Red Ink Coffee

Red Ink Coffee

Sign in Subscribe

Coffee People: Fahed Almaghrbi

Coffee People: Fahed Almaghrbi

Fahed Almaghrbi, agricultural engineer and founder of Yemen-at-Coffee, Yemen. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Coffee People: Tasos Delichristos

Coffee People: Tasos Delichristos

Tasos Delichristos, founder of The Underdog Coffee Roasters, Athens, Greece. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Coffee People: Dénes Rajmond

Coffee People: Dénes Rajmond

Dénes Rajmond, coffee roaster, Munich, Germany. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

A warehouse stacked with rows of green coffee sacks and packaged bags on industrial shelving. No people visible — only the scale of the system.

Better Means: Be More Efficient

Coffee people — you need to be efficient. It'll do you good. As long as you change your definition of efficiency first.

Coffee People: Riddhima Sanan

Coffee People: Riddhima Sanan

Riddhima Sanan, founder, Ball & Bean. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Coffee People: Matthew Deyn

Coffee People: Matthew Deyn

Matthew Deyn, production lead and co-founder of Fuente.Coffee, East Anglia, UK. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Coffee People: Kevin Bwire

Coffee People: Kevin Bwire

Kevin Bwire, Head of Coffee Production, Nairobi, Kenya. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Coffee People: Vasileia Fanarioti

Coffee People: Vasileia Fanarioti

Vasileia Fanarioti, coffee professional, writer, and event producer, Greece. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Better Means: The Authority You Didn't Choose

Better Means: The Authority You Didn't Choose

Every industry has its gods. Coffee is no exception — and The Better Coffee is not interested in adding new ones.

Coffee People: Julian Loayza

Coffee People: Julian Loayza

Julian Loayza, coffee trainer, London, UK. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Coffee People: María Esther Thome-López

Coffee People: María Esther Thome-López

María Esther Thome-López, coffee educator and roaster, Miami, Florida. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

A close-up portrait of a woman holding a coffee cup over her mouth and lower face. Her eyes look directly into the camera — present, aware, unheard.

Better Means: Hear My Voice

The coffee industry is silent. Not because it has nothing to say. Every one of us has the right to speak.

Coffee People: Balkis Mejri

Coffee People: Balkis Mejri

Balkis Mejri, Food Science Engineer, Tunisia. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Coffea stenophylla: Meet Coffee's Climate Challenger

Shared Knowledge

Coffea stenophylla: Meet Coffee's Climate Challenger

Coffea stenophylla tolerates higher temperatures than Arabica — and tastes remarkably similar. Could it be our answer to climate change?

Coffee People: Viviana Andrea Martínez Victoria

Coffee People: Viviana Andrea Martínez Victoria

Viviana Andrea Martínez Victoria, third-generation coffee producer, Quindío, Colombia. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Alt: Two workers harvesting coffee berries on a plantation, a metal bowl of red berries on the ground between them.

Better Means: Protect the Unprotected

We need a baristas' union. A roastery workers' collective. A pickers' federation for coffee cherry harvesters. An organization for dry mill workers. An association for warehouse staff and container packers. A movement for defect sorters.

Coffee People: Gürcan Egeli

Coffee People: Gürcan Egeli

Gürcan Egeli, Sales Engineer in the coffee roasting equipment industry, Türkiye. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Coffee People: Emma Markland Webster

Coffee People: Emma Markland Webster

Emma Markland Webster, coffee educator, coach, and community builder, Aotearoa New Zealand. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Coffee People: Jakub Krystek

Coffee People: Jakub Krystek

Jakub Krystek, event curator and consultant, Prague, Czechia. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Before the Roast: What Happens When You Wash Green Coffee

Shared Knowledge

Before the Roast: What Happens When You Wash Green Coffee

A roaster in Osaka washes his green coffee before it goes into the drum. Not as a stunt — as a question. What he found in the water, and in the cup, might change how you think about what roasting actually starts with.

Coffee People: Mutete Allan Muhamad

Coffee People: Mutete Allan Muhamad

Mutete Allan Muhamad, roaster and quality grader, Rwanda and DRC. Four questions — everything the industry rarely stops to hear.

Aerial view of a cargo port with hundreds of colorful shipping containers stacked in rows along the dock.

Better Means: Your "Just Enough" Is the Point

You've probably seen this one on social media: someone asks another person — would you take a million dollars right now, knowing you won't wake up tomorrow morning? How would you answer?

A woman in a hairnet and work apron fills coffee bags at a packaging station in a roastery. She is smiling and looking toward the camera

Better Means: Does Your Coffee Pay the Bills?

We ask all the right questions: botanical variety, processing method, roast profile, aeropress recipe, water TDS. And we rarely ask the one that matters most — do the people who work with coffee earn enough to meet their basic needs?

Reputation Concentration and a New Layer of Hierarchy. Become a Master of Specialty Coffee.

Reputation Concentration and a New Layer of Hierarchy. Become a Master of Specialty Coffee.

The SCA announces "the highest qualification in coffee." Prestige is one thing — a monopoly on defining mastery is another.

Six raised hands against a neutral background, showing a range of skin tones, tattoos, rings, and bracelets. No faces visible — just hands at the same level, each distinct.

Better Means: Different Doesn't Mean Worse

Discrimination in coffee isn't just a problem of bad individuals. It's a systemic function of the market. The division and segregation of coffee people is built into the structure of the system itself.