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Tuesday Edition · Issue No. 1,247

Volume 6 · Issue 4 · Editorial Masthead

The People Behind Every One of Our 1,247 Entries.

CoffeeGlossary is editorially reviewed by an eleven-person board of Q-Graders, CQI instructors, and World Barista Championship finalist judges — the credentialing layer that separates a reference work from a coffee blog.

Explore the Glossary Meet the Board →
Editorial Board
11 members
Writing Team
9 full-time
Certified Q-Graders
4 on board
Review Cycle
Quarterly

The Editorial Board

Eleven Credentials. One Standard of Care.

Every entry in the library is reviewed by at least one board member before publication, and re-examined on a 90-day refresh cycle. The roster below is current as of April 2025.

  • Portrait of Maria Okafor, CQI Instructor and Q-Grader.

    Chair · CQI Instructor

    Maria Okafor

    CQI Q-Grader · CQI Instructor · Former Head of Quality, Stumptown (2014–2021)

    Leads the sensory-science bench. Maria arbitrates tie-breakers on green-coffee and roasting entries and signs off on every term touching extraction chemistry.

  • Portrait of Henrik Lindqvist, Licensed Q-Grader.

    Vice Chair · Licensed Q-Grader

    Henrik Lindqvist

    Q-Grader · 22 years green-coffee buying · Origin trips to 19 countries

    Owns the green-coffee, processing, and varietal entries. Henrik joined the board in 2019 after Lena asked him to fact-check the first 312 entries by hand.

  • Portrait of Aiko Tanaka, WBC Finalist Judge.

    Espresso & Extraction

    Aiko Tanaka

    WBC Finalist 2017 · WBC Certified Judge · 2019 U.S. Barista Champion

    Reviews the espresso, latte art, and milk-chemistry clusters. Aiko's calibration notes from WBC judging form the rubric our writers work against.

  • Portrait of David Mwangi, Roastmaster and Q-Grader.

    Roasting & Development

    David Mwangi

    Q-Grader · 31 years roastmaster experience · Author, Curve of Development (2020)

    Authoritative voice on roast development, colorimetry, and thermal profiling. David has roasted for Counter Culture, Heart, and most recently Blue Bottle's Portland line.

  • Portrait of Sara Ben-Ari, Café Operations Lead.

    Café Operations

    Sara Ben-Ari

    Founder, Tova Coffee (Tel Aviv) · SCA Coffee Skills Diploma, all five modules

    Reviews the workflow, service, and café-management entries — the operational vocabulary baristas actually use on shift, not the textbook version.

  • Portrait of Diego Marín, Brewing Science Lead.

    Brewing Science

    Diego Marín, PhD

    Q-Grader · MSc Food Science (UC Davis) · Published 14 peer-reviewed papers on extraction kinetics

    Owns the brewing-science entries — water chemistry, percolation dynamics, grind distribution. Diego is the one who rewrote our TDS and hardness entries from scratch in 2023.

  • Portrait of Kwame Asante, WBC Certified Judge.

    Competition & Judging

    Kwame Asante

    WBC Certified Judge · 2020 U.S. Barista Champion · Head Judge, U.S. Coffee Championships 2023

    Reviews all competition-related terminology — from "signature beverage" to the specific scoring rubric of the WBC stage.

  • Portrait of Priya Sundaram, Latte Art Specialist.

    Latte Art & Milk

    Priya Sundaram

    WBC Latte Art Finalist 2019 · 2022 Indian Barista Championship, 2nd place

    Reviews the latte art, milk steaming, and pitcher-control entries. Priya drafts the visual references our writers use for technique diagrams.

  • Portrait of Catherine Dubois, Origin & Processing Specialist.

    Origin & Processing

    Catherine Dubois

    Q-Grader · Licensed Q-Processing Instructor · 18 origin trips in 2024 alone

    Reviews every entry in the processing, varietal, and agronomy section. Catherine's on-the-ground reports are the source for our washed, natural, and honey-process entries.

  • Portrait of Robert Halverson, Coffee Historian.

    History & Etymology

    Robert Halverson

    Author, From Mocha to Modbar (2021) · Archivist, Pacific Northwest Coffee Heritage Project

    Maintains the etymology and history entries. Robert verifies every dated claim — when something is "first attested," he tracks the citation to its primary source.

  • Portrait of Émilie Laurent, Sensory Science Lead.

    Sensory & Flavor Science

    Émilie Laurent

    Q-Grader · Le Nez du Café Master · Sensory Lead, World Coffee Research (2018–2023)

    Reviews the flavor-wheel, aroma, and descriptive-tasting entries. Émilie co-authored our standardized glossary on acidity, body, and aftertaste.

