Could This New Hybrid Save Coffee?

Will Sky High Retail Coffee Prices Ever Come Back Down?

For paid subscribers: retail coffee prices have soared in recent years, driven by climbing commodity costs and tariff stupidity. Some of those pressures have now started to ease, and yet retail prices continue to rise. Will they ever come down?

Hello, and welcome to the Roundup. Every week, I read all the coffee news and write about the best bits for Fresh Cup Magazine. Then, I summarise those bits for you in this newsletter.

As coffee faces increasing pressure from climate change, researchers are on the lookout for new species, hybrids, and varieties that can cope with hotter temperatures and extreme weather patterns. One new option may be Coffea x libex, a hybrid of excelsa and liberica recently identified by a team from Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. While arabica and robusta dominate global production, a few countries still cultivate excelsa and liberica, and the two often hybridise when grown on the same farm. Libex combines key traits from its parents, including increased disease resistance and general climate resilience, and the researchers hope it can offer farmers another alternative to the popular but vulnerable arabica.
Starbucks Korea was caught up in a political maelstrom after a controversial "Tank Day" promotional campaign proved less than popular. The company, which is operated by a conglomerate called Shinsegae Group, launched the campaign to promote its line of large "Tank" tumblers. However, the launch coincided with the anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising, a 1980 pro-democracy uprising which the military government sent soldiers and tanks to brutally suppress. Shinsigae Group ended up firing Starbucks Korea's CEO, and both its chairman and Starbucks Global had to apologise.
Speaking of Starbucks, it recently received a letter from a group of independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. In the letter, the experts called out Starbucks' "alleged ongoing and widespread union-busting campaign". The company's conduct "may amount to violations of workers’ rights to freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association", the group wrote. In a statement to Reuters, Starbucks said that it is "actively engaging with the union in good faith".

I wrote this in 2023, and the union is *still* waiting for a first contract.

For more on all these stories, plus some mixed news on coffee health, check out the full Roundup over at Fresh Cup Magazine:

In case you missed it, last week's main Pourover article was on the future of coffee delivery. Will drones ever whiz about the place delivering coffee? Probably not:

Paid subscribers will receive their bonus article on Friday, but until then it's goodbye from my friend Angela's cat Jun, who is enjoying (I think?) some time in the grass: