Chris Kornman’s recent supply chain article published in the Royal Newsletter could not have been more timely for me. His observations resonated with my own experiences from a recent trip to Guatemala. As Chris explained, coffee milling and exporting services are often separate from farm operations. This is common for many of Royal’s Guatemalan coffee […]
…or The (Supply) Chain Will Keep Us Together Between 2008 and 2015, I lost weeks of my life to layovers and time zone changes travelling between the United States and coffee farms in Brazil and East Africa. It was 100% worth the time I can’t have back: the opportunity to meet and speak with international […]
We have been observing and collecting data in Santa Elena as part of the Catracha Quality Project to improve upon green coffee processing strategies. (See related Catracha articles here). But once the coffee is ready to ship from Honduras, we cannot ride along in the container as it makes its ocean journey to Oakland, California. […]
For the last several weeks, members of the Catracha Quality Project have been presenting results of a data survey conducted during the 2016 harvest season in Santa Elena, Honduras. To go back and read some of that work — which includes detailed process maps and an analysis of correlation between cherry selection and cup score […]
When the Catracha Quality Project began, Catracha organizers encouraged producers to focus on the quality of the coffee by selecting ripe cherry. In the Royal Blog last week, Arvin Juan presented a post-harvest process map, the result of two years of observing practices and interviewing producers. It’s a visual tool for identifying best practices with […]
When we started the Catracha Quality Project (CQP), our first goal was to create a map to visualize how the Catracha producers were processing coffee from cherry to dried parchment. Over the last two harvests in Santa Elena, we interviewed producers and observed their practices to create a post-harvest process map. This map outlines current […]
Once a coffee cherry is picked from the branch, every step it takes until it’s brewed is a desperate act of preservation, a struggle against the entropy that will inevitably degrade the dying seed. In a perfect world, short distances traveled in stable environments would contribute to that preservation… but the coffee drinking world isn’t […]
Editor’s Note: This article was updated September 15th, 2022. In an interview, Royal Co-founder Bob Fulmer was once asked, “If you were to die and come back as a drink, what drink would you be?” He responded, “Yemen Mocca Sanani, roasted full city, made fresh and strong.” You can check out our recent Yemen cupping adventure […]
How is Climate Effecting the Spread of Leaf Rust? by Kevin Stark Editor’s Note: This is part of a continued series on our commitment to the Catracha Quality Project. Look for further articles and for the arrival of these coffees in the coming months. We have a few of these coffees available SPOT in both […]
Editor’s Note: This is part of a continued series on our commitment to the Catracha Quality Project. Look for further articles and for the arrival of these coffees in the coming months. We have a few of these coffees available SPOT in both Oakland & Seattle. ___________________ When I was visiting Catracha Coffee farms in […]
