Episode

Scott Bentley: Welcome to listener to Adventures in Coffee, a podcast by Caffeine Magazine, sponsored by our good friends at Oatly.

Jools Walker: Now in this second series, we are going to be taking you on a fascinating journey to understand what exactly is in your daily cup of coffee.

Scott Bentley: Indeed, we will try to understand a little bit more about where our food and drink comes from.

So, we created this podcast to shake the beans of the coffee world and peak behind the portafilter.  

Jools Walker: Now I am Jools Walker, also known as Lady Fellow. I'm a very proud east Londoner. I'm also a bestselling author, a presenter, and your everyday coffee lover.

Scott Bentley: Oh get you Jools, can I have your entire CV? My name is Scott Bentley. I'm the founder of Caffeine Magazine. I'm also an art director that works in the branding fields, but let's move on.

Jools Walker: Now, Scott, in today's episode, we're going to be answering one of probably the most asked questions that we have.

Scott Bentley: Oh God. Every single time. I mean, I literally get this on a daily basis on Instagram and that is what coffees should I buy.

Jools Walker: Indeed. And you know what Scott? I've actually been in that situation myself. Cause I'm like, okay, I want to get myself some coffee, but where am I going to get it from? Which type of coffee am I going to go for? Like, I'm bombarded with choices when I would just type coffee into Google.

And I'm like, I'm getting dark roast Italian blends. I've got Fair Trade organic, I've got micro lot speciality.

Scott Bentley: Okay, Jools.

Jools Walker: Wait, I'm not done. Whole beans or ground coffee is also an option. How fresh should the coffee actually be? Like, do I get it from Amazon or do I do a Google random search? And just like take my chances and find someone…

Scott Bentley: Ok…There's a lot there. There's a lot to unpack.

So when we were coming up with this episode, we decided that we needed to keep the whole thing quite simple.

Jools Walker: Indeed, we did. So in this case, I'm going to be hopping on the line with Andrew Pautler of Pull and Pour Coffee, to get the basics of this locked down.

Scott Bentley: And I spoke to Jen Rigler who works at the Specialty Coffee Association to help me navigate one of the hardest questions that I always get asked and that is: what's the most ethical coffee that I should buy?

Jools Walker: But before we jump into that world, let's hear a quick word from our sponsors.

Scott Bentley: This is a sustainability hack brought to you by Oatly.

Jools Walker: Now, Scott. You know the offerings Oatly tell us that about 20% of the personal carbon footprint that we make comes from the food that we eat.

Scott Bentley: Yeah. Uh, and I've also heard that red meat is actually the worst.

Jools Walker: How much red meat do you actually eat?

Scott Bentley: I think I probably have either one lasagna or spike bowl a week, maybe.

Jools Walker: So that's not that much. What about the other people in your life?

Scott Bentley: Well, if you take my dad, for example, he's a real meat eater and he loves a barbecue.

In fact, if literally, if there isn't fat and blood dripping on the coals, it's not a real barbecue in his mind.

Jools Walker: Okay. Have you tried proposing, maybe your dad doing like a nut cutlets on the barbecue instead?

He might be willing to. He could be well surprised by that, that's tofu burgers or something like that, something a little different.

Scott Bentley: You should come and do stand up, Jools. You're good at it. But seriously Jools, maybe I'll try and slip in one of those like gourmet, spicy bean burgers. And if I put some lettuce and some cheese and some sauce on there, I think he'll demolish it without even realizing.

Jools Walker: If not, tickets are five pounds to go see me do stand up.

Scott Bentley: And that was a sustainability hack brought to you by Oatly.

Jools Walker: So Scott, I wanted to figure out some really simple questions when it came to what coffee I should be buying.

Scott Bentley: But Jools, look, it is super simple.

You go to London. You find the most sort of like specialty coffee shop you can find, full of like the coolest baristas. You ask them, what's the most expensive bag coffee you've got and you buy that.

Jools Walker: No, no Scott. That's, that's really not helpful in any way, shape or form. And that is exactly, exactly why I did not speak to you about this.

Now I wanted a more down to earth approach. So I hopped on the phone to this man.  

Andrew Pautler: My name is Andrew Pautler. I'm based in St. Louis, in the United States. And I've run a coffee passion project called Pull and Pour, that consists of a website where I publish reviews and articles about coffee, and then also an Instagram account.

