On September 20-23 in balmy Cartagena, Colombia, 236 people from throughout the coffee supply chain united for Let’s Talk Coffee® Global, the conference bringing together coffee farmers, roasters, NGOs, financiers, and a range of other stakeholders to connect as a supply chain, learn from each other, and strategize solutions to the challenges facing the coffee industry.

The connection provided by Let’s Talk Coffee® is perhaps more needed than ever right now, in what is a challenging time for coffee farmers around the world. C-market prices are hovering around $1 a pound, which is far below the cost of production for most farmers. To compound that, the effects of climate change continue to provide additional challenges in coffee-producing communities, from an increase in diseases like coffee leaf rust to fluctuating weather patterns affecting production.

A program focused on ‘New Models for Success’

– Innovation in the supply chain was also explored extensively, with several inventive ideas presented. These included evolving financial models featuring the use of blockchain, with Dutch NGO Progreso unveiling its blockchain-backed Beyco trading platform; a mini-conference on natural-process coffees with the Coffee Quality Institute’s Mario Fernández sharing knowledge from CQI’s Q Processing Program; and the latest technology in coffee brewing and roasting pushing the industry forward.

– Demonstrating leadership amid the challenges in coffee, and communicating about coffee via storytelling were also covered thoroughly. A panel of trailblazing leaders including reigning World Barista Champion Agnieszka Rojewska, Olga Cuellar Gomez of S&D Coffee & Tea, and Colombian coffee farmers Sandra Palacios and Maria Reyes shared theories on the importance of collaboration and shared goals in the face of challenges. Elsewhere in the program, panels covered the power of communicating stories for the betterment of the industry, including a panel moderated by Ted Stachura of Equator Coffees & Teas addressing marketing farmers’ coffees in non-exploitative ways. Sustainable Harvest also introduced its new GrowerStories platform allowing producers to share stories from their farms to better connect to coffee roasters.

To check out some of the presentations from the event, head to our LTC Talks page.

Cuppings and field trips

A regular part of every Let’s Talk Coffee® event is the cuppings that showcase the latest and greatest coffees from the Relationship Coffee supply chain. This year’s event was no different, with stellar coffees from Latin America and East Africa presented for evaluation, often with the coffee’s producer taking part. Relationship Coffees were highlighted further through a team triangulation competition that paired roasters and producers to identify the odd coffee out of three cups, helping to foster relationships among supply chain peers.

The Let’s Talk Coffee® festivities weren’t relegated to the hotel hosting the event: At the end of the three-day program, attendees got a taste of origin through visits to Colombian coffee farms. One field trip headed to Huila, an emerging region that accounts for 16 percent of the country’s coffee production, while another traveled to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta area to visit the Red Ecolsierra cooperative, a leader in organic coffee production. Still another group of LTC attendees headed to the Popayán area to take part in a Q Processing Course after the event.

Collective action for a better future

One of the differentiators of Let’s Talk Coffee® is that it has perhaps the highest representation of coffee producers of any conference—in Colombia, producers accounted for 37 percent of attendees, and played a key role in many program sessions. Ligia López, a producer from Prodecoop in Nicaragua, says Let’s Talk Coffee® 2018 gave producers vital knowledge. “We learned about new market trends, product innovations, what consumers are demanding, and strategies to make our businesses grow,” Ligia says. “We also tasted coffees from other origins, shared experiences with other producers, and were able to establish commercial relationships face to face.”

At Let’s Talk Coffee® 2018, producers and other stakeholders didn’t just connect and learn together, they also took part in conversations that could lead to positive change in the coffee sphere. To that end, Sustainable Harvest® President Liam Brody posed a challenge to all attendees: At the end of each day, he asked them to write on a Post-In note one action they would take to improve the coffee industry, transforming conversations into definable actions. By the end of the conference, the Post-It notes took up large portions of the hallway, illustrating the tangible difference the supply chain can make when working together.

Want to relive Let’s Talk Coffee® 2018? Check out the highlights—including photos, media coverage, and video of the presentations—here.

Also, check out Sustainable Harvest® Chief Coffee Officer Jorge Cuevas’ thoughts about our host country, Colombia, and its impressive coffee sector here.

 

Thanks to our sponsors for their support of Let’s Talk Coffee 2018!

                

Building ‘New Models for Success’ in Colombia

Thanks to all who joined us at Let’s Talk Coffee® 2018 Colombia! We’re grateful for your contributions to the event dialogue and thank you for investing your time and energy into the Let’s Talk Coffee® movement to create a better future for coffee. We’re happy to make the recap video and live-streamed presentations from the event available to you below. Be sure to also check out photos on our Facebook page.

