Coffee brewing gets an upgrade. Plus, Starbucks struggles globally and union organizers have some tips for the company’s new CEO.
‘Researchers Design New Coffee Brewing Chart’ – via Global Coffee Report
Since the 1950s, coffee pros have relied on the Coffee Brewing Control Chart (BCC) as a reference for brewing the perfect cup of filter coffee. Now, researchers from the University of California, Davis, have devised an updated chart that they say better reflects the needs of the modern coffee professional and consumer.
The BCC was created in 1957 by Ernest E. Lockhart from the Coffee Brewing Institute and used metrics such as extraction percentages to find the optimal balance for brewing filter coffee. Lockhart’s chart included simple descriptors like bitter, strong, and weak. It became “an iconic tool used by coffee professionals and home brewing aficionados the world over,” according to the authors of a new study published in the Journal of Food Science. However, they say the chart needed an update.
“Despite its popularity, recent experimental studies have revealed that sensory attributes and consumer preferences actually follow much more complicated trends than those indicated by the classic BCC,” the authors write. The UC Davis team used more up-to-date sensory research and consumer insights as the basis for their work.
The new Sensory and Consumer Brewing Control Chart has updated sensory and extraction metrics, features a more streamlined, user-friendly, consumer-focused approach, and includes additional descriptors like bitter, citrus, astringent, sweet, black tea, and dried fruit.
This new chart is a big deal, friends. But we’ll let the authors of the study tell you why:
The Classic Brewing Control Chart has been used for over 60 years by drip coffee brewers to brew supposedly “ideal” coffee by staying away from the four corners of the chart and their “weak,” “strong,” “under-developed,” or “bitter” characteristics.
The new Sensory Brewing Control Chart we propose here displays a much more comprehensive, appropriate, and relevant set of sensory descriptors for coffee in relation to yield and extraction parameters. The streamlined version displays the same information with a reduced set of key sensory attributes, and it retains the look and feel of the original chart for ease of transition and use by coffee professionals who are used to working with the classic BCC.
Basically, new info but familiar touchpoints. Taste on!
‘Luckin Coffee and the Booming Asian Coffee Sector Take a Bite Out of Starbucks’ – via Restaurant Business Online
Starbucks’ struggles are nothing new—we regularly update you on the ups and downs of the global chain here in the newsletter. The company’s latest quarterly earnings report added to the negativity, with sales slipping 7%.
If you break down the slump by country, the picture gets even more bleak. Things aren’t necessarily great at home—sales decreased 6% in North America. But sales took a massive hit in China, where the company’s sales fell 14% over the quarter. Starbucks blamed this fall on “competition in the country, which it said is altering consumer behavior and changing the company’s strategy for the market,” reports Amelia Lucas for CNBC.
Jonathan Maze for Restaurant Business Online points to the revival of Luckin Coffee as the reason competition has heated up in China. Luckin, a fast-growing chain whose progress was halted after it ran into trouble due to fraud and declared bankruptcy in 2021, is now on the fast track to growth and has emerged as the country’s largest coffee chain.
Its success as a low-cost, small-footprint chain has inspired investors to pour money into the coffee sector, which has led to other coffee companies following the same blueprint: for example, Cotti Coffee, another regional chain, has opened 10,000 locations across Asia. Maze reports that seven of the 10 fastest-growing chains in Asia are coffee-focused, and only one of the 10, Tim Hortons, is a Western brand.
That means sales blips, like the one Starbucks is currently going through, will be especially hard. “The rapid growth of Luckin and Cotti and the clear interest by others in the coffee business in Asia,” Maze writes, “make the market a lot more difficult for Starbucks, Dunkin’, Tim Hortons and any other U.S. coffee chain hoping that the market would be easy pickings.”
More News
‘JAB to Buy Mondelez’s Stake in JDE Peet’s for €2.16 Billion’ – via Bloomberg
‘Roast Magazine Announces 2025 Roaster of the Year Winners’ – via Daily Coffee News
‘Cherry Love Coffee Explores the Wide World of Canephora’ – via Fresh Cup Magazine
‘Are There Health Concerns With Consuming Alternative Milks?’ – via Sprudge
‘Honduras Coffee Leaders Launching the Cafexpo Trade Show in 2025’ – via Daily Coffee News
‘ICP 2023 Annual Report Details Success Despite Global Challenges’ – via Global Coffee Report
‘Hey Cuppers, Here’s Your Chance to Inform the Future of Q Grading’ – via Daily Coffee News
The Week in Coffee Unionizing
Starbucks’ new CEO, Brian Niccol, plans to turn things around at the ailing coffee giant (see the 7% sales slide). Some of his plans include scaling back discounts and promotions and promising to make Starbucks “a welcoming coffeehouse” again.
He also wants to address staffing issues that have long plagued the company—unsurprisingly, Starbucks baristas agree. Waylon Cunningham at Reuters spoke with several workers, including union organizers, who “complain about what they say are chronic understaffing and poor pay and benefits, among other problems.”
They also want to see a clearer separation between mobile ordering and drive-thru-focused stores, what Niccol means by his more welcoming “coffeehouse” vision, and more protection from difficult customers. “I have been told countless times that part of our job is ‘just taking rude customers,’” said barista and union organizer Liv Ryan. “But there’s no clear line between ‘rude’ and ‘hostile’ and even then I shouldn’t have to put up with anyone being rude to me at my job.”
The other thing unionized Starbucks workers want? A contract, said organizer Parker Davis. “All I’m looking for is a collective bargaining agreement by the end of the year.”
Is Coffee Good For You?
We’ve seen it all here in the newsletter. Coffee is good for you; coffee is bad for you. It protects you from disease; it can cause that same disease. As a coffee drinker, trying to parse all the new studies that often seem to contradict the old ones can be confusing.
Recent research found that coffee can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease; now, another study found that drinking coffee could improve vascular health. Researchers from Italy looked at a small number of patients with lupus, an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue.
Those with lupus are more likely to develop heart disease due to the way their compromised immune system affects the lining of blood vessels. The study found that consuming caffeine may assist endothelial cells in regenerating blood vessel lining.
However, the authors note the small scale of the study and say that further investigation is needed.
“The present study is an attempt to provide patients with information on the possible role of diet in controlling the disease,” Fulvia Ceccarelli, the study’s lead author, told Food Navigator. “It will be necessary to confirm the results through a longitudinal study, aimed at assessing the real impact of coffee consumption on the disease course.”
Beyond the Headlines
‘How Many Coffee Jobs Must Be Sacrificed To Appease The Profit Gods?’ by Zac Cadwalader
‘There Is No Such Thing as an ‘Unskilled’ Coffee Job’ by Fionn Pooler
‘On Racist Coffee and Economic Conditions’ by Paolo Bicchieri