Jools Walker: Scott, out of curiosity, when you started out Caffeine Magazine, what did your wife have to say about it? What did she think?

Scott Bentley: She was actually super supportive, but a lot of people that I told the idea to, they were like, who wants to read a magazine about coffee?

Jools Walker: Funnily enough, Andrew hat something quite similar when he started up Pull and Pour.

Andrew Pautler: So when I got started, you know, my wife kind of laughed at me and she said, you know, people don't like coffee, like you like coffee, like no one's going to follow you. And so then as it kind of slowly started growing, and then when I finally hit 10,000 followers, we just kind of laughed about it because she was like, okay, I guess there are people around the world that like coffee, like you like coffee.

Scott Bentley: I'm gutted darling, that you've cheated on me. You’ve gone to another coffee nerd.

Where does this leave us, Jools? Where does this leave us?

Jools Walker: I thought when it came to coffee, we had an open relationship and that was okay.

Scott Bentley: That's not the way I feel about you, Jools.

So come in. What did you talk about behind my back?

Jools Walker: All right. So the reality is, Scott, that most people probably do buy their coffee in the supermarket. And even when you're in there, that in itself can be very overwhelming. You've got hundreds of bags on the shelves, and there were different labels everywhere for you to have a lookout, right?

But Andrew did actually help me figure out a little trick to narrow down my selection.

Andrew Pautler: So what you want to do is try and find that coffee that's as fresh as possible.

Scott Bentley: Okay. I'll give him that. I mean, yeah. I mean, once it gets roasted, it does start to sort of lose its vibrancy.

Jools Walker: Exactly. And Andrew spoke on exactly that.

So Andrew, how does coffee actually change with time?

Andrew Pautler: I think within that first month of roasting, normally maybe, you know, a few days or a week of a roast until you get to that month point, is really the ideal time to drink the coffee. You know, it's going to be where it's the freshest, it's the most complex and when it tastes the best.

I think within three months of roasting is still like a very acceptable time. You know, most lighter coffees will still maintain their quality in that like four to twelve week range. There might be a little complexity that's lost, but they're still going to be really great coffees. I think between three and six months of roasting, you know, you really start to probably lose some complexity in the coffee.

Some of that specialness that, you know, those depth of the flavors and the, you know, maybe the number of fruit notes you can taste in that profile. I think anything after six months, the coffee, most likely will be pretty stale. This coffee won't necessarily be bad. Like it's not going to be ruined. You got to throw it away, but it's not going to be anything like in those first few weeks after roast.

Scott Bentley: Yeah. I'd agree a hundred percent on all of these points. Such as, coffee doesn't go bad. And I think that's what most people don't understand. There's a difference between it being great and it being off.

Jools Walker: So here's the thing, Scott, when you go into the supermarket and you're presented with all of those coffee bags, you'll see that there is a “best by” date and a “use by” date, which is kind of confusing.

So I asked Andrew to give me some clarity on the difference between the two.

Andrew Pautler: Yes, absolutely. Milk and other foods that are very helpful to have those dates because you know, like, okay, this is probably what it's going to be “best by”. Coffee is not one of those. Like they have to have those dates on there to be on the shelf, but it's not something that once you go past a “used by” or “best by” date with coffee, that it's going to be like milk, where it is sour and discussing, like it, it's probably not going to be fresh.

It's not going to be nearly anything as good as it could have been. But it's not going to hurt you, necessarily. So I think the important thing with coffee is to try and avoid those “best” and “use by” dates and try and instead look for a “roasted on” date because that's kind of a clear marker of where that timeline started of it kind of being roasted and potentially getting stale.

I think one thing to note is if you have a coffee, that's getting close to one of those used by best buy dates. That's definitely not fresh, and avoid that.

Scott Bentley: I would a hundred percent agree with him on his point. The only issue is that a lot of supermarkets don't want to put the “roasted on” date because that then really does show the age of the coffee.

Jools Walker: Right. And now you can use that kind of information to start to, I don't know, maybe examine the coffee bags on the shelf and try to find the date that it was roasted on.

Scott Bentley: Absolutely, Jools. I think if you can, the best thing to do is to prioritize getting whole bean coffee. Yes, that means buying a grinder, but they are relatively affordable.

Now, there is a reason for this. And I'll just try and explain it as quick as I can. A coffee bean is essentially almost like sealed. It's got a very small surface area. As soon as you grind that coffee, it becomes powder and the surface area becomes much, much larger. And as soon as oxygen hits that surface area, it’s already degrading.

