#64: What Kind of Coffee Lover am I? How Much am I Willing to Pay for a Cup of Coffee?

This episode also comes on the heels of our recent trip to London. 

Our very first stop was the Nagare coffee shop in Shoreditch in North London. Nick and I do what we usually do when we step into a coffee shop and order the pour overs. They had 2 different coffees on the menu for a pour over so we got one of each and sat back at our cute little table in a cozy cafe, and it was only when we looked down at our empty Kinto ceramic cups that we finally realized we had paid 18£ ($23 dollars!) for 2 small cups of black coffee.

I experienced sticker shock because we have been living on farms in Colombia and Guatemala for the last 4 years and we are very out of touch with big city prices. I knew London was going to be expensive but I was not emotionally prepared to spend $11/cup on our daily coffee.

Nick and I needed more coffee that morning but if we got 2 more cups at Nagare, we would be close to $50 and we hadn’t even had breakfast yet. 

In my head, a voice was saying, dang $11 is an expensive cup of coffee. And then immediately another voice said, hold on.... 

"don’t we want the price of a cup of coffee to rise?"

Aren't low coffee prices a big part of the problem with our supply chain?

The conversation about the price of a cup of coffee is one I have often. What should coffee cost? Who gets to set the price? How does price reflect value?

The conversation about price and value is often at the forefront of my mind because there is such a disparity between what a coffee producer gets paid for growing and processing the coffee and what a consumer pays for a cup of coffee made from their raw material.

Resources:
https://www.macrotrends.net/2535/coffee-prices-historical-chart-data

https://ourcountrygarden.co.uk/british-gardening-statistics/

https://www.carelink24.org/doctors-prescribe-gardening/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/21/headway/peat-carbon-climate-change.html

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Cover Art by: Nick Hafner
Into song: Elijah Bisbee

