Part 3 of 5: Data can help reveal what is really happening inside a coffee business, but only if it is interpreted with context and an awareness of bias. In part 3, Oscar Montoya joins Lee Safar to explore conflicting data, correlation versus causation, the limits of simple metrics, and why complex problems often need to be broken down before they can be solved.
Read MorePart 2 of 5: Businesses often start collecting data before they have clearly defined the problem. In part 2 of this series, Oscar Montoya joins Lee Safar to explore how better questions, data integrity, and awareness of bias can help coffee businesses identify the real problem behind the symptoms and make better decisions.
Read MorePart 1 of 5: Data is everywhere in coffee, but collecting it doesn't automatically make it useful. Data scientist, software developer, and coffee producer Oscar Montoya joins Lee Safar to explore how raw data becomes actionable information and why people, processes, and real business problems should come before technology.
Read MorePart 5 of 5: In our annual series with George Howell, we explore why George believes more people should drink black coffee and how cafés can make that experience more accessible. We also discuss single-farm coffee, consumer education, restaurants, brewing, and George’s hopes for farmers and quality coffee over the decades ahead.
Read MorePart 4 of 5: In our annual series with George Howell, we explore scoring, commenting, transparency, and how the coffee industry communicates quality. George explains why scoring remains an important internal tool, why consumers do not necessarily need numerical scores, and why exceptional coffees should be judged according to their own potential rather than against the reputation of a particular origin or variety.
Read MorePart 3 of 5: In our annual series with George Howell, we explore the tension between coffee quality and economics in today’s market. George discusses rising green coffee prices, producer relationships, shrinking margins, the economics of artisan coffee, and why maintaining quality while building a sustainable business requires patience, discipline, and measured growth.
Read MorePart 2 of 5: In our annual series with George Howell, we explore how George defines quality from the farm through to the cup. George explains how immersive tasting experiences can help consumers understand ripeness, processing, freshness, origin, and preservation, giving them a sensory benchmark for recognising quality coffee.
Read MorePart 1 of 5: In our annual series with George Howell, we explore what defines George Howell Coffee as George marks 50 years in the coffee industry. George explains why single-farm coffee, quality, consumer education, and service remain central to his philosophy, and why specialty coffee needs a clearer way of communicating flavour to people who simply want a great cup of coffee.
Read MorePart 5 of 5: Pedro Manga and Lee Safar close the series by examining climate risk, farm resilience and the long-term security of coffee supply. They discuss why resilience investments are unevenly distributed across producing regions, why short-term projects are not enough, and why the industry may need to start valuing the systems that protect future production.
Read MorePart 4 of 5: Pedro Manga and Lee Safar examine the relationship between compliance, transparency and sustainability impact across the coffee supply chain. They discuss why traceability can reduce commercial risk, why compliance has been unfairly diminished in sustainability conversations, and why long-term systems and measurement are necessary before businesses can credibly claim impact.
Read MorePart 3 of 5: Pedro Manga and Lee Safar examine the imbalance between sustainability standards created in consuming markets and the realities of implementing them at origin. They discuss Fairtrade, organic certification, EUDR, traceability and why producers and cooperatives can carry substantially different costs, commitments and risks from buyers further along the supply chain.
Read MorePart 2 of 5: Pedro Manga and Lee Safar examine how data moves through the coffee supply chain and why so little information flows back to producers and cooperatives. They discuss how better access to downstream information could improve quality decisions, commercial relationships, risk management and the ability of origin stakeholders to understand where value is created after coffee leaves the farm.
Read MorePart 1 of 5: Pedro Manga returns to The Daily Coffee Pro to examine what traceability and transparency should actually mean in the coffee supply chain. He and Lee discuss why publishing data is not the same as creating transparency, how buyers can influence traceability through sourcing decisions, and why sustainable relationships have to extend beyond price.
Read MorePart 5 of 5: Jem McDowall looks ahead at the future of tea and argues that today’s trends are likely to accelerate rather than disappear. Lee and Jem discuss the growing divide between commodity and specialty tea, changing consumer behavior, farm succession, liquidity, origin storytelling, and why simply producing more will not solve the industry’s structural problems.
Read MorePart 4 of 5: Jem McDowall explains why El Niño represents much more than a weather threat to tea farmers. Lee and Jem explore how climate disruption, fertilizer constraints, logistics problems, smallholder decisions, and the disappearance of excess production are making the global tea supply chain increasingly vulnerable.
Read MorePart 3 of 5: Jem McDowall explains why tea farmers are becoming increasingly vulnerable after years of low prices, rising input costs, oversupply, and underinvestment. Lee and Jem compare those pressures with coffee, discuss climate and currency risk, and examine why a weakened producer base could become one of the tea industry’s biggest long-term problems.
Read MorePart 2 of 5: Jem McDowall explains how tea is priced and traded through physical auction systems around the world, why tea has no futures market, and how buyers take ownership of the tea they purchase. The conversation also compares payment and financing structures in tea and coffee, raising important questions about where financial risk should sit in an agricultural supply chain.
Read MorePart 1 of 5: Jem McDowall of Universal Commodities explains how tea moves from fresh leaf through withering, oxidation, rolling or CTC processing, and drying. He also breaks down how tea is graded by leaf size, why those systems vary around the world, and how tea grading differs from the more standardized systems used in coffee.
Read MorePart 5 of 5: What will coffee look like in 20 years? Lee Safar and Cropster co-founder Norbert Niederhauser explore climate pressure, resilient varieties, higher and more stable coffee prices, experimental processing, AI, automation, the future of cafés, and why the industry still has the ability to shape what comes next.
Read MorePart 4 of 5: What does a sustainable coffee supply chain look like in practice? Lee Safar and Cropster co-founder Norbert Niederhauser explore how technology, measurement, data interpretation, and AI can help coffee businesses identify risk, reduce waste, and make more proactive decisions.
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