EP 1577 | Part 2 of 5 | The Truth About Coffee Quality (Lucia Reid)
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This episode is brought to you by The Honduran Coffee Alliance, connecting Honduran coffee producers with global buyers in a fair, sustainable, and commercially viable way.
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Episode Description
This is episode 2 of a 5-part series on The Daily Coffee Pro Podcast by Map It Forward with agroecologist and newly graduated master’s researcher Lucia Reid. In this series, we’re exploring how regenerative management practices influence coffee quality.
In this episode, Lee Safar and Lucia tackle one of the most contested questions in coffee: what is “quality coffee”?
Lucia breaks down the technical definition, covering physical quality, biochemical composition, and sensory characteristics, but quickly moves into the deeper issue: quality is not a universal standard.
This conversation explores how different stakeholders across the supply chain define quality differently, from farmers and exporters to roasters and consumers, and how these definitions often conflict.
We also examine the emergence of the Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) and the growing push to include intrinsic value, who grew the coffee, how it was produced, and the story behind it, as part of quality.
The discussion challenges the idea that cup score alone defines quality and highlights the imbalance of power in how quality standards are set and imposed on producers.
Ultimately, this episode reframes quality as something contextual, subjective, and deeply connected to both human and ecological systems.
Contact Lucia Reid here: