The August + September 2019 issue of Barista Magazine is here, featuring Rwanda’s Smayah Uwajeneza. Also included are articles on low-cost strategies for professional development, managing donation programs, recovering from failure, exploring brewing results using flat bed versus cone, a ‘Master Q+A’ with Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian, and much more!
BY KENNETH R. OLSON
BARISTA MAGAZINE
Our fantastic team of writers, editors, photographers, and artists has put together another outstanding issue of the magazine, and on their behalf it’s my great pleasure to welcome you to the August + September 2019 issue of Barista Magazine.
In mid-June I had the opportunity to attend Let’s Talk Coffee in Kigali, Rwanda. (Yes, you can find a photo essay in the new issue.) It was a terrific event that brought together coffee producers—primarily women and primarily from co-ops in Africa—along with buyers, roasters, and baristas. The primary concern for the attendees was how to make coffee growing profitable and sustainable. One piece of the solution is to stoke and promote consumption inside of producing countries so the farmers are less dependent on an international market outside of their control.
Rwandan barista (also trainer, roaster, and holder of many more titles) Smayah Uwajeneza is at the frontlines of such an effort with Question Coffee. She works tirelessly in specialty coffee because she sees the women coffee producers of Rwanda as her heroes. And Smayah believes that through her efforts to promote Rwandan coffee, she can help her country build a better future. She’s on the cover of this issue, and I am grateful to have had the chance to meet her, interview her, and see some of Rwanda’s coffee culture with her.
You can order a hard copy of the August + September 2019 issue through our online store here. (Better yet, start a subscription and never miss an issue!) Or you can read it for free online on our website or take it with you with our free app.
It’s no question that specialty coffee attracts a lot of committed, devoted, and determined individuals. But it’s also true that many retailers are small operations without a sizable budget for employees’ professional development. Writer RJ Joseph steps into that void and suggests nine potential avenues to help build skill sets, abilities, and more for everyone in specialty coffee—oh, and best of all, they’re all cheap!
It’s a cliche to say it’s not whether you get knocked down, but whether or not you get back up that defines you—but it’s also true. These stories in “How to Come Back Strong from Failure” by writer Brian Helfrich highlight the challenges faced by a number of specialty coffee pros in the course of their careers. But it’s not just the challenges and setbacks they’ve faced that’s important, it’s how they maintained their vision, faith, and determination in overcoming those obstacles.
In a tightly focused experiment, researchers at the University of California, Davis Coffee Research Center brewed thousands of cups of coffee, all to determine if one type of brewer worked better than another. In “Flat Bed Versus Cone,” writer Valorie Clark takes a look at the study and what the results mean for you.
Specialty-coffee companies are often focused on community. The community may be thousands of miles away where the coffee is grown, or it could be the one right there at home. In either instance, your company wants to make a positive impact and also hopefully make an impact that can help promote the business. In the latest installment in our popular “Cashbox” series, Brewed Behavior’s Tracy Allen writes about strategies that successful companies employ in their charitable giving programs.
Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian has become a voice for Burundi’s coffee farmers, and she has worked to improve quality and promote exports and better prices for coffee farmers. Even though she had a family history with coffee growing, it was never in her career path—until one day when everything changed. Ever Meister interviews Jeanine and shares her unique story in the August + September 2019 issue for “Master Q+A.”
These are just some of the stories and articles you’ll find the in the August + September 2019 issue of Barista Magazine, and there are many more inside the pages. We hope you enjoy reading the issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together.
Remember, you have multiple ways to read it. You can order a hard copy through our online store here or start a subscription. Of course you can also read it for free online on our website or take it with you with our free app.
