The jimseven newsletter - issue numbers be damned!

I am not going to apologise for the amount of time since this last email since:

a). I hate it when people do that.

b). You were getting enough of those damned emails that I thought the last thing you needed was more digital cruft in your life.

However, having not sent you anything for a while, I have accumulated many, many, many interesting things. So this issue is going to have Too Many Links™. I would recommend making a pot of coffee now, before you get stuck in.

I’ve made a few videos that some of you might enjoy. I had a quick look at the new Decent DE1+ (which is really very interesting). I had a little rant about companies in coffee copying products, and then found out someone was copying me. I also drank a disturbing clear coffee beverage, so you don’t have to.

I was a guest on the Coffee with April podcast with Patrik Rolf. This was a lot of fun and we talked a lot about business, strategy as well as coffee. Interesting to listen back to, and to think about the ways in which my thinking has already changed. There are 6 other episodes that you should listen to as well.

- The Coffee Barometer 2018. From Hivos, great overview and really nice presentation of data (because it made me interested, more than it’s clever accuracy etc). Have a read!

- Coffee Vessels Through The Ages. 

- A Blueprint for Farm Worker Inclusion. An SCA white paper that we should all be read/have read/be talking about. (But we’re not, so please - can we?)

- The Secretive Non-Profit Gaming California’s Health Laws. Remember all that cancer-causing labelling nonsense? This is a fascinating piece of investigative journalism into what was going on behind the scenes. 

- Quercetin, not caffeine, is a major neuroprotective component in coffee. Good news for decaf drinkers? 

- The surprising company beating Apple and Google in mobile payments. Spoiler: It’s Starbucks, but their dominance in this and in loyalty is something we are failing to mimic/catchup on/compete on.

- Coffee adulteration uncovered using a new method. Fascinating piece on new tests to discover if people are being naughty (read: fraudulent) and are selling you robusta as arabica.

- In China, coffee shop habits show cultural differences tied to farming

- You love wine science until it detracts from the magic in your glass. The drunken-Luddite-presuming headline aside, interesting stuff - very relevant to coffee.

- Small firms face ‘extermination’ due to Network Rail asset sale. Square Mile Coffee Roasters started in a railway arch, and the low rent and disinterested landlord were both hugely helpful for us getting started. London has amazing business flourishing in those arches, and that looks under threat. Not good.

- The Weird Science Behind Chain Restaurant Menus. If that headline doesn’t get you, I’m not sure what else I can say to convince you to read this…

- Twenty-Four-Karat Chicken Wings and the Allure of Eating Gold. I’ve really been enjoying Helen Rosner’s writing recently. 

- Digging into the Racial Politics of ‘Ugly Delicious’. Long, but excellent read on a complex topic. I really don’t know how I feel about the media output of Dave Chang - I didn’t love Ugly Delicious, but I’ve been enjoying his podcasts. 

- Gender Decoder for Job Ads. A very clear explainer of the impact and implication of the language we use when growing teams and trying to find people.

- How Quakers invented the price-tag.

- To Everyone Who Asks For ‘Just A Little’ Of Your Time: Here’s What It Costs To Say Yes. I struggle with requests for my time, I want to help but time has become an incredibly precious resource for me.

- FakeSpot. Great service for weeding out fraudulent products on Amazon. This is a massive problem, for both the site and its customers.

- Steven Pinker’s Ideas About Progress Are Fatally Flawed. These Eight Graphs Show Why. I love this stuff because it encourages you to have opinions in grey areas, not absolutes - and the living, as we do, in a world of absolutes we know they aren’t very helpful.

- The Amazing Psychology of Japanese Train Stations. If someone from TFL could read this, that would be great…

- The different rubbish bin designs of each London borough, as jewellery. (What were Lewisham thinking?!)

- Let’s learn about waveforms. Probably my favourite thing in this newsletter. Thusly, a great way to finish.

Thanks for making it this far. Service will resume with a sensible amount of links that won’t be hideously out of date, thanks to you reading all of the above - and being a better human for it.

Have a great week.

James