Hawaii Archives - Page 16 of 33 - The Curb Kaimuki

A movement to ban disposable plastic straws is sweeping the United States after gaining traction in cities and countries across the world, finding widespread attention after Starbucks announced it would phase out disposable straws by 2020. However, according to disability rights advocates, banning disposable plastic straws—originally created as disability aides—presents unacceptable barriers for people with many disabilities. 

Aided by a widespread desire for meaningful environmental change and a viral video of a sea turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nose, plastic straw bans have been celebrated by individuals, companies, and legislators as a positive and necessary move towards widespread environmental change. But do plastic straw bans really represent meaningful change—and if so, at what cost? According to those affected and a growing pool of evidence, plastic straw bans not only fail to accommodate people with various disabilities, they also fail to create the meaningful positive environmental change they claim to prioritize.

The Numbers

Straw bans have been framed by many as a necessary first step toward reducing plastic waste, and even those who acknowledge the challenges plastic straw bans present to elderly and disabled individuals have framed straw bans as a choice between access and the environment. But it’s important to consider the numbers when thinking about those impacts.

How much do disposable plastic straws really contribute to the world’s plastic waste and overall pollution? According to a recent report by environmental group Better Alternatives Now (BAN), plastic straws and stirrers (grouped together in this report but not in all bans) comprised about 7% of plastic items found along the California coastline, by piece. Compared to plastic bags at 9% or plastic bottle caps at 17%, it’s a not-insignificant chunk of plastic. However, when taken by weight, a report by Jambeck Research Group places plastic straws at only .03% of aggregate plastic in the oceans themselves, suggesting that straws’ lightness and buoyancy lead them to end up overrepresented on the coastline.

Perhaps even more saliently, a recent survey by Ocean Cleanup estimated that nearly half of the plastic waste found in the oceans’ largest garbage patch comes from fishing nets, primarily commercial ones. These numbers point to what disability rights advocates have said about straw bans: while the bans have enormous potential to harm the elderly and disabled, they bring about neither the dramatic reductions in plastic that curtailing activities of corporate polluters would effect, nor the smaller yet harmless reductions that bans on items like plastic balloons and shopping bags bring about.

Also significant to note about the BAN report is that products labeled as biodegradable or compostable plastics are not, in fact, actually biodegradable in an earth or ocean environment. Many are moving toward biodegradable plastic straws as a substitute for current plastic models, but according to data, those not only do not come with any actual impact on ocean plastics, they also bring additional challenges of potentially fatal food allergies and reduced durability into the lives of disabled straw-users.

Another salient point many have made is that plastic conservation efforts have many other starting points that don’t target accessibility aides. Plastic straws were chosen as a symbolic starting point by environmental advocacy group Lonely Whale (originator of the #stopsucking social media campaign), who were presumably unaware of the issues that banning straws presents people with disabilities. Lonely Whale has not responded to my request for a statement on their current stance now that these issues are well-publicized, but they have yet to acknowledge the issues straw bans present for what, even by its largest champions, appears to be at most a symbolic win for anti-plastic advocates.  

Kim Sauder, a Toronto-based disability rights advocate and Ph.D. student in Disability Studies, wants people to recognize that they aren’t choosing between disability access and the environment. “That legitimizes the idea that a straw ban will achieve something,” they told me via digital messenger. “It ignores the reality that a straw ban won’t do what legislators say it will. The ‘conversation’ they are starting really boils down to what people will accept as success and the harms they will justify in the name of that.” According to Sauder, many who have pushed for straw bans appear to be totally okay with what even its biggest champions deem a symbolic victory against pollution, even when it comes at the very real expense of disability access.

Potential for Harm

While plastic straws have become a go-to for all types of customers in cafes, bars, and restaurants, they were originally invented as a disability aid and used in hospitals. Joseph B. Friedman created and sold the first disposable bendy straws as a tool to help reclined patients, as well as people with assorted other disabilities, drink easily from cups. Sold as the Flex-Straw, they were and still are an inexpensive, temperature-resistant, sturdy, and sanitary alternative to the reusable silicone feeding tubes which were in heavy rotation before their advent. They achieved mainstream popularity because the design was superior to existing alternatives for all people, not just people with disabilities.

As disability rights advocates have pointed out, all current substitutes fail to meet the same standard of universal design. Compostable alternatives lack the same sturdiness, making them too easy to chew through or choke on for people with limited jaw mobility and (in the case of paper straws) too flimsy for people with longer drinking periods. Reusable alternatives present problems too; not only would people with disabilities need to carry them around on top of other medical necessities, they’re also difficult to wash, dangerously unsanitary if not properly washed, conduct heat and cold, and present cutting risks. With the current selections of alternatives on the market, if establishments don’t have a stash of plastic straws in-house, they risk creating situations where people with specific disabilities either can’t drink safely, or can’t drink at all.

“Plastic bendy straws provide me with a basic need that everyone else has access to,” says Jae Kim, a straw user and social work intern at Seattle’s Arc of King County. “They became a part of me that I can’t lose. Without them, I can’t consume any liquids and it is the biggest, scariest concern I have.”

Sauder argues that it’s the responsibility of legislators and straw manufacturers to ensure that they create a truly viable alternative that works for all before banning the disposable plastic options that currently serve everyone’s needs, pointing out that it shouldn’t be on people with disabilities to lose essential access tools in order to support symbolic legislation. Kim wants non-disabled people to think about how that experience would feel. “How would your life look if you needed to go through barriers just to have a sip of water?”  

Case Studies: Seattle, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara

Many governments implementing straw bans have built-in disability exemptions, but those too can present serious problems. In order to make sure that people who need plastic straws can access them, laws would need to include clauses that specifically mandate keeping plastic straws in-house and signage to let people know they’re available.

