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Lucy Ward

@llucyward

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Green Coffee Buyer @st_ali
Chasing harvests. Chasing flavour.
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It was really special to spend time with María Eugenia, a producer whose coffee has been one of my favourites this year. She’s doing exceptional work with SL28, and it’s a privilege to know the person behind the cup. Sister to Lino Rodríguez, Cup of Excellence winner, and a absolute gem 💎 of a human in his own right. Good coffee starts with good people, María Eugenia (and her brother) are a brilliant example of that. by @llucyward
The best part of coffee has always been the people. And some of the very best are these women, ones I have been lucky enough to find along the way and call my friends. A beautiful evening with brilliant women. #wocpanama2026 by @llucyward
Enjoying slow quiet moments in Brazil while searching for new partnerships for @st_ali . #specialtycoffee #cafedelas #filtercoffee #slowbrew by @llucyward
Fazenda Camocim, Espírito Santo. It's been a long season for these guys. Some trees are flowering while others have green and ripe cherries loading the branches. We are up to 5 pickings and they are not done yet. . This extended period with all stages on the same trees means pickers have to move slowly, carefully, selectively. You can't rush good things. . Biodynamic farming asks a lot of everyone. 🇧🇷🌱 by @llucyward
Colombia to Melbourne and back again. Delivered in person. SL28 honey. Pomegranate acidity, rich as anything, panela sweetness all the way through. Club Colombia, tejo pitch, and a bag of something special. Feels right. Producers should get to taste what their coffee became. 🎯 #specialtycoffee #colombia #tejo #clubcolombia by @llucyward
Certifications were built to make an opaque supply chain more readable. And they do, partially. The cost of entry, the structure of premiums, and who actually benefits are questions worth sitting with. Swipe for my honest take on Fairtrade and Organic. What they do well, and where the gaps are. Fairtrade sets a minimum price floor of $1.80/lb for washed arabica (**) That's real protection when markets crash. But the certification fee comes out of the cooperative's budget and the smallholders who need it most often can't afford cooperative membership to access it. Organic certification takes up to 3 years and costs thousands of dollars. Paid by the farmer. Many smallholders farm without synthetic inputs by default, not by choice. Without the paperwork, they can't call it organic. No fingers pointed here. Just a more complete picture. 🌱 Certifications created minimum standards in a market that had none. Fairtrade cooperatives have funded schools, clinics and infrastructure in communities with no other route to investment. They're tools. Useful ones. But tools work differently depending on who's holding them. What's your experience? Has a certification changed how you buy, source, or sell? 👇 ** Please read the comments below to see @diamond_life_coach (who's work I greatly respect) teaching me that this is not in fact accurate #greencoffee #coffeesourcing #fairtradecoffee #organiccoffee #supplychain by @llucyward
This is the first in a series on How to Buy Coffee. Not the technical stuff. How you show up. Intellectual humility is the ability to hold your own knowledge loosely, to stay open to being wrong, to update your thinking, and to genuinely credit what others know that you don't. It isn't a soft skill. In green buying it's one of the most important tools you have. Experience can quietly erode it if you are not paying attention. #HowtoBuyCoffee by @llucyward
Last week I talked about where the money goes. This week I've been thinking about something a little harder to measure. Why we're all here in the first place, and whether we're still chasing the same thing. Specialty coffee started as a shared belief. That the cup should reflect the care of the person who grew it. That quality and fairness could move together. But as the industry has grown, so have our individual reasons for being in it. Recognition, craft, community, business, travel, competition. All valid. All real. Just not always the same thing. I don't think that's anyone's fault. Movements drift. That's just what happens when something as grass roots as speciality coffee grows. But if we want to fix a broken system, and the value gap is a pretty good sign it's broken, it probably helps to know if we're still pointing in the same direction. So tell me..... What keeps you in specialty coffee right now? For me it is simple. I'm here for the producers. To tell their stories, to champion their work and make sure the people drinking the coffee are just as excited about where it came from as I am. #specialtycoffee #coffeevaluegap #coffeecommunity #fromfarmtocup #melbournecoffee by @llucyward
Last week I was on a panel at @melbournecoffeeexpo 2026 in Melbourne talking about the Coffee Value Gap. My angle was the part that doesn't get enough airtime: value distribution. So who actually gets what from your $6 cup? Slide 1 (Picker): ~1–3% Slide 2 (Producer): ~5–10% Slide 3 (Exporter): ~5–8% Slide 4 (Roaster): ~25–35% Slide 5 (Café): ~45–60% These numbers are approximations based on coffee value chain research including the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide @sctguidel and studies published in the World Development journal. They shift depending on origin, trading model and relationships. In specialty coffee we work hard to move the numbers in the right direction, back to farm. But we are all still operating within the same system and that system is broken. There are structural reasons this imbalance exists and that's a much longer conversation. Save this one. Share it with someone just starting out in coffee. And if you were at MICE last week, I'd love to know what you took away from the session. by @llucyward
Lifetime achievement. I've been sitting with those words all morning. I started as a barista in a forgettable café in Brisbane and knew virtually nothing about coffee. I had no training, no connections, just an endless curiosity and, if I'm honest, a lot of stubbornness. I had no idea this industry would become my life's work. Somewhere between those early shifts and becoming a buyer at @st_ali , I fell completely in love with the complexity, the ethics, and the endlessly humbling craft of coffee. I still feel like that girl who had everything to learn. Honestly, I hope I always do. There are still so few women in buying roles. That matters. It means something. It means I carry a responsibility, not just to find the best coffees in the world, but to make sure the doors I walked through don't close behind me. To every young woman in coffee wondering if there's a seat at the table for her: there is. And if there isn't, pull one up. The path wasn't always clear, but I refused to accept it wasn't mine to walk. This award is fuel. More questions. More origin trips. More honest conversations about where this industry needs to go. If you are early in your journey and want to talk coffee, my DMs are open. Grateful beyond words. Back to work. ☕ by @llucyward
Tiny plants. Big future. ☕🌱 At JHill in El Salvador we learnt how to graft baby coffee plants—Arabica on top, Robusta roots Why? Robusta rootstock grows deeper, tougher roots, helping the plant handle drought, roya, and other stresses. The tree becomes stronger and more vigorous. But here’s the key part: The flavor doesn’t change. The Arabica variety above the graft is still what produces the cherries that go into your cup. So the strength is underground… and the taste stays in the Arabica. A small technique with a big impact for the future of coffee and something we loved learning about firsthand. 🌿 #specialtycoffee #coffeefarming #coffeeeducation #coffeeplants #coffeescience arabica by @llucyward
A brilliant visit to MÍo. Not just a farm, more like a science project. Their detailed work on the Sombra project was incredible - an agroforestry and coffee farming system project that looks to eliminate mono crop culture in coffee farming. Their focus on improved processing and milling for all qualities (even unripes, over ropes and floaters!!). And of course the hard work in the lab and in research being done to understand all aspects of coffee at a molecular level. You just about need a science degree just to visit! by @llucyward

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