Lecture Description

The global cold brew market is growing exponentially, creating the perfect opportunity for any specialty coffee business to expand.

Determining which coffees are best suited for reaching your goals with cold brew can be challenging since the brewing method produces such different flavors than traditional hot brewing methods. Cold brew cupping can be incredibly useful.

This lecture explores cold brew sensory analysis using the Coffee Value Assessment protocols. Discover how to leverage new sensory methods to unlock the hidden flavor profiles unique to cold water extraction.

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024
Time: 11:30 p.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Room Number: NA26AB

Instructor

Julia Leach (she/her)
President, Toddy, LLC

Julia Leach leads Toddy, LLC, a company that has been at the forefront of cold brewing since 1964. Julia’s team works with cafes and roasters worldwide to help them develop cold brew programs that highlight the nuances of the brewing method and inspire their customers to fall in love with cold brew. She is passionate about the art and science of cold brewing and is active in developing quality cold brew education for the coffee industry. She has presented at SCA Re;co, SCA Expo, NCA Convention, and also frequently presents at industry events around the world.

Lecture Description

The last year has been defined by economic uncertainty, with consumers becoming cautious about spending habits. At the same time, the specialty coffee industry has seen a new influx of consumers looking to drink better coffee, offering roasters an opportunity to widen their audience.

Faced with this reality, some roasters have started adjusting their quality paradigm to source coffees that are more accessible in taste and price, at times simplifying their Single Origin menus, or buying less complex coffees to enter new sales channels.

While expanding their reach may increase impact at origin, roasters must find new ways to differentiate. This panel will discuss new opportunities for product differentiation in light of consumers’ increasing appetite for sustainability and information about the origin.

We will share insights from Algrano’s Market Trends Report 2023 and present solutions learned from industry leaders in Europe and the USA interviewed for the research, often integrating extrinsic attributes to build popular coffee menus and navigate the current economy.

Participants will hear from roasters who are increasing the depth of producer storytelling, using origin information to educate consumers, and betting on social and community values to strengthen existing product lines or to create new ones.

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024
Time: 10:15am - 11:15am
Room Number: S403AB

Moderator

Luiza Pereira Furquim (she/her)
Head of Content, Algrano

Luiza is the person behind Algrano’s yearly Market Trends Report and Impact Report. A journalist with a decade-long journey in specialty coffee, she has worked as a barista, roaster, and sourcing manager. In regular contact with producers, Luiza writes about the realities of different producing countries from market dynamics to prices and regulations. She also shares the experiences of roasters engaged in ethical sourcing practices from a business and impact perspective.

Speakers

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.

Ted Stachura (he/him)
Director of Coffee, Equator Coffees

Ted Stachura has been involved in the coffee industry for over twenty-five years. For the past 13 years he has served as Director of Coffee at Equator Coffees in San Rafael, California, where he oversees coffee procurement, roasting and quality assurance. Prior to joining Equator, Ted was a coffee consultant with Kenneth Davids Consulting, as well as an editor at the online publication Coffee Review. He co-founded Coffee Informatics, developer of the data management system RoastLog. Ted also worked as Coffee and Tea Training Program Manager at Peet’s Coffee & Tea, among other roles. Ted’s passion for coffee is expressed through his study of coffee, daily cupping and his efforts to educate the public about quality coffee.

Josh Longsdorf (he/him)
Operating Partner / Green Buyer, Anthology Coffee

Josh Longsdorf, founder and coffee buyer at Anthology Coffee, boasts over 20 years of specialty coffee expertise. With Anthology, he has championed single variety coffee for 13 years, adapting to industry shifts with resilience and innovation. Amid economic uncertainty, Josh strategically adjusted the quality paradigm to offer accessible yet exceptional coffees. His commitment to simplicity in Single Origin menus and exploration of new sales channels showcase an understanding of evolving consumer preferences.

Believing that curiosity is the key to effective education, Josh advocates for an immersive and engaging coffee experience. Beyond the cup, he envisions leveraging curiosity to build a popular coffee menu that resonates with a diverse and expanding audience. Josh brings a wealth of knowledge including new opportunities for product differentiation, shedding light on the intersection of sustainability and the growing demand for origin information.

Lecture Description

The best standards generate opportunities - in this case, for the coffee industry - to create value by establishing a common language and common systems. In this talk, SCA's Technical Officer, Dr. Mario Fernández-Alduenda, will introduce the association's Standard Development System and explain how it works. Attendees will learn about the SCA's currently portfolio of standards, standards that could be developed, the reasons for not standardizing certain procedures, and how new standards - like those in the Coffee Value Assessment System - become official and replace heritage standards.

