JOURNAL

MARKET INTEL

2026.09.06

The Era in Which How It Was Made Is What Counts: Regulation and Traceability

The coffee market is moving from origin name to proof of how it was made. EUDR demands plot-l...

MARKET INTEL

2026.09.06

From "Where It Was Grown" to "How It Was Made": Where Terroir Stands Now

The axis of coffee evaluation is moving from origin name to process. Terroir is not only plac...

LAB REPORT

2026.09.06

One Fallen Cherry Can Take the Whole Tree: Clean Harvest as Pest Control

One cherry left on the ground can infest about 959 fruits on the tree. The coffee berry borer...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.09.06

Ripeness Has an Upper Deadline: What Over-Ripening Takes and What It Invites

Not only unripe but over-ripe fruit is a defect. Sweetness plateaus at full red, over-ripe fr...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.09.06

How Old Beans Go Bad: A Tale of Two Clocks

Six months. Take that number home with you. It is the time it takes a bare green bean to lose...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.09.06

What to Record for Each Lot at Harvest: For Quality That Can Be Reproduced

The quality of a harvest can only be handed to next year if it is recorded. Harvest date, rip...

LAB REPORT

2026.09.06

Judging Coffee Ripeness: Signs Read by Hand and Time, Not Colour Alone

Ripeness is not decided by colour alone. The pulp softens, the bean hardens, and about 220 da...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.09.06

"Good Acidity" and "Bad Acidity" Are Chemically Different Things

"This coffee has good acidity." "This one is sour and no good." With the same word, acid, we ...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.09.06

What Lowering Fermentation Temperature by 1 °C Means: Aroma Is Decided by Temperature

Which lever works best in managing fermentation? Not time, not how tightly you seal, but temp...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.09.06

What Is Mossto? The Cherry Juice That Becomes a Fermentation Starter

The grape must of wine and the "mossto" of coffee fermentation. What coffee mossto is made of...

LAOS

JOURNAL

2026.09.02

[CUPPING TOUR] 4 Sep, Niigata, Days Coffee Roaster: The Lot We Made Together, and All Nine Lots

A cupping session at Days Coffee Roaster in Niigata on Friday 4 September 2026 from 18:30. Th...

CUPPINGLAOS

JOURNAL

2026.09.02

[CUPPING TOUR] 2 Sep, Matsumoto, High-Five COFFEE STAND: Our First Time in Nagano, with All Nine Lots

Our first cupping session at High-Five COFFEE STAND in Matsumoto, Nagano, on Wednesday 2 Sept...

CUPPINGLAOS

JOURNAL

2026.09.01

[CUPPING TOUR] 1 Sep, Nagoya, TRUNK COFFEE LAB: All Nine Lots of the Season

Our annual LuLaLao Coffee cupping session at TRUNK COFFEE LAB, Nagoya, on Tuesday 1 September...

CUPPINGLAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.08.30

The Core of Coffee Processing: The Four Stages of Fermentation

Fermentation is where microbes eat sugar and rewrite the taste and aroma of coffee. We manage...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.08.28

Taking Apart the Word "Fermented Coffee": All Coffee Is Fermented

There is a phrase I often hear in shops. "I'm not a fan of fermented coffees." And, leaning i...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.08.26

Ferment or Fruity: Where Professionals Draw the Line

Serve an anaerobic or co-fermented coffee and both reactions always come. "I love this fermen...

LAOS

FIELD LOG

2026.08.24

The Day We Set Up with Strawberries: Field Notes on the Strawberry Natural

On the workbench sits a white bucket of bright red purée. Strawberries, put through a blender...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.08.22

Reading the Fermentation pH Curve: The Numbers Tell You When to Stop

As long as you think of fermentation as "how many hours until I stop", you will fail somewher...

LAOS

MARKET INTEL

2026.08.21

Is "Exotic Processing" an Escape Route, or an Evolution?

Anaerobic, carbonic, co-fermentation, thermal shock. New names for processing are born almost...

LAOS

MARKET INTEL

2026.08.19

How to Tell Co-Fermentation from Infusion: Five Questions for Buyers

A roaster friend once asked me this. "I found a lot with an incredible aroma, but I can't tel...

LAOS

MARKET INTEL

2026.08.18

The End of the Era of Asian Coffee as "Cheap Raw Material"

When I say "it's Asian coffee", I still sometimes get this reply: "For blending?" There is no...

LAOS

MARKET INTEL

2026.08.15

Why Coffee Got Expensive: The Real Reasons, Seen from Origin

On supermarket shelves and café menus, coffee keeps getting dearer. I want to answer "why did...

LAOS

FIELD LOG

2026.08.13

The Time We Fermented Coffee with Limes: Field Notes on Co-Fermentation

At dusk the work shed fills with the smell of limes. Slicing goes on at the cutting board; in...

