If you’ve been following along with the SCA’s project to evolve the 2004 cupping system into a Coffee Value Assessment, there’s a good chance you’re already aware of the importance of extrinsic, or symbolic, attributes.

The Specialty Coffee Association is the world’s largest coffee membership association, with a sustainability-driven purpose deeply ingrained in its structure as a non-profit trade organization: to make coffee better.

SARAH CHARLES, writer, Communications Officer at the International Trade Centre, and author of a recent dissertation on mandatory supply chain due diligence, outlines the history, opportunities, and challenges of regulatory sustainability approaches while offering a path forward for coffee businesses grappling with the shift from a voluntary to a regulatory approach.

Neuroscientist Dr. FABIANA CARVALHO shares the recent results of a Coffee Science Foundation study, supported by Savor Brands Inc., to understand how packaging color influences consumer behavior.

Economists DAVIDE DEL PRETE and ROCCO MACCHIAVELLO recently completed a literature review of sustainability interventions for the Coffee Science Foundation; here, with PETER GIULIANO, they summarize its findings.

Cognitive psychologist BENTE KLEIN HAZEBROEK and language professor ILJA CROIJMANS explore the role and construction of coffee’s linguistic descriptions—those flavor notes and descriptions across coffee packaging and websites!—in a consumer’s willingness to pay.

NOA BERGER explores how the “field” of coffee was inspired by (and inspires) related industries like fine wine, cacao, and—more recently—vanilla, and queries its impacts.