What are The Places?
The Places are real entities that implement The Better Coffee system.
They are autonomous, coordinated by suggestion, and value-driven — but never centrally managed.
The Place can be privately owned, collectively managed, or operated by a cooperative.
They are not branches of a single institution, but distinct actors aligned through a shared standard.
Each The Place applies The Better Coffee Standard in its own way: mostly fully, some in part, others as a future goal.
They are diverse in function and form — from farms and fermentation stations to educational hubs, laboratories, and more.
Together, they form a distributed network of practical transformation into the future paradigm — giving it the desired shape before it has even arrived.
Core values of The Places
Egalitarianity
There is no hierarchy — all The Places are equal in structure and purpose.
Autonomy
Each The Place operates independently, shaped by its local context and vision.
Sharing
Multidisciplinarity
Knowledge, space, tools, and labor flow freely between The Places.
Each The Place brings together diverse skills and fields — to meet real needs.
The Place Coffee Plantations
The Place Coffee Plantations are cooperatively or privately managed farms that embody the core principles of The Better Coffee Standard.
They focus on sustainable agriculture, soil regeneration, labor dignity, and quality-led processing.
Some are fully aligned with the Standard, others are in transition — building new models step by step.
These The Places address issues like land ownership, wage equity, and agroecological practice.
They act not only as production sites, but as political and ecological agents — defending land, people, and future viability.
In some cases, they are owned by smallholder cooperatives. In others, they’re family farms or collective land trusts.
Each one plays a critical role in the coffee system’s reformation.
Interested in building this The Place with us? Contact us or Purchase a License
The Place Education
The Place Education are physical or semi-permanent spaces dedicated to teaching The Better Coffee Curriculum and using The Coffee Table e-learning.
They adopt and adapt these two systems — translating, contextualizing, and delivering them to meet local needs and realities.
Some are fully equipped and host regular courses. Others operate seasonally, emerge, or ad hoc from cafés, roasteries, farms or community centers with an educational purpose.
These The Places resist extractive models of training — instead cultivating learning that is slow, reciprocal, and rooted in real life. Non formulas — deep context.
They may serve small groups or large gatherings, but always with a shared mission: to grow understanding, capacity, clarity, and confidence among coffee people.
Each one helps redefine what knowledge means — and who gets to build it.
Interested in building this The Place with us? Contact us or Purchase a License
The Place Roasters
Roasting spaces that operate according to The Better Coffee Standard — in sourcing, production, and communication.
They are supplied by green coffee grown and processed within the structure of The Places, and in turn, they supply roasted coffee to bars, homes, and co-ops.
These The Places conduct detailed quality control, take environmental responsibility seriously, and actively reduce waste across the supply chain.
They aim for zero emissions, safe working conditions, and transparent documentation — not as branding, but as baseline ethics.
Roasters are not passive endpoints; they are agents of innovation — refining flavor, testing boundaries, and contributing to the evolution of The Standard itself.
They are also educational and social — often hosting courses, tastings, and public conversation.
Each The Place Roasters plays a critical role in transforming how roasted coffee is produced, perceived, and distributed.
Interested in building this The Place with us? Contact us or Purchase a License
The Place Coffee Bars
Cafés, pop-ups, and cooperative centers that serve brewed coffee according to The Better Coffee Standard — and embody its ethics at the point of contact.
These are the most public-facing of all The Places. They shape how coffee is experienced: how it tastes, how it’s talked about, and what it stands for.
Each one is collectively run, team-based, and grounded in hospitality. They are not franchises or influencer spaces — they are community interfaces between producers, systems, and people.
Beyond service, they support education, research, and reflection. They help spread knowledge of The Standard while giving people a place to feel it — in the cup, in the conversation, in the design.
Bars can be permanent cafés, seasonal structures, or informal cooperative pick-up points — as long as they uphold quality, clarity, and shared responsibility.
Every The Place Bars proves that better coffee is possible — and already happening.