For those who weren’t able to join us, we hope you enjoy this content from the event. If you haven’t already, sign up for our mailing list so you don’t miss out on any Let’s Talk Coffee® news and upcoming events.

Be sure to also check out this media and industry coverage of the event:

• Daily Coffee News – Walking the Walk at Let’s Talk Coffee in Colombia
• Daily Coffee News – Sustainable Harvest and IDB Announce Three-Year Mexico Coffee Revival Project
• Daily Coffee News – Progreso Launches Innovative Blockchain-Backed Trading Platform Beyco
• Daily Coffee News – A Radical New Social Contract Concept from James Hoffmann
• Barista Magazine – Let’s Talk Coffee 2018 Comes to Colombia
• Barista Magazine – Origin Roundup: New women’s coffee blend, investing in Mexico, COE Colombia
• James Hoffmann YouTube – Let’s Talk Coffee: Risk, Power & A New Social Contract

Lastly, mark your calendars: Let’s Talk Coffee® is heading to Rwanda June 17-19, 2019!

Video and Photos from Let’s Talk Coffee® 2018

Let’s Talk Coffee® 2018 Recap Video

Event Photos

Let’s Talk Coffee® 2018 Opening Video

The State of Specialty Coffee from Three Perspectives

Albert Scalla, INTL FCStone; Helen Griffith, S&D Coffee & Tea; and Juan Pablo Solís-Víquez, Hivos

A New Social Contract (starts at 33:11)

James Hoffmann, Square Mile Coffee Roasters

The Current State of Specialty Coffee Panel

Moderated by Helen Russell, Equator Coffees & Teas, with Brandon Jackson, Brown Brothers Harriman; Andi Trindle Mersch, Philz Coffee; James Hoffmann, Square Mile Coffee Roasters; and Vera Espíndola Rafael, SAGARPA

New Models in Brewing

Moderated by Jamie Pockrandt, Sustainable Harvest, with Eli Salomon, Voga Coffee, Jayson Sarley, Coffee Review and Voga Coffee; and Karla Ly, Cafe Comunion

New Models in Roasting

Moderated by Monica Terveer, Sustainable Harvest, with Joe Behm, Behmor Inc.; Arno Holschuh, Bellwether Coffee; and Jordan Dey, GrainPro

The WBC 2018 Winning Performance

Agnieszka Rojewska, World Barista Champion 2018

Pioneers in Coffee (Starts at 30:15)

Moderated by Olga Cuellar Gomez, S&D Coffee & Tea, with Agnieszka Rojewska, World Barista Champion 2018; Sandra Palacios, Cooagronevada; and Maria Reyes, Coocentral

Story: Explanation or Exploitation?

Moderated by Ted Stachura, Equator Coffees & Teas; with Colleen Anunu, Fair Trade USA; Kelly Stein, COFFEA Podcast; Karla Ly, Cafe Comunion; and Jan Anderson, Premium Quality Consulting

GrowerStories: A New Model for Sharing Producer Voices

Moderated by Robbie Lane, Sustainable Harvest, with Bong Suh, Dynamic Signal; Emel Mosquera, Coocentral; Maria Reyes, Coocentral; and Torrey Lee, Cafe Moto

Making a New Farm Business Model

Juan Pablo Villota, Cafe San Alberto

New Models for Transparent Contracts (starts at 18:08)

Isabel Van Bemmelen, Progreso

Scaling the Lessons Learned from South-South Sustainable Growers Gender Programs

Moderated by Saurin Nanavati, COSA, with Jean Aime Niyonkuru, Sustainable Growers; Ruth Coleman, Sustainable Growers; and Adam McClean, Question Coffee

Practical Lessons in Marketing Your Brand

Dan McCloskey, Premium Quality Consulting; Al Liu, Colectivo Coffee; Vava Angwenyi, Vava Coffee; and McNeely, Sustainable Growers/Branding +

Approaches to Tackling Climate Change – Part 1 (starts at 1 hour 12 minutes)

Representatives from the Anei community of Santa Marta, Colombia

Approaches to Tackling Climate Change – Part 2

Gabriela Calderón, OIRSA

Fifth International Conference on Arabica Naturals

Mario Fernández, Coffee Quality Institute; Manuel Diaz, ONA Consulting; Hernando Tapasco, Café y Procesos; and Marcia Yoko Sh, Connecta Coffee

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Thanks to our sponsors for their support!

    

    

    

    

Look around at a Let’s Talk Coffee® event, and you’ll likely notice something you don’t see at your average coffee event: representatives from throughout the entire coffee supply. Yes, at any Let’s Talk Coffee® session, you’re likely to have coffee producers, baristas, coffee roasters, and representatives from NGOs, government, philanthropy, the impact investment world, and beyond.