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024
Time: 10:15am - 11:15am
Room Number: N426AB

Instructor

Dr. Mario R. Fernández-Alduenda (he/him)
Technical Director, Specialty Coffee Association

From a coffee producing family in Mexico, Mario R. Fernández-Alduenda has tried to understand coffee for almost 30 years, under the light of food science. He has played many roles along the chain, from processor to coffee shop owner, but has mostly focused on the study of coffee flavor, how it is perceived and appreciated, and how it is formed. He is the Technical Officer of the SCA, which he joined in 2020.

Lecture Description

When cuppers evaluate coffee, they are seeking to answer two questions: what does this coffee taste like, and what is my impression of its quality? In 2023, the Specialty Coffee Association proposed an evolution of the 2004 cupping form to the industry and in the year since, hundreds of cuppers around the world have learned how to use the form and tested it in their labs. This lecture will introduce the Coffee Value Assessment, summarize the development process (2020-present), and outline the next steps for this industry standard. This is an essential update for cuppers, coffee buyers, producers, traders, and anyone interested in how coffee quality is understood, measured, and valued.

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024
Time: 9:00am - 10:00am
Room Number: N426AB

Instructor

Kim Elena Ionescu (she/her)
Chief Sustainability and Knowledge Development Officer, Specialty Coffee Association

Kim Elena Ionescu is the Chief Sustainability and Knowledge Development Officer for the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), where she leads a team that turns research and emerging knowledge into event programs, standards, educational curriculum, and publications that serve specialty coffee industry businesses and professionals across the supply chain and around the world. Prior to joining the association in 2015, Kim spent a decade buying coffee and directing sustainability at Counter Culture Coffee in North Carolina, where she resides with her husband and two daughters.

Lecture Description

Alexa Romano recently completed her thesis, "Pursing an 'Ethical' Cup of Coffee: The Social Production of Equity in the Globalized Coffee Commodity Chain," written after completing fieldwork in Costa Rica for her MA in Anthropology. In Issue 21 of 25, we asked Alexa to lean into her anthropological training to help us understand the history of coffee consumerism and the ways in which it has evolved over time. In this lecture, Alexa will explore the emergence of specialty coffee culture as an embedded subculture within the broader coffee industry, and how the resulting shift from passive to active consumption asks us to rethink the consumers role in value creation and distribution.

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024
Time: 9:00am - 10:00am
Room Number: S401ABC

Instructor

Alexa Romano (she/her)
Anthropologist, Stanford University

Alexa Romano received her BA and MA in Anthropology and Photography from Stanford University where she investigated the coffee value change through the lens of women and youth small holder coffee producers in Costa Rica (with the support from Bean Voyage). Her research explored the mystified, obscured, and (un)ethical relations that tether producer societies to consumer societies. Based between Costa Rica and San Francisco, Romano maintains a presence in coffee spaces where she serves as a freelance barista and coffee writer. Currently, she is constructing a small coffee house in Uvita, while also primarily working as a Contract and Grants Associate at Stanford.

Description: Cupping is a method of describing coffee flavor and evaluating coffee quality that is used around the world and across the value chain. This workshop will cover the history of cupping, its many uses in the global coffee industry of today, and introduce the standards and protocols used by cupping practitioners. Learners will also practice cupping different coffees using the SCA's descriptive and affective evaluation forms. No prior experience of coffee cupping is required, but participants should be willing and able to taste coffee.

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024
Time: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Room Number: S503
Category: Cupping/Sensory

Instructors

Beth Ann Casperson
Coffee Quality Control Manager, Equal Exchange Cooperative

Beth Ann Caspersen is the Coffee Quality Control Manager for the Equal Exchange Cooperative in West Bridgewater, Mass.  Equal Exchange is a worker owned cooperative that sources specialty coffee, chocolate, tea and more from small farmer cooperatives all over the world.  She is a sensory specialist and has been managing Equal Exchange’s coffee quality from the point of origin through to the finished product for over 20 years. Beth Ann is a trainer, a Q Arabica Instructor, SCA Coffee Value Assessment Instructor and a graduate of the Sensory Science and Consumer Testing certificate program at UC Davis.  

