One of the biggest challenges that coffee roasters face is the volatility in price of their chief supply component: coffee beans. Over the past 5 years, coffee beans have fluctuated in price from 130 to 430c , and at times intraday swings have been as high as 40c. This means that you could face up to a 10% increase in price , simply depending on when you bought your coffee beans in the morning or in the afternoon!  This exposure to market price fluctuations is known as price risk , and...

Read Part 1 here The CTA Cupping System  The Coffee Trading Academy Cupping System is a hybrid of the two methods we talked about in part 1 , that evaluates using a simple system across 4 categories.  The Four Basic Categories (Acidity, Body, Flavor, Defects)  The four categories evaluated are Acidity, Body, Flavor, and Defects.   Acidity is the tartness experienced on the sides of the tongue in a good, black coffee. There are different types of acidity, for example citric is the bright...

This is part 1 of a two-part blog. Read part 2 here. Cupping is a unique and essential skill that is required of a coffee trader. Cupping, (i.e. coffee tasting or sensory analysis) is one of those peculiarities that makes being a coffee trader different from all the other types of physical traders out there. Sure, you might trade gold, cotton or oil, but can you take a sip of coffee and tell me, objectively, whether it is good or not?  In this blog my goal is to provide you with a practical...