Paid bonus articles
For paid subscribers to The Pourover. These pieces offer extra analysis and opinion around major stories in coffee.
Why Might Luckin Want To Buy Blue Bottle Coffee?
For paid subscribers: Nestlé is exploring a sale of Blue Bottle, and Luckin is reportedly interested. With such different approaches to coffee, however, it’s worth asking the question: why?
Dubai’s Chocolate-Based Propaganda Push
For paid subscribers: Coffee is increasingly used to burnish the United Arab Emirates’ international image. Now it is being supercharged by merging with the popularity of the Dubai chocolate trend.
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.
On Blue Bottle Coffee’s Climate Neutral ‘Achievement’
For paid subscribers: Blue Bottle used carbon offsets and a focus on “emissions intensity” to go carbon neutral, but its total emissions increased quite significantly. Should this "achievement" be celebrated?
Robot Baristas as Strikebreakers
Companies are turning to automation as a tool to fight back against industrial action. In coffee, that role could well be played by robot baristas—in fact, it sort of already has.
The King of Sweden’s Coffee Experiment
For paid subscribers: Today, Sweden is famous for its love of coffee. But historically that hasn’t always been the case, and one particular ruler’s attempts to prove coffee’s harmful health impacts may have been the world’s first randomised controlled trial.
Coffee Discourse is Becoming Increasingly Sensationalised
For paid subscribers: What happens when the melodramatic language of social media and political discourse begins to impact how we discuss the coffee industry.
Coffee Contamination
For paid subscribers: It turns out that coffee’s impact on the environment continues after we drink it.
The Coffee Smuggler of Boca Raton
For paid subscribers: A tale of international intrigue, bank fraud, and coffee smuggling from the 1980s that sounds like an episode of Miami Vice.
Crypto Coffee; or, Why a Struggling Spanish Cafe Chain Is Going All-In on Bitcoin
For paid subscribers: Troubled coffee companies now have a new way to escape their problems: invest in cryptocurrencies and pray that the line keeps going up.
How Low Can Coffee Prices in China Go?
For paid subscribers: Competition among coffee chains in China is driving prices to ridiculous new lows. Where will it end?
The Never-Ending Tariff Story
For paid subscribers: Donald Trump’s latest arbitrary tariff threat, this time against Brazil, has once again enveloped the coffee industry in chaos and uncertainty. When will it end?