04.05.2024

Hi, everyone, and welcome to High Density, a conference for all coffee people. My name is Steve Maloney and I'm the founder of the Barista League. When we conceptualized High Density, we knew we didn't want to just simply recreate a physical conference. Instead, we wanted to lean into all of the opportunities of doing something totally online. In that, viewers could tune in anytime they want, we could book speakers from all over the world without paying the environmental costs of flying them to one place, we could host it on a platform that is ubiquitous like, YouTube and basically, make it accessible and free for anyone who has a phone and an internet connection.

We could give space to coffee professionals who really deserve to be heard and we could feature voices that have been systematically and historically left out of important conversations in our industry. And then we wanted to make sure that every session was practical and relevant to those who are watching, that there's something immediate that the viewer could take away and apply. This year, we wanted to make sure the High Density really did represent the whole industry, not just booking the same speakers over and over again. So, we invited five coffee pros to help us dive into different topics and communities and help us curate five different sections of this conference today.

So, today, each session belongs to one of five curated sections. We have on the farm, curated by Ana Luisa Pelusa, behind the bar, curated by Marissa Childers, in the community, curated by Chris McCauley, on the page, curated by Pat Millham, and for the future, curated by SungHee Tark. There are 46 sessions in the conference today and it runs at almost 12 hours. Now, do you have to watch it all in one go? Of course, not. It's YouTube, so you can pause it anytime you want. And if you missed anything, you can come back and the whole conference will be live and available to stream anytime you want.

Also, the entire conference has been painstakingly subtitled in multiple languages. So, if you want to turn them on, just click on the closed captions button somewhere here. A lot of our speakers today have put together additional resources that go along with their sessions and they are available for free to download from our website at any time so you can just head there to get them. They will also be online for the duration of their talk to chat with you and answer any questions you have. So, don't be shy, jump in there, and make some new friends and talk about coffee. Would also love for you to review our code of conduct, which can be summed up as don't be an asshole.

But our full code of conduct is available on our website and we'll link to it here. In addition to the live chat, we wanted to make sure that this conference was as fun as possible for everyone who's watching at home. So, enter the High Density Scavenger Hunt. Over the course of the conference, there will be 10 clues all pointing towards one coffee producing region. Now, if you think you can work out which region that is, you can go on our website, fill out a form, and you'll be entered into the draw to win an amazing set of prizes from our Canadian friends at Leaderboard and Eight Ounce Coffee.

Now, if you aren't watching live, don't fret, you can still play along and try to get the region. It'll still be fun. In addition to our amazing curator, so many people contributed to making High Density reality. So, first up, our team at the Barista League. Angela, Anna, Mae, Cassia, Vicky, and Steve. I also want to say a huge thank you to our event partners who make High Density possible. And last, but absolutely, not least, thank you to our amazing speakers. Thank you so much for lending us your time, energy, and insight. We're always trying to improve and make these events as good as they possibly can be.

So, if you have any feedback for us, you can always reach us via our website and we invite everyone to fill out our postevent survey. This feedback really helps us improve and make sure that these are the best and most relevant they possibly can be. Thank you so much for joining us today. We believe that highlighting a diverse group of voices from around the world to start meaningful conversations is the future of our industry. We really hope you enjoyed High Density. Hi, everyone, my name is Maria Paz Lobo. I work for an importer here based in Costa Rica. I've been working in Sustainability for the past six years.

And today, I'll be moderating a panel with three amazing speakers. As you can see, this is an allwomen panel, which is amazing, and we'll be talking about sustainability on coffee cup farms. And through this conversation, we hope to shed light on what are the issues around sustainability's at origin and at farm level, and also, highlight what some initiatives are being undertaken at this farm level and why they're important and what opportunities we have throughout the entire coffee chain to be part of that. So, to start, first, I'll give the chance for our panellists to introduce themselves. Karla, will you start talking a bit about yourself and your farm? So, my name is Karla Boza.

I'm based in El Salvador. I am a coffee farm at Finca San Antonio Amatepec. It's located in San Salvador, El Salvador. It's part of the denomination of origin Balsamo Quezaltepec. I'm also a curator and I had volunteered with a Cup of Excellence, with farmer, and with Grounds for Empowerment as a storytelling mentor. And, yeah, that's a little bit about myself. Thank you, Karla! Super excited to learn more about all your different roles and how that also forms part about what you do at the farm level. Now, Ganga, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit how long you've been in Coffee and what your role is.

Yeah. Hi, Ganga Prabhakar, I'm based out of India. And I'm a 5th generation coffee producer and working along with my family here. And I'm a coffee roaster with, you know, we have a speciality coffee company here. I also ran that I'm a founder of a coffee roasting company called Coffee Mechanics and do a lot of work around sustainability through a Gamma Sustainable Coffee. So I have been around growing coffee and involved with my family for the past eight years and running the company myself and roasting at the cafe for about seven years now. So, that's about myself. Thank you! It's amazing like everything you do, and same wit Karla.

And then finally, we have Laura or Laura. If you can also introduce yourself and tell us what your role is and what you do in coffee farms. Yeah, so my name is Laura Meunier and I have been working in coffee for about 10 years. Starting as a barista roster and then working mostly in Central America with different mills and exporters. And now I currently work with a Mexican company called Ensambles Cafes Mexicanos. It's a company that source in exports and imports green coffee. And one of the coffees that we work with is actually from our own farm called El Equimite in Veracruz in Mexico. And it's a farm that has a very different farming model than most probably farms in Latin America that applies different permaculture techniques, and that's what I'll tell you about today.

Great! So, I think we'll start talking a little bit about the challenges we're facing at farm level. I think we can all agree that there's challenges that we hear a lot about and that a lot of the farmers are facing independently the place they're in. So, when we talk about like, climate change and then the prices and the cost of production that a farmer faces, I think there's a lot of challenges that we share, but then I also think it is very common that each country and each region and even like, each specific farm has its own challenges. So, I'd like to really dig into what your perspective is in each of these.

So, I'll start with Karla, maybe if you tell us a little bit about what are the specific challenges that your farm is facing and what have you been doing to address that in your case. Sure. Yeah, so some of the challenges that we have been facing it's been mostly related to the low coffee prices, so then definitely, the economic side of sustainability, it's been really hard for us to sort of keep things going with how low these prices have been for the past few years. And, yes, I know that right now prices have gotten better for coffee. For example, in El Salvador, we've also had an increase in prices for a lot of things locally.

So, for example, fertiliser has gone up 40% and there was a raise in the minimum wage recently for 20%. So, then, you know, like, yes, we are technically making more money out of coffee, but we're also spending more money producing it. So, then I think that that is something that needs to be sort of kept in people's mind when we talk about the price crisis that I think that we're still in. And then the other thing, the other thing would be definitely the climate change. So, recently, in El Salvador, we have seen a lot more extreme weather events. So, at the beginning of the pandemic, for example, we usually have El Salvador's climate is either raining or it's not raining.

And when it started raining, we started getting a lot of very big storms, then, you know, like we are used to this, but this time, they were sort of like little small hurricanes, basically. They were tropical storms. So, then, they devastated a lot of our coffee regions. And for example, in our farm specifically, we had a lot of trees that fell, a lot of very shade trees fell, a lot of our coffee trees fell, and that was really hard because not only did it mean that, you know, like we had to replant these very old and traditional like shaded trees that we had been using for decades, but it also meant that it was unsafe for our workers to be navigating the farm, and it meant that certain parts of the farm became inaccessible because trees were falling on the roads.

So, then, when you take into account like things like that, it becomes very hard to manage a farm considering that things like that will become a lot more common with many years with climate change. So, I think that is of some of the main challenges that we're facing at the moment. But, yeah. Great. Thank you. And I think it's very interesting and I'm glad that you mentioned like, all of the different aspects around climate change so it's not just like the physical of like storm and everything that it causes in terms of like, safety and prices, etc. So, Ganga, I would love to know is that something that's also happening in India, in your farms? Are these like the most important challenges also or is it a bit different? No. Yeah.

I think I can relate to a lot of things that Karla just mentioned. And, you know, it definitely is the cost of production is one of the things that are out of key challenges here as well. You know, the cost of labour like, Karla mentioned as well, I think here in India, we've seen around 600% increase in labour costs over the past 15 years, but the prices of coffee has remained around similar range over the past 1520 years. So, that's one of the key concerns. And I think also in terms of production, there's also the cost of manure and cost of the other pesticides and related, you know, inputs have definitely increased.

And yeah, I think it has been one of the, you know, some of the challenges and climate change is definitely adding to that. One of the things, you know, it's been really drastic and varying weather conditions over the past couple of years, at least. I think over the past three to four years, it's been really fluctuating weathers. So, we've either had extreme dry periods where we lose out on, you know, that it increases a lot of white stem borers and we've lost a lot of our plants, really well grown 10, 12year-old plants too to these borers. And we've also seen some extreme wet weathers, extreme rains, which again, has damaged a lot of our crops.