A salient example of how disability exemptions can fall through the cracks is Seattle, where a disability exemption exists on paper, but not necessarily in practice. Shaun Bickley, who co-chairs Seattle’s Disability Commission, told me that Seattle Public Utilities not only failed to do outreach to the Disability Commission prior to passing the legislation, they admitted last week via email that they have yet to inform any businesses the exemption even exists. If cities roll out bans without promoting exemptions in equal measure, businesses have every reason to ditch their plastic straws altogether, rendering exemptions meaningless.

San Francisco also passed straw ban legislation with a disability exemption stipulating that businesses are allowed to make exemptions for people who need them, rather than mandating that they accommodate people with disabilities. As proven with countless ADA requirements, many businesses accommodate people with disabilities only when required by law. According to Supervisor Katy Tang, the legislation is currently being amended to include more specific language around disability access.

“Legislation does not typically spell out every detail for implementation. The intent behind our originally included clause regarding the disabilities community is that restaurants/retailers would indeed need to have some plastic straws on hand for those who request them due to a medical reason,” Tang told me via email. “The ADA is broad enough in that all places of public accommodation should be making reasonable efforts to accommodate those with disabilities in every way possible—whether it’s via accessible entrances or restrooms, path of travel, and so forth.”   

Much more extreme is the legislation introduced in Santa Barbara, which not only prohibits any business or individual from handing out plastic straws—including compostable plastic straws, which are the closest alternative for people who need to use straws due to disability—it actually punishes repeat offenders with heavy fines and jail time. For providers to get a disability exemption, they must apply to the city of Santa Barbara for an exemption due to “medical necessity,” an extra step that makes it that much harder and more expensive for businesses to serve customers with disabilities. I have not been able to get comments from anyone involved in the Santa Barbara legislation, despite repeat query. This story will be updated if and when they respond.  

Legislation aside, owner of Washington’s One Cup Coffee Tonia Hume plans to make sure her patrons with disabilities have everything they need to have a positive experience. Hearing rumors of the impending straw ban, Hume swapped all the plastic straws at her four locations for biodegradable plastic straws; once the ban passed, she learned of the issues people with various disabilities were expressing and is now committed to making sure they’re able to access her space just as easily. “We had plastic straws that didn’t bend before, so making the swap to compostable was no big deal,” she said. Once she found out that bendy straws were crucial to many, she committed to making sure they’re available in all locations at all times. “You want to be a place that’s welcoming to everybody,” she said.

San Francisco’s Wrecking Ball Coffee also announced that in light of the ban, they will now carry two types of straws, with a request that patrons use compostable straws unless they need plastic bendy straws. “We were always proud that we had compostable straws at WB, but when SF began discussing a plastic straw ban, we looked a little deeper,” Wrecking Ball co-founder Trish Rothgeb told me by email. Hearing the voices of the disabled community, they added plastic bendy straws to their condiment bar. “It’s not up to the baristas to police the situation. We can’t assume we know a person’s needs by looking at them. Will a kid get a straw because it’s fun, when it’s really not meant for them? Most probably, but it’s a small price to pay for making sure every guest gets what they need without any judgement or extra work on their part.”

What You Can Do

Whether you live in a place with a straw ban or not, there’s a lot you can do, both for the environment and for people with disabilities that will be affected by straw bans.

If you live in an area with a straw ban and own, manage, or work in a business that serves beverages, make sure to keep a stash of plastic bendy straws for patrons with disabilities that need them—ideally right in the condiment area with adequate signage, like Wrecking Ball now does. If you live in an area that is pushing for a straw ban, contact your legislators and fight for a disability accommodation mandate, rather than just an exemption.  

In addition, if you’re a non-disabled person who wants to help the environment, do what you can to take personal responsibility for your own use of reusable and sustainable materials for as many of your daily activities as possible. “Are you cognitive of the environmental impact you may contribute in all aspects of life?” asks Khazm Kogita, artist, organizer, and Commissioner with the Seattle Disability Commission. “How can you strive to minimize your footprint on the planet? At the same time, be aware that different people have different needs, and for some people, straws are an essential part of their daily living. Are your actions or decisions hindering other people’s independence?”

Most of all, listen to people with disabilities when they raise issues and recognize that they understand their bodies and accessibility needs. Coffee shops have long been spaces where people congregate to challenge the status quo, and as such, they are uniquely responsible and equipped to make sure the fight against plastic waste prioritizes the needs of people with disabilities.  

RJ Joseph (@RJ_Sproseph) is a Sprudge staff writer, publisher of Queer Cup, and coffee professional based in the Bay Area. Read more RJ Joseph on Sprudge Media Network.

Top image © dark_blade / Adobe Stock.

The post Straw Ban Or Straw Man? Why Plastic Straw Bans Aren’t The Answer appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Erna Knutsen (1921—2018).

Our lives, all of them, are lived in versions. I have a version of my life, my parents have another, my siblings another, and for every person I count as a friend or acquaintance, there are yet more versions of my life. This is not news to anyone. Famous people famously have many biographies written about them, many different versions of who they were and what they did or didn’t do.

Erna Knutsen was not a famous person, generally. She was a famous person, specifically. The regular world, the world that is not engrossed and consumed by, obsessed and beset by coffee, that world may not know who Erna Knutsen was. The coffee world—and not just the specialty coffee world—knows who Erna Knutsen was, though we may not agree on any one version of her story. But I think we might all agree, or most of us, on a version of the person.

She was generous, if not to a fault, then beyond normal, with her time, knowledge, and understanding. For years before the Specialty Coffee Association of America (now the SCA) hired its first professional staff person, Erna was the unofficial spokesperson for the industry, speaking to reporters about the new fad known as specialty coffee. Perhaps because her story can be understood as something of an underdog story, she loved to see people succeed against the expectations if not the odds; and while she was not at all shy of the spotlight, she was likely to drag someone else into the spotlight with her to share it. She had a guffaw that bordered on a cackle and yet was thoroughly charming because it was so genuine, and often surprising, because if anyone could find humor in unexpected places, it was Erna Knutsen.

