EP 1600 Part 5 of 5 | Why “Specialty Coffee” Is Failing as a Value Proposition (Isabela Raposeiras)
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Episode Description
This is episode 5 of a 5-part series with Isabela Raposeiras, founder of Coffee Lab Brazil. In this series of The Daily Coffee Pro Podcast by Map It Forward, we’ve been discussing leadership, hospitality, workplace culture, and the future of coffee businesses.
In this final episode, host Lee Safar and Isabela ask a difficult but important question: Why is “specialty coffee” failing as a value proposition?
This conversation challenges many of the systems, assumptions, and power structures that have shaped the global specialty coffee industry over the last two decades.
Lee and Isabela explore whether the modern specialty coffee movement has drifted away from its original intention of creating a more equitable and values-driven coffee supply chain, and whether it has instead recreated many of the same extractionist behaviors it originally claimed to oppose.
The discussion looks at who gets to define “quality coffee,” why producing countries are increasingly challenging Western-centric definitions of specialty coffee, and how organizations like the SCA and CVA continue shaping industry standards without adequately including the voices of producers and producing countries.
Isabela also argues that “specialty coffee” is not simply a product category, it’s a cultural and political concept, and that unless the industry becomes more inclusive, more self-aware, and more willing to redistribute power, it risks losing credibility altogether.
This is one of the most direct, provocative, and important conversations we’ve had on the podcast in a long time.
Connect with Isabela Raposeiras and Coffee Lab here: