Coffee disconnect is brewing Demand for specialty brands has roasters leaving futures exchanges By Julie Wernaw The Wall Street Journal August 6, 2015 A worker separates coffee cherries in Brazil. Specialty-coffee buyers are turning to unusual pricing plans, using alternative benchmarks, even directly investing in producer farms. PHOTO: PATRICIA MONTEIRO/BLOOMBERG NEWS Consumer demand for better-tasting coffee is splitting the coffee market in two. A growing number of coffee roasters that deal in small farm-produced and best-flavored coffees are leaving the traditional, and more volatile, futures market, which they say has become so disconnected from their business models that it is no longer useful to manage risk. The rise in demand for specialty coffee, now one of every two cups in America, has upended the coffee market as producers are choosing to invest directly with farmers and take the investment risk alone rather th...