“During the discussion after one cupping session, Erna had scored a particular sample much higher than the rest of the jury, so Paul asked her to explain what she liked so much about that coffee. She put on her reading glasses, perused her cupping sheet for a few seconds, then looked up and replied, ‘Oh… I’m sleeping with the farmer!’”

-career coffee professional Stephen Vick, talking about the Cup of Excellence jury in Nicaragua, 2006

I am writing in the past tense because Erna died in June of this year. At 96, she was well past the age when we ask what it was that caused her death. Enough was enough. She had already lived more than one life by any measure and for those of us who claim coffee as a living, it was her second life that meant the most, her coffee life. Erna’s father, Edwin, died just three months before his 100th birthday. Long life was in her blood, is one way to put it. Another way would be to say that long life was in her spirit, and her spirit was needed to launch an industry. To give away the ending, that is what Erna Knutsen did.

Some people will tell you she did this by coining a phrase. Some people will tell you she did this by taking a seat at a table where women were not welcome. Both of these things are true—they really happened—but neither of them sparked a specialty coffee revolution. Erna Knutsen set the fire by reframing the primary transaction within the coffee trade. She understood something so simple to us now; but something that was, for green coffee brokers 50 years ago, like searching for the forest through the trees. Erna saw that green coffee sales could be counted in small bags, not just huge containers. More importantly, she saw the emergence of a roaster class for whom this idea meant something and upon which she could build a business model.

They were known as the “small trade” back then, in the late 60’s, townie and regional roasters who couldn’t buy a container or half a box of coffee at one time, even for a component in their bestselling blend. As far as the coffee traders of the day were concerned, these roasters were anomalies and throwbacks, odd-ducks in a world full of fat geese roasters that ate containers of coffee for breakfast. Shipping anything in containers was only a decade old at that point, but the steel box had quickly become a metric in coffee since the coffee world was dominated by a handful of large roasters—four of whom owned 70% of the market—who thought of margins in fractions of a cent and sometimes in fractions of lost cents.

Erna’s thinking was different.

***

To speak of a “confluence of events” can be dismissive of the components, as if they were all passive players. While it is true that Erna Knutsen first gazed out upon the coffee landscape at a precise and distinct moment in time, ripe for her particular point of view and manner, it might also be true that the moment was made precise and distinct because she was there to take advantage of it.

When Erna took a job as secretary to Bert Fulmer, a partner at importer B.C. Ireland, in 1968, she was 30 years into a long career as a secretary. She’d worked in banks, on Wall Street, and, after moving to San Francisco in the 1950s, for lawyers and even the Vice President of Coffee at the American Molasses Company, where coffee sold to giant roasters failed to capture her imagination. A dozen years later, she was vice president of B.C. Ireland, still a rare thing in business even in 1981, and unheard of in the coffee industry.

B.C. Ireland was established in San Francisco in 1885 and initially focused on spices, herbs, rice, and peanuts. By the turn of the century they were also importing enough coffee to merit a mention as a player by W.H. Ukers in his seminal All About Coffee as he listed San Francisco importers active in 1905. By the 1950s they were listed among the top “non-roasting” coffee importers in the United States in terms of volume. They continued to import herbs and spices, however, and this might be why, in 1981, the name “B.C. Ireland Coffee Company” was established as a business in California.

The registering agent? Erna Knutsen, president.

Erna had not only gone from secretary to vice president of B.C. Ireland, she was to be president of a new entity devoted exclusively to coffee. Four years later, as she told it, she bought the coffee importing company and renamed it Knutsen Coffees, LTD. Erna liked to add that she fired all the men in the process, but she always said it with a smile and a twinkle in her eye. Because if she did fire all the men, it was with cause. In 1985, the year of its 100th anniversary, B.C. Ireland ceased doing business and Knutsen Coffees LTD. was born.

They were all men and they didn’t think women deserved the break. But I fooled them. I bought the company and fired them all. No! Did I? Oh! Oh, no. Yeah. Imagine trying to keep a woman out? Anyway, I learned a lot from them.

-Erna, during her second SCAA award acceptance speech, 2014

This outcome, in 1985, on the brink of her 65th birthday, would have seemed entirely unlikely for most of her life. Or at least up until 1975, when she predicted it would happen.

***

By the time Erna Knutson arrived at B.C. Ireland, she was in function what we would call an executive assistant today. She’d come a long way from the typing pool at 120 Wall Street in New York, or just taking shorthand, a skill that helped her land her first job at a bank the day after her wedding to her first husband. She was only 18, and got married because, she said, in those days it was “the only way for a girl to get out of the house.”

That was in 1939, and the depression still loomed over the country. A decade or so earlier, in 1926, her family had left Norway to escape one depression, and arrived in American just in time for another. Erna was five. She had never seen an apple, or tasted red sauce. All of her mother’s sauces were white, but their Italian neighbors in a tenement building in Brooklyn used red sauces. Two aromas Erna most associated with her childhood were Italian cooking and coffee being freshly ground and brewed by her mother every morning before sunrise.

“When we moved to New York, she bought coffee once per week from a tall, handsome man with a big top hat who would deliver it fresh-roasted to our house. That man was the grandfather of David Dallis, still in New York and still a small batch roaster.”

-Erna in a 1994 interview with Kevin Sinnott for Tea & Coffee Trade Journal

According to Erna, she was busy as a “housewife in the country” (i.e. the East Bay) when Bert Fulmer of the “coffee Fulmers” asked her to help him out part-time at B.C. Ireland. One of her responsibilities was maintaining the “position book” which kept track of the company’s green coffee. Within the comings and goings of green coffee, she discovered what she would come to call her gems.

Like most lives long-lived, various versions can come from none other than the person who lived it. It’s hard to say at this point exactly how Erna went from part-time secretary to trader specializing in selling “broken lots” of less than a container, gems, to the rare small roasters of the day. But we know a few things with relative certainty, between 1968 and 1973:

• Erna became interested in the small coffee roasters who were being largely ignored by traders at B.C. Ireland at the time.