So, there are some of the ways that, you know, we're trying to tackle this. We've done some adjustments in terms of our shade management though it does, you know, to where we can sustain some extreme dry weathers and, you know, it can prevent us from increasing the temperature, controlling the temperature. So, you know, at least, we don't lose out on more plants though it does affect the yield and the production drastically, but at least, you know, in that way, we can save some plants and, you know, we can continue and it's not, you know, it doesn't really have to go to through a recycling, you know, replanting process.

So, that has been some of the These have been some of the challenges as well. And the other with regard to the climate change, we've also looked at some really good plant materials which could replace in terms of, you know, some resistant materials that are not susceptible to these white stem borer and with better yield quality as well. So, these are some of the, you know, steps that we've taken to tackle these. Great. Thank you, Ganga. So, I think Laura mentioned that briefly when she was doing the introduction. They're applying a very interesting and different model at the farm. So, I would love to learn a little bit more about that and what is that different model adding or being able to, yeah, be part of this sustainable like, structure that you guys are creating.

Yeah, so the starting point of this project is that, in Mexico, in general, there is a lot of smallscale organic farming, which is great when it comes to environmental sustainability because a lot of farmers in Mexico are indigenous populations that protect and are very much attached to their lands into nature in general so it's common to find places in poly culture where there is coffee amongst many other things and there is a lot of shades, and so environmentally, it's great, but the problem that those people have is their productivity. It's usually what we call or maybe I call, I don't know if it's a correct word, but it's like passing organic.

It's basically organic because they don't do much in it. So, it's a very low to no intervention kind of model. So, it's great for the environment, but it's not economically sustainable. So, the idea of the project of El Equimite was to take that base of having a farm within a biodiverse ecosystem, within a poly culture model, but adding productivity and crop quality to this in a much more controlled way. So, the idea is to bring a little bit of knowledge and science to this traditional farming model that exists in Mexico. And so what El Equimite does is that So, they started off about eight years ago, eight years ago, and it was a conventional coffee farming model.

It means that it was a monoculture with very little shades and very reliant on agrochemicals. And then over the last five years, they transitioned Well, the first five years they transitioned that farm, first, to organic and then to biodynamic. So, organic basically it means that you're not allowed chemical inputs into your farm mainly, that's the white definition of organic, so that's one first step. And then the second step is biodynamic. So, biodynamic is going beyond organic and it means that you will create an environment or a farmer, an ecosystem that is selfsufficient and autonomous. So, everything that you put into your farm comes from your farm, so it's a virtuous sort of circle of life inside your farm.

And so you're basically using the observation and understanding of nature to do this because today, like, all the fertilisers that we use in farming, all the nutrients that we look in those fertilisers, they could be available from natures, from plants. But we have to know which ones and we have to know how to cultivate them, how much to put in a farm, and how to make them available in soil. So, we have to work on the development of microorganism to make all those nutrients in your farm available to your roots, to your soil, and all that. So, basically, it's, yeah, biodynamic is like, understanding nature, is farming the soil, like looking after your soil, if you have a healthy soil, anything can grow and anything of really high quality will grow.

High quality in terms of health, but also in terms of flavour. And when you do this, you do manage to get good yields when you have that sort of scientific approach to permaculture. So, just to give you maybe a couple of data on what we've achieved in eight years, the productivity now is about 20 quintals per hectare, which is about five times, four, five times the national or the average productivity of Mexico. It's not yet the productivity of monoculture kind of farming, but we're kind of like in between, and then in terms of crop quality, 1 of the coffees placed 12 at the Cup of Excellence last year with the Honey Geisha.

So, same like, you can achieve good quality with this kind of farming. There's like a wrong belief sometimes that when you do organic, it's not gonna be good. It's true if you just do organic as in like, you don't do nothing in your farm and you don't touch it, maybe the results are not gonna be great, but if you actually like, capitalise on nature and understand how it works, you can create really good results. Thank you, Laura. That is such an interesting experience. And as you as you said, there is a lot of fear around organic coffee and misunderstanding also. And I think one of the aspects is that is always in the mind of farmers that I have wanted to go to more like organic production because they understand it's better for like their soils is how to mitigate that risk.

That is sometimes really associated to like, more organic production in terms of like economically and in terms of like diseases etc. So, in this kind of sense, I would love to hear from Karla. What are these initiatives that you are doing in your farm and that there's also being done in El Salvador, having to become a little bit more resilient to adapt better to climate change, to mitigate a lot of these risks we've been talking about. Yeah, so one of the things that we have been doing is we've been moving more towards a speciality production of coffee, so you know, like our farm, it's been Well, it started in 1969 by my dad and it had been planted already parts of it as a coffee farm, so then, it's a very old coffee farm in the sense that we have trees that are about 80 years old.

They're not as productive, but still the cup profile is still pretty good. And there have been producing Well, we have been selling the coffee mainly as a commodity, but now we've been moving towards a more speciality promotion of that coffee and what that has allowed us is a little bit more of financial stability in the sense that we can sell our coffee for better prices. And, to me, that is like a doubleedged sword because, yes, speciality allows you to sell coffee for a better price, but not all of the coffee that you grow on your farm a speciality. And you still need to find a home for that coffee and, you know, you need to find a home with a suitable price that reflects your cost of production and the value of the product.

So, then that has definitely allowed us to become a little bit more financially stable, at least. And that in turn has allowed us to be able to apply a bit more practices that are more in tune with our environment. We used to be certified by the Rainforest Alliance. It was something that, you know, like we were already doing all of the environmental and community practices so then it was very easy for us to get certified, but then in recent years, we didn't really see like a benefit in being certified. So, then we dropped the certification, we still keep the practices, of course. It's something that we genuinely believe in, but we've decided to sort of do it on our own and adapted to the needs of our farm specifically.

So, then we've been working very closely with, and like, an agronomist. Agronomist, yeah. And he's been really great. He's been, you know, like sharing different techniques of different shade trees, for example, that are more suitable for environment and not only for our terrain, but also, for the extreme weather patterns that we are forecasting for the future. So, then they will definitely be able to adapt a lot better. All of our plants are shade grown, all of our coffee is shade grown, I mean. And that has also meant that we've been able to sort of create this little micro climate within reform.

And I know that that is something that, you know, in coffee, we talk a lot about and it's sometimes a little bit misunderstood or people think that we don't generate a micro climate by coffee farming, but we do, and I think, the best way that I can sort of tell you about this is by mentioning that our farm is probably at most with traffic like, 20 minutes from the centre of the city. And the area that we're in it's already become incredibly urban. And the best way that I can tell you this is that if you feel like you want to get a McDonald's, it's like seven minutes away from our gate. You know, like we have a shopping mall right around the corner, so then the area that we're in, it's become, you know, like covered in concrete.

So, the minute that you step into our farm,. the climate feels completely different.. And as you move towards the top of our hills, then it changed.. It changes drastically.. So, I think that that is how. we've been able to sort of adapt our coffee. and sort of produce better equality as well.. We're also looking into the possibility of looking at cover crops,. like to cover the soil and to, all of that humidity in that area. because it is becoming really, really dry between climate change. and becoming a bit of a more urban environment.. So, then those are some of the things that we're doing, but of course,. you know, I hate that it all depends on economic stability at first. because if not then it's very hard for us. to implement all of these changes because our farm,. it's pretty large and it's also pretty old in the sense.

That we do have to take care of a lot of older trees that require, you know, like different needs. But, yeah, that is sort of some of the things that we've been doing to adapt to the situation regarding sustainability. Thank you, Karla. And I think I truly highlight there's not just like one size fits all for a sustainability action and that what you're doing in your farm and finding what's your needs and what specific, and what can be done with your terrain and your geography etc, as part of really becoming more sustainable. So, I wanted to take just like a few minutes and hear from Ganga and Laura also.

What's your perspective on What the rest of the supply chain should be doing to increase sustainability at the farm level? I know you're both very involved with the different stages of the supply chain, so maybe Ganga and Laura can tell us in like a few minutes what you think that people should be, and if you have any specific experience on what is happening in your forms. So, I think it is very important that we have a very valuable We build a very valuable supply chain, I think that's something that, you know, we all have to be very conscious about. And running a farm to cup completely vertically integrated company, I see that there is value and we do work with traders, we do work with other producers and, you know

And so there are a lot of opportunities and there are a lot of collaborative efforts that are needed to, you know, build up very sustainable value chain. So, I think that's been one of our focuses in the past a few years that we've focused started focusing on speciality coffee in India. So, I think one of the things that I really think, you know, to start with or maybe production in terms of instant coffee market is there's very less value to the funds that that is, you know, coming from these industries which is fulfilling a large part of the demand in the market. So, I think we need to focus on building something more valuable there.

I think that's one of the areas that, you know, in that segment people can take note of. And like, here we've been focusing a lot more on quality produce, you know, like Karla said, I think there's a lot of farms most of us are moving towards, you know, better quality, speciality grades to get better value for the produce that we are producing, and I think that's looking like the way forward in the coming years, to keep the farms afloat and, you know sustainable. There are other things that we are doing in terms of coffee tourism, that's something that that we, that we're actively, you know, looking to promote and bringing a lot of, to create a lot of awareness around coffees and the quality focus that we that we are bringing and in terms of the plant varietal and how the biodiversity really makes a difference.

