Put statistics to work for you! Diana Chan of Swiss Water, reflecting on her coffee training, enlightens us on how statistics can help us understand what's going on in the coffee roasting plant, the cupping room and even the process of decaffeinating coffee.

Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, June, 2005 by Chan, Diana

When cupping coffees with green coffee suppliers and with our customers here at Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company, Inc. (SWDCC), I find that I approach the whole ritual contrary to most of my colleagues. This is certainly not to say I do things "better," but that my background and training as a food chemist have led me to approach the whole ritual of cupping a little differently.

Sometimes I probably seem a little "picky" but I find that many of the techniques that I learned, especially in the area of statistics, can shed a lot of light on what's going on ...