2022 Crown Jewel Year In Review

We’d like to give our sincere thanks to our Crown Jewel customers. With your support, we’re able to continue to explore the boundaries of specialty coffee and highlight innovative producers around the globe. Here’s a look back at the year in Crown Jewels:

We released 48 Crown Jewels from 17 countries totaling almost 70,000 lbs of green coffee.

We strive to emphasize ethical and sustainable sourcing practices, and focused our efforts on some specific data, such as women-led projects, certified organic coffees, and farms with good traceability.

Our most common processing style was Traditional Washed. We released two co-fermented coffees for the first time in Crown Jewel history.

We welcomed 29 first-time Crown Jewels to our menu alongside 19 legacy coffees; new harvests from familiar sources. We served 75% of the Crown Jewel menu as espresso, pour-over, and batch brews in the Tasting Room in 2022.

Thank you for coming on this coffee journey with us in 2022!
Here’s a short survey if you’re interested in sharing your thoughts with us. We hope to make 2023 an even better year, together.

Written by Chris Kornman

Chris is a seasoned coffee quality specialist, writer and researcher, and the Director of Education at The Crown: Royal Coffee Lab & Tasting Room. He is the author of Green Coffee: A Guide for Roasters and Buyers.

Formerly a QC manager, cupper, educator, green coffee buyer, and roaster at Intelligentsia under the guidance of Geoff Watts, Chris logged thousands of miles across the coffee lands in East Africa and Brazil. His published work can be found in Roast Magazine, Daily Coffee News, Perfect Daily Grind, Coffee T&I, Tea and Coffee Trade Journal, and the Royal Blog, and his research and lectures are a regular fixture at events such as SCA Expo, the Roasters Guild Retreat & Sensory Summit, the Academic Agenda for the Café de Colombia Expo in Bogotá, and Hotelex Shanghai. However, his favorite teaching environments are next to humming roasters and slurping coffee tasters worldwide.

On weekends, Chris can be found helping at his partner's Improv Theater in Oakland. He rides a 1986 Schwinn Prelude, loves chilling outdoors with his cat and dog, and plays classical guitar, banjo, and trumpet. In addition to coffee, he can be found sipping Saisons and Oolongs, and fermenting hot sauces.