These are all the sort of initiative that we've taken over the past, you know, years. So, more and more roasters start working directly with the farms or, you know, the cafes bringing about more of awareness around speciality, single estate, you know, importance of micro climate or importance of crop quality speciality, coffee roasters, these, I think, would bring a lot of value to the coffee farms as well. So, that's some areas where I see that, you know, there's a lot in the supply chain that we can contribute to. And lastly, I think, there's some of the things that were mentioned in terms of nutrition and there's very less awareness in the general producer community as well, you know, like how there's a lot of myth around organic farming versus natural farming, you know.

So, organic farming is not necessarily just leaving it. without doing anything and that's not organic.. So, there is some amount of nutrition that the plant needs. and how to keep them healthy and how that affects in the crop quality. and, you know.. So, that's some of the events that needs to be done. in terms of educating both on the farm level. as well as on the producer level to,. you know, bring a lot more value to the produce that we do.. Thank you. Laura?. Yeah.. So, your question was what can the rest of the supply chain,. how can they contribute, right, to those initiatives?. So, I think one way,. the supply chain or other people on the supply chain. can help with those initiatives is to accompany those initiatives. from the beginning in the sense that like, Ganga just said like,. good organic farming or productive organic farming.

Requires knowledge and requires maybe advice from external people. And so it's not cheap for that. I mean, it's expensive. And as well, it takes time. So, what's really important for us and what works really well is when we have roasters who would like to accompany those processes, those transitions from the beginning, right? Because it's really great to buy a really great tasting coffee or a fully certified biodynamic coffee. It's great. We need that. But what we need even more is partners who will help us Right? So, for example, we have one partner in Europe who understand that process, and from the beginning of the project except to buy a coffee from a community that will transition within the next four years to biodynamic.

And at the moment, they're not organic certified. They do agroecological practices, but they're not organic certified yet. So, this kind of partnership is real impact of origin. When you are able to accompany those transitions from the beginning, it's super helpful because it's very time consuming to do those transitions and it's costly. So, I think, I would say, that is to accompany those projects from the beginning, and maybe not just be there at the end when everything is tasting great and is all certified and all that. So, I think, yeah, that's one thing. And then maybe just to finish on this point, I think I would like to probably invite everybody to rethink what is speciality coffee, right, which is and nowadays is defined by crop quality and it's extremely restrictive.

And as, you know, Karla and Ganga said, there's so many issues and so many threats and so many things to overcome to produce coffee, and to produce really good coffee, it's even more complicated, right? So, I don't know speciality coffee, I think you should take into accounts much more than just the crop quality, you know. What are the efforts that are done at the farm to, first, to survive, and then second, to make their environment a bit better to make the communities who work in the farm, of people who work in the farm, to have them work in a better place. All those little maybe intangible actions that are made at the farm are not reflected in the definition of speciality coffee.

And I think that's a shame and it's because it's intangible, right, that it's difficult to include. But I would really encourage rosters to like, ask questions about their providers. I know there's a big distance, sometimes there's a language barrier, but I think a lot of people can help overcome that nowadays with technologies with good intermediaries, their intermediaries everywhere on the supply chain. Some of them are good, some of them aren't. So, yeah, just like ask for more information and ask to see all those intangibles, I think, is very important and should be part of what speciality coffee is.

Thank you. Yeah. I think there's one last part that I think Laura made a really good point there and I think even Karla mentioned this earlier. I think it's really important for experts to, you know, and people in position of influence to, you know, get the right definition of quality and what really goes on. I think we come from a place of having what on the farm and, you know, see what really goes on at the farm. So, it's not really, you know, determined by a certain number and it's nothing. So, it shouldn't be just in terms of made in terms of numbers. So, I think it needs to go beyond that and that's something that we have to keep educating people and let them understand that, you know, speciality coffee is not something that we can grow as a choice.

There's everything that that we grew and then there's a part of it that goes a speciality coffee and the rest like, Karla said, needs to find a home and a valuable home as well. So, I think we need to be very mindful of that and for that valuable supply chain is of utmost importance. So, yeah. Thank you, Ganga. So, unfortunately, we are over our time limit. And so I think Ganga made a very good summary at the end. So, just before this is over, I would just love if you could just share your Instagram or your Facebook or your contact if you have one and you're willing to do that. So, if anyone has more questions because this is a very big topic, and I think a lot of people will want to keep on discussing it.

So, if you could just share that, it would be amazing. And then, thank you again for your participation. I wish really that we have an hour more. There's so many questions I want to talk and be able to, yeah, be able to dive deeper in some of the aspects, but really thank you for taking the time and speaking a little bit about what you are doing and what your perspective on sustainability is. I know a lot of us will learn a lot from this. So, if you could just share Karla, Ganga, and then Laura, what your handles are, that would be amazing. Thank you. Sure. Yes. I'm mostly active on Instagram and you can find me under K, B as in boy, OZ-A-A-A.

So, that's kbozaaa with three As at the end. That's also my Twitter handle. And you can find me on LinkedIn as Karla Boza. And yes, I just want to say quickly that, just please, consider more than just cup score for quality and for speciality coffee. And I think that that's basically what sustainability should be. But yes, thank you. My Instagram, I'm quite active on Instagram as well. And my Instagram handle is Ganga, GA-N-G-A underscore PR-A-B-H-A-K-AR. That's where you'll find me. LinkedIn, I am Ganga Prabhakar. So, you can find me there. Again, Instagram probably the most used social media for us.

And the account of the Biodynamic Coffee Farm is El Equimite. El, EL underscore, Equimite, EQ-U-I-M-I-T-E. That's a name of a tree. Yeah. And then Ensamble Cafe as well, if you want to have a look at other coffee communities in Mexico. Thank you, Laura. And then, thanks again for this participation. And we'll give followup with more questions on the event. Thank you very much. Bye. Thank you very much. Hey, Barista League baristas! I’m Klaus from Coffee Collective. One of the cofounders and responsible for our sourcing in Kenya. So, obviously I've chosen this coffee. My personal favourite! A coffee that's very dear to me.

The Kieni, from Kenya I have a little information to share with you, as I’m sipping on a cup of it, which I hope you are too. As you're probably aware, Kieni is a cooperative in Kenya. There's a bunch of information on it on our website, so I'm sure you can find everything that you're curious about there. But I want to share a few more interesting facts about it. When we started buying Kieni, which is now 13 years ago. There was about 300 smallholder farmers delivering cherries to this cooperative in the heart of Nyeri region close to the town of Karatina. By now, there's over 1000 smallholder farmers delivering cherries to this cooperative, partly due to the fact that they're one of the highest paying factories in all of Kenya.

In fact, they were again this year, the highest paying factory in Nyeri. That's largely because their quality is great, so they're getting good prices, but also because we have built this long term relationship with them. That is quite unique, where most roasteries will shop around for different Kenyans every year, depending on what the exporter presents to them. We've decided to build this relationship with Kieni, so that we both benefit long term. You've probably heard about SL28 and SL34 being like the really prised Kenyan varieties, but in fact, when it's smallholders , you'll often see Ruiru11 and Batian in the mix as well.

An interesting thing about Ruiru11, that most people don't know is that you can only get the seed from the Coffee Research Institute, which I went to visit on my last visit in November. And that's because that it's a manual process that is required to make the Ruiru11 because it's a hybrid of two other varieties. The process that's required is called emasculating because you’re removing the male part of a Catimor and then putting in the female part of the Ruiru11, to get the seeds. And what most often happened is that the Ruiru11 is grafted on existing SL root stalks. So that means that a farmer that has old SL root stalks can still grow SL.

They just need to let the branch grow out of the tree. And that's interesting because at Kieni, we see a lot of SL varieties, and that's also because that a lot of these trees were planted all the way back in the 1950s and 60s. So they're far older than probably any of you watching this video. And that also means that this root system of those tree have really grown accustomed to the geography, the soil conditions, the terroir in this region. And I think that's one of the reasons of this very intense flavour this extraordinary blackcurrant and blackberry flavour that the best of the best Kenyans can have.

As the farmers deliver cherries to Kieni, Josphat Muriuki, who is the mill manager here, will oversee the sorting, so it's only the best and fully ripe cherries that gets into Kieni. Processing is done with a depulper and then fermentation in open tanks. And they do the fermentation from the Depulping in the afternoon until early next morning, when Josphat will check the mucilage if it needs to ferment more to remove more mucilage. And he might do an intermediate washing at this stage. So that's about 1216 hours washing off about 75% of the mucilage and then having a secondary fermentation that's very controlled in another set of tanks to remove and dissolve the last 25% of the mucilage before they take it into washing channels.

Lots of clean water, washing the coffee, soaking it in soaking things and then putting it on the drying tables. Josphat has a team of about 16 people working full time at the Kieni mill factory to oversee this process, and each of them, from the machine operator to the lady who manages the drying tables are all very skilled and have been there for a long time. We've worked very closely with Kieni for a number of years. We've seen the quality grow, we've seen the income to Kieni grow, which is for us a success story. And for me personally, it's a pleasure to see when customers come in to our shops that they don't just ask for a Kenyan, but they ask for Kieni.

