Point of View
Change in recognition of women’s role in coffee?
Might 2022 become known as the year of women in coffee? At least in the first month is seems to be off to a good start. This year already sees South Korea and Italy become the 29th and 30th chapters to join the International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA). This comes on top of the recent partnership announced between the International Labor Organization (ILO) and IWCA that establishes a collaborative partnership to create a safer, more sustainable coffee supply chain for women in the international coffee community. Sahra Nguyen founder of c.e.o. of Nguyen Coffee will be the keynote speaker at ITCA’s meeting at SCA's Boston expo in April. There’s more and more appreciation for the role women play in the coffee industry, in Rwanda for example. And the well-known coffee executive Vanusia Nogueria, is now the executive director of the International Coffee Organization, the first woman to hold that role taking over from Jose Sette. We hope to hear a lot more to support our claim 2022.
Time to change from pandemic to endemic?
We’re all excited to get back into the travelling and exhibition mode and visiting mode and leave Covid in the dustbin of history, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. A recent release from World Tea Expo claims that its March conference and expo, will be the “the largest gathering for the tea ‘industry’.” World Tea Expo will celebrate its 20th wonderful year of developing an incredible show dedicated to tea, but with all the international travel restrictions in place and unlikely to be wrapped up by mid-March, it’s hard to believe that 2022 will mark World Tea Expo’s largest gathering, or the largest gather “ever” in tea. Send us the pix and summary and we’ll happily print a full retraction and report.
Change in the air for STiR editorial department.
It’s been great taking back the editorial reins of STiR, as my roots in publishing come from writing and editing. And I’ve been at it for the four issues, and I’ve been able to pay a lot more attention to the industry we report on and how to improve the magazine and newsletter’s delivery of that information. But…it’s a heck of a lot of work and shortly we will be announcing someone who will take over and able to devote more time and energy to continuing to come up with relevant content for the coffee and tea industries, something we’ve done since our inception 11 years ago. By issue 3, you’ll be meeting the new managing editor.