Jenn Rugolo, editor working for 25, the Specialty Coffee Association magazine, summarizes the different topics covering the world of coffee in each periodical feature. Each of these features, explains Rugolo, feels like an entire microcosm of specialized information specific to the topic at hand. Below, we report his thoughts on the matter.
The future of coffee and its microcosm
by Jenn Rugolo
MILAN, Italy – Despite entering my sixth year of editing 25, I’m (somehow) still astonished at the organic way the editorial team often ends up with some kind of unifying link between all the features despite our best efforts to avoid any “theming” at the start of each cycle.
This issue is not connected by virtue of the relationships between the different topics it covers, but rather by the depth of questions asked by each feature, and the complexity of the variables they contain. Each of these features feels like an entire microcosm in and of itself, a rabbit hole of specialized information specific to the topic at hand. Together, they reflect our industry’s attempt to make sense of the increasingly rapid rate of change we all face and the ways in which it will impact our personal and collective futures.
Across Business and Sustainability, Judy Ganes and Andrés Montenegro both explore the concept of market dynamics and value distribution through two very different lenses: the rules underpinning the Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE’s) “C” market and the Specialty Coffee Association’s (SCA’s) recent Equitable Value Distribution survey, respectively. In Research, two groups of collaborative researchers outline Coffee Science Foundation projects with vastly different scopes of work. Whether focused on creating a more robust lexicon for roast color or mitigating the generation of static electricity during grinding, these features help us to better understand the scientific foundations of emerging standards and best practices.
In Insight, Mateus Manfrin Artêncio and Alexa Romano deep-dive into their areas of respective study, too. Where one explores the role of informational attributes on coffee professionals’ sensory perception and outlines the concept of “the predictive brain,” the other considers the history of coffee consumption and questions whether consumers are passive receivers or active co-creators of value. There are certainly links between Artêncio’s and Romano’s work as a pair, but it’s also possible to draw threads between these Insight features and those in Business, Sustainability, and Research: what role does information play in coffee’s system when it comes to market dynamics, value distribution, professional standards, and best practices?
With all these intensely deep features exploring their own respective fields, perhaps there is no better issue to explore how the Coffee Science Foundation sets its research agenda. In Program Spotlight, Mary Basco explains not only the agenda’s development process, but also what new knowledge we hope it will yield in the coming years.
Although there’s a density to Issue 21’s features, each rich with detail specific to its focus, there are also many connections to find between each, reading between the lines. There’s so much to be excited about and grateful for when it comes to the way in which our industry interrogates and explores all these vastly different areas of study in service of making coffee better.
About the authors:
- Mary Basco outlines the Coffee Science Foundation’s 2024-2025 Research Agenda and outlines which research projects are on the horizon | Nurturing Sustainable Coffee Excellence: The Coffee Science Foundation’s 2024-2025 Research Agenda
- Judy Ganes explains the Intercontinental Exchange grading process and considers how recent changes to this practice, which results in exchange-certified coffee and impacts levels of “certified stock,” are likely to impact C market dynamics | The “Other” Certified Coffee: Understanding Recent Rule Changes to the Intercontinental Exchange
- Andrés Montenegro writes an “after action review” on the SCA’s Equitable Value Distribution Survey tool, offering insights into its process, highlighting key elements from its results, and providing early insights into how these results will impact the SCA’s Sustainable Coffee Agenda | A Point of Tension: What We Know (and Think We Know) about Equitable Value Distribution
- Laudia Anokye-Bempah, Irwin R. Donis-González and William D. Ristenpart describe research undertaken in 2023 with a goal of developing new roast color standards for the coffee industry | What Color is Your Coffee?
- Drs. Joshua Méndez Harper and Christopher H. Hendon discuss the chemistry and physics behind the electrification of coffee during grinding, its effect on extraction, and strategies to mitigate it | It’s Electric: Understanding—and Reducing—Static Electricity During Grinding
- Mateus Manfrin Artêncio shares the findings of a recent paper, “The Impact of Coffee Origin Information on Sensory and Hedonic Judgment of Fine Amazonian Robusta Coffee,” published in the Journal of Sensory Studies, confirming the significant influence of origin information on the sensory perception of professional coffee tasters | What You Know Matters: The Impact of Storytelling on Coffee Professionals’ Sensory Perception
- Alexa Romano explores the emergence of specialty coffee culture as an embedded subculture within the broader coffee industry, and how the resulting shift from passive to active consumption asks us to rethink the consumer’s role in value creation and distribution | From Passive to Active: Expanding Our Understanding of Specialty Coffee Consumerism