• Erna saw a way to connect these small roasters to broken lots of coffee.

• Erna tasted the coffees she sold, but understood that to communicate effectively with these roasters, she needed to cup coffee.

• Using the most offensive terms imaginable, some men at B.C. Ireland told Bert Fulmer they would quit if she was allowed into the cupping room.

• Despite this, Bert Fulmer encouraged Erna to continue speaking to small roasters and selling them coffee.

• The first time she bought a full container of coffee, she had to taste the coffee at her desk in a cubicle, sitting next to the exporter. “The boys” roasted and brewed the coffee and brought it to her.

• That first box was Sumatra Mandheling and she sold the entire container in one month, just like she promised Fulmer she would.

In 1973, Erna Knutsen was allowed to take a seat at the cupping table at B.C. Ireland. But Erna’s reputation was established before she entered the cupping room and it was that same year that Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, taking note of this novelty trend of small roasters looking for better coffees, interviewed Erna. It was in that interview that she famously uttered the phrase “specialty coffee.”

***

What was evident when Erna was finally allowed to cup coffee was evident for the next 40 years of her life until she retired in 2013 at age 93. She had a fine palate. Armed with a cupping spoon and a willingness to sell small lots of coffee, the “small trade,” now known as “her” roasters, flocked to Erna and in 1975 she predicted she would buy B.C. Ireland in another 10 years.

That’s another thing about Erna Knutsen: she was true to her word. Erna did not invent travel to origin, but she was among the importers that understood early on in specialty coffee that “boots on the ground” was essential to buying quality coffee. “The way I do business is so personal,” she said. She wanted to look the farmers in the eye the same way she looked her customers in the eye when she made a commitment, perhaps a necessity for a Norwegian. But this need became a hallmark of trading specialty coffee, the ability to say, not only have I tasted the coffees, I’ve been there. Before the emergence of specialty coffee, coffee traders traveled to origin to visit banks and brokers, but not coffee farms.

Forgive the borrowing, but there are also many other things which Erna did. If all written down, they would fill the world. She would be the first to laugh long and hard at the suggestion that she was either savior or saint. But some lives count for something more than most among so many people that we should pause long enough to imagine everything we don’t know about that person, or even the secret things we do know, because the life, the life of Erna Knutsen, was lived in any case worthy of your consideration.

Erna received a lifetime achievement award twice from the Specialty Coffee Association, at ages 73 and 93, something that can only really happen when you outlive expectations. She had played a vital role in the founding of the organization. If you watch the video of Erna accepting her second award in 2014, she is standing next to her business and life partner, John Rapinchuk. If you look closely at the necktie John is wearing, you’ll see it is decorated with small portraits of Erna. If you knew John, who died last year, you know this sort of thing was not atypical of him. But also, if you knew John, you know he adored Erna and that as he tied his tie that day he smiled not only because the tie was a little funny, but because so many people seeing it would understand and share in the true love behind the funny, and that, more than anything else I can say for right now, almost perfectly describes what it was like to know Erna Knutsen.

Mike Ferguson (@aboutferguson) is an American coffee professional and writer based in Atlanta and currently part of the marketing team at Olam Specialty Coffee. Read more Mike Ferguson on Sprudge. 

Top photo by Zachary Carlsen for Sprudge Media Network, taken at an Equator Coffees cafe opening in 2013. 

The post Remembering Erna Knutson, Coffee’s Feminist Pioneer appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Erna Knutsen (1921—2018).

Our lives, all of them, are lived in versions. I have a version of my life, my parents have another, my siblings another, and for every person I count as a friend or acquaintance, there are yet more versions of my life. This is not news to anyone. Famous people famously have many biographies written about them, many different versions of who they were and what they did or didn’t do.

Erna Knutsen was not a famous person, generally. She was a famous person, specifically. The regular world, the world that is not engrossed and consumed by, obsessed and beset by coffee, that world may not know who Erna Knutsen was. The coffee world—and not just the specialty coffee world—knows who Erna Knutsen was, though we may not agree on any one version of her story. But I think we might all agree, or most of us, on a version of the person.

She was generous, if not to a fault, then beyond normal, with her time, knowledge, and understanding. For years before the Specialty Coffee Association of America (now the SCA) hired its first professional staff person, Erna was the unofficial spokesperson for the industry, speaking to reporters about the new fad known as specialty coffee. Perhaps because her story can be understood as something of an underdog story, she loved to see people succeed against the expectations if not the odds; and while she was not at all shy of the spotlight, she was likely to drag someone else into the spotlight with her to share it. She had a guffaw that bordered on a cackle and yet was thoroughly charming because it was so genuine, and often surprising, because if anyone could find humor in unexpected places, it was Erna Knutsen.

“During the discussion after one cupping session, Erna had scored a particular sample much higher than the rest of the jury, so Paul asked her to explain what she liked so much about that coffee. She put on her reading glasses, perused her cupping sheet for a few seconds, then looked up and replied, ‘Oh… I’m sleeping with the farmer!’”

-career coffee professional Stephen Vick, talking about the Cup of Excellence jury in Nicaragua, 2006

I am writing in the past tense because Erna died in June of this year. At 96, she was well past the age when we ask what it was that caused her death. Enough was enough. She had already lived more than one life by any measure and for those of us who claim coffee as a living, it was her second life that meant the most, her coffee life. Erna’s father, Edwin, died just three months before his 100th birthday. Long life was in her blood, is one way to put it. Another way would be to say that long life was in her spirit, and her spirit was needed to launch an industry. To give away the ending, that is what Erna Knutsen did.