So if you can keep it as a whole bean for as long as possible, you're gonna get better quality.

Jools Walker: So, Scott, the one thing that I learned from Andrew is that the supermarket is probably one of the worst places where I could buy my coffee because it's probably not going to be that fresh.

So then, the best next place for me to go, would be to buy my coffee online. But then, the overwhelmingness starts all over again because you've got hundreds and hundreds of roasters that you could be looking at.

Then the panic starts again. Which one do I choose? What am I going to go for? How do I choose it? But Andrew had a great piece of advice on this. 

Andrew Pautler: So, when you're at a coffee roasters website and you're looking, you can look through the coffee section, but then they also normally have an about or mission section that gives a little bit of information about how they got started.

And what's important to them, like sustainability, and see if that aligns with kind of what you're passionate about.

Jools Walker: So Andrew’s point there is that you could get a handle on the overwhelming choices by first finding the roasters who align with your ethics. And Scott, another interesting thing that Andrew mentioned to me was the fact that you can actually have a conversation with your roaster online.

Andrew Pautler: You can go to one of their social profiles, reach out, kind of talk to them about the coffees, kind of tell them what you like. And a lot of them will write back. They'll kind of have a conversation. They love having those conversations with people.

Scott Bentley: I would agree with what Andrew is saying here, but what I would also say is, you know, we've got real life as well. You know, you can go and see these people and there are coffee roasters probably in your area.

And we are going to drop a link in the show notes, to a Google map, which shows over 400 independent coffee roasters here in the UK. So you will be able to find something that is pretty good and pretty damn close to you.

Now, one of the really good things about this is the by walking or by getting to one of these local roasters, you're going to be lowering your carbon footprint. Because you're not asking them to ship that coffee from, you know, from a different country or from, you know, the north of England to the south of England.

Go on your bike.

Jools Walker: Exactly. That's what I was thinking to myself. I unfold my Brompton and go for it. And you know what? That was probably one of Andrew's best pieces of advice that he'd given to me, that you can find a local roaster or cafe and buy your beans from there.

Andrew Pautler: That’s kind of combining the best case of both worlds.

Like you're buying coffee, that's local. It's not having to be shipped across the world or country. You're supporting a local business. You're getting it fresh. Most likely that coffee was roasted within the last few days, a week at most . And if you need to grind it, you know, they'll grind it right there, that it's kind of at least freshly ground at the time of purchase.

And so, I mean the best coffee shops have baristas and people working there that are passionate about coffee that know the coffee that they're roasting and selling. And so you can have that conversation with them in person.

Scott Bentley: And also, you can possibly drink the coffee first. Order the coffee, taste it. If you like it, buy a bag.

It's there. It's in front of you. You're in person there and then just do it there and then.

Jools Walker: I guess we've we solved another issue there, but you know me, Scott. I actually have another problem as well. Problematic Jools!

Scott Bentley: Is this the expensive hobby that we talk about off air?

Jools Walker: Off air. But let's say for instance, you're at your local cafe, right?

And you've got a bag of coffee going up, like big prices at like eight pounds and then even bigger twelve quid. And then you've got a twenty quid bag of coffee. Which one are you supposed to choose?

Scott Bentley: You buy the expensive one. It’s obvious.  

Jools Walker: No. Actually Andrew did break this down for me, Scott.

Andrew Pautler: There are a lot of really expensive coffees.

You know, if you guys have explored on previous episodes, like there's pieces that are like hundreds of dollars. And I'd say for most people like the nuance of that, it's not going to be appreciated. It's just not worth that for sure. But I think there is at the other end, like, the four dollar bag of coffee from the supermarket, that probably isn't going to be the quality that you want either.

But I think like if you're drinking coffee everyday, you just need something that's kind of like a morning coffee. I think that range there of twelve to eighteen, nine to thirteen pounds, is probably a good range to kind of be looking into. Again, it may not be like their most exotic single origin.

It might be a blend or it might be an origin that's a little bit easier to source from. So it's just not as expensive, but that's okay, like it's still good coffee. Again, just the higher price point, doesn't always mean it's a nicer coffee. And I think one example of that would be like Kenya. Kenya is a great origin, but like, it will always be more expensive. I don't exactly understand all the economics around it, but just the process of getting coffee out of their sourcing, it just is a more expensive origin to get coffee from. Whether that coffee is better than the coffee you get from Ethiopia and Guatemala, you know, that's not necessarily true. So I think that's, what's also, you know, South American coffees here in the United States at least are generally a little bit less expensive.

