For paid subscribers: A fascinating academic paper delves into the ways Korean Buddhists, after centuries of drinking tea, have started to embrace coffee.
Demand for coffee is growing, and climate change threatens supply—yet consumers don’t want to pay more. In an intensified and unequal industry, however, someone always pays.
For paid subscribers: What happens when the melodramatic language of social media and political discourse begins to impact how we discuss the coffee industry.
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.
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?
For paid subscribers: What Starbucks’ CEO Brian Niccol’s meeting with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says about the company’s embrace of coffee’s wellness trend—and the trend’s darker side.
For paid subscribers: A look at what makes coffee health studies so attractive to news organisations and readers, and how such stories also benefit the coffee industry.
For paid subscribers: deleted scenes from last week's lexicon. Musings on the words "Sustainability", "Specialty", and the old-school buzzwords like "Artisan" and "Gourmet".
For paid subscribers: I’ve written before about Starbucks’ myriad climate issues, but now conservative activist shareholders are trying to weaponise those failings in service of a climate denialist goal.
For paid subscribers: Recent stories show the dangers of building too much of a coffee company’s image around its founder’s personality. When things go wrong, it can blow back on the brand.
