The February + March 2020 issue of Barista Magazine is here, featuring Amethyst Coffee’s Elle Taylor. Also included: ‘Homesick: How Cafés Can Help Their Houseless Community,’ ‘Adventures in Being a Green Buyer,’ a ‘Master Q+A’ with Taiwan’s Joe Hsu, and much more!
BY KENNETH R. OLSON
BARISTA MAGAZINE
The February + March 2020 issue means we’ve reached the final issue of another volume of Barista Magazine: This is Issue 6 of Volume 15. Each and every time we publish another issue, I can’t help but be amazed and impressed with the outstanding content created by our contributors to share with our wonderful readers. We can’t do any of this without their work or without you subscribing, supporting, and reading what our editorial team has put together. In the pages of the February + March 2020 issue, you’ll find stories on the compelling people, interesting places, and ongoing challenges in coffee. Keep reading to find out a little more about what’s in the February + March 2020 issue of Barista Magazine.
Cover Feature: Elle Taylor
Elle Taylor started her company, Amethyst Coffee, in Colorado in 2015. The same year, she launched Cherry Roast, which helped encourage more people from all walks of life to participate in coffee competitions. While Elle worked on both her company and Cherry Roast for years, she’s recently moved on from the latter to focus even more on the former, and for good reason: Amethyst just started its own roasting program. Find out more about Elle and her story in “Elle Taylor Is All In” by contributor Kat Melheim of Coffee People in the February + March 2020 issue of Barista Magazine.
Helping the Homeless Community
Cafés have long been known as community gathering spaces, but recently news stories have reported on incidents between management, staff, and their local houseless community members. As the numbers of people experiencing some period of homelessness continues to rise in America, these situations will only become more common. Frequently the problems arise not from a position of malice, but from a lack of clear policies and effective strategies for employees to offer assistance to people needing help. Frequent contributor Mark Van Streefkerk writes in the February + March 2020 issue of Barista Magazine an article called “Homesick: How Cafés Can Help Their Houseless Community,” in which he consults with experts and others with experience about the ways cafés can respond to this crisis.
Green-Buying Adventures
What’s the most valuable tool for a coffee green buyer? A frequent flyer account? A good travel guidebook? A machete? None of the above, says Lucy Ward, green buyer for Melbourne’s ST.ALi: It’s a spreadsheet. Though the position sounds glamorous and full of adventure, Lucy says that in fact most of it is spent alone working on a computer to make sure just the right amount of coffee at the right price arrives in just the right time. And she’s not alone in her estimation: In the February + March 2020 issue of Barista Magazine, her story “Adventures in Being a Green Buyer” is coupled with numerous examples from other green buyers from around the world in a companion piece titled “Veteran Green Buyers Weigh In.”
‘Master Q&A’: Joe Hsu
Joe Hsu still remembers the first cup of coffee he ever drank. (You’ll have to read the February + March 2020 issue to find out the story behind it.) But he also remembers almost all of the great coffees he’s tasted as a judge for the World Coffee Events competitions, and he can tell you what made them so special and memorable. Nothing about Joe’s background would have led him to believe that he’d find his place in the world via specialty coffee. But with his coffee company Orsir at the vanguard of the coffee movement in Taiwan, he has done just that. In our “Master Q+A” in the February + March 2020 issue, we had the chance to dive deep into Joe’s backstory and why he thinks coffee competitions are so important to promoting specialty coffee worldwide.
These are just some of the stories and articles you’ll find in the February + March 2020 issue of Barista Magazine. 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.