Scott Bentley: I mean, at the end of the day, Jools, I think you need to find coffees that you like and start there, really. I mean, for me, Kenyans are worth the money. I love Kenyan coffees.

Jools Walker: Do you want to hear something that will maybe blow your mind a little bit?

Scott Bentley: Is it just going to piss me off ? Or is it actually going to blow my mind?

Jools Walker: Well, Andrew is pro-blends.

Scott Bentley: Yeah. Get him off. He is no good for you, Jools. You should come back to me, babe.

Andrew Pautler: And I think that, especially if you're newer to coffee, blends are really great options, because it's just kind of that safer option that most likely is going to appeal to a wide range of people versus some of the single origins that can be pretty strong in one direction, like super citrusy, super fruity, which some people will love, but some people will hate.

You know, there's a lot of coffees that my wife and I don't really align on our coffee preferences. She definitely prefers darker. And I definitely like the lighter crazier, wild flavors. There's a lot of coffees. I'll try, and I am probably like “oh my gosh, this is amazing”. And you know, she's like, “oh my gosh, I did not like that at all”.

And I think that the blends kind of would help ease those corners. Like they wouldn't give you those crazy wild flavors necessarily, that could be off-putting to some. And so they can kind of help people that maybe aren't as familiar with what they really like and don't like, versus single origins, which can kind of range the spectrum.

Scott Bentley: I hate to admit it, but he has got a very good point.

Jools Walker: And, you know, there you have it from my little journey with Andrew that I strayed away from home to take. But now you, you buy whole beans and you try to get them as fresh as you possibly can.

When you're looking to spend on your coffee aim for between about nine to thirteen pounds per bag. And if you're quite new to the world of flavors, go for a blend, there's nothing wrong with that. And if possible, just to, you know, ease up on the carbon footprint side of things as well. If you have a local roaster or cafe that you can buy them from, get them from there.

Scott Bentley: All good points, Jools, all good points.

Jools Walker: So Scott I've, I've taken on board all of the wonderful advice that Andrew had given to me. Right. But I still have elements that I'm bamboozled on, right?

So I want to buy my coffee, but I want to be able to do it very ethically. Again, I'm in a situation where I'm going to the supermarket and I see the certifications on the bags and you've got direct trade, you've got sustainability, you've got words like “responsibly sourced” on there. And I'm looking at it and just feeling like, I don't get this. Scott, I need you to help me.

Scott Bentley: Alright. Strap in girl, this is going to get messy. It's so messy. In fact, that a rather famous YouTuber decided to completely sidestep this, but I think it's really important that we don't. Bbut we do need to contextualize a lot of this, taking each part kind of step by step.

But to do that, I needed to speak to a bit more of an expert. So I spoke to this person.

Jenn Rugolo: My name is Jen Rugolo and I work as a Project manager and Editor in specialty coffee. A lot of my time is spent on Twentyfive, a publication by the Specialty Coffee Association, which works to build a more sustainable coffee industry. But I also work with Playset Coffee, which focuses on collaborative learning and sharing.

Scott Bentley: Okay, Jools. So look, first things first. Ethical, you know, ethical coffee is used kind of interchangeably with sustainability. Now, I think we all know what that means on some level, but specifically sustainability takes into consideration, social, environmental, and economic aspects. And when you buy coffee, you want to make sure that you're supporting sort of positive outcomes across those three things.

And now we're going to start with a simple premise, that if a coffee farm wants to do the right thing by their workers and the environment, it definitely helps if they can earn enough money to create a long-term and essentially sustainable business. But the reality is, many can't. The reason is that oftentimes the price that is paid by roasters, I hate to say this, but even some specialty coffee roasters, is tied in some way to the commodity price.

So it’s going to be like X percent above the commodity price, but it is still tied. And generally that price is really volatile. For the most part, I mean, specially since 2018, it has been low. I mean like really really low.

Jenn Rugolo: At the height of the most recent crisis, I'm pretty sure that nowhere does that commodity price actually cover the cost of producing coffee, nowhere. And even when it is on the higher side of where it historically sits, it still rarely cover the entire cost of production.

