Chatbots telling us what we want. Robots making our coffee. Baristas reduced to smiling servers. If Starbucks and other brands get their way, this is the future: a frictionless, interactionless, lifeless coffee experience.
Coffee farmers in the Kona region of Hawaii used coffee fingerprinting to bolster their case against a group of distributors and grocery chains who they accuse of using the Kona name to misleadingly label much cheaper coffee. After a five-year-long legal battle, farmers won more than $41 million in settlements.
The denizens of r/decaf, a subreddit with more than 40,000 members, are very sure that coffee is bad for you. This corner of the internet believes that giving up caffeine is “a hero’s journey” and that doing so can cure a range of issues from acne and depression to insomnia and even existential angst.
Workers at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, coffee chain announced their intent to unionize. A few hours later the company announced that it was closing for, er, “financial” reasons.
I'm a coffee writer and creator of The Pourover. Based in Scotland, I have over a decade of experience in the specialty coffee industry. Ask me about coffeewashing. It's pronounced Fin (he/him)
Fionn Pooler
