This Coffee is Electric

• Last week, the World Coffee Championships quietly changed the country designation for its Taiwanese competitors from Taiwan to Chinese Taipei. The latter is how many countries and international sporting competitions denote Taiwanese competitors to keep on the good side of the People's Republic of China, which considers Taiwan part of China. The WCC also took down photos of recent Latte Art Champion Bala on stage in front of a screen showing he was representing Taiwan, and removed previous winner listings that included Taiwanese competitors. The WCC said the change was "an update to how competitors are recorded, administratively"; coffee professionals, however, saw it differently. Jenn Chen called it "a bullshit, spineless move, doing it silently and hoping that no one notices".

What’s in a name? 🇹🇼

Plus: social prescribing, The Republic of Slowjamastan, potatoes for chips

tanjennts by Jenn ChenJenn Chen

• How do you objectively assess coffee quality? You could use a refractometer to measure the strength via total dissolved solids. You could look at roast level. Or you could zap your morning brew with an electrical current and figure out both. That's what researchers at the University of Oregon did, taking a lab tool called a potentiostat and repurposing it to measure how electricity interacts with coffee. “The reason you have an enjoyable cup of coffee is almost certainly that you have selected a coffee of a particular roast color and extracted it to a desired strength”, lead author Christopher Hendon said in a press release. “Until now we haven’t been able to separate those variables. Now we can diagnose what gives rise to that delicious cup".
• People love suing coffee-related companies. Some of them are important, like the multiple lawsuits against Starbucks and Nestlé over their labour practices, or against Keurig for its allegedly misleading recycling claims. Trader Joe's is the latest retailer to be the subject of a lawsuit, but this one is in the silly/pointless category alongside the fight between Death Wish Coffee and Liquid Death over the ownership of the concept of death itself. For this latest lawsuit, a group of consumers has accused Trader Joe's of misleading customers over the caffeine content of one of its coffees. Not because the coffee is overly caffeinated and thus dangerous, of course, but because it isn't caffeinated enough.

For more on all these stories, plus a successful new coffee union in Canada, check out this week's Roundup over at Fresh Cup Magazine:

Coffee News Club: Week of May 4

WCC quietly changed competitors’ affiliations from Taiwan to Chinese Taipei. Plus, zap your coffee to see if it tastes good, and Trader Joe’s sued because beans don’t have enough caffeine.

Fresh CupFionn Pooler

I'll be back with a new Pourover longread on Friday, but until then it's goodbye from my friend Angela's cat Jun, who is practising for his audition as a Costco spokesmodel: