Insane Coffee Posse

Incredibly, there’s no mention of Starbucks in this week’s roundup. Instead:

• A consortium of large European coffee roasters, known as the ICP (International Coffee Partners, not Insane Clown Posse as I originally read the headline), lobbied to delay the impending E.U. deforestation legislation. Now that it has, in fact, been delayed, ICP welcomed the news. The extra year gives farmers and companies more time to meet the compliance requirements, the group said.
• Luckin Coffee is growing so rapidly that in order to secure enough green coffee it is doing the equivalent of asking to speak to the manager: striking deals directly with the Brazilian government. The tech-focused Chinese startup has agreed to spend $2.5 billion on arabica and robusta coffee from Brazil over the next four years.
• We all know that coffee affects your gut—and not always in an enjoyable way. However, according to a new study, coffee can in fact positively impact the health of your gut microbiome.

Read more on all these stories, plus some positive unionisation news, over at Fresh Cup Magazine:

In case you missed it, check out my latest long read on a year of silence in the coffee industry:

Coffee, Community, and a Year of Silence

The coffee industry loves “community”, but it doesn’t always love the solidarity that the word signifies. Nowhere is this more obvious than in its reaction—or lack thereof—to the genocide in Gaza.

The PouroverFionn Pooler

Until next week, it’s goodbye from Merlin (in a rare portrait photo):