous lovechild, coffee beer—go really, really well together. Gone are they days when any old brewery can roll out a roasty coffee stout and expect to take the world by storm now. You have to get creative.

And that’s exactly what’s happening in Vancouver, British Columbia at the Hopwired Festival taking place Saturday, February 23rd. Featuring 60 roasters and breweries from around Canada (and even one or two from the States) getting funky together to create 29 one-off coffee beers, Hopwired is going to be a festival to remember, assuming you can remember anything after 29 beers.

Taking place at the Croatian Cultural Center in Vancouver, Hopwired is cut from the same cloth as Uppers & Downers. Espresso bars? They’ve got it. Case studies for a brewery-led deep dive? You better believe it. Coffee beers? Have you not been paying attention? Of course there are coffee beers.

Roasters from all over Canada—including the likes of Transcend Coffee, De Mello Palhetta Coffee, and Monogram—will be cahooting with Great White North breweries like Twin Sails, Ile Sauvage, Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel, and Temporal Artisan Ales. And for a little American flair, Hopwired has invited Portland’s Case Study Coffee Roasters and Gigantic Brewing to join in on the fun.

It all gets going at 1:00pm at the Croatian Cultural Center in Vancouver on Saturday, February 23rd. Tickets for Hopwired are CA$70.21 ($54 USD) and can be purchased here. According to their website, tickets are nearly sold out, so you better act fast if you want to get in on the fun. It’s sure to be a buzzy, boozy good time. For more information, visit the Hopwired Festival’s official website.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via the Hopwired Festival

The post Coffee IP-Eh? Hopwired Is Vancouver’s Coffee Beer Festival appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Summit Coffee out of North Carolina celebrated twenty years of coffee-making in 2018. In the last two decades, Summit has evolved from a single cafe to a multi-cafe roasting company. To kick off the new year, Summit has refreshed its look with a whole new look. It was a true family effort within the company and two years in the making. The colors pop on the Quad Seal Box Bottom bag and we especially dig the topographical touches. We reached out to owner Brian Helfrich to learn more.

Tell us a bit about how Summit got started.

Summit Coffee opened in 1998, as a cafe in downtown Davidson, North Carolina, and we stayed as such until 2013. Since then, we’ve opened a roasting business (in 2015) and two more cafes, in Davidson (2013) and Asheville (2017).

I have owned and operated Summit since 2011, though it’s been in the family since 2003 when my brother acquired it.

You’re starting off 2019 with a brand new design! How long has it been in development?

The packaging rebrand started in 2017, when we were building our Asheville cafe and fell in love with the white/antique green color scheme. Previously, Summit’s brand colors had been orange and dark green. So over the past 15 months, we’ve updated our three cafes to fit the brand refresh, and now the retail bags are our final “here we are, here’s our brand.” We have actively been working on this bag design since summer 2018.

Who designed the package?

This was an exercise in collaboration the whole way. My wife, Tyler, who designed our Asheville cafe and serves as Summit’s Artistic Director, compiled my scattered vision for these bags and put it into a visual that makes sense. Then, Tyler teamed with Brooke Basinger, a local graphic designer who also happens to be the partner of Summit’s COO, Andrew Kelleher. Together, Tyler and Brooke pushed this design forward from idea to drafts to final product.

Once we had a workable draft, we partnered with Savor Bags on the actual production—and their team was immensely helpful the entire way.

What coffee information is shared on the package?

We chose a different color for each of our coffees—the label is affixed over the top of the bag, and the color of the coffee matches the taste profile. We have a single-farmer washed Ethiopian coffee from producer Tadese Mamao that drinks so much like pink lemonade, the label is pink. We also find that customers who are visually attracted to certain colors are inclined to find that the coffee inside matches their taste preference.

A goal of ours is to make amazing coffee more approachable—so we did away with variety, altitude, tasting notes on the front of the bag. We chose, rather, to represent each coffee with a single statement. We want the consumer to have an accurate idea of what they’re buying.

All of our bags also include some brand copy—our mission statement, our story, and our “Find Your Summit” brand ethos—and brewing recommendations.

Tell us about some of the stylistic and aesthetic choices you’ve made in the new design.

We wanted the bags to both represent our brand evolution, and also to pop. We studied a lot of coffee bags, and sought a design and bag that stood out for its colors, shape and aesthetic. The bag we fell in love with, from a size standpoint, was one we saw from Presta coffee. We also wanted to feature something geometric and artistic—and in alignment with our brand, we created a topographical map that covers most of the bag. We’re actually using the same design to do printed to-go cups for our cafes.

Where is the bag manufactured?

We partnered with Savor Brands, which is doing awesome work out of Hawaii.

Is the package recyclable/compostable?

Our partner at Savor Brands has set up a cool relationship with TerraCycle, a global leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste. Savor offers complimentary recycling on our coffee packaging, where 100% of the collected bags are recycled and made into new materials.

Where is it currently available?

The bags are available in our cafes, online, with many of our wholesale partners, and in markets and grocery stores around the Southeast (Whole Foods, Fresh Market, lots of markets in the Charlotte and Asheville areas)

Zachary Carlsen is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Zachary Carlsen on Sprudge.

The post Coffee Design: Summit Coffee In North Carolina appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

You might remember last week’s Polar Vortex, the cold front that wreaked havoc across much of the Midwest, sending the news media into a bit of a tizzy as it went. At the same time as temperatures in Fargo, North Dakota, were bottoming out at -31°, a few thousand miles to the south the Brazilian robusta harvest was literally burning on the trees.

In the eastern states of Bahia and Espirito Santo, which together produce more than 80 percent of Brazil’s robusta crop, maximum temperatures have been as much as 14° above average for this time of year. According to Bloomberg, coffee trees are enduring nine hours a day of high-80s temperatures in full sun, essentially roasting the beans inside their cherries while still on the branch.

Although robusta is notoriously hardier than its more fussy cousin arabica, the lack of shade crops on these enormous farms work against it in the case of drought or intense heat. While rain is forecast for the coming week, it probably won’t be enough to bring real respite, which means the exposed trees will continue to blister in the sun for the time being

A record robusta harvest had been predicted for Brazil this year, with the high production being suggested as one of the reasons for the collapse of the C price in the fall. What this mini heatwave does to coffee prices in the short term remains to be seen, but the reality is that climate change will continue to unleash more extreme, increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. It seems as though this sort of story, like the shattering cold of the Polar Vortex, is likely to become routine.

Fionn Pooler is a journalist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the publisher of The Pourover. Read more Fionn Pooler on Sprudge.

Top image via Bloomberg.

The post A Heat Wave Is Scorching Brazilian Robusta Crops appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News