Fresh Cup Magazine

31/05/2026

Rich Lee and Liza Otanes bet everything on a coffee trailer in San Francisco in 2017. Now, their brand, Spro Coffee Lab, has five locations—and is still growing, thanks to smart tech choices made along the way.

The award-winning, solar-powered roastery uses a lot of software—and it’s rethinking nearly all of it. Here’s how Three Keys Coffee’s tech stack is evolving to meet its new goals.

31/05/2026

Featured, this week in Coffee News Club, researchers at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in the United Kingdom, have identified a new family of hybrids of the liberica and excelsa coffee species. The researchers hope that their discovery will offer farmers another climate-resilient coffee alternative to arabica.

Learn more at the link.

🔗 https://freshcup.com/LibexCoffee

30/05/2026

Cold brew can be a major revenue-driver in coffee shops. See how four cafes are using it to build menus, improve workflows, and keep customers engaged.

(This article was researched and written by Fresh Cup in partnership with our sponsor, Sunny Sky Products.)

Cold brew can be a major revenue-driver in coffee shops. See how four cafes are using it to build menus, improve workflows, and keep customers engaged.

30/05/2026

At LCF 2026, the real story was divergence: ultra-premium vs. mass-market, with hojicha quietly stepping into the spotlight.

The 2026 London Coffee Festival reveal some big trends, from ultra-customizable premium drinks to a maturing matcha market and growing automation.

29/05/2026

Right now, coffee businesses are facing down more challenges than ever, from tightening margins to a shaky economy. It might not seem like a good time to launch a new coffee shop. But as Emily Meneses writes in her latest story for Fresh Cup, taking the plunge on a new coffee concept *can* still work.

To find success, she writes, owners need to figure out how to work with, not against, current conditions. That means taking a multi-pronged approach, from defining your target customer and brand identity, and working with your community, to being judicious about the risks you take.

Despite the many challenges, starting a coffee business today is still viable—you just need a clear niche, a little patience, and a strong community behind you.

28/05/2026

If cascara is said to reduce waste and improve incomes, why are farmers still depending on beans to survive? The answer may lie in how value is measured.

Upcycling cascara, the skin of the coffee fruit, can supposedly help coffee farmers reduce waste and make money. But successful cascara production requires strong local infrastructure—and a market that values circularity.

27/05/2026

In her new story, Haley Greene reports on the range of benefits that cold brew offers coffee shops, from driving revenue to engaging customers. The key is in its versatility: Cold brew can be served hot, cold, or iced; can be used as a base for seasonal drinks and coffee sodas; and can be paired with limited-edition cold foams. Plus, it speeds up service and makes workflows simple—especially in concentrate form.

Head to the link to learn why cold brew has become such a staple for coffee shops—and how business owners are getting creative with it.

(This article was researched and written by Fresh Cup in partnership with our sponsor, Sunny Sky Products.)

Cold brew can be a major revenue-driver in coffee shops. See how four cafes are using it to build menus, improve workflows, and keep customers engaged.

27/05/2026

Spro Coffee Lab didn’t start with a complex tech stack—but sitting on years of POS data turned out to be one of its biggest growth advantages.

Rich Lee and Liza Otanes bet everything on a coffee trailer in San Francisco in 2017. Now, their brand, Spro Coffee Lab, has five locations—and is still growing, thanks to smart tech choices made along the way.

26/05/2026

Stay up to date with the latest news in the coffee sector by The Pourover!

26/05/2026

A customer who buys a gift card online can’t use it in the cafe.

For a growing coffee company, that small disconnect becomes a big scalability problem. Three Keys Coffee is rethinking its POS and ecommerce systems to unify data, loyalty, and customer experience under one roof.

Here’s what that transition looks like in real time.

The award-winning, solar-powered roastery uses a lot of software—and it’s rethinking nearly all of it. Here’s how Three Keys Coffee’s tech stack is evolving to meet its new goals.