Scott Bentley: Yeah. And actually coffee farmers have been in this crisis for such a long time now, and yet, and this is very much part of Jen's job.

Um, you know, to stay up to date with all the coffee news, as she's reading all of these stories…

Jenn Rugolo: You know, farmers in Kenya are uprooting coffee so that they can plant avocados. Farmers in Malawi are uprooting coffee so that they can plant corn because it doesn't require three years to mature, and they are subsidized.

And that's the other thing. So you have government subsidies, subsidizing other crops. And so of course you would grow something else. If you can't make a livelihood off of this thing that maybe your family has been doing for a long time. So we're just going to lose that available pool of coffee.

These people are going to find other work.

Jools Walker: Well, that makes sense what Jen is saying. I mean, if coffee, isn't giving you enough, then you need to get out of farming coffee.

Scott Bentley: Absolutely, I mean, why wouldn't you. but that's really bad news for us.

Jenn Rugolo: If we stick with the commodity price and farmers no longer see this as a way to have a thriving livelihood, we're not going to have access to the wide selection of quality coffee that we specialty coffee consumers currently enjoy. It's just not going to exist.

Scott Bentley: Essentially coffee will become more generic, less special. We'll go from where we once were, which was, everything is kind of a bit blended up and a bit generic, to this lovely time we're in at the moment, where we can source coffees from all over the world, different terroir, wonderful flavors. And that will go.  

Jools Walker: Oh, hang on a second. Generic Dole coffee. I mean, what will that mean for us at Adventurous in Coffee, Scott? Like our podcast is our baby. If our coffee tastes boring, then we will end up with a really boring show.

Scott Bentley: Well I suppose we could change the title to Adventures in Avocados.

Jools Walker: No, let’s not do that.

Scott Bentley: Now. Look, I wanted to understand from Jenm where's all the money going? Because it feels like we pay good money for coffee. So there's someone making some decent coin out of this. It certainly ain’t the farmers. Who’s taking all the cash?

Jenn Rugolo: Yeah. Oh man. It's, it's a really great question. And I think, you know, if you look at sort of maybe just the pure monetary sort of end of things, you're seeing that more of the consuming side of the chain, you're seeing that within the brands who are selling the coffee to the consumers, they're taking the bigger slice of the pie right now.

Jools Walker: Oh. So, so it's like the roasters then?

Scott Bentley: Yeah… kind of.

Jenn Rugolo: But that being said, you talked to any specialty coffee roaster or café, they're not going to tell you that they're rolling in cash. Right? So it is not just about needing to make the pie bigger, its more about needing to make sure that everybody has a more equal slice of pie. So that we're actually rewarding the risk and the effort and the time that producers take to grow the coffee in the first place.

Jools Walker: Okay. So we want to direct our money towards the places where we can help grow this pie, that Jen's mentioned. As in like, we pay more in and then the coffee farmers themselves will get more of that cash, more than they've actually been getting historically. Okay. So I think I've, I've got it. But what does that actually look like though?

I still don't know what coffee I should buy.

Scott Bentley: Ok, Jools, this is where it starts to get a little bit more messy. And so I suppose, in a nutshell, I can't give you specific directions, but there are things that point to, and suggest that a roaster is doing the right thing. So one thing that you can look for is certifications. And almost always, if a coffee has a certification, that would have been bought at a higher price then the commodity price.

Jenn Rugolo: So you have Fair Trade, US and International. Both of those brands, 4C, UTZ, Rainforest Alliance Organic…

Jools Walker: The thing is though, we explored this in one of our earlier episodes on Adventures in Coffee, and we found a whole host of problems with that.

Scott Bentley: And I a hundred percent agree with you Jools, but if we're talking about a journey and we're talking about stages, commodity is the worst. The next thing that we can be looking for are certified coffees, but then that's not a silver bullet, you know, and actually for Jen, the biggest problem is that certifications expect the farmers to put in all the graft and all of the money to get themselves certified.

And that's just kind of not fair. Really.

Jenn Rugolo: That's not ideal, right? They are making people jump through big hoops to earn a little bit more money.

Scott Bentley: I mean, there are a million other things that we can unpack with certifications, but I suppose for simplicity’s sake, let's just stop here for now. Okay. So we've got commodity and we've got certified coffee.

