Knowledge Base
Coffee & Tea Guides
Brew better and explore more — buying guides, how-tos, and explainers for every coffee and tea ritual.
Explainer
Currency Risk in the Coffee Trade: How FX Moves Farm Income
The coffee "C" price is quoted in US dollars, but growers earn in local currencies, so exchange-rate swings quietly reshape farm income — a distinct layer of currency risk stacked on top of ordinary commodity price volatility.
Explainer
The Coffee Spot (Cash) Market: How Physical Coffee Is Priced
The coffee spot market is where physical green coffee is bought and sold for near-immediate delivery at the current cash price, quoted as the exchange benchmark plus or minus a differential and tied to futures through the basis.
Explainer
Coffee Arbitrage: Spreads, Substitution and Relative Value
Coffee arbitrage means trading the price gaps between economically linked coffee — the Arabica-Robusta spread, calendar spreads and cash-versus-futures basis — relative-value trades that keep related prices in line rather than delivering the risk-free profit the word implies.
Explainer
The Agtron Scale: Measuring Coffee Roast Color Objectively
The Agtron scale turns roast color into an objective number using near-infrared reflectance, standardizing how roasters communicate and stay consistent — but it measures degree of roast, not development.
Explainer
Roast Development and the Development Time Ratio (DTR)
Roast development is the stretch from first crack to the drop where flavor is finished; this guide explains the Development Time Ratio, under- and over-developed roasts, and why a bean can be poorly developed at any color.
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Rate of Rise (RoR): Reading the Bean-Temperature Curve
Rate of rise measures how fast bean temperature climbs during a roast, and reading a smoothly declining RoR curve while taming the crash and flick at first crack is the heart of modern profile roasting.
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First Crack in Coffee Roasting: The Sound That Guides a Roast
First crack is the audible popping that occurs when steam pressure fractures a roasting coffee bean, marking the start of the development phase and the key landmark roasters rely on to profile and reproduce a roast.
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The Maillard Reaction: Coffee Roasting's Flavor Engine
The Maillard reaction is the browning chemistry between amino acids and reducing sugars that dominates the middle of a coffee roast, building the melanoidins, color, body, and aroma compounds that make roasted coffee taste like coffee.
Explainer
Arara Coffee Variety: Brazil's Rust-Resistant Yellow Arabica
Arara is a Brazilian yellow-cherry arabica, commonly described as Obatã × Yellow Catuaí, that pairs Timor-Hybrid rust resistance with a cup good enough to win Brazilian quality competitions.
Explainer
Acaia: Brazil's Tall, Big-Bean Selection from Mundo Novo
Acaia is a tall, vigorous Brazilian arabica selected from the Mundo Novo population at IAC, valued for its unusually large beans and classic cup but, with traditional genetics, offering no resistance to coffee leaf rust.
Explainer
S795 (Selection 795): The Bold-Bean Arabica of Asia
S795, or Selection 795, is a vigorous India-bred arabica from a cross of Kent and the liberica-derived S.288, now planted widely across South and Southeast Asia for its bold beans, shade tolerance and sweet, balanced cup.
Explainer
Icatu Coffee: The Tall, Rust-Tolerant Brazilian Arabica
Icatu is a tall, vigorous Brazilian arabica developed by the Instituto Agronomico de Campinas by introgressing robusta genes into arabica and backcrossing to Mundo Novo and Bourbon, giving high yields and partial leaf-rust tolerance.
Explainer
El Balsamo-Quezaltepec Coffee, El Salvador
A profile of El Balsamo-Quezaltepec, El Salvador's central-west coffee range on the San Salvador volcano and the coastal Balsam ridge, home to sweet, washed Bourbon, Pacas, and Pacamara coffees.
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Alotepec-Metapan: El Salvador's Northwest Highland Coffee
Alotepec-Metapan is a small, remote highland coffee region in far northwestern El Salvador, taking in the Montecristo cloud forest and known for high-grown Bourbon, Pacas, and Pacamara.
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Topazio: Brazil's Yellow-Fruited, High-Yield Mundo Novo Cross
Topazio is a compact, high-yielding Brazilian Arabica, commonly described as a Mundo Novo and Catuai cross and best known in yellow-fruited lines like Topazio MG 1190, prized for productivity and a sweet, balanced cup.
Explainer
Catucai Coffee: Brazil's Icatu-Catuai Arabica Explained
Catucai is a widely grown Brazilian Arabica, commonly described as a cross of Catuai with Icatu, that trades full rust immunity for rugged vigour, drought tolerance and dependable yield across red and yellow selections.
Explainer
Catisic Coffee Variety Explained: El Salvador's Rust Defender
Catisic is a dwarf, rust-tolerant Arabica selected in El Salvador from Caturra and the Timor Hybrid, a Catimor-type variety bred for yield and resilience rather than fine cup quality.
Explainer
IAPAR-59: Brazil's Rust-Resistant Sarchimor Coffee Variety
IAPAR-59 is a compact Brazilian Arabica bred by the Instituto Agronomico do Parana, a Sarchimor-line variety whose Timor Hybrid ancestry brings leaf-rust resistance, dependable yields, and a respectable cup for a disease-resistant coffee.
Explainer
Coffee Bulk Density: What It Means and Why Roasters Track It
Bulk density measures the mass of green coffee per unit of volume — a quiet but revealing signal of altitude and quality that shapes how a lot is bagged, shipped and roasted.
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Coffee Roast Defects: Baking, Scorching, Tipping and More
Roast defects are faults made in the roaster — baking, scorching, tipping, underdevelopment, and over-roasting — and this guide explains what causes each one, how roasters diagnose them, and how they are prevented.
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Flotation Sorting of Coffee Cherries: The First Quality Gate
Flotation is the water-tank density step at the start of wet processing, where dense ripe cherries sink and lighter unripe, damaged and hollow floaters are skimmed off before pulping.
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Patio Drying of Coffee: How Sun-Drying on Open Floors Works
Patio drying spreads coffee in thin layers across concrete, brick or tiled floors to sun-dry, raked through the day and covered at night, until parchment or natural lots reach the shelf-stable moisture that protects flavor.
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Soil Testing for Coffee Farms: A Grower's Guide
A soil test measures what a coffee farm's ground actually supplies, turning fertiliser and lime decisions from guesswork into evidence — here is how to sample correctly, read the lab report, and use the results.
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Foliar Feeding of Coffee: Spraying Nutrients on Leaves
Foliar feeding sprays dilute nutrients onto coffee leaves for fast absorption through the leaf surface — a targeted supplement for micronutrients like zinc and boron, but never a replacement for soil fertilization.