Having the opportunity to interact with a breadth of stakeholders is just one of the special experiences presented by Let’s Talk Coffee®. Since 2003, Let’s Talk Coffee® has been the coffee industry’s signature origin event, giving attendees the chance to learn, do business, build relationships, and connect with a like-minded supply chain.

Let’s Talk Coffee® 2018 takes place September 20-23 in Cartagena, Colombia, at the 5-star Intercontinental Cartagena hotel. Here are the top 5 experiences attendees can look forward to at this year’s event:

This is our second Let’s Talk Coffee® event in Rwanda. The first one, held in February 2014 in Kayonza, introduced our nonprofit entity in Rwanda, the Relationship Coffee Institute (RCI). Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, RCI was founded with the goal of connecting rural women farmers to the international market through training and market access.
Now in its third year of operation, RCI has trained 4,000 women farmers, who through their hard work and strength have transformed themselves into international businesspeople. Let’s Talk Coffee® Best of Rwanda will celebrate these women, connecting them to both the Rwandan community—including members of government and many local businesses—and the international business world.

There will be training opportunities to further the women’s educational development: Workshops will cover topics including coffee evaluation and grading; financial literacy; and the basics of coffee roasting. Attendees will also see a
program of thought-provoking content that will include:

• Sessions on promoting the unique story of Rwandan coffee, with panelists including storytelling and media experts, as well as representatives from North American roa
  sting companies Stumptown Coffee, Equator Coffees and Teas, and Reunion Island Coffee
• Explorations of innovation in the coffee supply chain in Rwanda, from unique processing methods to new profit-sharing models and organizational structures
• A Latte Art Competition featuring baristas from the Rwandan coffee community

Stay tuned this week for dispatches from Rwanda highlighting some of the unique happenings at the event. Also check for updates via social media: We’ll be posting from @LTCoffee using the hashtags #powerofwomen, #bestofrwanda, and #letstalkcoffee. And before the event starts, check out the 2014 Let’s Talk Coffee® Rwanda video here.

Let’s Talk Coffee® is known throughout the coffee world as an event like no other. Held in a different coffee-growing country each year, Let’s Talk Coffee® draws a higher contingent of coffee producers than any other industry gathering. But it’s not just growers who come to Let’s Talk Coffee®: Coffee professionals from around the world—from roasters to NGOs to financiers—flock to the event to create a truly unique origin experience. 

The next Let’s Talk Coffee® will take place in November in Kigali, Rwanda—stay tuned for further details, to be announced in the coming weeks. In anticipation of the Rwanda event, we’re taking a look at some memorable moments from Let’s Talk Coffee® 2014, which took place in Panama. Enjoy this blast from the past, and we’ll see you in Rwanda! 

When Kim Ossenblock left a large roasting company after six years to start his own business, he knew he would have to draw on social media to distinguish himself from the crowd. Employing YouTube as his primary tool, he has done just that with his business Barista Kim. In this clip, Kim talks about keys to developing captivating content and demonstrates how easy creating a video can be by making one on the spot. (See the video he made from the stage here.)

Let’s Talk Coffee® is known throughout the coffee world as an event like no other. Held in a different coffee-growing country each year, Let’s Talk Coffee® draws a higher contingent of coffee producers than any other industry gathering. But it’s not just growers who come to Let’s Talk Coffee®: Coffee professionals from around the world—from roasters to NGOs to financiers—flock to the event to create a truly unique origin experience. 

The next Let’s Talk Coffee® will take place in November in Kigali, Rwanda—stay tuned for further details, to be announced in the coming weeks. In anticipation of the Rwanda event, we’re taking a look at some memorable moments from Let’s Talk Coffee® 2014, which took place in Panama. Enjoy this blast from the past, and we’ll see you in Rwanda! 

Everyone involved in the coffee supply chain knows that producers, roasters, and other stakeholders operate at the whim of an extremely volatile C market that creates challenges with every sharp rise and steep fall.

The timing of this video alone illustrates the volatility of the market: Though it was recorded just 10 months ago, it documents a significantly different climate, where the market price was around $2.20 a pound (currently it’s hovering around $1.20). The presentations and panel captured here are interesting not just because they reflect a changed market, but because many of the insights provided here still ring true—even when the market was well over $2, there were still essential conversations focused on bringing better prices to growers.

Gathered for this presentation and panel is an elite group of market experts:

• Leslie Josephs, Wall Street Journal
• Carlos Brando, P&A Marketing
• Ric Rhinehart, SCAA

Following Leslie’s overview of the market and Carlos’ look at weather patterns and the perils of climate change, Ric joins the pair for a fascinating panel discussion that covers a wide range of topics that include global consumption patterns now and in the future; consumers’ increasing recognition of quality and willingness to pay more for it; and the unique coffee economy of the conference’s host country, Panama.

