Lecture Description
In this session we will explore the history of sensory analysis in the specialty coffee industry context, how it has impacted what we currently understand as coffee quality, and how this current definition impacts coffee professionals in producing communities. Next, we will introduce tangible initiatives seeking to overcome sensory inequalities in the coffee industry.
In all the efforts of the specialty industry to make coffee a differentiated product, producers and other coffee professionals from coffee producing communities are often left out of the conversation; quality, value and therefore coffee prices are defined in and by the Global North, and specialty coffee producers continue to be mere suppliers of what those control of defining quality demand. The lack of participation of coffee producing professionals in the value definition conversation, perpetuates an inequitable coffee trading system, where those in charge of determining quality, hold all the negotiation power. This session is designed to start a conversation around the evolution of the definition of quality and the meaning of value with a community-focused, bottom-up approach.
Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024
Time: 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Room Number: N426AB
Instructor
Kosta Kallivrousis (he/him)
US Sales Manager, Algrano
Kosta Kallivrousis is a coffee professional with a well-rounded industry experience spanning 13 years and working across the value chain barista, training, roast profiling, roasted coffee sales, coffee competitions, and green coffee sales. His focus is on decolonizing taste and the wider coffee sector and building fairer, more inclusive systems of trade. Today, Kosta is US Sales Manager for the direct trade online marketplace Algrano.
Camila Khalife (she/her)
Coffee Quality Specialist, Botanica
Camila Khalifé is a coffee quality specialist with a background in communication. She started her journey in coffee in 2014, when she founded Botánica, a training center and quality lab in Ecuador. After working in different roles, she specialized in coffee quality and education; she is a Coffee Quality Institute’s Quality Evaluation Assistant Instructor and a WBC Sensory Judge.
Camila is also the Impact & Communications Lead of The Chain Collaborative, an organization focused on community-led development in the coffee sector that works with local leaders in coffee growing communities in Latin America and East Africa.