Is Coffee Fermentation Magic?

The Moral Cost of Dubai’s Coffee Boom

The coffee scene in Dubai is thriving, and the city is set to welcome the Specialty Coffee Association’s World of Coffee event next month. But underneath the glitzy facade and marketing buzz lies a moral quagmire.

Coffee Conversations: Biggby's Bob Fish on Challenging Corporate Coffee’s Status Quo

The co-founder of the chain Biggby Coffee talks about building a successful company with hundreds of franchised locations, only to switch to a new way of doing business—one that prioritises more than just growth and profit.

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.

This week:

Picking coffee cherries at their exact peak ripeness is widely considered essential for high quality coffee. However, a new study from Brazil has shown that, using the right post-harvest fermentation, underripe cherries can be improved to the point that they reach the same—or better—quality than ripe cherries.
Blue Bottle Coffee says that it has achieved carbon neutrality, although the Nestlé-owned brand relied on carbon offsets to get there. Getting into the nuts and bolts of the story is beyond the scope of this mini Monday newsletter—my Fresh Cup piece goes into Blue Bottle's claims in a bit more detail, and I will certainly be writing about it in a future Pourover article.

I've also previously written about carbon neutral coffee in general:

Death Wish Coffee, known for suing other death-themed coffee companies, has filed a lawsuit against Liquid Death because it says the water brand is about to launch a line of coffee products. In response, Liquid Death said it has no current plans to get into coffee, and also noted that "we don’t believe any one company can legally own the word DEATH regardless of how it’s used".

For more on all these stories, plus why Verve Coffee had to pay $182,000 to its workers, check out the full Roundup over at Fresh Cup Magazine:

Paid subscribers to The Pourover receive a bonus article every other Friday, often on topics that are either inspired by or that don't quite fit into the scope of the main newsletter. However, I've also been exploring coffee history—the latest bonus piece looks at Sweden's history of banning coffee, and how Gustav III's attempts to prove it harmful may have been the world's first randomised controlled trial:

I'll be back on Friday with a new long read—this week I'm finally going to tackle the thorny subject of automation in coffee—but until then, it's goodbye from Clem, who is waiting for something (probably a treat):