Lecture Description
Over the past few years an innovative, quality focused generation of robusta producers and roasters has emerged around the world. Challenging the limits placed on robusta for decades, they are charting a new course and finding success in a variety of ways. In this session we will engage in conversation with a selection of these innovators, delving into their approaches to quality, the role of varietals and processing, and the marketing of specialty/fine robusta. There will also be the opportunity to taste their coffees.
Date: Sunday, April 14, 2024
Time: 11:30am - 12:30am
Room Number: S401ABC
Panelists
Sahra Nguyen (she/her)
Founder & CEO, Nguyen Coffee Supply
Sahra Nguyen is the founder & CEO of Nguyen Coffee Supply, America’s first specialty Vietnamese coffee company and proud champion of the resilient robusta bean. Importing direct trade and roasting in Brooklyn, NY, her company brought 100% robusta beans to Whole Foods Market in 2022. In 2023, they launched a 100% robusta cold brew nationwide with Whole Foods Market, followed by every Sprouts Farmers Market in 2024. In 2021, Nguyen graced the July cover of Food & Wine as one of 25 Game Changers and in 2023, she graced the cover of INC Magazine as one of their Most Dynamic Women Entrepreneurs.
Shaun Puklavetz (he/him)
Coffee Sourcing & Relationship Manager, Blue Bottle Coffee
Coffee Sourcing and Relationship Manager of a leading specialty brand that has creatively and boldly promoted robusta as part of its offerings.
Nafeesa Esmail
Coffee Producer; Coffee Estate Owner, Asisi Estate Coffee, Uganda
Nafeesa has spent years visiting her family’s unique rustic shade grown coffee estate, seeing how nature and agriculture can coexist. More recently, Nafeesa’s conservation career has allowed her to fine tune this balance; the benefits of which shine through every step of producing some of Uganda’s finest speciality robusta coffee while conserving indigenous wildlife and their forest habitats. She is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist working at the forefront of research, community-based conservation, global policy, and transformative women’s leadership across Africa. Nafeesa believes nature does all the hard work to create Asisi Coffee’s complex yet grounded, full-bodied flavour profile, her passion just facilitates it.
Luis Carlos Sotillo Lindo (he/him)
Kiva Coffee, Panama
Luis Sotillo is part of Kiva Estate, a small coffee farm producing Fine Robusta in Cocle, Panamá.
In Kiva he is in charge of Quality Control and besides handling the processing of the coffea canephora, he also is Head of the innovation and experimental process department.
Lucas Venturim (he/him)
Coffee Grower, Fazenda Venturim
Lucas Venturim is part of the 5th generation of his family’s growing coffee in Espirito Santo, Brazil. Since 2007, he's fully dedicated to hi-quality canephoras, working to adapt all the family’s expertise to produce fine robustas.
To better understand the roasters needs, in 2016 he also became a cupper and then a roaster, at their own micro-roastery, Café Fazenda Venturim.
Since 2020, he also works for CQI in many projects, such as the development of the Post-harvest Quality Program for Robusta - becoming one of the first Q-Processing Robusta Professional Instructor - and other jobs as the Philipines Coffee Guide review, and some exclusive classes.
Amaris Gutierrez-Ray (she/her)
Senior Director of Coffee & Roasting, Joe Coffee Company / Women in Coffee Project
Amaris Gutierrez-Ray is the Senior Director of Coffee & Roasting for Joe Coffee Company in New York City. She is also the founder of the Northeast Roaster Forum (RIP) and the Women in Coffee Project. A lover of stories and the people that tell them, she has always been interested in the culture and communities of the world in coffee. Both inside and outside the workplace, she's focused on gender, equity, and positively shifting the human patterns that shape our world.
Moderator
David Pohl (he/him)
Consultant, Pohl Coffee Consulting
David Pohl has 20 years of experience in the coffee industry with a focus on quality and sustainability. He is currently a consultant, working independently on a variety of projects with clients around the world. In this capacity he services stakeholders throughout the supply chain, from farmers to roasters, importers to retailers, in the areas of green coffee quality, market access, strategic sourcing, sustainability, product and recipe development, roasting operations & production, and training.