Enjoy these experts’ takes on the complicated market that constantly influences our industry.

Let’s Talk Coffee® is known throughout the coffee world as an event like no other. Held in a different coffee-growing country each year, Let’s Talk Coffee® draws a higher contingent of coffee producers than any other industry gathering. But it’s not just growers who come to Let’s Talk Coffee®: Coffee professionals from around the world—from roasters to NGOs to financiers—flock to the event to create a truly unique origin experience. 

The next Let’s Talk Coffee® will take place in November in Kigali, Rwanda—stay tuned for further details, to be announced in the coming weeks. In anticipation of the Rwanda event, we’re taking a look at some memorable moments from Let’s Talk Coffee® 2014, which took place in Panama. Enjoy this blast from the past, and we’ll see you in Rwanda! 

The “cold brew” method of making coffee is one of the simplest. To make a batch, the user steeps coarsely ground coffee in cold or room temperature for several hours—usually around 12. The grounds are filtered out when the brewing process is complete, and the result is a strong brew that is typically diluted with water and/or milk.

Though cold brew is not a new method of making coffee, it’s one that people have gravitated to in recent years—maybe because it meets their desire for strong coffee, or maybe because it’s so easy to make.

At Let’s Talk Coffee® 2014, we decided to jump into the topic of cold brew by bringing together a couple of roasting companies that use cold brew in different ways. Stephen Vick is the green coffee buyer of Blue Bottle Coffee, which in 2014 launched a New Orleans Iced Coffee made from cold-brew coffee. Nathanael May is director of coffee at Portland Roasting, which has seen cold-brew coffee’s popularity increase among the company’s wholesale accounts.

Stephen and Nathanael sat down with moderator Marcus Young of Sustainable Harvest® for a panel discussion covering the many facets of cold brew. Please enjoy.

Let’s Talk Coffee® is known throughout the coffee world as an event like no other. Held in a different coffee-growing country each year, Let’s Talk Coffee® draws a higher contingent of coffee producers than any other industry gathering. But it’s not just growers who come to Let’s Talk Coffee®: Coffee professionals from around the world—from roasters to NGOs to financiers—flock to the event to create a truly unique origin experience. 

The next Let’s Talk Coffee® will take place in November in Kigali, Rwanda—stay tuned for further details, to be announced in the coming weeks. In anticipation of the Rwanda event, we’re taking a look at some memorable moments from Let’s Talk Coffee® 2014, which took place in Panama. Enjoy this blast from the past, and we’ll see you in Rwanda! 

Rick Peyser spent 27 years at Keurig Green Mountain. While he held many positions during that time, he’s undoubtedly best known in the specialty coffee world for the last title he had there: Director of Social Advocacy and Supply Chain Community Outreach. While holding that job, Rick was a true farmer advocate, working in coffee-producing communities to develop effective solutions for strengthening coffee supply chains.

He made a substantial impact in his time at Keurig Green Mountain, but in 2014 he stepped away from the position. Just months later, he took the stage at Let’s Talk Coffee® Panama to reflect on his career working with farmers, showcasing a few success stories to illustrate the impact of a transparent supply chain.

Please enjoy this moving presentation from one of the industry’s most beloved figures.

Let’s Talk Coffee® is known throughout the coffee world as an event like no other. Held in a different coffee-growing country each year, Let’s Talk Coffee® draws a higher contingent of coffee producers than any other industry gathering. But it’s not just growers who come to Let’s Talk Coffee®: Coffee professionals from around the world—from roasters to NGOs to financiers—flock to the event to create a truly unique origin experience. 

The next Let’s Talk Coffee® will take place in November in Kigali, Rwanda—stay tuned for further details, to be announced in the coming weeks. In anticipation of the Rwanda event, we’re taking a look at some memorable moments from Let’s Talk Coffee® 2014, which took place in Panama. Enjoy this blast from the past, and we’ll see you in Rwanda! 

One of the guiding principles of Let’s Talk Coffee® is collaboration: Each year, the entire supply chain comes together to forge relationships and share ideas. And so it’s fitting that one of the highlights of Let’s Talk Coffee® Panama illustrates how much can be achieved when each link in the supply chain comes together for a common cause.

In the session “Making a Barista Champion,” Laila Ghambari guides the audience through the journey she took to win the 2014 United States Barista Championship. It’s an accomplishment she couldn’t have made without Phil Beattie of Dillanos Coffee Roasters, who roasted her coffee, and Emilio Lopez Diaz of Cuatro M Cafes, who produced it. But she didn’t simply ask for their help and then reap the rewards: She traveled with Phil to Emilio’s farm in El Salvador, and the three collaborated every step of the way, from production to roasting to her routine on the big stage.

The result was a championship, and this video delves into exactly how they did it.