Interested in building this The Place with us? Contact us or Purchase a License
The Place Coffee People’s Universities
Spaces of mutual learning inspired by the principles of Grundtvig, where people live, study, and work together — often located at farms, mills, or dedicated rural centers outside coffee origin countries.
These The Places are long-form, immersive, and radically inclusive. They welcome children, youth, adults, and elders — with no gatekeeping, no tuition walls, and no separation between learners and teachers.
They explore coffee deeply, but not exclusively. Curriculum includes ethics, ecology, health, food, and local realities — all shaped by the people present.
Students live under one roof for weeks or months, helping run the space while participating in learning sessions.
They clean, cook, harvest, and reflect — together.
Each one specializes in a particular area: processing, soil, production, hospitality, history, or education. But all are united by care for land, people, and the future.
These The Places are experiments in liberation — practical, joyful, unfinished, equal.
Interested in building this The Place with us? Contact us or Purchase a License
The Place Hórreo
Export and import hubs that move green and roasted coffee across regions, oceans, and systems.
If you trade coffee — this is your The Place.
These The Places organize logistics, manage inventories, and coordinate deliveries for The Better Coffee system.
They ensure traceability and uphold standards — not just for compliance, but for ethics, quality, and safety.
They operate with strict hygiene protocols, anti-mold measures, and even radiation protection when needed.
They don’t just hold coffee — they hold the system together.
Hórreos also store roasted coffee, distribute tools and equipment, and help synchronize flows between producers, buyers, and educators.
They maintain strategic reserves — a buffer against climate shocks, border delays, and broken contracts.
This is not just warehousing.
It’s infrastructure for a new kind of "trade".
Interested in building this The Place with us? Contact us or Purchase a License
The Better Coffee Lab’s
Research institutes, think tanks, and observation nodes for The Better Coffee system.
They study coffee — but also economies, labor, power, and change itself.
These The Places explore contradictions in the current paradigm.
Some focus on flavor science, chemistry or processing, others on political theory, economic modeling, or cultural dynamics.
Labs document what happens across The Places, and return insight, language, and tools.
They support innovation, but also critique — even from within the structure itself.
There are no patents here.
All findings are shared freely, often through platforms like Red Ink Coffee — not just internally, but publicly.
Whether you're a system designer, researcher, sensory analyst, or rebel ideologist —
this is your space. This is your The Place.
Interested in building this The Place with us? Contact us or Purchase a License
The Place Fermentation Stations
Processing sites dedicated to turning coffee berries into green coffee according to The Better Coffee Standard.
They specialize in fermentation — both as technique and philosophy.
These The Places work with plantations that don’t have their own processing infrastructure.
They ensure quality, repeatability, and traceability — using clean water, controlled methods, and climate-responsive practices.
Some stations are owned collectively by farmers or workers. Others operate as cooperatives of farmers.
They innovate in fermentation, drying, sorting, and storage — and coordinate transport to The Place Hórreos.
Fermentation here is not just a technical step.
It’s a site of experimentation, identity, and flavor politics.
What happens here changes what coffee is — and what it means.
If you work with coffee post-harvest, and you care how it’s transformed —
this is your stage. This is your The Place.
Interested in building this The Place with us? Contact us or Purchase a License
The Places are not franchises. They are not centrally owned.
Each location operates under a license—a mutual agreement to apply The Better Coffee Standard in a visible and conscious manner.
Licenses are available at three levels: Solidarity, Sustainable, and Supporter.
Each license includes an agreement, certificates, and full digital access to The Standard and venue-specific documents from The Places series. You also receive full administrative support and assistance from other The Places in implementing The Standard at your location.
You choose the type of The Places and the set of principles that will guide you on your journey to a new paradigm.
We provide support, updates, connection to a wider network and more.
Licensing is not permission — it is adaptation.
Not control — but commitment.
For a higher purpose — for human dignity and economic self-defense against the current paradigm.
We can change the coffee world — only together.