We've been proud to host both Josphat and Charles here at our roastery and have them in our house for dinner, which is always a huge pleasure when we have the chance to show them where their coffee actually ends up. So I hope you take good care of the coffee and brew it well and will enjoy this as much as we do. Thanks for watching and good luck to you. Oh, and I almost forgot to share my most interesting observation from my last trip, which was something I didn't know. But apparently butter is a luxury in Kenya. As one farmer put it, butter is what the rich people eat, which was a big surprise to me coming from Denmark, where we are known for our ‘tandsmør’, toothbutter! when you have this much butter and bread that at leaves an indent from your teeth.

But apparently butter is a real luxury that's not available to a lot of farmers, so it's a good reminder about some of the things that we take for granted. Hello, everyone. I'm Frank Harris Coffee at Nomad Coffee. It is a pleasure to be here with all of you. I would love to share with you this coffee from Finca Chambacu located in Caldas region in Colombia. It is a Castillo variety with a natural process. A wellknown fact about Colombia and coffee is that Colombia has been to suit every taste. Its microclimates are so abundant that producers can achieve all the taste profiles in their coffees.

Also, at Nomad, we can have fresh Colombian coffee all year long. Thanks to them having to harvest each year. The producer of the coffee that I am presenting to you is Juan Felipe Restrepo. The first thing that you should know about Juan Felipe, Pipe to his friend, is that he is a great person and he has a great knowledge about coffee but he has a little flop. He's a crazy, crazy driver. Oh, guys, when I was in Colombia with him I fear for my life a few times. The good thing is that I am still alive. Maybe in Colombia is the normal way to ride and he's one of the best drivers because we arrived safe and on time everywhere.

He loves riding motorcycles. Actually, he competes professionally in motorcycle races despite having had an accident recently where he broke his arm. Thank God, I wasn't the pillion passenger. No, certainly, he is a good driver and now he has recovered from the accident. I remember another cool story that Pipe told me this time about his father. His father, Elmer Restrepo, is a great businessman. He was very young when he created one of their first meals in the region. Once Pipe was with his father visiting a place where he transformed fruits, vegetables, and other food that is thrown away in the food markets into fertilizer for coffee.

This place literally a smell of crab, Pipe's father took some of this fermented mixture, held it up to Pipe's nose and asked Pipe, "Son, what it does it smell like?" Pipe said that, "It smells like crap." Elmer smell it and said, "No, son. It smells like dollars." Elmer who used the food that marketplaces throw away to make fertilizer for the farm and to sell to other farmers. He's so clever. They are a business family and also a superwelcoming family. I am very grateful for the welcome when I visited Colombia, and of course, for the great quality coffees. The last fun fact. You can hear Pipe talking about coffee hours and hours.

Really, hours and hours and hours. He never said stop talking. He loves to talk and communicate his knowledge about coffee, which is extraordinary. He's a very energetic person. Recently, he created a YouTube channel where he's sharing all this knowledge. Please, you can follow him. His channel name is co.felipecall. Juan Felipe Restrepo is in charge of all the prophecies on the farm. We love his natural process the most. His natural coffees have a unique taste profile of cocoa nibs and dried fruits. That is amazing. Very clean coffees that are very difficult to make, but he makes them each year after year.

At the end of February, we are going to visit him again. We are very happy to visit the farm and create a very good relationship between Nomad and the farmers like, we have with Pipe. Okay, so thank you, everyone, for watching us and participating in this event. If you want to buy some of this lovely coffee, you can enter our website nomadcoffee.es or if you believe in Barcelona or you are visiting Barcelona right now, you can bite it directly in one on our cafes. Thank you very much. And take care. Hi everyone, my name is Sunghee Tark. I'm delighted to be here to facilitate this conversation today with the incredible panelists.

We have here with us, Juyeon Jeon. The 2019 world barista champion from Momos Coffee, Busan, South Korea. Geunha Park cofounder and co-CEO of Fritz Coffee Company in Seoul, South Korea. And Daewoong Son, the cofounder and co-CEO of Felt coffee in Seoul, South Korea. We'll be chatting about sustainability from the point of view of Korean roasters. Korea specialty coffee industry has been growing rapidly in recent years. And the potential that it can have in shaping the global value chain is worthy? And I'm personally very excited to be learning from their insights. Just one note here before we start with the conversation here.

This conversation will be held in Korean to allow for more diverse voices and opinions to be heard. You can now turn on the subtitles if they're not already on. And thank you so much in advance for your understanding. So we'll get started. We will get started from now. I will start with my first question to you all. The term "Sustainability" has recently been used and seen more than ever before. I think it’s quite a broad term in the ways we use it. So, in that sense, how does running a sustainable roastery mean in Korea? First of all, I would like to hear Geunha Park's opinion. You can talk about the point of view from Fritz Coffee or just an overall flow of it.

Most of the questions that are asked seem to be approaching the term from the environmental perspective. In other words, asking the question of how roasteries would be run without making negative environmental impacts, or sustain itself while minimizing its impact on the environment. Sustainability may encompass social, environmental, and economic aspects of our society Economic sense may be directly related to the economic sustainability of any business and how it’s related to the ‘surviving’ of the business itself The rest are questions about what we can do after. To be completely honest, I don’t think we, as a Korean industry, are engaging in the conversation as much.

I’d say that it’s not that people are not interested, they are. It might sound like an excuse but we can't afford it. Not many people in the industry have the capacity to think about sustainability in a holistic way. Additionally, currently the options are quite limited. The samples that we can get are very limited and I think the Korean industry is not mature yet. The conversations about sustainability are only now starting and i think we would need more time. At Fritz, even from the earlier stage in our business, everyone was very interested in issues around sustainability. However, it was not easy.

Perhaps after our 3rd year, we had to halt the discussion and our attempt We are thinking about it but it's hard. Adding on to what Geunha just shared Felt has been around for 8 years now. 8 years ago, any ecofriendly options whether they were packaging or cups, were impossible to get and expensive We couldn’t even think of customizing them. The options were very very limited. More recently, as it has come to the public’s attention to care about sustainability, governmental policies have been introduced to stop using disposable cups, and many more suppliers came about to produce ecofriendly cups As a result, the ecofriendly cups were twice as expensive as regular paper cups.

But the price has been dropping recently. more people are seeking ecofriendly options, and suppliers have increased in number. I think the Korean industry is just picking up on caring about sustainability in the industry. And we are all paying attention to the environmental aspect of sustainability first Because it’s the easiest for an individual to act on, and it’s often the most apparent. So they are paying attention to the environment a lot. It has become a trend now for people to talk about ESG. Now, the industry is starting to mention Environmental and social aspects of our industry, as well as the wellbeing of people that form our communities.

I think Korean roasters are really interested in these issues. And as Daewoong said, the environmental aspect is a lot more visible and as a result, the focus of the industry has been more on the environmental aspect. This environment may not only mean the natural. From the Korean perspective, I think it relates a lot more to the environment that laborers find themselves in. The environment where baristas work in, improvement in the materials used in roasters is what seems to be getting attention in the Korean industry. In fact, in the Korean industry, many interpret sustainability as directtrade with producers in

coffee origins and connecting producers with customers, and connecting producers with customers, as the way to run a sustainable roastery.

That’s what is more seen. Sustainability can encompass much more but currently, roasters in Korea seem to focus more on building direct relationships between producers and

customers. In many cases, for Fritz, they have racks, carts, and been considering silos. I think that is an improvement in the workplace for people who work at roasteries And that is also related to work sustainability. Much of what you shared resonates with me. I was interested in hearing more about the Korean perspective on sustainability. Recently, there have been more conversations around living income, especially in the context of the United States with the working environment for baristas.

And just like how Geunha shared about the productivity of a company, an organization’s survival relates to the economic sustainability of a coffee roastery as a business So in the end, what you all have shared can be tied to various pillars of sustainability. All of the opinions discussed today show different aspects. Sustainability in my opinion also encompasses everyone along the value chain, connected through our work in the industry, growing together. I think this forms the base of the sustainability of our industry. Given that, the minimum that we can do in our job has been to focus on communicating the importance of this ‘cogrowth’ with our customers.

This doesn’t require us to be doing anything extraordinary nor looking for supplies of rare materials. This connects to what Geunha was sharing earlier about the economic sustainability of a business as well. I also wanted to ask you a question related to quality. For instance, the Korean coffee industry has been getting more spotlight in the global industry, coinciding with the more active roles that Korean roasters have been taking on at COE auctions. In my conversations with other coffee professionals, I’ve been told that prices have risen as more Asian roasters including those from Taiwan, Japan and

Korea joined Given that, the price of COE has risen over the past years.