Some people will tell you she did this by coining a phrase. Some people will tell you she did this by taking a seat at a table where women were not welcome. Both of these things are true—they really happened—but neither of them sparked a specialty coffee revolution. Erna Knutsen set the fire by reframing the primary transaction within the coffee trade. She understood something so simple to us now; but something that was, for green coffee brokers 50 years ago, like searching for the forest through the trees. Erna saw that green coffee sales could be counted in small bags, not just huge containers. More importantly, she saw the emergence of a roaster class for whom this idea meant something and upon which she could build a business model.

They were known as the “small trade” back then, in the late 60’s, townie and regional roasters who couldn’t buy a container or half a box of coffee at one time, even for a component in their bestselling blend. As far as the coffee traders of the day were concerned, these roasters were anomalies and throwbacks, odd-ducks in a world full of fat geese roasters that ate containers of coffee for breakfast. Shipping anything in containers was only a decade old at that point, but the steel box had quickly become a metric in coffee since the coffee world was dominated by a handful of large roasters—four of whom owned 70% of the market—who thought of margins in fractions of a cent and sometimes in fractions of lost cents.

Erna’s thinking was different.

***

To speak of a “confluence of events” can be dismissive of the components, as if they were all passive players. While it is true that Erna Knutsen first gazed out upon the coffee landscape at a precise and distinct moment in time, ripe for her particular point of view and manner, it might also be true that the moment was made precise and distinct because she was there to take advantage of it.

When Erna took a job as secretary to Bert Fulmer, a partner at importer B.C. Ireland, in 1968, she was 30 years into a long career as a secretary. She’d worked in banks, on Wall Street, and, after moving to San Francisco in the 1950s, for lawyers and even the Vice President of Coffee at the American Molasses Company, where coffee sold to giant roasters failed to capture her imagination. A dozen years later, she was vice president of B.C. Ireland, still a rare thing in business even in 1981, and unheard of in the coffee industry.

B.C. Ireland was established in San Francisco in 1885 and initially focused on spices, herbs, rice, and peanuts. By the turn of the century they were also importing enough coffee to merit a mention as a player by W.H. Ukers in his seminal All About Coffee as he listed San Francisco importers active in 1905. By the 1950s they were listed among the top “non-roasting” coffee importers in the United States in terms of volume. They continued to import herbs and spices, however, and this might be why, in 1981, the name “B.C. Ireland Coffee Company” was established as a business in California.

The registering agent? Erna Knutsen, president.

Erna had not only gone from secretary to vice president of B.C. Ireland, she was to be president of a new entity devoted exclusively to coffee. Four years later, as she told it, she bought the coffee importing company and renamed it Knutsen Coffees, LTD. Erna liked to add that she fired all the men in the process, but she always said it with a smile and a twinkle in her eye. Because if she did fire all the men, it was with cause. In 1985, the year of its 100th anniversary, B.C. Ireland ceased doing business and Knutsen Coffees LTD. was born.

They were all men and they didn’t think women deserved the break. But I fooled them. I bought the company and fired them all. No! Did I? Oh! Oh, no. Yeah. Imagine trying to keep a woman out? Anyway, I learned a lot from them.

-Erna, during her second SCAA award acceptance speech, 2014

This outcome, in 1985, on the brink of her 65th birthday, would have seemed entirely unlikely for most of her life. Or at least up until 1975, when she predicted it would happen.

***

By the time Erna Knutsen arrived at B.C. Ireland, she was in function what we would call an executive assistant today. She’d come a long way from the typing pool at 120 Wall Street in New York, or just taking shorthand, a skill that helped her land her first job at a bank the day after her wedding to her first husband. She was only 18, and got married because, she said, in those days it was “the only way for a girl to get out of the house.”

That was in 1939, and the depression still loomed over the country. A decade or so earlier, in 1926, her family had left Norway to escape one depression, and arrived in American just in time for another. Erna was five. She had never seen an apple, or tasted red sauce. All of her mother’s sauces were white, but their Italian neighbors in a tenement building in Brooklyn used red sauces. Two aromas Erna most associated with her childhood were Italian cooking and coffee being freshly ground and brewed by her mother every morning before sunrise.

“When we moved to New York, she bought coffee once per week from a tall, handsome man with a big top hat who would deliver it fresh-roasted to our house. That man was the grandfather of David Dallis, still in New York and still a small batch roaster.”

-Erna in a 1994 interview with Kevin Sinnott for Tea & Coffee Trade Journal

According to Erna, she was busy as a “housewife in the country” (i.e. the East Bay) when Bert Fulmer of the “coffee Fulmers” asked her to help him out part-time at B.C. Ireland. One of her responsibilities was maintaining the “position book” which kept track of the company’s green coffee. Within the comings and goings of green coffee, she discovered what she would come to call her gems.

Like most lives long-lived, various versions can come from none other than the person who lived it. It’s hard to say at this point exactly how Erna went from part-time secretary to trader specializing in selling “broken lots” of less than a container, gems, to the rare small roasters of the day. But we know a few things with relative certainty, between 1968 and 1973:

• Erna became interested in the small coffee roasters who were being largely ignored by traders at B.C. Ireland at the time.

• Erna saw a way to connect these small roasters to broken lots of coffee.

• Erna tasted the coffees she sold, but understood that to communicate effectively with these roasters, she needed to cup coffee.

• Using the most offensive terms imaginable, some men at B.C. Ireland told Bert Fulmer they would quit if she was allowed into the cupping room.

• Despite this, Bert Fulmer encouraged Erna to continue speaking to small roasters and selling them coffee.

• The first time she bought a full container of coffee, she had to taste the coffee at her desk in a cubicle, sitting next to the exporter. “The boys” roasted and brewed the coffee and brought it to her.

• That first box was Sumatra Mandheling and she sold the entire container in one month, just like she promised Fulmer she would.

In 1973, Erna Knutsen was allowed to take a seat at the cupping table at B.C. Ireland. But Erna’s reputation was established before she entered the cupping room and it was that same year that Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, taking note of this novelty trend of small roasters looking for better coffees, interviewed Erna. It was in that interview that she famously uttered the phrase “specialty coffee.”