Transcript

Lucia: 0:24

A en this podcast i like to use microbiology as Lens to examine the coffee beverage and coffee culture today's episode es les coffee Science and a little bit more coffee philosophy and coffee culture. I wanted catch Guatemala has for i as i coming back and i wanna it started with a Conversation i had many months ago with someone from the come team. This was not a consultation it was a casual Conversation but it up a lot of things in me you heard critical the frozen Instant coffee product before so it be surprising that i even had a Conversation with a person on their team pero i was excited to connect because i thought it be interesting to hear a different point of view what it was like from the inside out instead of my criticisms looking from the outside in I'm sorry report what i expected. The Conversation opened up a Pandora box of issues it mean to love coffee i was talking with someone who really believed they were doing a positive thing for the coffee industry. Not neces expressing their sentiments but also de general company culture around coffee and a positive the i am also Recording this after reason to London. Ourselves in a Conversation where we realized that even though we travel por coffee we've never taken a traditional vacation together wherever we go to con en i we April Twenty nineteen and then immediately flew to Boston for expo where i Hosted several presentations in cupping. Idea of taking a non coffee related vacation we were excited about the idea even though location didn't immediately come to mind So we a ourselves when we had to come with a destination it was just crickets and we didn't quite know what we wanted to do workshop i love everyone who has en. Do a living coffee in the topic to take their personal vacation time and come Guatemala inia or getting to know coffee producers together to mí this is someone love coffee enough coffee that is a big source of the magic of FTC for mí. Who attend because they are investing in their professional education but we also get high school teachers and web who love coffee and want love to the next level soy asked myself what do i Asking ourselves where we should go on vacation hay instead myself what passion of do i want to and as long time and meca is a Chelsea flower show. The Chelsea flower show formally known as a great spring show is a show every society in the the Royal hospital Chelsea Chelsea it Hasse and the showed by members of the Royal and most. Have watched the BC coverage of the flower show on youtube never thinking it would be something within but what if it was that's how Nick and i decided to make our Pilgrim and fly to London and attend the Chelsea flow ticket quickly so the the general public about six months in advance. Yes gentlemen i am a proud of the British Royal society the l. Us Physical cards we can keep wall from the UK to the us and then my mom brought them in a suitcase to Guatemala. But anyway the point es Nick and i were have our first non coffee trip together and of course you know what comes next because Absolut hope vacation quickly coffee work coffee meeting en London present. If you haven't to go back to the i think she has interesting pers on her approach to buy coffee i hope much more the future of buying coffee and i also got to meet James Hoffman who is exactly as you'd expect him to be from his youtube videos. Po te what it i want to. Gumala am we just arrive we walk shop i say this mostly to forgive myself the oversight that was about to happen i was there to meet an internet friend Amanda cil to talk about coffee Sustainability. I inbox last year asking about the co production of coffee fermentations as part of a project document CO2 emissions in coffee and we've been digital for ever. A so first morning we showed up a bit jetlagged and just happy to be in a beautiful coffee shop about to drink coffee Nick and i do what we usually do when we step into a coffee shop en order de two different coffees on the menu so we got one. Tiny table so that she could share her la on copies footprint morning challenge of management and topic Mandy has such a positive attitude en bright energy that we wonderful. Mandy emp CE and finally pounds hay experienced sticker shock because we have been living on Farms en Colombia en Guatemala for the last four years City. London expensive i emotionally to spend eleven dollars our Daily coffee the shock of the price of coffee compounded by empty feeling the experience due to the interesting Conversation we to feel we hadn't even had coffee we felt like the coffee just. That's not how we general to coffee we like to pay a to it we wanna take our time and it so we found ourselves in a position where we had just paid too much for coffee and looking at. I needed more coffee that morning pero if we got two more cups at negare would be close to fifty dollars and we hadn't even had breakfast yet in my head a voice was saying dang eleven dollars is an expensive cup of coffee and then immediately another voice hold on don we want the price of a cup of coffee to ri aren low coffee price is a big supply chain. Conversation about the price of a cup of coffee es when i have often should coffee cost who gets to set the price how does price reflect value the Conversation about price and value is often at the forefront of my mind because there is such a disparity between what a coffee producer gets paid for Growing and processing the coffee and what a consumer pays for the cup of coffee made. math green coffee. producers in the world today receive I'm gonna say between two to three dollars per pound of green coffee sure you'll see Specialty coffee that is five or ten dollars per pound but Specialty coffee is a very small percentage of our industry. Some figures at six percent other ten percent of volume so i feel comfortable saying that about ninety percent of coffee producers in the world are getting commodity prices for their coffee and that well within range what is also in es at this price up inflation as consumers are pay cups of coffee pero en many producing countries coffee growers are not earning more today than en previous decades. En may nineteen seventy seven the price for coffee was two dollars and seventy one cents per pound and en may of Twenty Twenty four the price was two dollars and Twenty one cents meaning that forty seven years later it's lower it's fifty cents less is about eighteen percent less when the price everything else has. Several times en those forty seven years the price was even half like it was in June of Twenty Twenty when the pound and in the early when the half fifty cents pound one pound and. En how many cups of coffee you can get will also depend on whether youre making filter coffee o espresso and of course your ratios how strong prepare lets guess a pound coffee can between eighteen cups depending how and