Coffee’s On!
The Coffee Bean International blog—featuring insights, news, and stories, covering everything coffee from tree to cup.
Harvest Time in Nicaragua
Saludos from Jinotega, Nicaragua! I am back in Nicaragua to witness the beginning of the 2011-2012 coffee harvest as well as check in on the progress with our Direct Trade producers Roberto Bendaña and the Las Mercedes group of the Aldea Global Co-op. Read more »
"I'll Have a Tall Blonde, Please!"
You say Starbucks®. I think…top-tier brand. Defiantly stubborn in their tradition of quality. I think…innovative product marketing. America’s specialty coffee lexicon. I think…unbelievable product and customer experience consistency (excluding airports, hotels, and cafeterias, of course). Starbucks equals decommoditization of coffee, circa 1990. Read more »
2011 Sustainability Report
The Coffee Bean International 2011 Sustainability Report is now live. This year, we made huge strides toward shifting our waste ratio, with the ultimate goal of hauling zero waste to the landfill. We also dramatically reduced our travel miles, which will impact our overall carbon footprint. Additionally, we grew our direct trade portfolio and off-commodity-market purchases, which isolate farmers from the coffee price volatility that is driven now primarily from investors/speculators. Through these direct relationships we can address coffee’s biggest sustainability issues. Read more »
A Coffee Pilgrimage to Britain – Part 1
I recently had the opportunity to spend two weeks doing something I have dreamed of for many years; spending two weeks exploring the coffee culture in one of the Western world’s oldest coffee cities – London. Read more »
Musings on John Vaughan and the “Going Out of Style” of Fresh, Local, and Lovingly Roasted Coffee
I never had the opportunity to meet John C. Vaughan from St. Louis. And that saddens me, because he looks like the sort of man a person would WANT to meet… especially if they were a person like me that is (and as John obviously was) absolutely crazy about roasting coffee. Read more »
Earth Day
We are an earth-loving bunch at Coffee Bean International! We celebrated Earth Day for an entire week, which culminated in an energetic celebration today. Our “Conservation Tree” was a challenge to all employees on all three shifts to perform and log Eco-Deeds. Read more »
Coffee Bean International Receives BEST Award
This morning, Mayor Sam Adams presented the 19th annual BEST Awards, with Coffee Bean International named winner in the medium-sized business category. Read more »
Introducing START
Coffee has historically been a crop grown to satisfy the demand of the developed world at the cost of a lower quality of life for producing communities. Now, the coffee industry has the tools, the energy, and the momentum to create a paradigm shift and redefine coffee as we know it. But, before we can change the coffee world, we have to measure our current baseline and concrete steps already taken, so we can design our intentions around real information. We need a measurement tool. And, now we have one: START.
Read more »
Visit to Tanzania for the EAFCA Conference – Part 2
I journeyed to Tanzania and the annual EAFCA (Eastern African Fine Coffees Association) conference as an honored guest of the Association, being asked to give two presentations during the convention. It was a privilege to be invited to be a speaker at the event, a role that I enjoy fulfilling anytime and anywhere in the world where I can talk coffee with a room full of people that love it as much as I do! Read more »
Visit to Tanzania for the EAFCA Conference - Part 1
After a recent trip to Africa Molly Laverty, our Producer Relations Manager, blogged “Tanzania is really far from Portland”. Having just returned from the latest EAFCA (Eastern African Fine Coffees Association) annual meeting held in Arusha, Tanzania, I can similarly attest to the remoteness of Tanzania and the difficulty in getting there and coming back! Read more »
