Articles by Mike Ferguson

He was ready to return final proofs of his first book, All About Coffee, to the printer and the time had come to write his preface. As might befit a volume that had taken 17 years to research and write—the first serious American book on coffee to be published in 30 years, its author noted—Ukers used most of the preface to acknowledge more than 100 institutions and individuals for their assistance.

We’ve reimagined our business and our brand. From origin to destination, every journey has a story. Coffee is a collaborative voyage. Covoya is a shared journey.

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Your story. Our Specialty.

For no reason whatsoever—meaning no reason I can readily discover and/or understand—when people who earn their living in the coffee industry are talking about what are, in fact, green coffee beans, we don’t say “green coffee beans” we just say green coffee, as stated already more than once.  Likewise, we just say roasted coffee rather than roasted coffee beans. This is almost always true. If you become part of the coffee industry, this will not be explained to you. It’s just one of those things that one absorbs.

Think you know the Colombian Coffee Icon, Juan Valdez? Here are 10 things about the infamous Juan Valdez, and his impact on the specialty coffee industry.

Although the history of coffee as a commercial crop in the region is, perhaps, only 100 years old, coffee as a garden crop used for local consumption and barter is much older and coffee drinking has long played an important role in the daily life of Mam people. Gift giving is deeply ingrained in Mam culture and a virtual requirement during even the most casual transactional encounter in order to keep things in balance.

You’ve been Googling. And it’s not helping. Not that the search results are lacking. In fact, as is so often the case when one Googles, there are so many results you’re having trouble sorting it all out. Here's everything you need to know about getting started with a green coffee supplier.

Coffee producers have moved away from experimentation and have embraced real success with a variety of processing methods. The latest, and for some the most exciting, is fruit fermentation. In this blog, we define fruit fermentation as we know it and explain a bit about the science behind fermentaiton. 

“Being a coffee trader has been a goal of mine for a long time and I’m so excited to work with Olam,” says Mallozzi. “Having worked for coffee roasters in the past, I’m familiar with that business in terms of both success and challenges. I look forward to being a part of success stories while working with our coffee roaster customers.”

The pages of All About Coffee are filled with examples that give credence to the cliché, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Ukers also demonstrates that some ideas around what constitutes quality coffee and solid business practices have not evolved over the last 100 years so much as they temporarily devolved in the middle of the 20th century.

When Robert Falcon Scott set out for the arctic in 1901 he carried a version of instant coffee, a powdery extract that had to be stored in an airtight container...