More Coffee Market Volatility

The Hyperreality of Specialty Coffee

Well-funded startups mimic the aesthetics and language of specialty coffee. Giant multinationals cosplay community. Companies chase trends created by social media. It all points towards coffee's growing hyperreality.

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.

The main story this week is the extreme volatility of the coffee futures market, which surged and sank over the course of last week. Here's a (hugely simplified) timeline of events:
- After subsiding somewhat over the past few months, the C price began to rise again in August as Trump's 50% tariff on imports from Brazil came into effect. On Tuesday September 16th, Bloomberg reported that speculators were pushing the price further upwards on the back of those tariff fears and uncertain weather forecasts from Brazil. At one point the the day before, the market neared February's record high.
- On Thursday the 18th, however, the C price fell 9% in one day, its biggest single day drop since 2008. This came, Bloomberg reported, "as algorithm-driven traders booked profits and the exchange made it more expensive to maintain positions".
- Then, on Friday the 19th, two U.S. legislators introduced a bipartisan bill that would exempt coffee from Trump's onerous tariffs. There's no guarantee that it will make it into law, but even the announcement caused the C price to fall yet again, losing 6.5% (robusta futures fell even more).
Away from tariffs, the renewal of hostilities between government forces and rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo threatens to put a halt to the DRC's coffee revival. The country has worked hard to recover from the civil war-triggered collapse of its coffee industry in the 1990s. Now, farmers are being displaced and export routes have been blocked by renewed fighting, impacting harvests and livelihoods.
Starbucks Workers United gained some powerful supporters in its fight for a first union contract. A coalition of 45 organisations including labour federations like the AFL-CIO and political groups like Sunrise Movement signed a letter urging Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol to finalise contract negotiations. "When working people do better, we all do better", the letter reads in part. "That means finalizing fair contracts that show union baristas how you value their contributions to your multi-billion dollar company".

For more on all these stories, check out the full Roundup over at Fresh Cup Magazine:

In case you missed it, why not check out my interview with coffee educator Rachel Apple. We talked about her career, the importance of barista education, and taking on the mantle of Barista Camp with the upcoming Level Up event in Minneapolis:

I'll be back on Friday with a new longform article, but until then it's goodbye from a new cat friend I made while down in England last week. This is Houdini, and I didn't get much work done while he was around: