Welcome to Recap, a brief overview of recent coffee developments every two weeks from the Specialty Coffee Association.

World Coffee Research, or WCR, announced a new five-year strategy in mid-February, beginning 2021. Bound by coffee tree growth timelines, the organization typically plans its research agenda in five-year increments. The new five year strategy, titled “Enhancing Country Competitiveness to Bolster Origin Diversity,” will foster increases in productivity, profitability, and climate resilience while enhancing quality and mitigating supply risk. As a part of the strategy, WCR will focus on 11 countries in total, which represent over half of the world’s farmers and 31% of global coffee exports. By prioritizing origin diversity, WCR hopes to ensure the coffee industry can continue to access coffee’s unique flavors while distributing the economic benefits of coffee to farmers in key origins. 

Researchers are studying the similarities of the coffee and coca trade in Bolivia and Peru in order to learn more about the costs and benefits of development in relation to current security-oriented policies. The team consists of researchers across three institutions: the University of Reading, the Andean Information Network, and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru. In a recent feature for The Conversation, Thomas Grisaffi and Linda Farthing explore some of the reasons why farmers in Peru have ripped out coffee trees to plant coca. A plant with a rich social, cultural, and medicinal significance in indigenous Andean cultures, coca has largely been grown to produce cocaine since the mid-nineteenth century. Compared to coffee, coca offers many benefits to farmers: the fast-growing plant is ready to harvest in a year, rather than three, and is much lighter to carry when harvesting. It also offers farmers more financial security than any other crop, as demand is constant. 25 kg sacks of coca, which can be harvested three-to-four times a year, fluctuate in price between US$30-US$70 per sack, where coffee--which can only be harvested once a year--offers US$37 on average per sack. Recent efforts by the Peruvian government to crack down on coca-growing have resulted in violence, rather than assistance in finding realistic economic alternatives. The researchers have made recommendations that place sustainable development, poverty alleviation, equal opportunity, shared responsibility, and participation in the decision-making process at their core. 

The Alliance for Coffee Excellence, or ACE, and Hawaiian green coffee company Isla Custom Coffees announced 16 winning lots in a recent competition, with 12 of the winning lots all featuring controlled yeast fermentation in processing. The top scoring coffee was a washed-process SL34 produced by Kraig and Leslie Lee of Kona Farm Direct Coffee, fermented with a wine yeast strain. The strain was chosen to enhance the coffee’s acidity and fruity flavor. The competition is a part of ACE’s Private Collection series, which features partnerships with origin-specific green coffee companies, and is separate from ACE’s Cup of Excellence competition and auction series. The Private Collection auction with Isla Custom Coffees will take place on March 25.

If you want to dive deeper into anything you heard today, check out the links in the description of this episode. Recap will be back in two weeks’ time. Thanks for listening.