News + Blog | Higher Grounds Coffee – Page 15

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Apr 26, 2019

6 Reasons COMSA Rocks

Jennifer traveled to Marcala, Honduras during the third week of March to visit our partner farmers at COMSA with a group of other roasters and staff from Coop Coffees.

Apr 24, 2019 • #coffee farming #community #cooperatives #evaluating coffee #relationships

Peru Meets Sumatra in Montreal

Last week, our director of coffee Jennifer (on the bottom shelf in the group shot above!) attended a producer-roaster quality exchange at Cooperative Coffees' headquarters in Montreal (Coop Coffees is the importer we co-own with 22 other North American coffee roasting companies). There she met with other Coop Coffees member...

Mar 05, 2019 • #collaboration #DRC #sustainability #sustainable coffee #UN Global Sustainability Goals

Sustainability, Part 4: We need to collaborate towards sustainability and development at the same time.

When our values align to transcend competition between specialty coffee importers, roasters, and retailers, collaboration across the supply chain offers benefits that standard isolated markets can’t.

Jan 30, 2019 • #B Corp #coffee farming #Congo #Congolese coffee #cooperatives #direct trade #DRC #gender equality #On the Ground #organic coffee #relationships #sustainability #sustainable coffee #UN Global Sustainability Goals #women farmers

Sustainability, Part 3: Let's Put People First

A circular economic model is the vehicle required for change within the specialty coffee industry. When we operate along a continuous circle across our supply chain, we can build wealth and expertise alongside coffee farmers, rather than in spite of them.

Current leading trends in specialty coffee primarily tie company resources to increasing coffee farm production and quality through capacity building and agricultural inputs. While production and quality investments at coffee origin are necessary components to any "sustainable" trading model in the coffee industry, increasing agricultural support (under the guise of combating climate change) fall grossly short from anything even close to what our coffee-growing friends would call "sustainable."

Jan 17, 2019 • #acidity #low acid coffee #pH #science

Coffee Acidity: The Science and the Experience

While we could get out the pH strips from the old science kit and start testing every cup, the truth is that it’s more complicated than that. pH level doesn’t always equate directly to a person’s experience of a particular coffee. Luckily, there are other ways to identify coffees that are low-acid.