After 113 years operating largely under the public radar, the United States National Coffee Association just launched its first consumer-focused website, aboutcoffee.org.
The website reflects the coffee industry’s never-ending quest to educate consumers about coffee, which naturally goes hand in hand with consumerism and commerce — the latter a chief concern of the NCA.
The aboutcoffee.org site serves as a kind of comprehensive entry-level resource for any English speaker who may be coffee-curious. It offers five main content areas: Origins; Beans; Brewing; Health; and Sustainability.
The Origins section explores topics such as “what is coffee?” and “coffee regions of the world,” while the Beans section provides overviews of subjects such as coffee varieties, post-harvest processing and certification. The Brewing section provides an overview of five common home brewing methods in the U.S., offering numerous tips regarding equipment needs. The Health section proudly lists a wealth of recent scientific resources pointing to various health benefits of drinking coffee.
Regarding the subject of sustainability, the website adopts a resoundingly sunny view, glossing over many of the unsustainable hardships facing the global coffee industry, including widespread poverty among smallholder coffee farmers, value and risk inequity that benefits large downstream coffee companies at the expense of farmers, and rapidly worsening environmental effects caused by climate change. The website also generally avoids the subjects of coffee prices, volatility and long-term global supply concerns.
The sustainability section does describe the coffee industry as a longtime leader in sustainability, stating, “In the past decade, coffee companies, nonprofits, and government organizations have further stepped up efforts to help coffee farmers thrive, protect natural resources, and overall make coffee more sustainable from seed to cup.”
Established in 1911, the NCA remains a leading trade organization and policy advocacy group for the U.S. coffee industry. According to the group, its membership accounts for about 90% of U.S. coffee commerce.
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