LAOS

MARKET INTEL

2026.08.11

EUDR Seen from a Small Farm: The Day a Farm's Coordinates Become a Passport

30 December 2026. From that day, large companies selling coffee into the EU must be able to s...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.08.10

For Those Who Struggle with Light Roasts: A Prescription from the Farm

Every time I meet someone who says "light roasts are sour, I don't like them", I think what a...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.08.07

The Other Reason Your Coffee Is Sour: It Is the Bean, Not the Brew

Search for "coffee tastes sour" and the answers are almost all the same. Raise the water temp...

LAOS

FIELD LOG

2026.08.05

Keeping Quality When the Market Doubles

In the years since news of record prices went round, a certain temptation has arisen at origi...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.08.04

A Map of Defects and Off-Flavours: Visible Defects, Invisible Defects

A defective bean is the answer sheet of the process. Sorting visible physical defects from th...

MARKET INTEL

2026.08.01

The Era in Which "Who Made It, and Where" Carries a Price

For a long time, traceability was "nice to have". A pretty story on the back of the bag, a ma...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.07.31

How Green Coffee Degrades: Four Conditions That Protect Freshness

Green coffee ages quietly before it is ever roasted. The main cause is lipid oxidation, sped ...

LAB REPORT

2026.07.19

Soak It in Water and What Goes Up, What Goes Down? Underwater Fermentation in Practice

Whether to put water in the fermentation tank. That one choice changes the coffee considerabl...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.07.15

Fermentation Time and Organic Acids: Which Acid Is Born When

It is true that fermentation increases acid. But that says only half. What matters is which a...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.07.06

Standardising the Start of Fermentation: Reproducibility Is Decided at the Starting Point

Same farm, same variety, same recipe, and still the taste differs from lot to lot. Much of th...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.06.27

What Is Anaerobic Fermentation? Shut Out the Oxygen and the Aroma Changes

Ferment with oxygen excluded and coffee takes on complex, exotic aromas. The principle of ana...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.06.22

What Is the Honey Process? Keeping the Fruit to Build Sweetness

Honey coffee is dried with the mucilage (the slippery fruit layer) left on. What is "honey" a...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.06.17

What Is the Natural Process? The Most Primitive, and the Hardest

Drying the whole cherry, the natural process, is the most primitive method and the hardest. W...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.06.12

What Is the Washed Process? A Clean Cup, Made by Washing

Washed coffee is dried after the fruit has been washed away. What exactly is washed, how many...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.06.07

Does Altitude Decide Coffee Quality? The "High = Acid" Misconception

Is the received wisdom that higher coffee is better coffee true? What works is not altitude i...

MARKET INTEL

2026.06.02

Hand-Picking and Mechanical Harvest: The Trade-Off Between Damage and Selectivity

How far has mechanical harvesting come? 92% of ripe fruit removed, 8% unripe left, 5.23% dama...

FIELD LOG

2026.05.28

Post-Harvest Holding: Cool, Clean and Short Protects Quality

The time picked cherries wait before processing governs quality. Cool, clean, short. The 48-h...

FIELD LOG

2026.05.24

How to Reduce Unripe Beans: Harvest and Sorting in Two Stages

Unripe beans muddy the cup. Because picking alone cannot remove them all, we reduce them thro...

LAB REPORT

2026.05.19

Can "Picking a Lot" and "Picking Well" Go Together? The Share Each Fruit Gets

Overload a tree and the fruits compete for nutrients and each one thins out. Interestingly, t...

LAB REPORT

2026.05.13

Why Fruit of Different Timing Shares One Tree: Why We Go Back to Pick Again and Again

Why are red, green and over-ripe fruit mixed on a single tree? Because it flowers two or thre...

FIELD LOG

2026.05.08

What Decides Quality Is Not Variety or Altitude but the Person Who Picks

With the same hands, picking selectively or stripping the branch flips the sign of quality. P...

FIELD LOG

2026.05.02

Hook a Finger, Twist Lightly: A Picker's Day and the Moment Quality Is Decided

Morning, and a hand on the same tree for the third or fourth time. Only the fruit that comes ...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.04.27

Coffee Harvest & Selective Picking: How Much Does Picking Only Ripe Cherries Change Quality?

Does selecting only ripe coffee cherries reduce defects and change quality? Is Brix the bean'...

LAOS

FIELD LOG

2026.04.20

Managing Fermentation by Numbers: pH, the Speedometer

Fermentation cannot be seen. So we manage it with a speedometer: pH. It falls as sugar turns ...

LAOS

LAB REPORT

2026.04.13

The Science of Drying: Moisture, Water Activity, and When to Stop

Drying is not just removing water. Moisture to around 11%, neither too fast nor too slow. Why...