Part 4 of 5: Jem McDowall explains why El Niño represents much more than a weather threat to tea farmers. Lee and Jem explore how climate disruption, fertilizer constraints, logistics problems, smallholder decisions, and the disappearance of excess production are making the global tea supply chain increasingly vulnerable.
Read MorePart 3 of 5: Jem McDowall explains why tea farmers are becoming increasingly vulnerable after years of low prices, rising input costs, oversupply, and underinvestment. Lee and Jem compare those pressures with coffee, discuss climate and currency risk, and examine why a weakened producer base could become one of the tea industry’s biggest long-term problems.
Read MorePart 2 of 5: Jem McDowall explains how tea is priced and traded through physical auction systems around the world, why tea has no futures market, and how buyers take ownership of the tea they purchase. The conversation also compares payment and financing structures in tea and coffee, raising important questions about where financial risk should sit in an agricultural supply chain.
Read MorePart 1 of 5: Jem McDowall of Universal Commodities explains how tea moves from fresh leaf through withering, oxidation, rolling or CTC processing, and drying. He also breaks down how tea is graded by leaf size, why those systems vary around the world, and how tea grading differs from the more standardized systems used in coffee.
Read MorePart 5 of 5: What will coffee look like in 20 years? Lee Safar and Cropster co-founder Norbert Niederhauser explore climate pressure, resilient varieties, higher and more stable coffee prices, experimental processing, AI, automation, the future of cafés, and why the industry still has the ability to shape what comes next.
Read MorePart 4 of 5: What does a sustainable coffee supply chain look like in practice? Lee Safar and Cropster co-founder Norbert Niederhauser explore how technology, measurement, data interpretation, and AI can help coffee businesses identify risk, reduce waste, and make more proactive decisions.
Read MorePart 3 of 5: Can coffee be environmentally sustainable if the economics do not work? Lee Safar and Cropster co-founder Norbert Niederhauser explore the connection between farming systems, pricing, risk, logistics, the C-market, and why sustainability ultimately depends on both environmental health and economic viability.
Read MorePart 2 of 5: Where is sustainability most lacking in coffee? Lee Safar and Cropster co-founder Norbert Niederhauser examine the weak points across farming, trading, roasting, pricing, and the environment, and discuss how businesses can identify risks before those weaknesses become a crisis.
Read MorePart 1 of 5: Sustainability in coffee is about far more than carbon emissions or environmental claims. Cropster co-founder Norbert Niederhauser joins Lee Safar to explore what a truly sustainable coffee supply chain requires, who carries responsibility, and why economic viability, transparency, and long-term thinking all matter.
Read MorePart 5 of 5: Colombia’s coffee sector faces years of recovery after the earthquake. Ana Donneys and Angel Barrera discuss reconstruction, mental-health strain, unequal access to resources, and why continuing to buy Colombian coffee and maintain long-term relationships may be one of the most meaningful ways the global industry can help.
Read MorePart 4 of 5: Colombian coffee is still moving, but the risks are building. Ana Donneys and Angel Barrera explain how damaged infrastructure, water rationing, El Niño and processing constraints could affect coffee quality and exportable volume through 2026 and into 2027.
Read MorePart 3 of 5: Colombia’s coffee sector now has to rebuild while continuing to produce. Ana Donneys and Angel Barrera explain the damage to wet mills, homes and infrastructure, transport constraints, and why El Niño could compound the pressure in the months ahead.
Read MorePart 2 of 5: The day after the earthquakes, communities across Colombia began responding while many people were still without safe homes, electricity, communications or road access. Ana Donneys and Angel Barrera describe the solidarity that emerged, damage across coffee-producing areas, and the first signs of disruption to Colombia’s coffee supply chain.
Read MorePart 1 of 5: Colombia’s coffee sector was already dealing with smaller harvests, rising costs and currency pressure when the August 10 earthquakes struck. Ana Donneys and Angel Barrera describe what happened that morning in Armenia and Pereira, the immediate damage they witnessed, and the first hours after the disaster.
Read MorePart 5 of 5: Lee Safar closes the Benecke series by examining the unanswered money trail, Fairtrade, brokers, J.J. Darboven and the insolvency process, and asks what the case reveals about how risk, accountability and payment are distributed across coffee.
Read MorePart 4 of 5: Lee Safar examines the role of brokers in the Benecke controversy, including allegations of pressure on Peruvian cooperatives, disputed creditor-registration advice, commission structures, and possible conflicts between producer and buyer interests.
Read MorePart 3 of 5: Lee Safar examines the warning signs surrounding Benecke Coffee and asks what the company, Fairtrade, buyers, brokers, lenders and other stakeholders may have known before producer cooperatives continued shipping coffee.
Read MorePart 2 of 5: Lee Safar follows the disputed Peru and Honduras coffee through the Benecke supply chain, examining downstream payments, brokers, shipment records and insolvency timing to understand where the money stopped flowing back to the cooperatives.
Read MorePart 1 of 5: Following the Peru and Honduras cooperative series, Lee Safar reconstructs the Benecke Coffee timeline and examines what we know so far about the unpaid coffee, the warning signs, the stakeholders involved, and the questions that remain unanswered.
Read MorePart 5 of 5: COMSA reflects on what must change after the Benecke insolvency, from payment security to buyer due diligence. The cooperative also questions whether current certification systems provide enough protection when importers fail to pay.
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