a sip of SCAA
Compelled to put the jumper cables to this blog engine to share a quick sip of some of what I experienced at this year’s Specialty Coffee Association of America gathering in Anaheim.
I was privileged to attend day 2 of the Symposium which preceded the show. I could say a lot about the cast of characters of coffee’s old guard and new school rubbing elbows, the visible familial camaraderie that spans from genuine love to old simmering grudges, the positive vibes and the visible posturings. But for now I’ll leave you with my major take away, which is that people in the industry are beginning to discuss and debate the right things with the right stakeholders increasingly given more of a place at the table.
I will share more about the announced Global Coffee Quality Research Initiative in a future post or two.
The US Barista Competition is a whole ‘nother compelling beast of awesome. A sort of ad-hoc coverage of the event emerged spanning streaming, twitter, flickr, and multiple blogs. (I did my part via the twitternets). The gist is that in spite of the lingering absurdities of the premise of these things, the caliber of the competitors has become truly astonishing and compelling to witness. More to say about the competition for sure, probably through flickr as I sort through my mass of images. I hope to don a judges apron myself when regionals kick up again.
All of this is prelude to the point of this post which is the people. Specialty Coffee is made of people! And there are many of them, more with each passing year, amplifying and refining each others enthusiasms, digging deeper into the mysteries of the bean and chipping away at the persistent challenges of the trade. A big thanks and shout out to the many friends and allies, old and new whom I feel deeply privileged to have connected with this past weekend.
April 23rd, 2010 at 1:04 pm
LOVED the event!!!