The Journey of a Coffee Bean

The Journey of a Coffee Bean

Coffee is an extremely labor intensive crop.

Every cup relies on an immense human effort that largely goes unrecognized. Before coffee even leaves the origin country, many steps are involved in its production - especially as concerns specialty grade coffee. In order to achieve the often very high quality requirements of specialty buyers, each step of this process must be managed carefully or the producer runs the risk of losing their buyer. Added to this is the accelerating climate crisis, which disproportionately affects the Global South and saddles the smallholder - responsible for the majority of the world’s production - with crop diseases, drought, soil erosion, and increased input costs.

Specialty coffee of any form is a triumph of will, driven by the passion and love of those who seek to see their life’s labours respected and compensated. Though specialty coffee offers premiums for quality, the price paid to the producer is rarely determined in relationship to the true cost of production, and more often than not fails to adequately compensate them for their work. For specialty coffee to be truly sustainable, the reality is it that compensation must go way up, based not only on premiums for exceptional quality, but as a fair remuneration for the labor involved and the increasingly expensive cost of production in a climate-altered world.

This photo story, while lengthy, does not come close to showcasing the amount of labor and care required especially at origin.We as importers and roasters alike must take on the responsibility of educating consumers about the real cost of coffee and encourage them to pay more, and we need to foster a pricing culture that values and pays for the effort behind every coffee.

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