jimseven #34 - It's ok if you didn't remember it...

This week is a lovely week here at Square Mile Coffee Roasters - we turned 10 years old! Which is, upon reflection, astonishing and delightful and also deeply disconcerting because I really have no meaningful concept of time anymore. I must be getting old…

- It is impossible to escape the fact that it is London Coffee Festival this week. If you’re in London you should probably go. And then come and see us and have some fun. We’re using the show as an excuse to have a 10 year old’s birthday party. It will be fun. It will not be particularly serious. It’s just one way we want to say thank you to everyone who made these last ten years possible.

- California did a stupid thing and freaked out about acrylamide in coffee. Lots of places wrote it up - New Food Economy’s piece is a good starting point.

- In the US the National Coffee Association put out its Consumer Trends Report. Assuming that, like me, you’re not going to spend several hundred dollars on the report - you can read the summary here.

- I’m sadly not going to make it to the SCA show in Seattle this year. If I were, then I’d be making sure to attend one of the two workshops that Lucia Solis is putting on (one is now sold out). This was almost enough to justify me buying a transatlantic ticket.

- Starbucks is developing a less terrible paper cup. If the resulting technology is proprietary, will they be open to sharing it? Does not sharing have a potentially bigger negative impact on the environment than just using regular paper cups? Where does ethics fit into delivery value to shareholders? (OK, that last one is rhetorical…)

- Uppers and Downers is on in London again! If you like coffee and you like beer, and you like coffeeandbeer all at once - this is the event for you. We will be there, along with lots of other great roasters and breweries, and last year this sold out very quickly. Tickets are here.

- Streaming killed digital downloads of music. In fact CDs and vinyl are more popular than mp3s.

- Harper’s Index 2018. Always interesting, and the one thing you should click on in this newsletter if you don’t want to think much but do want to be entertained.

- The Case Against Retweets. It feels a bit like Twitter is trying to kill Twitter again, despite those of us who keep trying to use it and enjoy it and want it to be better. This resonated with me, and I always enjoy Alexis C. Madrigal’s writing.

- Moving beyond “Capitalism”. Great piece, that made me rethink what we currently describe as capitalism and how it is definitely time for a different term or description (or we could just do away with it, but sadly the former seems more likely). 

- The dots do matter. If you have a Gmail account then READ THIS PIECE. Thanks.

There are more links that I could have/should have included this week. If anything it has reminded me that I ought to do this a bit more often. 

Hopefully, I will get to say hello to a few of you this week at the festival. (If our meeting happens on Sunday afternoon, I apologise in advance for being broken and incoherent…)

As always, thank you for reading.

James