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It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of Birds of Unusual Vitality, a specialty coffee interview and photo site published by Eileen P. Kenny. Sprudge readers may remember Ms. Kenny from her world-beating photo work during our coverage of the 2013 World Barista Champioship, and she’s recently joined the Sprudge staff as our Melbourne desk writer. We’re really excited to start publishing new, original Melbourne coverage from Eileen Kenny in the coming weeks, but today she’s got a brand new feature up on Birds: an in-depth interview with Jose Aguilar, Director at Mercanta Specialty Coffee Merchants.

The photo you see above is an outtake from Eileen’s photo shoot with Mr. Aguilar. Here’s an excerpt from their interview:

Dealing with the logistics at Mercanta and being able to regularly communicate in Spanish with producers has given Jose a unique insight into both sides of the coffee buying process. As a result, he’s found that, “There is a lot of disparity [between coffee producers and buyers] still… one of the most important things we do for producers is help them to cup, so that they understand what they produce, and in turn they can know what’s going wrong in the cup. Once a producer knows how to cup then you’re able to communicate on the same level and work together to improve on quality, and that increase in quality can bring a higher price, which will in turn make it easier to maintain that level of quality.”

Read the full interview feature here at Birds of Unusual Vitality. 

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