Now, another thing to look at are for those roasters, who recognize that they are in that most privileges of places in the supply chain and therefore taking it upon themselves to do the work to prove their sustainability credentials.

Jools Walker: Okay. Like what? What are they doing?

Jenn Rugolo: Personally, I always look for the roasters who offer transparency reports.

You know, it's not a silver bullet, but when I see a roasting company mirror the transparency that we so often ask of producers at the consuming side of the chain, it tells me that they're aware of that power imbalance at play. And that's an important start.

Scott Bentley: And Jen also floated the rise of the B Corp certification as a potential, another positive sign that, that roaster is committed to doing more of that hard work.

Jenn Rugolo: It's a way for companies that the consuming side to take on more of the burden of reporting and transparency, like everything, it’s no silver bullet. There are some issues with it, but it is an exciting sort of push in the right direction, I think.

Jools Walker: Okay. So Benefit Corporation, the two words together sound good. But what exactly does it do? What is it?

Scott Bentley: Essentially businesses that can prove that they are hitting those high standards of, you know, officially verified social and environmental things. And there are then able to hold this badge of being a B Corp. And you can be kicked off of B Corp. If you don't keep up, you know, it's not something you just buy it, you have to do the work.

And again, this comes back to greenwashing is all very well. So. We are this, but if you're not officially verifying that, then it doesn't really matter. It's essentially just washing. So these companies are doing more things to kind of be more trustworthy.

Jools Walker: Okay. So we should be looking for coffee companies that are actually doing these transparency reports.

So B corps would better correlate with good outcomes for the farmers.

Scott Bentley: Yeah, absolutely. Because you, as a coffee drinker can read that report. And if you see that that roaster is not buying a coffe farmer’s coffee every year, coffee farmers go through hard times and they go through good times. But if you leave them out to dry, when they had a bad harvest and you're not buying their coffee, then that's not a good relationship.

And you can raise this with your roasters, you have the power to do this.

Jenn Rugolo: You know, we as consumers, yield an incredible amount of power within any sort of market system, coffee or otherwise, right. And so absolutely, if you go to your roaster and say “I really want you to invest in these long-term relationships, I want to see the same coffees here and here, but unless you vote with your wallet with these things, unless you are willing to sort of pay for the same coffee from the same roasters, you are in there as well, you are not going to show them that is a good business decision for them. And so that is one way you can really use your power positively as a consumer.

Jools Walker: So Scott, these are the things that we should be looking for. What about the things to avoid?

Scott Bentley: Jools, my darling, this is where it gets interesting.

Jenn Rugolo: If someone is painting a really rosy picture for you of the fact that their coffee is the most sustainable, the most ethical, it's almost kind of like that cognitive bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is, you know, if you have low ability, you are more likely to overestimate your ability. And if you have really high ability, you're likely to underestimate your ability.

And so, companies that understand the trade-offs and the complexities of sustainability are never going to talk about their coffee as if it is the most sustainable thing out there, or the most ethical thing out there, because they understand that it's really complicated. Companies that don't are going to shout it from the rooftops.

Jools Walker: Okay. So if it is too good to be true, maybe that's because it absolutely is not true.

Scott Bentley: Yes, and this is where it gets complicated, it even gets murky. So, let me tell you about a little example that I brought up with Jen. I picked up a tin of coffee the other day from a very well known coffee company. There was a logo on there in some lovely sort of hand drawn type.

And it said grown respectfully. And for me, that just kind of said…Well, I mean, as someone who's been in marketing and design for a number of years, I know that means zero.

Jenn Rugolo: I think if you're sensitive to greenwashing anywhere, you're going to be sensitive to greenwashing in coffee. The language is always the same.

The language is really generic, like you said. It's respect and it's sustainable and it's, you know, it's those things. It doesn't get into any detail and it doesn't use those clearly defined words. And there isn't anything to back it up.

Jools Walker: So Scott, it sounds like to me, you need to have evidence. Don't accept wooly terms.

Scott Bentley: Yes. But here is a thing, and it’s another thing to add into the mix, I am sorry, another thing. We’ve discussed B-Corp and we’ve discussed transparency reports, and these are all good things, don’t get me wrong.

But these are all things which essentially kind of like roasters doing a little bit of self-assessment. So there are really important initiatives. As an industry, we need to come together, like this, big problems of pricing.

Jools Walker: Ok then, Scott. What are they?