***

What was evident when Erna was finally allowed to cup coffee was evident for the next 40 years of her life until she retired in 2013 at age 93. She had a fine palate. Armed with a cupping spoon and a willingness to sell small lots of coffee, the “small trade,” now known as “her” roasters, flocked to Erna and in 1975 she predicted she would buy B.C. Ireland in another 10 years.

That’s another thing about Erna Knutsen: she was true to her word. Erna did not invent travel to origin, but she was among the importers that understood early on in specialty coffee that “boots on the ground” was essential to buying quality coffee. “The way I do business is so personal,” she said. She wanted to look the farmers in the eye the same way she looked her customers in the eye when she made a commitment, perhaps a necessity for a Norwegian. But this need became a hallmark of trading specialty coffee, the ability to say, not only have I tasted the coffees, I’ve been there. Before the emergence of specialty coffee, coffee traders traveled to origin to visit banks and brokers, but not coffee farms.

Forgive the borrowing, but there are also many other things which Erna did. If all written down, they would fill the world. She would be the first to laugh long and hard at the suggestion that she was either savior or saint. But some lives count for something more than most among so many people that we should pause long enough to imagine everything we don’t know about that person, or even the secret things we do know, because the life, the life of Erna Knutsen, was lived in any case worthy of your consideration.

Erna received a lifetime achievement award twice from the Specialty Coffee Association, at ages 73 and 93, something that can only really happen when you outlive expectations. She had played a vital role in the founding of the organization. If you watch the video of Erna accepting her second award in 2014, she is standing next to her business and life partner, John Rapinchuk. If you look closely at the necktie John is wearing, you’ll see it is decorated with small portraits of Erna. If you knew John, who died last year, you know this sort of thing was not atypical of him. But also, if you knew John, you know he adored Erna and that as he tied his tie that day he smiled not only because the tie was a little funny, but because so many people seeing it would understand and share in the true love behind the funny, and that, more than anything else I can say for right now, almost perfectly describes what it was like to know Erna Knutsen.

Mike Ferguson (@aboutferguson) is an American coffee professional and writer based in Atlanta and currently part of the marketing team at Olam Specialty Coffee. Read more Mike Ferguson on Sprudge. 

Top photo by Zachary Carlsen for Sprudge Media Network, taken at an Equator Coffees cafe opening in 2013. 

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Source: Coffee News

To Whom This May Concern…

Hundreds of handwritten letters are being sent to coffee roasters across the United States. Large and small, new and old, indie and international—these letters all want the same thing: “a replacement” bag of coffee and “an explanation why this happened.”

We’re looking for an explanation, too.

“To Whom This May Concern” is a show about the mystery surrounding Daniel G, the prolific letter writer who has contacted over one hundred coffee roasters across the country to complain about stale coffee. Who is Daniel G? How long have they been writing these letters? How many coffee roasters have been contacted?

We’ll attempt to answer these questions on TWTMC, a new podcast series from Sprudge Media Network. Today we’re excited to present the pilot episode of the series, inspired by shows like S-Town and Serial.

Download the pilot episode via iTunes or on the iTunes app.

Stream the episode here.

“Damn, Daniel, get in touch. We’re dying to know what’s up.” — Vice

“I’m awaiting the dramatic conclusion to this story as I brew another pour-over.”  — The Takeout

The post To Whom This May Concern [Pilot] — The Daniel G. Podcast Mystery appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

A new, deeply flawed study finds that 66% of people prefer cold brew over iced coffee.

According to an article in Italian coffee trade website Comunicaffe, the study was performed by a company called Square Cottage, makers of a “French Press Design [sic] Cold Brew Coffee Maker.” For the weeklong survey, participants were asked to “alternate between cold brew, iced coffee, and hot coffee,” and “after each beverage, participants recorded how they felt based on several questions.” They found that 2:1 participants preferred cold brew to iced coffee.

There are some caveats here, though. Each participant was given one of Square Cottage’s “best French Press Cold Brew Coffee [Makers]” to use at home, meaning folks were responsible for making their own drinks, so there goes any sense of objectivity. It should also be noted that this is pretty much just a French press; sure it can make iced coffee, but there’s no guarantee it’s any good. I’d wager most folk’s idea of iced coffee is more of a filter/pour-over brew than a heavier, French pressed cup. It may just be the case that this particular brewer is better at making cold brew than it is iced coffee.

The point is: these results are wrong. While I’m not anti-cold brew (actually I’m anti-people-that-are-anti-cold brew), let’s be totally honest with each other here: if you’re offering tasters a crappy French press version of iced coffee, as opposed to, you know, something a bit more dialed in and flavor-focused, of course that is going to skewer the results. If you’d like to make some delicious iced coffee at home, we like Counter Culture’s method presented here by Lifehacker. If you’d prefer to drink some cold brew, that’s of course fine as well.

However, if your real preference is in producing poorly constructed, fundamentally flawed studies, then passing them off as legit coffee statistical points of reference to help sell brewing baubles and doodads, we are going to have some beef.

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

Top image from This Iced Coffee Lemonade From Sweden Is Really, Really Good by Anna Brones.

The post Study Finds People Prefer Cold Brew Over Iced Coffee, Is Wrong appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

There’s a new coffee company is roasting in Shenandoah Valley. Meet Aperture Coffee Roasters, a small operation lead by Shawn Garman and their partner Julien Garman along with Kevin Deans. Aperture rolled out on Instagram earlier this year and debuted on May 4th. Julien Garman designed the coffee packaging: we like the clean type and layout. Each offering has its own striking color with subtle striping. The bags are the popular stand-up matte laminate resealable pouches. We dig it! We spoke with the team at Aperture Coffee to learn more.

Tell us a bit about your company.

