George Howell Howell with some crazy fanboy on his left.

I stopped by a Meet the Authors event where I picked up a copy of Olaf Hammerburg's book, Coffee Trails, and George Howell was at the booth. Howell has an entry in the book, and we talked a bit about that, but I noticed he has a new mantra he's saying this year: Blends hide the farmer. He must have repeated that about five times.

As you probably know, George Howell is considered one of the "fathers" of specialty coffee (and he still looks so young!) and a driving force in so many good things that not only help identify spread the knowledge of great coffees, but also the entire seed-to-cup story. He's especially passionate about telling the farmer stories.

I asked him about his progress in this regard, especially noting his commentary in Hammelburg's book. "We're making good strides in specialty coffee just recently about identifying the farmer more" Howell said. "take this book, and it's entire seed to cup story - it's just fascinating for the (consumer) to read and discover. We're identifying the farmer and his individual work more, and really focusing on the single coffees."

Howell's never been a fan of blends and he stressed the point many times over with me that blends hide the farmer - they homogenize coffee for the consumer, along with certain roast profiles, he said, and he's happy to see more and more trends away from these things - a celebration of the single origin coffees, and more roasting for the coffee, and not roasting to a roast-directed taste profile.