Scott Bentley: This could get a bit wonky. So bear with me. These are literally at the cutting edge of what specialty coffee is doing at the moment, and they are the specialty coffee transaction guide. So is the roaster contributing to the specialty coffee transaction guide and is the roaster supporting living income assessment.

And these are like, really complicated projects that are essentially going to solve very big problems within the coffee industry. So look at it like this, is a coffee roaster, shouting about a small project where they threw some money at it and they're waving their little flag and saying: we own this? Or are they paying into a much bigger thing that solves a much bigger problem?

And they're just not going to get some much of that sort of kudos out of it. But if that problem gets solved, man, that's going to change stuff.

Jools Walker: I think I'm going to attempt to sum it up from what I've taken. Okay, so you should choose roasters who are actually trying to demonstrate that they're part of the speciality coffee team and that they're actually working collaboratively to solve these problems of low prices.

So you don't have them centering themselves because that's a red flag. If it's just them and them alone. Also look out for these transparency reports and B Corp certifications, you know, whether they actually contribute to the speciality coffee transaction guide that you mentioned, or whether they support these living income assessments. Right?

Scott Bentley: Absolutely. And you know what? These are the things that you should be possibly looking for once you've already narrowed down to like a few roasters that you want to buy from. So go one step at a time and you'll find someone, pretty close, does pretty much what you want to do. They're doing the right kind of thing.

Jools Walker: It's possible. It is possible to do.

Scott Bentley: Absolutely. The good thing is if you find a really good roaster, that is doing really good things, you haven't got to keep switching around. You haven't got keep doing all the research.

But, Jools, I know this has been complicated. I know we've really gone to the weeds on this, but I just want to close out this episode with something that Jen said to me that was very, very powerful.

Jenn Rugolo: No one faults you for, you know, trying to make the best decision possible and maybe not making the right one, right?

But you do have the power as a consumer to be able to change this. If you really want to see a change.

Jools Walker: This is making me feel a lot better. Just thinking about how confused I've have been in the past about buying coffee and how to buy it correctly or smartly or ethically, or what have you. There are tools that I've taken away from this.

And I hope our dear listener has that too.

All right, Scott, thank you so much for that journey, but let's have those credits.

Scott Bentley: So dear listener, we're literally drowning in ideas for series three and we want to hear from you.

Jools Walker: Now we have put together a survey that will help us understand what episodes you liked and how we can help you on your coffee journey.

Scott Bentley: So follow the link in the show notes, and while you're there, you can support the show on Patreon. But you can still complete the survey, even if you're not on Patreon.

Jools Walker: Now, Scott, Christmas is just around the corner and we've got some great discounts for all our Patreons who have signed up to the Caffeine Dealer option.

Scott Bentley: Absolutely. Our friends at Dogenhat have given us a wonderful discount on their coffee subscription service. So, you know, maybe pick up a subscription as a Christmas present for the coffee lover in your life.

Jools Walker: And you can also get money off brewing equipment with our friends at Coffee Hit. So follow the link in the show notes.

Scott Bentley: Now this podcast was produced by James Harper, the creator of the coffee podcast, Filter Stories…

Jools Walker: … and he also wrote and plays the piano music you hear in the background.

Scott Bentley: Now, if you liked the show, you can help others find it by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. And I need to stress this really clearly: five star reviews, only people.

Anyway, this really helps the show gets picked up by the algorithms.

Jools Walker: Yes, and of course, with social media, you can also follow Caffeine Magazine on Instagram. So you can find Scott at @caffeinemag and myself, Jools, at @ladyvelo, and of course, James Harper at @filterstorespodcast.

Scott Bentley: sNow, dear listener, we're taking a much needed break.

Now, Jools, what are you buying in for Christmas? Is it going to be that espresso machine that you've always wanted?

Jools Walker: Yeah, it will be exactly that, you know, it's going to be a bit like the year that Santa put those really expensive Geisha coffee beans into your kids' Christmas stockings.

Scott Bentley: Well, what can I say?

Santa has got great tastes.

Jools Walker: We will be back in January to close out season two. And ups nd now we have been helping you on your coffee journey, but we're going to be pouring something a little different into our cups.

Scott Bentley: That’s right, we're going to be pouring some wine in there instead, and we're going to be collaborating with another podcast. So stay tuned.

Jools Walker: Indeed. So until then, dear listener, we will see you again soon. Take care.

Scott Bentley: Bye-bye.

‍