it. According to the international trade center coffee producers account for only ten percent of the retail price of coffee this kind reminds me of the grim percentages of cacao en the iconic Hershey's chocolate quees we call them chocolate but they are really about twelve percent chocolate they are mostly milk and sugar artificial these chocolate chocolate. don't mean to the shop Associated with serving that coffee I'm also the coffee shop paid for coffee logistics in the middle what I'm saying is that the producer of the raw material likely received about pound. I'm not saying individual coffee shops are cash cows making a Twenty x profit I'm just pointing to the discrepancy of the value of the raw material the green coffee to the transformed final product that most of us interact with the cup of coffee. Cup of coffee iop when i cup coffee eleven dollars the extra dollars doesn't go to the ra to logistics to shipping storage insurance rent, etc. Special coffee lo do and yet as coffee lovers es this the best way to yes let's support local coffee rosters and coffee shops. but if we don't also support the of the raw what does our coffee future look like cup of coffee prices don copy pocket not to mention the augmented carbon footprint of shipping to multiple intermediary locations before it's finally consumed. Ing it under before. Ay, consumer the coffee le gets to drink it this is the issue that has what le and why come er so. De question of added distance and processing has been one of my main criticisms of companies like comedy that want to target people who really care about drinking good coffee most of us know how extensive en complicated most coffee supply Chains are. Most of the innovative coffee companies take the approach of trying to collapse o streamline the coffee supply chain to remove more unnecessary middle steps that add to logistics but not necessarily quality however cometer innovation takes the already long chain of Specialty coffee and further adds the process por ejemplo. A coffee grown in Colombia is transported by trucks to the port Like California to be and then that coffee is to Massachusets to be processed into frozen pots and then it shipped again all over the country to peoples homes except now it has all of the additional packaging of single serving cups and with extra protection and packaging because it also needs to be shipped and kept frozen coffee cannot sit on your counter as a bag of ro beans it needs to take a electricity in your freezer all of that movement all of that energy all of that packaging for a single cup of coffee. There is whole section on the website about how much come care about the planet because their pods are recyclable unlike maybe espre but nevermind that hundreds of c. Back rec it's the c. Rec product instead of companies taking responsibility for making that product in the first place. Rec while manufacturers the good Guys they used rec Materials to make their product consumer Behavior es much Israel. One of the messages of cometer is accessibility and democratization de idea que you can have an amazing cup of coffee and not have to fu with filter water recipes and ratios la idea de good coffee can be for everyone not just the coffee nerd democratization are all concepts that resonate with me. And from mí this translates to an effortless a good cup of coffee just shows up at door Instant coffee Instant the effort with how much effort it to get coffee to your free. On the back so effort, pero as a consumer you presented with a frictionless experience which of course is appealing i don't like un friction either but when it comes to effort. I don believe a. Idea coffee i think the we appreciate it maybe making coffee effortless is a privilege of people who don't really love coffee. As a company of the future i at their early market they had astronauts as mas on their page but i believe the future of coffee is about increasing vis of the product the people how. They the planet no on their website where they about the raw about where the green coffee comes from la closest they can do es focus on the roster es obviously important but it es also the same modo we've coffee green coffee and the. Im not saying it's a wrong or bad model i just don't believe that it's an innovative model it's not anything different that we haven't been doing before so they are not innovating in the model of valuing or buying coffee In in to the carbon footprint their product and packaging not in pas the respons of dealing consumer not in reenforcing en to effort coffee the in i see is the technology Coffee Landscape not lacking another easy way to consume coffee en single serving this technology did not solve a problem the coffee industry had it's a technology first looking for a problem and fitting in me this is the innovation it's quite retro. Thats not innovative to me es the market that they target the target people who good coffee they want to target the coffee enia the coffee Expert the coffee nerd i think they have the. We want to par we want to know they making a lovers i. Having es a to contact and on consumer education this person there a lack of emphasis within the company educ not en oversight i believe that if effort was put towards customer education they would quickly lose their audience. Because if someone was buying the coffee because they thought they were doing something positive for the planet they would learn that not the no how recyclable they are their money could also be better spent seeking out i don know deforestation free or friendly coffee or they could use their coffee budget to support women project there a rainbow options focus on soil o trees o water o developing communities.. If these new consumers get into coffee i believe that they will to Graduate to want to know coffee is coming from c. Provide more Transparency on their buying practices and share how much a farmer es getting paid to ensure that coffee Farming es a financially sustainable option. Vacation time to visit coffee and meet the people. Using transportation as a metric to avoid this is where i come up against an inconvenient truth because i love decaf i want decaf in my life as a coffee lover i want to drink more coffee in my day but that extended carbon footprint. Coffee. Has grown en so many countries but only a handful of them so we're looking at our footprint example let's say a coffee is grown in Perú it then has to be shipped to cobia o Mexico o Vancouver to be de and then it roster the and then that. Im happy to pay more for the coffee i consume but how do i more for coffee i the coffee that ten percent and not because I'm supporting extra logistics and contributing to an increased carbon footprint this is what flash in my mind cup The and I'm glad places like that exist it's a beautiful café serving beautiful coffee experience happy and. It's a slow