Quality: What is it and how do we deliver it?
Reflections on the year’s SCAA Symposium By Kevin Knox At this year’s SCAA Symposium one presenter asked whether quality alone was enough to equal sustainability. Another suggested jettisoning the carefully crafted SCAA and Cup of Excellence cupping forms in favor of a more “objective” form that simply measured intensity of flavor, acidity, aroma and body. …
What’s Behind Rising Coffee Prices?
By Max Nicholas-Fulmer The last time the New York “C” contract reached the levels we’ve witnessed over the last few months was 1997, when futures hit $3.20/pound. The impetus for that move was neither frost nor drought, but the simple fact that in February of that year the “Certified Stocks” of green coffee in bonded …
Going Up and Out: Orbital Thinking at Symposium
By Trish Rothgeb From the moment that SCAA Executive Director Ric Rhinehart asked the 400 plus attendees at SCAA Symposium 2011 to “get orbital,” I knew this annual event of presentations, forums and conversations was not going to be an easy ride. Rhinehart knew we would be hearing about climate change, diminishing coffee quality, market …
The New Market Reality
By Ric Rhinehart At the recent SCAA Symposium, I had an opportunity to present some thoughts on the challenges facing our industry as we come to grips with a new market reality. It occurred to me that there are really three fundamental value propositions for which we are responsible and that our task is to …
The Soul of Coffee
By Peter Giuliano There is an academic discipline that studies the way human beings relate to food and the culture we develop around the ways we eat and drink. It’s called foodways and it documents and analyzes what we do in regards to food and why we do it. Foodways looks at our traditions of …
The (Coffee) World is Flat
By Peter Giuliano Coffea Arabica and Homo Sapiens have a lot in common. Both evolved in Ethiopia, and crossed the Red Sea before fanning out all over the globe. The human race inhabited and spread its culture through every corner of the world, and the diversity and beauty of human expression is a marvel to …
Welcome to your Virtual Community
By Peter Giuliano In 1993, computer scientists at Cambridge University in England decided to attach the feed from a video camera to the brand-new invention called the internet, and in the process created the first webcam. This webcam was trained on a coffee pot in a break room, so the scientists could see how much …
Roasters Guild Retreat
Celebrating 10 Years of Educating, Uniting and Advancing Craft Roasting By Phil Beattie In the late ’90s, the café culture in the United States was rapidly accumulating new faces, including pilots, engineers, and pretty much everyone else with a 401(k) who was hoping to cash in on the burgeoning specialty coffee marketplace. As the café …
The 2011 United States Barista Championship Competition Season
By Marcus Boni Sometimes I wonder how many times I’ve had to describe exactly what a barista competition is to someone who isn’t closely familiar with the Specialty Coffee Industry. My canned response usually starts with “Are you familiar with a bartenders competition?” and then I go on to talk about the basic service and …
Dollars and Sense: The Business Rationale for Training
By Shanna Germain If you’re in the specialty coffee business, you probably know a great deal about employee training. You’ve read articles, you understand the reasoning, and you likely have a system set up to train new and continuing employees. Chances are good that you also agree with the philosophy that says that having well-trained …
Creating a Common Language for Quality
By Craig Holt No system for evaluating coffee quality is perfect. The Q Coffee System, however, has been a great help to me as a specialty coffee importer and, I would guess, to many others in the specialty industry. While the vast majority of our clients today are skilled and thoughtful cuppers, we used to …
Dare to Differentiate: SCAA Certification Programs
By Ellie Hudson Matuszak Differentiation. It is a word that many of us, as specialty coffee professionals, use and occasionally even overuse. It is a word and a concept that some love and others loathe. It is highly specific in meaning but can also be used as a catch-all to describe the ultimate goals and …