East Meets West: Everything Old is New Again
By Andrew Hetzel Earlier this year, I voted alongside fellow SCAA Board Members unanimously in favor of pursuing unification with SCAE. We recognize that such momentous change will not be easy. In return, the price of that effort promises a new world of benefits for our members. Yet, it wasn’t until weeks after this vote …
Coffee Education Programs: From Equivalent to Exceptional
By Todd Arnette When we created Educational Pathways, in order to develop programs that would be relevant and useful to our community, we asked ourselves, “What are the skillsets our member companies in the industry expect and require of a given position?” Each discipline where we have a Pathway had the same basic requirement of …
The Potential of Introducing Coffee to Academic Research
By Molly Spencer The coffee industry had been established long before it was introduced to the academic world. The industry had mostly operated on empirical observations based on what worked and what didn’t work. However, in this day and age, the industry faces complex issues such as sustainability and environmental production challenges, the need for …
Coffee Wastewater Through the Lens of an Environmental Engineering Graduate
By William Garde In the winter of 2009, I was in South Africa with a missionary—little did I know the short trip we were about to take would change my career path. Piling into the Land Rover, we soon passed a sign that read “Zimbabwe.” Only ten years had passed since I had visited Zimbabwe, …
Committee Spotlight: Meet Your SCAA Technical Standards Committee
The Technical Standards Committee is one of the longest continuously functioning volunteer committees within the SCAA. Our responsibility is to conduct research to establish specialty coffee standards and determine industry best practice for publication on behalf of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. We serve the members of the SCAA and the coffee industry as …
A World of Specialists: Coffee and Chemistry
By Christopher Hendon My interest in chemistry was sparked in 2007 when I received a copy of Luca Turin’s The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell. Turin describes his pursuits of synthesizing novel, smelly molecules, and the challenge of elucidating how humans physically detect and perceive these compounds. Among other …
People of Specialty Coffee: An Interview with Steven Lee
When did you start working in coffee? Was there a moment when you knew that you’d like to make a career out of it? I started working in the specialty coffee industry in 1996, after graduating from University with a degree in Painting & Drawing and a minor in World Comparative Literature with an emphasis on Folktales …
Carla Martin | Farm Workers: Is Labor the Next Crisis for Coffee?
Carla Martin, Founder and Executive Director of the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute, explores how value consolidation, historical trends, and modern economics collide in the issue of Labor in the Cacao industry, and what lessons there are for all quality and sustainability focused industries.
Addressing Gender Equity In Coffee: What Do I Need To Know?
Streamed live on Jul 26, 2016
Advocacy and Amplification of Gender Equality
By Katherine Nolte Gender equality is a human aspiration, not a women’s initiative. Imagine a world where opportunities are free from stereotypes associated with being masculine or feminine. Imagine a world where the work of a stay-at-home dad is valued equally to a career as a roaster-owner, VP trader, or senior finance professional. Imagine a world …
Kim Elena Ionescu | Farm Workers: Is Labor the Next Crisis for Coffee?
In order to understand what farmworkers in coffee are facing, it’s important to hear their experiences. In this Re:co Atlanta talk, Kim Elena Ionescu amplifies the voices of Nicaraguan coffee farmers, smallholder members of the Cinco de Junio cooperative, and workers from larger farms.
Defining Sustainability at SCAA Expo
By Miguel Zamora Defining what “sustainable coffee” means has been a challenge for the coffee industry. This is also an opportunity for all of us working in coffee: to define what we mean with sustainability in coffee and communicate this to our customers and consumers, while channeling our resources towards true “sustainability”. In reality, answering …