Following on from my last post some of you maybe interested in this infographic on the health benefits of coffee and tea. It’s aimed at American readers (they don’t drink as much tea as us Brits!) but I thought as the information is so well presented it was still worth sharing.
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Many of you may have notice the severe lack of new content on this blog recently. This is because I have been busy putting the finishing touches to the new look Galla Coffee website.
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Another week, another interesting article: this time about converting coffee waste into biofuel. A treatment plant has been built in the Cauca Valley, Columbia, which plans to convert mucilage into bioethanol. The plant is currently in the testing phase but once fully operational it’s expected to produce 800-1000 litres of fuel per day. Not only will this aid coffee farmers as they’ll be paid for their waste (and I assume will have access to cheap biofuel) but also the environment, as now the waste has value, it will hopefully no longer be dumped in local rivers.

You can read more about this interesting project here.

I read an interesting report this week entitled: “Some Like it Hot: The Influence and Implication of Climate Change on Coffee Berry Borer (Hypothenemus hampei) and Coffee Production in East Africa”. Experts believe that rising temperatures will result in higher populations and spread of the coffee berry borer, which could have far reaching consequences for high quality Ethiopian and Kenyan coffees, some of my personal favourites.
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I was reading an article over the weekend about how the coffee industry needs to address water usage. How they need to promote things such as responsible farming practices. One example given was of a group of farmers from Hama, Ethiopia. For years they had been discarding the pulp part of the coffee cherry in the local river. The pulp would then decompose giving off toxins which polluted local water supplies. It wasn’t until a team from Nestle met them and explained that the pulp shouldn’t be wasted, as it actually makes a very good compost, that they stopped.
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If you’ve not seen this already this is a great (and quite funny) video about caffeine.



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Congratulations to Alejandro Mendez of El Salvador for wining the WBC. It seems a fitting end to the first WBC to be held in a coffee producing country that it was won for the first time by a barista from a coffee producing country.
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