coffee vi in the middle of a busy business District in shortage I'm glad that places like that are normal product that most of every day but paid little attention to and that low quality what the not of its quality but because of its footprint. A Japanese concept Japanese rosters Japanese ceramics and the copy from ethiopia to Japan en Japan London expensive places to have and water businesses expensive and wages so i Imagin the majority of the cost of the beverage to the logistics of the coffee. Identity as a coffee lover es challenged when my contributes to the high carbon footprint and waste that impacts the environment contributing to climate change en making it more challenging for coffee to be grown as well as not contributing to sustainable prices that Coffee Growing attractive for future generations of farmers recycling and compostable packaging reminds me of a similar challenge facing the garden community like i mentioned the bris are masters of Gardens. En a Twenty Twenty one Census brittain found that eighty seven percent of households have a garden and forty two percent of UK residents. Consider their hobby another that i found really interesting is that fifty one percent of people age fifty five and older garden percent of people with the garden also grow vegetables for con there is so much admire about the the there's a real emphasis to develop a love of nature en young for kids to grow their vegetables their lunches. Es el significant movement to use Gardens as Therapy for mental health issues and programs a target vulnerable population like the unhoused previously incarcerated Pre gardening for anxiety and depression can you imagine going to your doctor and getting a prescription for spending en nature looking at flowers and hands I looking at health in a much more holistic way Fren create a love of nature there is a strong focus notches on the aesthetics of the garden but making it a bio habitat for pollinators my understanding of the culture my interpretation being in this es that a of. And the animal habitat there's a strong effort. All of this garden compost and many nurseries are using pe based compost pe is an accumulation of partially vegetation en Organic matter it es Unique de natural areas like bogs and mar it is the best material to grow healthy new plant except Pe land precio habitat because although pe lands of the land of the earth i think most of us know that we shouldn't that we call it the our The store thirteen times the amount of carbon as the same area of Amazon rainforest i think the Amazon just has a better pet bog so what's been happening es that compost companies have been depleting the bogs to make the product. Many nature lovers and gardenias inadvertently contributing to the des distrac of bio habitats to make their own mini in their home Gardens can i really say i love something if my love thing contribute to the. I'm not just talking about the planet about coffee not existing because climate change is making Farming impossible this isn't just a thought exercise about what it means to love coffee and what type of consumer we want to be i mean more práctica. Les they ties and eighties Farms become abandoned because people can't afford to cultiv o they just I live en antigua Guatemala coffee Farms are d. And it's not because we're experiencing much more extreme climate which we are much longer times dr. It's not supposed to be making i live in a a lot money. Or track homes so when the price of coffee es not attract who can bla and seeing antigua over the last thirty years its really dramatic how much it how quickly it es just the last years. So we search coffee shops in the area we found that watch nearby so we we got to watch house we found that their were even more expensive eleven pound they and they went up to seventeen pound. Pounds o seventy for cup of coffee we pay a to the flavor we slowly willing to for the. That i don't believe everyone who drinks coffee should be a coffee lor but if we declara ourselves coffee lovers we should strive to make sure our actions are not with the continued existence of the we love Has percentage of garden lovers and after a strong education and a campaign the UK has en pushing to. Its not just the individuals responsibility to stoping pet compost but also the govern to put protections around the Precious natural resources UK gardeners can have beautiful Gardens and not DEG to do it we can love to good coffee and par. Reject. The idea that it's the consumer's responsibility to value coffee more to pay more for a cup of coffee because that's what's going to save the industry as we've just seen there many examples where regardless of how much we to pay the logistics are so complicated convoluted and extensive that that money. Back to thet make it back to the producer whos making the coffee so putting it as our responsibility es really in the copy industry to continue what they've doing a questioning. Rec. Not make a coffee future. Fifteen dollars cup por coffee does not make a coffee future what we need es much more extensive systemic change about the. Distributed and i think often times when we put the emphasis on the consumer we don't have to deal with the messy middle but it's the messy middle the that most consumers have no power over that would make the most difference at the end of the day so feeling so about the choice that i make. cup of coffee at the same time i am trying to make better coffee choices when i am looking to coffee from who a chain relationships that they're developing. The prices paying coffee sometimes la idea of Transparency but it's not particular transparent there's a lot more details that they not sharing i really think that it's a good start aloud anybody who is taking the step to share coffee prices. The we need a lot more awareness we need a very campaign to say this is normal this is not normal and this these are the consecuencias so i anybody how much coffee how much theistic that coffee about things that shouldn't be on a coffee like altitude you me that's a big component of quality did the grower of this coffee recibe enough money to keep making it interesting to grow coffee and not their farm sell it to a Developer o else thats it. i feel better to support the of and vis awareness and reflect. Thanks making the end of another episode thanks to the to make it possible for me to make new episodes and if you want to our live discussions com making coffee we have and if you looking for ways to learn more consider joining patr to connect with other Awesome listeners and help me make more like this. you enjoy listening to be not when the next episode is coming out consider subscribing to in newsletter coffee luca es l u x i and the reason you wanna join the newsletter es that's where i share lots of pictures what i talking about this beautiful café in our All right thanks again.