Issue 119: September | October 2023
Issue 119
From the Publisher
The founder and publisher of Roast magazine, Connie Blumhardt has spent 25 years in magazine publishing and has worked in the coffee industry for the last 20 years. Connie brings the same passion and commitment to this industry journal that is present within the roasting community.
With each issue, Connie brings insight and inspiration to the pages of Roast with this column.
Connie Blumhardt, Publisher
My typical approach to my publisher’s column is find an interesting topic, develop it into a theme and flesh out the details. This column, not so much. Here, I’m going to throw a series of haphazard thoughts out and invent some sort of theme that assembles the random blocks into a coherent structure. Wish me well as I bounce ideas off the constellation of satellites that make up the coffee universe.
First up, celebrities have figured out coffee is a pretty cool business. Perusing Daily Coffee News can seem more like flipping through People magazine in the waiting room. Singers (Snoop Dogg, Leona Lewis, Jason Mraz), actors (Millie Bobby Brown, Tom Hanks, Hugh Jackman) and of course, our favorite NBA star Jimmy Butler are all in coffee in one form or another. Even Barbie has a “You Can be Anything Coffee Shop” with 20-plus accessories. If I missed name dropping a celeb in coffee, tell them to reach out to me!
Next up, artificial intelligence (AI) will impact our business. Nobody can predict how or even when AI will pop up in the coffee industry. The implications of the technology are so new, in fact, that nobody can really agree whether to capitalize artificial intelligence in a sentence if it’s not abbreviated. Sometimes revolutionary technology sneaks up and becomes useful in everyday business, other times it arrives in a bright flash. How will AI-sourced roast profiles integrated with machines impact the traditional roles of the coffee roaster? Will you interact solely with AI-driven machines when ordering at a drive-through?
Finally, where will the impacts of climate change most affect each of our lives? Will it be through changing consumer tastes? With 31 straight days over 110 degrees F in Phoenix, Arizona, there had to be an impact on hot versus iced coffee sales. Will it be through catastrophic weather events that close our facilities? Most certainly it will impact the supply of green coffee. Can we adapt fast enough to reverse or even mitigate these effects?
If you haven’t figured out my theme at this point, you are not alone. Perhaps there is a thread between the topics or a pattern that I can’t quite discern. Perhaps I should ask ChatGPT to write me a column in the voice of Snoop Dogg on how a coffee magazine publisher should prepare her business for supply chain disruptions caused by rising sea levels?
Nah, that’s the easy way out and besides, I’ve still got plenty to say about the world of coffee. I think I will keep my pencil sharp for a few more years.
Warmest wishes,
Connie
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