In my opinion, the Korean coffee industry has had quite a huge economic influence in the specialty

industry. As someone that’s not running a roastery herself of course. Some say that COE may not be the best way to promote due to fairness, accessibility, and it has been criticized. However, besides that, COE auctions have been highlighted as an alternative way to value coffee moving away from the cmarket. And this movement is hard to be separated from sustainability. Knowing this, how do you think quality is related to the sustainability of our industry? Especially from the perspective of the Korean industry.

Please feel free to comment on how you think sustainability will evolve a role in the evolving coffee industry of Korea? While I think a lot about this issue, I am hesitant to say “hey, follow us this will work” to others in our industry as I don’t think the Korean industry has become mature enough yet. When you are faced with anything new, including coffee, we are drawn more to the beauty or more simply the quantity, more than the meaning in itself in the

beginning. The Korean specialty coffee scene is also just budding, and it hasn’t been expanded as a way to attract newcomers. I see the tendency to focus more on the quality and diversity in offerings.

Those that have started specialty coffee earlier, have built experiences to see beyond the quality and specialty coffee alone. Then, essential questions around what specialty coffee truly is being thought about again, and start questioning about should specialty coffee only be about highquality coffee? What makes specialty coffee to produce only highquality coffee? Why the word specialty coffee comes about, and the meaning of it is being questioned. And I think we are at the starting point asking ourselves about quality and sustainability. The starting point for survived people to consider those issues.

This conversation is a hard one to bring for those who have gone out of business. Since the scene is very small. Some people may feel deprived. That's right. Because we only started, people are starting to learn more about the true meaning of specialty coffee. People who are aware of this issue are starting to make changes slowly and rethink what it means to direct trade. How to build a sustainable relationship, and how to trade, store, and the work environment for

roasters, and baristas and for a small business that is just starting, thinking about, for example, co2 emission of a roaster isn’t always an option.

Now, we are hearing a little more about these issues. I think the Korean coffee industry has been existing perhaps only for about 10 years now. As a result, I’d say the majority of the specialty businesses in Korea have been only around for 510 years. This means that most likely, it is only starting now. We couldn't afford to change before. In Korea, finding ecofriendly options in the past was not easy. And now, including this, there are more options available. I think there are many more opportunities because we're at the starting point. What kind of opportunities or potential do you see? And what roles can coffee roasters play in the Korean coffee industry? I asked myself the question, "if I were a barista at a cafe, what is it that I can do immediately?".

I couldn’t think of a lot of things. Perhaps sustainability can feel as though it’s really big of a concept, However, it starts with small actions that anyone can take. I understand that specialty coffee is not synonymous with sustainable coffee but I think they are going in the same direction. What baristas can do at their position is that they are directly connected to the end consumers. Perhaps the best we can do as baristas, roasters, and cafes is to be the bridge. Yeah.. as consuming countries. Now that we have opened a new cafe in Youngdo, we spent most of our time thinking about the sustainability of baristas as a career.

As you have all experienced being a barista, working as a barista for 1520 years, you end up realizing the impact that the job has on your health. Many baristas start in the career because they love coffee, but the physical nature of the work often doesn’t allow for people to sustainably work in the

field for someone to continue brewing, serving, and interacting with the end consumers. As a result, we designed our cafe in Youngdo with a slightly different approach. I think it was also possible because we survived. I keep using the word "survived" but, we are able to focus on the value that coffee holds the value that baristas as a career have, and to directly convey this to clients rather than focusing on the efficiency of the bar.

We thought only with such a different approach, we can ensure the sustainability of baristas as a career. Roasteries can also simply mean factories. If we were to convey the value of our work more directly to the end consumers and convince them, then it becomes easier to imagine and act on building a sustainable roastery. In Korea, even if you have a roastery, you may not be able to start direct trade But as a consuming country, we can get deeper into speaking about the sustainability of roastery,

baristas, and how our work in coffee has value and conveying this to clients. Perhaps this is the work that we can do in Korea.

Because the Korean market is young, there are many opportunities. Korean consumers have a relatively shorter history of consuming specialty coffee. As a result, I think the coffee shops that are in the country are able to have more influence on how consumers think about coffee and their consumption pattern. The influence that roasters are able to have on consumers in their decisionmaking may be greater. In fact, we have to spend a lot more of our time telling stories to the customers. In a simpler form We have to spend time explaining what we do as a group. In the short time that we get with the clients, our job becomes then to make our place attractive enough.

It's not having more opportunities but it would be that the door has not opened fully. We are just having our feet slid into the door. Eventually, you have to show more, demonstrate more, and you have to put a lot of emphasis on space and designs. And this often moves us away from being ecofriendly, and environmentally sustainable. I agree. Oftentimes, being ecofriendly means removing elements but we tend to add more. It is like a tradeoff Because now, we have to put more colors on things. That’s an interesting reflection! The tradeoff between the pillars of sustainability. You need to spend more capital to attract customers, and it can move you away from being ecofriendly.

And I’m curious to hear about the clients’ perspectives How interested are Korean coffee drinkers in sustainability in coffee? I think they are very interested, in comparison to a few years ago. Because of it, as we shared earlier, we are able to afford things that weren’t available before. More people talk about environmental sustainability. And I see people trying to avoid elements that aren’t ecofriendly if they can choose. For instance, with the increasing online orders due to Covid, we see that many companies are adopting to use reusable packages over onetime use. And it almost seems like you are a bad company if you don't provide the environmentally sustainable option.

It has been changing. And straws may be the last thing we want to care about, but to highlight that there was a law that passed in Korea to ban the use. That is just an example of a policy change that has been caused by people changing their perspectives. If it weren’t for the consumers’ perspective, the policy would not have been adopted. We started working with Home Barista Club, the biggest community of home baristas in Korea. And we have been using ecofriendly options for our packages including tapes, and so forth with them. Because the ecofriendly options for fillers in a box sometimes may not provide as much protection as the plastic ones.

The first two weeks, we received mixed feedback from people. I’d say 5050. They were not all 100% happy about that. After constantly using it for 34 weeks, we could see the gradual change in consumers’ reactions. even the other roasters that were part of the Home Barista Club, changed their packaging to be

ecofriendly and once consumers got used to it, expressed discomfort towards plastic or similar materials. I think with exposure to environmentally sustainable options, people become more welcoming of those options. I think the Korean industry has changed in its consumption pattern over time.

People use the term generations MZ. There are so many younger people who value ethics. Why a certain brand designed a certain product, what are their philosophies. And they form the consumption culture. Thanks to them, the general consumers have been changing. Reflecting on roasters, and the role that roasters then can have because we are so young, I think it is inevitable that we focus on diverse and high quality coffee. While we are new to specialty coffee, it will be even newer to the consumers. As a result, diversity, quality, become the focus of the conversation with them. As a Korean roaster, I think we have the role to lead.

Of course, if big corporations were to lead the process, the change will come sooner. How does Fritz define sustainability? A system that fosters one to continue doing what they love. We try our best to create an environment for those that work with us to sustainably work in coffee with us. We are trying our best. Perhaps one part can be about how much more income are our staff earning, but it also goes beyond that and includes how much of what one staff says gets reflected. For instance, for one to know that I can have an influence in the way the company is run as a member So my role would be fostering this system and supporting them.

I don’t know how long it would take us to be able to fully embody, but when the time comes, I don’t want it to be phrased from the ethical side. I hope to be able to implement sustainable approaches because they are not only ethical, but also economic, and are good. It's hard to say we are an entirely ethical company. We have flaws too. This also can be applied to other stories. Another aspect of our sustainability pillars is about community. It is not only the community that our company directly forms, but includes producers, other cafes, farms or any other in the coffee ecosystem. For instance, when we say we are going on an origin trip, some may view it as us going to find good quality coffee.

But we can also see it as going to greet our community. The sustainable industry is I think, where all of us work together, get old and make money and not going out of business while doing what we love. whether that’s roasting or whatever it is. So that's how I think of it. In Felt’s perspective, what is sustainability? Or any projects, or successful cases that you’d like to highlight? Specifically about what we do at our cafes in a sense of environment, I would say they are rather small steps. For instance, I joke about making ecobags are not being eco-friendly. We try to minimize the making of any unnecessary products.

It has a negative impact on the environment. So, we try to minimize packaging or the making of unnecessary products. Additionally, we provide alternative milk options for the clients. I heard drinking oat/soy milk is more effective than using less disposable cups to reduce the carbon footprint. Very small steps and we are hoping to implement more in the future. Lastly, Jooyeon, will you share your perspective from Momos? what we think is a sustainable business I reflected on it as Geunha was sharing his, and I don’t think ours is very different. We want collaborative growth with everyone that we are connected to through the coffee value chain.

Charing that growth would be a way towards sustainable growth. Direct trade with producers is a step in it, collaboration with roasters and baristas is another, and consumers who love us should also find ways to grow through our work. For instance, consumers discover and consume bettertasting coffee because of our work. We try our best to be as sustainable as possible, because the production of anything in itself constantly is at odds with being environmentally good. As a business, production has to carry on, and our job is to minimize the impact that we have on the environment. In the end, I think it’s about us increasing the value of the work that we all do in coffee.

