Issue 22: Napkins, glitter, and coffee

Standart Issue 22 enjoys an undeniable theme of animals. In these isolating times, people perhaps more than ever have turned to pets to satisfy many of the social joys usually inspired by interactions with friends, family, colleagues, and their fellow citizens.

We start by asking a few burning questions about that most controversial of creature-related coffee, kopi luwak. Can it be ethical? Does it taste any good, anyway? Can science provide an alternative? Then, Scott Rao continues in the spirit of science by taking us through the finer points of pulling a proper allongé.

Everyone's heard the story about Kaldi and his goats discovering coffee, but you may not have heard it told like this before; follow the herd of crazed goats on a chuckle-filled romp across the plains of Ethiopia and the Arabian peninsula.

We ask one of the UK's top dairies, producing milk specifically for the specialty coffee sector, about ethical production, methane emissions, alternative milks, and the future of global food security. In Japan, we follow passion’s path to coffee with Kenji Kojima of Fuglen Tokyo, and discover how farmers are producing small lots of specialty in Typhoon-threatened Japanese islands.

Then, the theme is in the name: we interview the founder and Chief Glitter Officer  Veronica P. Grimm, about inclusivity, getting it wrong before you can get it right, and the future of coffee competitions.

In this issue's long-form article, learn about the history of cat cafés and what their popularity can tell us about the way we live in the city. Speaking of, in this issue's city profile, we survey Lima, from it's caffeinated past to what the contemporary coffee scene offers the specialty connoisseur.