Aperture Coffee Roasters was founded in the Spring of 2018 and is based out of Woodstock, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley. We’re a three-person team of a husband-and-wife duo (Shawn Garman is the CEO and head roaster, while Julien Garman mans the creative side of things), and our green sales coordinator and assistant roaster, Kevin Deans. With a strong focus on ethical sourcing and high-quality beans, we wanted to offer a cleaner, brighter cup of coffee for those interested in a more fulfilling coffee experience.

Who designed the package?

We’re really proud to say we designed everything in-house. Our co-founder, Julien Garman, has worked heavily in marketing and design for the past five years, so she was excited to take on this project. It took a lot of time and revisions, but we’re thrilled with how it turned out.

What coffee information do you share on the package?

On the front, we have our logo, roasting region (the Shenandoah Valley), the origin of the beans, tasting notes, and a special bag number. With Aperture being our central theme, we felt it’d be really fun to make each bag feel like it’s own work of art…so we number the bags so consumers know that what they’re getting is small-batch roasted and limited edition.

On the back, we tell a little of our story…how we started, and about our mission as a coffee roasting company. Of course, there are some promo pieces we couldn’t help but include (website, address, and Instagram) as well as the roast date. Then on our website, we talk about the farms where each bean is grown and sourced.

What’s the motivation behind that?

We wanted to be really thoughtful with every detail—from the angles on the front (mimicking light rays a la “aperture”) to the bag numbering feature—we wanted people to feel that they were really receiving something special. It was important that the design was as enticing and special as the coffee itself. Through the story on the back, we really wanted to share that we’re just a small team of people that are obsessed with coffee, hoping to spread a little joy with everyone who comes in contact with our beans.

Why are the aesthetics in coffee packaging so important?

Packaging is really the first impression you can have on someone before they try your beans. We felt it was imperative that from the moment our box reaches your doorstep to the moment that coffee hits your tastebuds, you’re not just drinking coffee—you’re truly experiencing it.

Where is the bag manufactured?

It’s made here in the USA (Wausau, Wisconsin) and all materials are sourced locally within the United States as well.

Where is it currently available?

Right now, it’s exclusively available online at aperturecoffee.com, but will be featured in a few DC coffee shops this Fall!

Thanks!

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

The post Coffee Design: Aperture Coffee Roasters In Woodstock, Virginia appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

As previously reported here on Sprudge, Starbucks is feeling the heat in China. Multiple competitors—most notably Tim Horton’s and Luckin Coffee—are making big pushes within the country to knock Starbucks off the top of the hill. But Starbucks isn’t going down quietly. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Big Green Mermaid has agreed to join forces with Alibaba to offer a coffee delivery service.

Those in the coffee industry may be familiar with the name Alibaba, especially those in the product creation side of the biz. Alibaba is a Chinese-based clearinghouse of sorts for all manner of coffee products—more than a few of them using potentially stolen intellectual property—at bargain basement prices. They are also the owner of Ele.me, a food delivery service that can be found in thousands of cities within China, and it is this brand in particular that Starbucks in interested in.

According to the article, Starbucks will announce this week that they will be teaming up with Ele.me to deliver coffee and baked goods starting this fall. This move comes after a government crackdown on third-party delivery services that is at least partly to blame for Starbucks’ sales dropping by 2% over the past three months as well as a response specifically to Luckin Coffee, a Chinese upstart who has raised over $1 billion and opened over 600 locations this year alone, “mostly bare-bones shops where the coffee is brewed and carried to customers by scooter-riding delivery workers.”

Coffee is big money in China right now and Starbucks in looking to hold onto their estimated 80% market share. But it won’t be easy. Luckin, Tim Horton’s, and Costa are all trying to chip away at the coffee behemoth. Perhaps teaming up with Alibaba will keep the wolves at bay. Or maybe soon we’ll all be able to buy knock-off Howard Schultz’s for $.50 a pop (minimum order 500).

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

Top image via Camera Courage.

The post Starbucks Teams Up With Alibaba For Coffee Delivery In China appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

In the specialty coffee industry, the roasting sector has traditionally been structured in ways that bar access to people with all types of disabilities, from the mobile to the sensory to the intellectual to the neurological. Upending that dynamic completely is South Carolina-based York Coffee Roastery, a job training roastery and storefront for people with intellectual disabilities, head and spinal cord injuries, and autism. The roastery and attached storefront opened just this month and are already seeing a wave of community support for their mission and work.

Born out of the residential and vocational support nonprofit MaxAbilities, York Coffee Roasters launched as a solution to a much larger problem. Typically, people with lifelong disabilities can get help through Medicaid, but the system also has huge gaps in coverage. “When you’re sick you get specific types of support, which are usually temporary,” explains Mary Poole, executive director of MaxAbilities and York Coffee Roastery. “But when you have a lifelong disability, you need things above and beyond a hospital stay or a particular medication. You need residential and vocational support, you may need physical and occupational therapy, and you’ll need those things well beyond your childhood years.” Those services come with long waiting lists, and not all individuals with lifelong disabilities have access to Medicaid, so MaxAbilities works to house and job-coach folks who fall through the cracks and create sustainable living situations for them as they reach adulthood.

York Coffee Roastery started as a way to provide concrete job training and placement using coffee as the vehicle. “Our goals are to give people skills, confidence, and a resume. Then, we utilize our job coaching services and find a job for those folks in the community. We’re trying to do all that without government funding,” says Poole. While workers are doing the real work of roasting, bagging, and serving coffee, they’re also developing a number of soft skills, like customer service, cleaning, and the ability to take criticism and follow a specific schedule. Trainees also learn basic computer skills on-site with coaches, developing resumes, and filling out online applications to get their next, more permanent job placements once they’ve been successfully integrated into a real-life work environment.

“It’s a job training center; the coffee is the vehicle that we’re using to help them understand what a job is. After roasting coffee, they might go be a janitor somewhere, or they might go and bus tables somewhere,” says Poole. After York Coffee Roastery, folks may never work in coffee again, but they learn skills that will allow them to do any job properly with the right training.