Lecture Description

For the past four years, the Specialty Coffee Association has undertaken a project to develop a more rigorous way to define and measure specialty coffee quality, based on sensory science, economics, and feedback from the coffee community. Last year, some of the learnings from this project were integrated into the scoring scales, scoresheet layouts, and evaluation categories of three competitions. Meanwhile, the World Coffee Championships Competition Strategic Committee (CSC) and staff have been working to make WCC systems more transparent by publishing more documentation around things like Judge competencies, selection processes, and more—including how the SCA's Coffee Value Assessment was being integrated into the WCC portfolio. This lecture brings both of these initiatives together, by answering some of the very basic questions often asked by the community around the WCCs—How do you become a world judge? What goes on in the judges room? Who writes the rules? What's the CSC?—along with a review of the 2023 and 2024 rules and regulations changes for the World Barista Championship, the World Brewers Cup, and the World Coffee Roasting Championship.

Date: Friday, April 12, 2024
Time: 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Room Number: S401D

Instructor

Jenn Rugolo (she/her)
Curatorial Director and Editor, 25, Specialty Coffee Association

Jenn Rugolo is the Curatorial Director for the Specialty Coffee Association, where she leads the development of content in different mediums for some of the association's broadest projects, including its biannual publication (25) and Re:co Symposium, and builds connections between emerging knowledge and existing SCA programs. Perpetually curious about how people create culture and belonging through different activities, Jenn holds a Bachelors of Music Ad Hoc (Northwestern University) and a Masters of Arts in Ethnomusicology (University College Cork). Before taking on her current role, Jenn worked to design and run casual educational platforms across roles at 3FE, World Coffee Events, Facebook, and Tamper Tantrum. Concurrently a partner in Playset Coffee, Jenn spends her “free time” supporting progress in specialty coffee through projects that embrace collaborative learning and sharing.

Lecture Description

Sweetness plays a crucial role in defining the flavor profile of coffee, exerting a significant influence on its quality. Nevertheless, our understanding of the specific compounds driving sweetness perception in coffee remains limited. This lecture explores the intricate relationship between sensory evaluation and chemical composition, elucidating some factors contributing to sweetness perception in coffee. By conducting sensory analyses with coffee professionals from diverse geographical origins and comprehensive chemical profiling, we aim to disclose preliminary insights into the characterization of sweetness perception in brewed coffee. Moreover, leveraging untargeted flavoromics analysis, we will explore non-volatile compounds as potential markers associated with sweetness intensity. This lecture serves as a platform to disseminate the latest advancements in understanding coffee sweetness perception and set the stage for future research into the dynamics of coffee sweetness.

Date: Friday, April 12, 2024
Time: 9:00am - 10:00am
Room Number: N426AB

Instructor

Nancy Cordoba (she/her)
PhD in Biosciences, Universidad de La Sabana

Nancy is a researcher and Ph.D. in Biosciences from Universidad de La Sabana, born and raised in the Andes Mountains ranges of Nariño, south-west of Colombia, a coffee region widely recognized for its quality and strong cultural tradition. She earned a Master of Science Degree in Process Design and Management, a major in Bioprocesses, and a Bachelor’s degree in Agroindustrial Engineering. She has profound theoretical and on-the-field experience in coffee post-harvest processing, and she is Q-Processing certified. As a winner of the National Doctoral Fellowship Program from Colombia’s Ministry of Science, she developed a research project on the chemical and sensory effects of extraction variables for cold and hot coffee brewing methods. She has been focusing on studying coffee extraction and linking sensory science & food technology to incorporate innovative processes to produce diverse coffee beverages focused on generated new drinking experiences.

Description: In this hands-on workshop, we will start by reviewing the Green Arabica Coffee Classification System (GACCS) and how green coffee is sorted at origin before it is exported. Attendees will have the opportunity to sort green coffee samples, identify and classify defects. Next, we will explore the correlation between green coffee defects and cup quality; we will cup coffee samples with different percentages of defects to understand the real impact of these beans in the cup.

Date: Friday, April 12, 2024
Time: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Room Number: S503
Category: Science

Instructor

Todd Arnette (he/him)
Q Instructor & Value Chain Consultant, Academy of Coffee Excellence

Todd Arnette has been in the coffee industry since 1995. Owner of the Academy of Coffee Excellence and Quality Evaluation Manager for CQI has enabled Mr. Arnette to work closely with Producers, Importers and Roasters at origin, in training labs and roasteries around the world. Areas of expertise include: Post-Harvest Processing and Green Coffee Quality Evaluation, Green Coffee Buying, Production Roasting & Coffee Product Development, Food Safety Hazard Analysis Planning & Implementation – aligned with SQF and US FDA Food Safety Law. Mr. Arnette has attended all Roasters Guld Retreats except for 3 and encourages you to stay connected and involved.