Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/66983
2011-2012 DECEMBER 2011 On the final day of the year, FAIR TRADE USA officially separates from its former parent, Fairtrade International. The move causes a divide within the U.S. fair-trade movement, stirring up debate about the cooperative-only model that had long been at the center of fair- trade coffee. FEBRUARY 2012 INDIA'S SETHURAMAN ESTATE becomes the first plantation to produce a coffee earn- ing an R Certificate from the Coffee Quality Institute. The R system is an effort to high- light high-scoring lots of the long-dismissed robusta species. APRIL 2012 KATIE CARGUILO, a New York City-based Counter Culture employee, wins the United States Barista Championship (held in Portland alongside the largest-ever SCAA expo). Carguilo becomes the first woman to win the event since Klatch Coffee's Heather Perry took first in 2007. The Brewers Cup com- petition, meanwhile, is won for the second straight year by Andy Sprenger of Maryland's Ceremony Coffee Roasters. JANUARY 2012 TOBY'S ESTATE, a well-regarded roasting operation from Australia, begins roasting and retailing in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighbor- hood. The move bolsters New York's standing as the hottest coffee city on the East Coast and represents a new specialty coffee concept: a boutique roaster from overseas setting up shop in the U.S. MARCH 2012 Researchers from the UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA publish a study in which they claim caffeine consumption can make the drinker lazy. According to the report, lab rats that had proven to be more naturally motivated than "slacker" rats became less likely to work hard after receiving a caf- feine jolt. And the slackers? Their motivation increased post-caffeination. MAY 2012 The C-MARKET PRICE FOR GREEN COFFEE DROPS to $1.72 a pound, the lowest number the industry has seen since August 2010. In spring 2011 the C market was above $3, but expectations of a huge 2012 harvest in Brazil led to a steady stream of price decreases throughout the first half of this year. For the first time, CUP OF EXCELLENCE holds a competition only for coffees produced by way of the natural process. The event, open to Brazilian producers, is indicative of natural coffees' rising standing among specialty roast- ers and is the first of three new COE events; Mexico and Burundi are slated to make their competition debuts later in 2012. Fresh Cup Magazine 23