Knowledge Base
Coffee & Tea Guides
Brew better and explore more — buying guides, how-tos, and explainers for every coffee and tea ritual.
Explainer
How Coffee Auctions Work: From Nairobi to Cup of Excellence
Coffee auctions range from the weekly Nairobi Coffee Exchange, where marketing agents sell graded lots to licensed dealers by ascending bid, to Cup of Excellence online auctions that sell winning micro-lots to the highest global bidder.
Explainer
Coffee Warehouse Receipts: Title, Financing and Exchange Stock
A coffee warehouse receipt is a document of title for stored green coffee that lets cooperatives and traders borrow against inventory rather than distress-sell at harvest, and, once exchange-certified, stands as the stock delivered against coffee futures.
Explainer
The Coffee Quality Premium: Paying Above the C Market
A quality premium is the extra money coffee earns above the commodity C-market price, and it comes in four distinct forms — physical grade, cup score, certification and relationship — each captured very differently along the supply chain.
Explainer
Coffee Forward Contracts: Physical Deals, PTBF and Risk
A forward contract lets two parties agree now to deliver physical green coffee later — this guide explains how forwards differ from futures, how fixed-price and price-to-be-fixed deals work, and where counterparty and side-selling risk lie.
Explainer
Oro Azteca: Mexico's Rust-Resistant Coffee Variety
Oro Azteca is a Mexican Catimor released by INIFAP in the 1990s, prized for coffee leaf rust resistance, compact vigor and high yields that reshaped smallholder replanting.
Explainer
Villalobos: Costa Rica's Tall Heritage Typica Selection
Villalobos is a traditional Costa Rican coffee usually grouped as a Typica-descended selection, prized for high-elevation and wind tolerance, a sweet, balanced, gently citric cup, and heritage character despite modest yields.
Explainer
San Ramon Coffee Variety: A Typica Dwarf
San Ramon is a naturally compact dwarf mutation of Typica with very short internodes, valued historically for dense planting despite low yields and ordinary disease resistance.
Explainer
Chiroso: The Prized Coffee Variety of Antioquia, Colombia
Chiroso is a low-yielding, high-altitude Colombian specialty coffee from Antioquia whose Geisha-like floral cup and disputed Ethiopian-landrace genetics have made it a Cup of Excellence favorite.
Explainer
Sidra Coffee Variety: Ecuador's Floral Star
Sidra is a high-scoring specialty Arabica most associated with Ecuador, prized for its Geisha-like floral cup, murky Bourbon-Typica lineage, low yields, and a striking record on the competition and auction circuit.
Explainer
Coffee Screen Size Grading Explained
Coffee screen size sorts green beans by physical width using perforated screens numbered in 64ths of an inch, feeding grades like Supremo, AA, and peaberry while shaping how evenly a batch roasts.
Explainer
Coffee Density Grading and Gravity Sorting Explained
Density grading sorts green coffee by mass using gravity tables and water flotation, separating dense, well-developed beans from light floaters, hollows and quakers that roast unevenly.
Explainer
Damping-Off in Coffee Nurseries
Damping-off is a soil-borne fungal disease that rots germinating seed and topples young coffee seedlings at the soil line, and it is preventable with good nursery hygiene, drainage, and watering discipline.
Explainer
Brown Scale on Coffee: Saissetia coffeae Explained
Brown scale — chiefly the hemispherical soft scale Saissetia coffeae — is a sap-sucking pest that coats coffee stems in smooth brown shells, fuels sooty mould, and is farmed by ants for its honeydew.
Explainer
Sooty Mould on Coffee: Cause, Effect and Control
Sooty mould is a black fungal film that grows on insect honeydew coating coffee leaves; it never infects the tree but blocks light, so control targets the sap-sucking pests that feed it.
Explainer
Bacterial Blight of Coffee: Symptoms, Spread and Control
Bacterial blight of coffee is a rare bacterial disease caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv. garcae, thriving in cool, wet, high-altitude conditions and spread by wind-driven rain.
Explainer
The Second Payment: How Coffee Co-ops Pay Farmers
Coffee cooperatives typically pay members an advance on delivery, then a second payment months later once the coffee is milled, sold and the co-op's costs are settled.
Explainer
What Green Coffee Importers Do
Green coffee importers buy unroasted coffee CIF, ship and warehouse it, finance the inventory, cup arrivals for quality, and resell to roasters spot or forward while carrying price, quality and currency risk.
Explainer
What Coffee Exporters Do (And Why They Matter)
Coffee exporters aggregate, mill, grade and prepare export-quality green coffee, pre-finance farmers, handle documentation and logistics, then sell it FOB to importers overseas.
Explainer
Coffee Hedging: Managing Price Risk With Futures
Coffee hedging uses futures, options and price-to-be-fixed contracts to lock in buying or selling prices, protecting producers, exporters and roasters from swings in the volatile world coffee market.
Explainer
The Coffee Supply Chain, From Farm to Cup
Follow the physical journey of coffee through every handoff — smallholder, cooperative, mill, exporter, ocean freight, importer, roaster and retailer — and see where title, risk and margin pass at each link.
Explainer
Anacafe 14: Guatemala's Resilient Modern Hybrid
Anacafe 14 is a Guatemalan coffee variety born from a chance Catimor and Pacamara cross, giving it strong leaf-rust resistance and a notably better cup than most disease-resistant lines.
Explainer
Pache: The Compact Typica Mutation
Pache is a naturally compact mutation of Typica from the Guatemalan highlands, prized more for its easy-to-harvest stature and dependable yield than for a dazzling cup, with two distinct types worth knowing.
Explainer
Wush Wush: Ethiopia's Prized Heirloom Variety
Wush Wush is a rare Ethiopian heirloom arabica prized for a floral, tea-like cup — now grown at altitude in Colombia and beyond, and hailed as a cousin of the famous Geisha.
Explainer
Coffee Terracing: Farming Coffee on Steep Slopes
Because so much of the world's coffee grows on steep mountain slopes, farmers carve hillsides into level steps — terracing that slows water, stops erosion, and protects the deep topsoil great coffee depends on.