Unlike a lot of traditional coffee roasting setups, the roasting work is neither particularly physical nor dangerous; workers roast two-pound batches on four Sonofresco air roasters. The tables in the space are all height-adjustable so that workers of different heights can all access them with ease. “The coffee part is all new to me,” says Poole. “It’s been incredible to learn about the coffee side of things while using it for our larger mission.”

The cafe also tries to streamline coffee service as much as possible for a maximum focus on transferable skills; featuring batch brew, cold-brew, and a cappuccino/latte/espresso machine with pictures of drinks, the goal is less to train baristas and more to train workers. “Folks are cleaning the tables, learning about the drinks, but also just learning to interact with people they may not have interacted with otherwise,” says Poole. Just as crucial to the mission, the community also learns to interact with them. “We can sit here and say we want people with disabilities to have jobs all day long, but if business owners aren’t able to see the value of employing our folks and seeing all that they can bring to the table, they’re never going to get those jobs. The community needs to be just as invested in the mission as we are.”

In just the short time since York opened, they’ve seen an enthusiastic community response, including coverage from several local news stations. “Every time a piece goes out, our orders go through the roof,” says Poole. They’re currently selling retail bags online, in their storefront, and in a local farmer’s market, but have submitted the necessary applications to start selling their coffee wholesale as well.

“We’re trying to be innovative in our approach to job training,” says Poole. “Our folks are really enjoying the work; they really enjoy being there. We need to bring other people into the storyline—it can’t be about our mission existing in a vacuum. I think we can do it and we’re going to try.” In the specialty coffee world, we too need to think differently and focus on bringing everyone along. York Coffee Roastery offers a valuable precedent for a different way to think about coffee roasting spaces.

RJ Joseph (@RJ_Sproseph) is a Sprudge staff writer, publisher of Queer Cup, and coffee professional based in the Bay Area. Read more RJ Joseph on Sprudge Media Network.

Photos by Michelle Shaffer unless otherwise noted.

The post South Carolina’s York Coffee Offers Job Training For People With Disabilities appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

San Francisco! Tomorrow, August 2nd is a good day to drink coffee, as Equator Coffees & Teas will be hosting Adam Overton—co-owner of the Gesha Village Coffee Estate in Ethiopia—who will be bringing along with him a previewing one of the lots from their first-ever crop.

Taking place at 6:00pm at Equator’s downtown San Francisco cafe, The Gesha Village Preview is a chance for Bay Area residents to get to meet Overton, who will be discussing his 500-hectare farm as well as how the Gesha Village Coffee Estate acquired the seedstock from the Gori Gesha wild coffee forest just 20 kilometers away. Following the presentation, Overton will be available for a Q&A session with all attendees.

After the talk, guests will be able to be some of the first individuals to try Gesha Village’s Oma coffee, roasted by Equator. This is part of just their first harvest, some of which already sold at auction for over $100 a pound, but attendees will get to try it for free. For those unable to attend, all Equator cafes will be serving the Gesha Village Oma the following Monday, but for a cool $8 a cup.

The event is free to attend with no RSVP required. For more information, visit the Gesha Village Preview Facebook event page.

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

Top image via Gesha Village Coffee Estate.

The post San Francisco: Taste The First-Ever Harvest Of Gesha Village At Equator appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

One of the real joys in reading the Build-Outs of Summer that come our way each year is seeing how new cafes are repurposing old buildings. Sure, a ground-up build is also exciting, but getting to see coffee shops get creative within limitations while preserving sometimes 100-year-old historical structures is always satisfying. You get to see new spaces retain and add to the character of a place.

Our next stop is doing just that. Ironclad Coffee Roasters in Richmond, Virginia is taking over a 130-year-old fire station that has since been decommissioned since the 1950s. In the process of their build-out, they made sure to keep much of the original character of the building in the historic Shockoe Bottom neighborhood and have done so to a dramatic effect. They have breathed new life into those old bones, but made sure the history remained.

As told to Sprudge by Ryan O’Rourke.

For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?

We began roasting coffee, primarily for wholesale, in February of 2016. Our founder, Ryan O’Rourke, had just returned to the USA after living in Ireland for five years. During that time, he was fortunate enough to enjoy coffee from some excellent European roasting companies. This shaped his vision for Ironclad. We strive to offer coffees of outstanding quality with an attitude of approachability and fun.

The new Ironclad cafe is our opportunity to showcase the coffees that motivate us to get out of bed every morning and to present them in our own unique manner. Mostly, we want people to enjoy delicious beverages and tasty treats in a beautiful and welcoming environment.

Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

The building was constructed in 1884 as the station for the No. 2 Hook and Ladder Company of the Richmond Fire Department. It was decommissioned as a fire house in 1952.

In remodeling the space as a cafe, we wanted to highlight the manifold original features and highlight the history. We also want it to highlight the beauty and uniqueness of Richmond as a city. The building sits in the Shockoe Bottom neighborhood, arguably the most historic section of one of the most historic cities in the USA.

What’s your approach to coffee?

A commitment to quality in a fun and approachable manner. We endeavor to be a place where anyone can enjoy their time with top-quality food and beverage in a comfortable environment. Life is, indeed, too short for both bad coffee AND mean people.

Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

Three-group Victoria Arduino Black Eagle Gravitech
Nuova Simonelli Mythos One Clima Pro grinders for espresso
Mahlkönig EK-43 for pour overs and batch brew
Ground Control for our batch brew (this thing is incredible)
Yama drip cold brew tower

What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?

Grand Opening on July 13th

Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?

CB Chandler Construction
Lustre Home (designers)

Thank you!

You’re welcome! 🙂

The Build-Outs Of Summer is an annual series on Sprudge. Live the thrill of the build all summer long in our Build-Outs feature hub.

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Source: Coffee News