Once the value is realized, then we can be sustainable and grow together with the producers and customers. As a result, one thing that we are constantly doing is collaborations with other industries that are not coffee. The value of consuming specialty coffee can increase by collaborating with other industries. For instance, it's not really a success case but the artwork that is on our package is an example. That’s already considered valuable in the eyes of consumers. And we can also grow in that scene. The result of it can be translated to the improvement in our work conditions. And perhaps it would be impossible to have a perfect approach.

But we can go as close to what it can be And it would require us to experiment and adapt. With that, I’ll end. That was great! Thank you so much for taking the time, and for sharing your stories. If I were to add a little bit, I think because the Korean industry is yet to mature, I think you all are experimenting, trying different projects. I think your stories were also very valuable because it was a unique perspective of you as roasters, that included the conversations on the working environment and what you are doing to increase the pie of the industry. I think all that you are doing is very valuable.

And I’d like to end this panel with that note of gratitude for all that you are doing and trying. Thank you! Hello. Global coffee family. My name is Joshua Jagelman. Normally, I would be greeting you from the border of China and Myanmar but today I'm greeting you from the border of Thailand and Laos. I come from a German Australian family but have spent most of my life in China. Lived all over the world but the majority of the time has being spent in China. I work for a specialty coffee exporter in China called Yunnan Coffee Traders where I am the managing director. But the titles that are most important to me in life are the titles of husband and father.

I have seven amazing kids who I have dragged all over the globe. They've turned out alright most of them and one amazing wife, her name is Alexandra. As for my credentials, I have a formal background in education, linguistics, business management and finance. I'm also a Q Grader. Actually think I'm a lapsed Q Grader now. I have been having checked for a while. So, as we As we look at our journey today in China as an emerging origin for specialty coffee, I wanna share some of the things that worked for us, probably some of the things that didn't as well. But the main thing I kind of wanna message, I want to communicate is that each of us live in really distinct context, you know, they have their own, there are nuances.

And I think the most important thing for each of us is just to understand the context that we work in and adjust and align ourselves to those context so we can, you know, we can make a difference for good coffee in China. Our research began back in the 1950s and commercial, kind of, commercial production started in the '80s partnership with the World Bank, UNDP and the Chinese government, and then Nestle was one of the early movers and shakers and still are to this day. Most coffee in China is produced in Yunnan province and Hainan, Yunnan's arabica. Hainan is mainly robusta, but in terms of actual production, like I think 98% of coffee comes out of Yunnan, just a small percentage out of Hainan there.

Yunnan average temperatures 2027 degrees. The frost line there is about 1,700 m or so. What else have I got here? Varieties. Most coffee, when I say most, like, probably 99% of coffee in China is catimor. There's a lot of SL28. But in the last few years we've seen the emergence of a whole lot of new varieties Pacamara, Bourbon, Typica, Geisha. Domestic production, it's been pretty flat for the last five years, a bit of a spike in 20182019. But for the most part it's sitting around about two, about 2.2 million bags a year, which Domestic consumption, however, there's been a quite a significant increase in domestic consumption at about, I think we're at about 3.3 million bags now.

Of that consumption, the majority of it is still instant coffee. So, export volumes, you know, as China increases as a consuming nation as well. A lot of the domestic production is being sold domestically, export for this year or last year, I think was around about 1.11.2 million bags. Coffee scores, when we started back in 2012 or so, we were seeing a lot of really, kind of, like premium coffees, 79, 80, 81. And now I think a lot of those same coffees are cupping at 81, 82 a little bit higher. So, there's been overall increase in just the staple washed coffees coming out. And then for the natural programs, we've seen a real increase there.

I think they started around 83, 84. And now we're consistently seeing natural programs delivering it about 85, 86, 87. And then in terms of, kind of, the coffee importers who started early here with China specialty, Indochina, out of the UK is probably the main importer of the specialty program here there in the UK, primarily in the Europe. And I think this year they're launching in the US as well. So, those are some of the players, movers and shakers and just some of the numbers from the domestic market. Right now that we've looked at those quantitative numbers, I really look forward to diving into some of the less tangible things like I mentioned before.

The first one is I want to look at is just, just discuss our experience of coming into a commodity environment and what it was like to try to step into an environment whether these deeply held beliefs and entrenched values and just ways of doing things, that weren't just different, but actually contrary to some of the ways that we wanted to do things with specialty coffee. So, I think probably the most obvious, the most obvious value conflict, there was what, you know, how money is made. So, for harvesters of commodity coffee, it really is just volume, like there as much coffee as they can pick.

You know, they're going to make more money that way. Whereas in specialty coffee, it really is more about ripeness, I mean If the quality is compromised there, it cannot be made up later down the line, the roaster can't roast quality back in into the cup and the brewer can't brew quality back into the cup. So, in specialty coffee, it's really important that we're getting things right at the beginning. And so, you know, this gap we found early on of people committing to doing things differently and actually seeing that change. That was really hard. The first and I guess obvious thing that we tried was training.

Well, we would gather the harvest is together and the Wipro managers and say, "Hey, you know, we used to do things like this and now we'd like you to do things like that for these reasons," and it was really just a transfer of knowledge. And surprisingly, this didn't change behavior at all. Its knowledge plus attitudes that actually leads to a change in behavior. So, it's not to say that training isn't important that we shouldn't do trainings, but in and of itself, it actually wasn't very effective. High tech solutions, early on we tried, we installed laser color sorters at the wetmill. And this made an immediate impact on the quality of the coffee, especially the natural program, which was great.

But ironically it actually further entrenched the problem of people picking unripe cherries because they were like, "Well, you got this machine now, we just throw everything in and all the good stuff will come out, who cares what we pick." Then we tried some low tech stuff. I think it was sustainable harvest in some of the African producing nations they work in, had these little bracelets, these little colored bracelets and the color of the bracelet matched the color of the ripe cherry and the idea being that the picker would wear the bracelet and stick their hand into the coffee match it and harvest those, so sorry, and take off those cherries.

So, They were novel, ah they were really effective for our volunteers. So, you know, volunteers would come and work on the farms and they would wear those bracelets and the coffee's they picked were amazing. But they were volunteers and they would pick maybe 20 or 30 kg and then move on. So Another, I think, kind of, more obvious approach would be like the financial incentives, financially incentivizing people to pick better coffee. Sounds simple but really, when you consider that coffee is, you know, kind of, market driven. When the market's really low, and we say, "Hey, we're going to pay a premium for you to pick ripe coffee." It worked.

And we got some pretty good results in the years when the market was really low. But when the market picked up like a year, like this year, well, it's just so high. The cherry prices so high. If we were to pay a premium on top of that cherry price, which is already so high, we would go out of business. I think what we've had the most success isn't what I would call felt needs, where we would actually get to know the harvesters just in their own personal context and their villages and their families and their homes and say, "Hey, what," you know, "What's important to you? What matters to you?" And one of the things that came up was how fertilizer affected cash flow.

I think traditionally some of the larger companies had used fertilizer as a way to control volume. So, basically, saying, "Hey, you don't have to buy the fertilizer. We'll give it to you, you don't have to spend cash on that. However, all your coffee's must come to us at the market price." And it was a control mechanism, which I think makes sense. But ultimately, still not what's best for the picker and the villages. But they did say, "Hey, having that fertilizer is really helpful," because number one, we don't have to, we don't have to use our own cash and number two, you know, we sprinkle a bit on some of our own crops as well.

So, we started to do that. So, yeah, just the idea of felt needs, finding out what actually matters to the people that were trying to incentivize and trying to create those, give them what they want. And then I think that the last one, which, which we've also had a lot of success with is what I would just call a clean slate where we've brought in harvesters who are out of the region and even out of the industry. So, they didn't have any of this, kind of, background, knowledge or tradition that was keeping them doing things a certain way. They were like, "Okay, here I am, I'm here to work. What do you want me to do?" And I would say, "Well, we want you to pick cherries that are this color.

If you do, we'll pay you X amount for them. If you come back with other cherries, we pay a different price for those." And so they were like, "Okay, sure, yeah, we'll do that." And they did. The problem there is that when you bring in outside labor, you're taking away jobs from locals, which again, we just don't That's not something that we wanted to do long term. I think the over the overwhelming, kind of, message here is that there isn't just one approach, multiple approaches are needed. Sometimes other approaches need to change over time. We can do something one season, not the next and then bring it back for the next season.

And just really, like, I think I mentioned before so much of this getting this right is about understanding our context, understand the needs of the people that we work with and being willing to adjust, being willing to change, being willing to listen, that's, that's where it's at. So, have we solved the problem of picking ripe cherries? No, we have not. Has it improved? Absolutely. But we've still got We've still got a ways to go and... The final thing I wanted to add on this point was after a few years of trying to source good coffees and work with the people producing the coffees to change some of the practices for the specialty programs, we got to the place where realize maybe we just need to demonstrate this, maybe we just need to do it ourselves.