Methodology

What "Editorially Reviewed" Actually Means.

Entries are not peer-reviewed in the academic sense — they are reviewed by credentialed practitioners on a documented cycle. Below is the workflow every one of the 1,247 entries has passed through.

  1. Step 01

    Submission

    A writer — most often one of our nine full-time staff — drafts an entry against the house style sheet. Drafts run 250–900 words, with primary-source citations for every quantitative claim (e.g. "espresso brew ratio 1:2" cites the SCA's Espresso & Filter Coffee Handbook, not a marketing PDF).

  2. Step 02

    Draft Review

    Two staff editors read for clarity, tone, and citation integrity. Every disputed word — particularly "optimal," "best," and "always" — is flagged here. We track editorial disputes in a public changelog.

  3. Step 03

    Board Sign-Off

    At least one editorial board member — matched to the entry's subject area — reads the entry and signs off in writing. If the entry sits across two specialties (e.g. "honey process" touches both processing and fermentation), we require two signatures.

  4. Step 04

    90-Day Refresh

    Every entry is reviewed again 90 days after publication, and quarterly thereafter. Refreshes can be minor (a citation update) or major (a full rewrite when equipment consensus changes — most recently, the revised entries on "flat burr" vs. "conical burr" in February 2025).

The full review log, including rejected drafts and the reasons for rejection, is available on request to academic and trade-press researchers.

A Note from the Founder

"A glossary is only as trustworthy as the people willing to argue over a single sentence in it. I assembled the board because I wanted every entry to survive a phone call from a skeptical head roaster — and because the alternative, a glossary written by enthusiasts alone, would have read like every other coffee blog on the internet."

Portrait of Lena Vasquez, founder of CoffeeGlossary.

Lena Vasquez

Founder, CoffeeGlossary Media LLC · Former Roaster, Ruby Roaster Works (2012–2019) · Founded the glossary March 2019

The Writing Team

Nine Writers. Four Specialty Beats.

The editorial board is the review layer — the writing team is where the daily entry work happens. Our nine full-time writers are organized by specialty, and each beat is paired with the board member who signs off on its entries.

Brewing Science 3 writers

Covering water chemistry, percolation dynamics, extraction yield, and the physics of grind distribution. This beat works most closely with Diego Marín (board) on the technical entries, and pairs draft reviews with Maria Okafor on sensory overlap. Writers in this beat typically hold a Q-Grader certificate or an MSc in food science.

  • Jules Park — Lead Writer, Brewing Science · WBC-certified
  • Tomás Rivera — Staff Writer, Brewing Science · Q-Grader
  • Anya Volkov — Staff Writer, Water & Equipment · Q-Grader

Green Coffee & Origin 2 writers

Covering processing methods, varietals, terroir, and the import/export vocabulary. Catherine Dubois (board) reviews every entry in this beat — typically the night before publication, with her origin-trip notebook open. Both writers have spent at least one harvest on a producing country.

  • Felipe Costa — Lead Writer, Green Coffee · Former buyer, Daterra
  • Hanna Bekele — Staff Writer, Origin & Agronomy

Espresso, Milk & Latte Art 2 writers

Covering espresso extraction, milk chemistry, latte-art patterns, and bar workflow. Aiko Tanaka and Kwame Asante (board) alternate on this beat. Both staff writers hold active WBC certifications and have competed at the regional level.

  • Maya Hollander — Lead Writer, Espresso · 2023 NW Barista Champion
  • Reni Adeyemi — Staff Writer, Latte Art · WBC-certified

Café Operations & Culture 2 writers

Covering café workflow, service vocabulary, equipment maintenance, and the history/etymology layer. Sara Ben-Ari (board) reviews operations entries; Robert Halverson reviews history. This beat also handles reader-submitted terms — we average 23 submissions a week from working baristas.

  • Eli Friedman — Lead Writer, Operations · Former GM, Ruby Roaster Works
  • Naomi Greene — Staff Writer, Culture & History

Writer assignments rotate every twelve months to keep editorial blind spots from calcifying. New entries are commissioned by the editorial board based on gaps surfaced in reader correspondence and search-term analytics.

Read the Work

1,247 Entries.
Eleven Sets of Eyes.
One Glossary.

Every term you read in CoffeeGlossary has been drafted, edited, board-reviewed, and quarterly-refreshed since 2019. The work starts here.

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— The CoffeeGlossary Editorial Board, Portland · April 2025