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Disclaimer 1, 2 & 3
October 2, 2025
Articles

DISCLAIMER 1: I am not a farmer, nor do I grow coffee.
DISCLAIMER 2: Why $30,000 for 1kg is both wrong and right.
DISCLAIMER 3: What's most important is in the cup.


DISCLAIMER 1


Despite a few attempts, I’ve left farming to those who dedicate their lives to it. Coffee production is a year-round commitment, not a few visits each year where you chase your own tail. Perhaps my perspective will evolve over time.

Back in 2014, I travelled to Santa Barbara, Honduras. It quickly became clear that inequality is immense. We need to translate every detail from origin to end consumer. Only through this transparency can we have the impact we dream of. My thanks go to Arturo Paz and Benjamin Paz, who hosted me as if we’d known each other for years and taught me the mission of carrying the ideology from the farm all the way to the cup. I’ve been advocating for that ever since.

Yet, I find it difficult to tell coffee producers how they should grow coffee. Even with the best intentions, words can land wrong. We might have great ideas, but the realities of farming prove us wrong time and time again. What works in Central America, backed by research, might completely fail in East Africa or Asia. I still converse with exporters, millers, and producers, but I’ve moved away from conversations centered on "how" or "what if."

Guidance only matters if it comes with long-term commitment, not just a one-week origin trip when coffee is ready to be cupped.

All recognition should go to coffee producers. Our job, as facilitators, is simply to preserve the quality post-harvest. Everything before that—care, knowledge, input, and faith—belongs to the grower.


DISCLAIMER 2


A washed Gesha from Hacienda La Esmeralda just sold at the Best of Panama auction for $30,204 per kilo. That’s $604,080 for a 20 kg lot. The buyer? Julith Coffee, a roastery from Dubai with no transparency. Some say it's a real estate agency, others trace it to Turkish investors. The roastery opened August 1st, 2025.
With expert roasting, they’ll yield around 16kg of roasted coffee. That’s roughly 64 x 250g bags. Just green coffee alone puts the cost near $9,434 per bag. Add shipping, roasting, and packaging, and you're easily looking at $10,000 per bag.
That equates to $834 per cup (based on 12 brews from 250g using 20g per brew).

I might be too sentimental, remembering the beginnings of specialty coffee—paying fair prices, nurturing long-term relationships, doing good for the sake of it.
But I doubt that flashy spending and narcissistic self-promotion help our industry. Yes, this raises the bar for price per pound. But is this the way?
Let’s consider what big money has already done to specialty coffee.

Large corporations are buying smaller roasteries. These once-authentic brands, rich in storytelling and diverse in their offerings, are reduced to uniform, scalable, volume-driven products.
49th Parallel—once Vince Piccolo’s second business—was sold to Claridge, a Montreal firm tied to unsettling scandals. Kicking Horse sold to Lavazza, which removed founder Elana and installed their own global growth director. Ethical Bean went to Kraft Heinz. Blue Bottle? Now majority-owned by Nestlé. Intelligentsia? Acquired by Peet’s, part of JAB Holdings. Hasbean? Sold to Ozone. Johan & Nyström? Swallowed by the consortium behind Espresso House.

Why do I rant? Because this trajectory threatens coffee's soul. It increases volume and dilutes quality. Over just 15 years, "specialty" lost its meaning.

A $10,000 bag is unrelatable to most people. It brings in wealth, and wealth brings control. We’ve seen how that plays out.

As Doug Graf once said: an immature industry is an unregulated industry. I'll leave it at that.

DISCLAIMER 3


Green buyers and roasters are often skilled cuppers. But context matters.
A cupping only holds meaning if there’s purpose: be it sourcing new coffees or calibrating production. The reason shapes the scoring. Buying an 80+ blender? You’ll cup a dozen similar coffees and pick the best fit. Searching for a unique, clean natural Ethiopian? The table will look and score very differently.
If you mix both types of coffees on one table, scores shift significantly depending on the context. That’s how bias sneaks in.

Having attended many auctions, I realized their aim is often more about breaking records or grabbing attention than discovering truth. Blind cuppings yield wildly varied scores across countries, raising questions about the reliability of judging.

"What matters is in the cup"—a phrase often heard at auctions. But is it a justification for something else?
If the cup is what matters most, and cup scoring is the highest measure, why hasn’t a BoP coffee ever scored 100?

I'll tell you why: to leave space for next year.
And again—I’ll leave it at that.

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