And so that's actually when we started to acquire our own farms. And the idea was that we wanted to shift the conversation from us saying, "Let me tell you what to do," to, our neighbors and farmers, local farmers coming to us and saying, "Hey, would you show me how to do this?" And so we're just changing the locus of initiative rather than initiative coming from us. It began to come from the farmers themselves. So, in our own farms, we did exactly what we wanted them to do. And we tried to really enforce the idea that quality, you know, quality starts with the cherry and if we get that wrong, it's really hard to get, you know, they can't be made up.

And then also quality is something that is not just a cup score, quality is about something that can be done consistently. So, the protocols are important. Quality is about something that can be done at scale. So, understanding the factors that lead to that quality are important because they need to be adjusted as we begin to go to scale. So, worked really hard to shift the idea of value from wait, the idea of value being quality and quality was defined as cup score, repeatability and scalability on our own farms and we did really well with that. And then, of course, because we were getting these really great contracts and attracting a lot of global interest because of that, then it did go that way.

Farmers began to come to us and say, "Hey, would, you know, could we come and process with you this year?" The next thing I wanted to touch on was these ideas of fear and hope. You know, coming into a nascent industry, there's lots to be excited about, there's also lots to be afraid of I was concerned about. And, you know, we just saw a moment ago just how, you know, stepping into a commercial, historically commercial production environment meant there was this attitude of, "Well, this is just how it's done, this is how we do things," and didn't matter what we said that those behaviors weren't really going to change.

But then, you know, wanting to inspire people to say, "Actually, take a risk," you know, not just the obstacle of tradition, but the obstacle of fear as well and then how hope or inspiration played out in that environment. I guess some of the very reasonable questions that the farmers would ask, when I spoke to them was, "Well, you know what if this fails? What will happen to the coffee then? Or what if nobody likes my coffee? Or, you know, what if I make all this investment and people like the coffee, but I just can't make the money back?" You know, these are really fair questions for producers to ask.

So, a couple of things that we did early on to try to, to try to engage these concerns, these fears was we introduced one of the earliest contracts, we introduced was underwritten contract. So, it was actually a roast of Pablo & Rustys in Australia, agreed that they would underwrite 20 tons of specialty coffee. I think it was the first, like, full container, especially coffee to be exported out of China way back in 2013 maybe. I mean there have been, especially programs before that, but everything a, kind of, lower scale. And so that, again, farmer came with their concerns, but what if, but what if, but what if, and then the roast was able to say, "As long as these particular protocols are followed, I will promise to buy the coffee." And they did do that.

So, from the farmers' side, a lot of that risk was taken out. They were going to get paid for that coffee even if it didn't work out. However, they didn't need to follow protocols. Um and then the other, you know, the other thing we did to try to combat fear was to say, "What's the opposite of fear?" The opposite of fear is courage. Or, you know, what helps people overcome their fears? It's a dream or it's a vision or its inspiration, like, you know what, it's a risk, but it's worth taking the risk for these reasons. And so there were two things that that I think we leaned upon to try to inspire local people to take a risk or to take a chance with specialty.

The idea of made in China, it was not, that was an insult,. you know, back in the day, um. You know, the German manufactured stuff, you know, that's just good.. It was great, but it was made in China, it was not so great.. And so we wanted to explore this idea. of coffee made in China could be a badge of honor.. When people say, "Where's that coffee from?". "Well, it's made in China." That would be a badge of honor.. That could be that the Chinese coffee industry could own.. And then from a purely company level,. we really rallied around the idea. of the catimor being able to produce great coffee.. You know, traditionally the catimor has just been seen as a, you know,. as a commercial variety and good volumes,. good resistance to bugs and disease and just, you know,. not a lot of quality, but a good solid performer.

And just say, "Well, wait a minute.. What if we started to treat the catimor with some respect?. What if we started to process it differently. and just, you know, give it the same treatment. that we would give any, kind of, specialty varietal, what would happen?". And lo and behold,. when we started to treat the catimor, um with the specialty mindset,. lo and behold, we started to get specialty results.. And so, yeah, just trying to help them to rally around the idea that catimor. can produce great coffee and rally around the idea. that made in China can be a badge of honor. for the coffee industry.. Third thing, I want to look at is the empowering producers,. those decision makers, and you know,. it sounds pretty good, pretty easy to say, what does that,. you know, what does that look like?. And what does that, what does that mean in practice?.

Look, you know, before we talked about in order to change behavior,. you really have to tackle things that are at a value level,. at a core beliefs level.. I remember as a kid, you know, smoking was cool.. We all smoked because it was cool.. And then the government came along and did these advertising campaigns. that showed these horrific images of people with lung cancer. and throat cancer and mouth cancer.. And you think that would be a deterrent.. But it really wasn't.. We kept smoking because the value of looking cool. was more important than the value of being healthy back then.. And so, you know, that's just been a good lesson for me. across my career and in any situation really,. that if we want to see change in our own lives or want to see change. in a community or even in an industry values have to change,.

People's beliefs have to change and working together on our core beliefs and our values. That's pretty tough. That's a tough conversation, especially, when there's a lot of hatred and just a lot of meanness in the world. But we knew that that's, you know, so for us in China, we knew we had to really tap these core values if we're going to see, I'm changing. If we want If we weren't just going to try to enforce our values on top of what was already there, but actually have the local producers say, "Yeah, we get this, we believe in this, we want to do this," to get real ownership and real agency for them and at that level that was important.

Yeah, agency just means that you have the power to make a decision and affect your own destiny. So, I just Yeah, trying to work with farmers in a way that they felt like, "Hey, I'm not just taking on your decision, but I'm going to make some decisions and I'll be able to affect my own farm, my own production, my own destiny." And, you know, agency brings with it a real I mean, it's, kind of, subtle, but it's there. Where you find agency, you'll find dignity and you'll find hope. And I mean it's a little bit cheesy to say this, but I really believe it and that is, you know, where there is dignity and hope, anything is possible.

And so, you know, on the one hand, it, kind of, looked impossible that we could never really get a great specially program happening, you know, in the context of this commodity environment. But actually as farmers began to feel they were being treated with dignity and as we began to see, kind of, hope around, "Hey, what if we did something really great with catimor. Hey, what if made in China became this badge of honor?" You know, anything was possible and we started to see some really great coffee is being produced and some really great partnerships being formed. So, as we finish off this prerecorded part of the time today, I want to finish with this idea of embracing humility and embracing courage when we're introducing new ideas and reexamining values.

You know, when you think about going into a new place that is a historically commodity driven, commodity values, commodity tradition and saying, "Hey, let's produce specialty coffee consistently at scale." On the one hand, that was just completely overwhelming. And so in order to face that we needed courage. You know, new language, new culture, new biases, new taboos, new financing challenges. Like there's all these obstacles where it's like, "Well, we need courage." So, I think courage is, kind of, an obvious thing that comes up when you think about going into a new environment or a challenging environment, but something that's maybe not so obvious is humility.

And not just going in with an attitude to conquer but actually going in with an attitude to learn, to listen, um to observe, to own our mistakes, to be slow. Those things, I don't think come that naturally to go getters or certain kinds of entrepreneurs. And so, you know, that was just something that we had to take a step back and say, "Yes, we need courage. Yes, we need to go hard after this. Yes, we need to fight for this." But on the other hand to say, "We need humility. We need to listen. We need to be willing to go about things in a way that maybe doesn't come naturally to us. We need to be willing to change our mindset.

We need to be willing to respect the local culture in a way that maybe doesn't feel comfortable all the time." You know, that was really important. And so, you know, as I started the session today by saying, you know, today, wasn't about telling you guys what you should or shouldn't do. You know, what we did was really specific to our context. Really what I was hoping to do is inspire each of us to reexamine our own context and find what's gonna work best for us where we are. But I do think some of the some of those kind of universal principles that help us to do well wherever we are in our own context is have encouraged to challenge the obstacles but also having humility to be able to work well with people, to work well with ourselves, to work well with the industry.

Both those things are really, really important. So, thanks so much for listening, for dialing in today. I look forward to meeting you guys on the panel in a few moments time. Hello, everyone. My name is Komal Sable. I'm a coffee producer from India and I run South India Coffee Company, a direct trade house of Indian specialty coffee. Our family has been producing coffee for the past five generations. And in these last four years, me and my husband have been taking care of the plantation. These last four years we have seen change in weather patterns which has made us adapt to different ways of postharvest processing and drying.

As a coffee producer, we faced several challenges like, labor shortage, pests and diseases, fluctuating coffee prices, and uncertain weather conditions. Today, I will be talking about how we adapted to a challenging weather conditions during postharvest processing. Typically in India, we process washed coffees, although here at SICC, we produce mainly naturals and honey sun dried coffees. As a producer, we rely on a dry harvest season, something that most countries would take for granted, but this doesn't seem to be the case anymore. In the last few years, sudden heavy rainfall during harvest season seems to be a common occurrence in India.

Our region in Coorg, Karnataka usually records around 55 to 65 inches of rain. Although this year, our state recorded 100 inches of rain. So, as I mentioned in these challenging weather conditions, we have to think of innovative solutions to process and dry our coffees. Conventionally, there are two ways, two types of drying techniques used for coffee processing. One is sun drying and the second is mechanical drying. We have explored alternative, lowcost sun drying solutions that not only make coping with the weather conditions easier, but ultimately, lead to a better cup. We've iteratively improved on a drying process.

