Rise of the Coffee Machines

A coffee-tasting machine created at the Nestle Research Center in Switzerland was recently featured in the article, “Coffee Tasting Machine Stirs Industry,” on the Scientific American Web site. The machine can only analyze espresso, so coffee cuppers can breathe easy for the time being, but such a device may play an important role in monitoring quality in the future.

Seeing this article reminded me of our trip to Oaxaca in December. While visiting a dry mill just outside of Oaxaca, we saw a machine that used light and small air jets to separate bad coffee beans from the good. Employees at the dry mill claimed it was more accurate than human bean sorters and saved them money by not requiring as much human labor.

This got me thinking about the number of people employed in the coffee industry to sort beans. It seems that every movie I see about coffee shows women crowded around a conveyor belt where they sort coffee for hours on end for a paltry wage. But watching this sorting machine made me wonder about what happens to the women it replaces. Granted the wages were low, but some income is better than none.

The economy in many coffee communities is so dependent on coffee that there are few options for people looking for work. If jobs like the harvesting and sorting and processing of coffee are mechanized, it can send waves through the community.

This is why it’s so important to help coffee-farming families create vibrant communities where there are alternatives to coffee. All of Coffee Kids partners are working to that end and making great strides. Check out our latest Coffee Kids newsletter to find out how.