Tag Archives: Columbia

Coffee, globalization, marketing

The Other Carlos Castañeda

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USATODAY.com – Colombia unveils newest coffee ambassador

Apart from the homonymy with the well-known and very controversial writer, the new
Juan Valdez has the distinction of being a coffee farmer himself. In a context in which ethics are increasingly marketable, a brand-based persona may be so flexible.

The USA Today piece provides a short but useful summary of some economic issues behind the global coffee market. One thing that can be said is that Columbia’s Fedecafe has successfully achieved recognition for being a major force behind consistent quality in coffee production. Their coffee beans might not produce the most complex flavours or aromas, but they serve as a decent base in a blend because they’re usually clean-tasting.

With the Cup of Excellence program, Columbia could achieve recognition for superior quality coffee, along with other coffee producing regions of Central and South America (Bolivia, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua).

Coupled with the controversial “Fair Trade” programs, these marketing and auction programs are changing the global coffee trade.

Blogging, café, Coffee, homeroasting, Northampton, reviews

Columbian Green Coffee Beans

1 Comment

Joe Ferrante's looking for bloggers interesting in columbian green coffee beans

Thanks for the comment, Joe! I guess the reason you got here was that I do occasionally blog about coffee. Unfortunately, I haven't been tagging most of my posts here. I do have another blog where I posted a café review. I also reviewed the same café on WikiCities. Not necessarily because it's the most awesomest place in the world but they had wireless access and it seemed like a good opportunity to start reviewing cafés…

Now, Columbian beans. Well, I do homeroast and often use Columbian beans as a base. What I like about them is that they're quite consistent in quality, fairly versatile and fairly flexible in terms of roast. It seems Columbian beans are the ones people use to try out roasting methods. Ken Davids said something like that in his homeroasting book…
At the same time, Columbian beans aren't the most surprising beans around. Actually, some Columbian beans I've had were very aromatic, even while green.

Joe: Is there a specific reason you're interested in Columbian beans rather than other beans? Are you in the coffee business? If so, what do you think of CoffeeGeek?

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