So, let me tell you what we did over the last four years. The first year being at the farm, we use our existing drying method, which was mats on the patios. The issue with the mats was that they were not breathable and the high temperature and sudden rainfall caused condensation, which led to fungal formation on the coffees, especially the naturals. So, the next year we got quick draining mats which were breathable, but they still couldn't help keep the coffees dry during the torrential rains that we had. So, they didn't work either. The third year, we explored the use of raised beds. We made a number of prototypes, and eventually, we settled on recycled wood and steel as framework.

We made the base with Tea Withering Nets and to support, we used plastic pipes. This solder breathability issue and overall increase our cup quality, but there was still some damage to the coffees with sudden heavy rain, especially the honeys. Some days we had to run and cover the drying yard with unexpected rainfall. So, for this year, we decided we wanted to cover the entire drying yard. This seems like a daunting task at first. So, in June, we started experimenting with poly tunnels, although there were prebus solutions, they worked out to be very expensive. So, we decided to inhouse the construction as we wanted to build something cheap, quick, but still, completely functional.

Almost a minimum viable product, if you will. During the time we were constructing a new warehouse and quarters for the workforce, and we saw the construction workers use these 12 MM TMT a steal, iron bars to support the concrete which would easily bend. So, we thought to ourselves why not use these to achieve the parabolic curvature we needed for the poly houses. And that is how we started to build a covered drying yards. We kept iterating on the design, and eventually, it worked out at around $400 for a 750 square foot of each polytunnel. Here's the material cost and design of the polytunnel we built.

You can also find these details on our social media channels. The idea to open source the design and cost is to help as many farmers as possible during these difficult times. Now, this was a quick and functional solution for us. Unluckily for us, up until November, we've had rains, so our earlier harvest, which was in September and October, took much longer to dry. However, there was barely any damage to the coffees. So, we had solved the breathability issue with the raised beds, and now with the cover drying, we were protecting our coffees from unpredicted weather. While we were ideating these polytunnels, we spoke to several people and many of them told us that it wouldn't work because we may have condensation and we would end up baking the coffees.

Yes, we did have condensation, some condensation in the polytunnels, but it wasn't as bad as expected. And, of course, we didn't end up baking the coffees. In fact, we've had good results with this setup. We've seen consistent drying times during When we've had sunshine, we've seen consistent drying times. Our honeys are taking anywhere between 8 to 10 days to dry and our naturals are taking anywhere between 12 to 14 days to dry. We have never seen such consistent drying ever before. Even when we had the raised beds in direct sunlight, there was some lots that took 12 to 25 days to dry. There was a lot that took 25 days because we had cloud coverage throughout the entire week.

So, essentially, we're not completely reliant on the sun, direct sunlight. This has also helped us improve our coffees considerably. This year, our coffees are cupping much higher than they have ever before. We're now working with small farms to help process their coffees and market them. I believe that even though with the challenging weather conditions we can find quick, cheap and functional solutions to produce good quality coffee. Our mission here at SICC is to create a sustainable and transparent supply chain for Indian coffee by setting up economically viable coffee processing centers for small growers and give them consistent prices year and year irrespective of the commodity market so we can ensure them a sustainable livelihood.

Second, we want to create knowledge sharing hubs for viable modern processing techniques and farming techniques. And third, we want to create appreciation and awareness for high quality Indian coffee. We are very excited for this new harvest with all the amazing partners we are working with, both roasters and farmers. We're currently selling our coffees in UK, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland. And we're always looking for new partners to work with. Do let me know if you have any questions and I'm happy to take them now. Follow us on Instagram. Our handle is southindiacoffeeco and I look forward to connecting with all of you here.

Thank you for listening. Hi, my name is KarYee Cheung and I'm one of the cofounders of Karst Organics, a green bean supplier, working directly with the coffee farmers in the remote mountainous region of Letefoho in Timor Leste. For those of you that might not know in Timor Leste or East Timor is the world's second youngest country and is situated in Southeast Asia, about one hour north of Darwin, Australia. In 2017, whilst my partner and fellow cofounder Stewart was working in a previous role there, a friend of ours invited us to go and visit some of the remote farming communities in Letefoho.

Having visited there, we quickly fell in love with the incredible scenery, the beautiful people, and the delicious coffee. Having met with some of the farmers and listened to what they had to say about their coffee, we decided to send some samples to the UK roasters for some feedback. Generally, the feedback was positive. However, some did make some suggestions on how to make some improvements to maximize the potential and to increase the coffee's appeal within the specialty sector. After this, Karst Organics was born with the intention of working closely together with our partner farmers to elevate the quality of their coffee through establishing better processing facilities and methods.

In doing so, it was and continues to be our intention to maximize the farmers' earning potential through our commitment to pay a higher price reflective of their specialty coffee. So, going back to 2018, the question we now had to ask ourselves was how were we going to elevate coffee quality. We carried out some research and spoke with some other coffee companies and it was evident that the most immediate and effective way of doing this would be through the construction of a community wet mill where everything would be centralized and allow for easier monitoring and greater consistency throughout all stages of the process.

We sat down with our lead farmer, Francisco today, Francisco from the Rotutu cooperative to discuss what needed to be done as fully washed coffee is the most commonly used processing method in Timor Leste. We needed to ensure that there was a consistent supply of clean water to the processing facility. Once a final decision had been made on the location of the site, we laid 900 meters of piping from the water source to the site and constructed a large water tank. The storage warehouse was also built so that the parchment could be stored and rested in a cool environment prior to being taken to the city where it would be dry held.

By making this warehouse available to all the farmers, this would enable us to ensure that the parchment is stored under the right conditions and allowed for regular QC checks to be carried out more easily. Then lastly, we began to construct the processing facility itself. Our commitment is to always offer employment where possible. And so again, we recruited experienced members from the local community to design and build the wet mill. From start to finish, this process took two months and was fully operational in time for the start of the harvest. Of course, there were challenges along the way.

In particular, Timor Leste is severely damaged roads which lead into the remote areas such as Letefoho where sometimes hazardous and so meant that the transportation of the materials which needed to be sourced from the city was sometimes a slow and complicated process. We were, however, delighted with the end results. We would now like to show you a short video of our processing facility in action. So, the big question, did it work? Were we able to elevate the quality of the coffee? In short, yes. Through the establishment of centralized processing, we were able to elevate the quality of the coffee from the Rotutu Group to around 85 points.

Not bad considering that back in 2017, when we first sent samples, we were getting cupping scores of around 82. It is our hope that us, Karst Organics, grows that we are able to replicate this model with the other groups that we work with in Letefoho. However, until we're able to make this happen, we wanted the processing facility to be a place where other farmers can come and learn about specialty coffee processing in order to elevate the quality of their own coffee. So, for the past two years, we have run workshops with the other farmers at the processing facility where we have encouraged and promoted community sharing and learning.

For example, during last year's harvest, we ran training sessions on the fermentation process and how pH meters are a useful tool to accompany traditional methods of knowing when the coffee is ready to be washed while it's more often than not pH meters only support what the farmers already know. These are valuable opportunities where the farmers can come together and get a deeper understanding of the process. One of the most useful workshops that we ran focused on the importance of raised bed drying and the impact this has on the overall quality of the coffee itself. Through the use of locally sourced materials such as bamboo, building raised beds was a simple, effective, and lowcost way of instantly elevating quality.

We have found that cupping workshops are incredibly motivational.. As prior to this, our farmers have never had the opportunity. to see their coffee packaged as a final product,. nor have they ever had the opportunity to taste their coffee,. which has been roasted for the specialty market.. This has given our farmers a greater understanding. of the coffee supply chain and their place within it,. which has created a sense of pride and inclusivity. which can also serve as a means in which to ensure. that the high standards being met will continue to be a common goal.. So, from our experience,. we have seen that a wet mill can not only elevate the quality. of coffee through centralized processing, but can also be used. as a community learning hub where upon individual smallholder farmers. can come together to develop their own ideas about.

How to elevate the quality of their own coffee. This is something we have seen from the groups whom we purchase parchment as they have also increased their cupping scores to between 84 and 85 points. As well as it being a privileged to share our partner farmers high quality specialty coffee in the UK and European markets, there is another very important benefit to elevating coffee quality in the context of Timor Leste. We would like to introduce you to Manuel, a coffee farmer in Letefoho and a member of the Karst Organics Team. (So, you have the opportunity to sell your coffee to different companies? You can sell cherry or parchments, yes? Yes. Yes. And their price is different? Yes, it's different.

And what's the price? What's their cherry price/kilo? Coffee cherry $0.34 cents/kilo. If we want to sell parchment it's $1.50 cents/kilo. The coffee is not good quality. The price is the same every year? The same every year, it doesn't change. It doesn't go up.) It's important to remember that for coffee farmers in Timor Leste, nearly 100% of their annual income comes from the coffee harvest, which lasts between 10 to 12 weeks from June to August. For this reason, by elevating their coffee quality into the specialty category, it allows them to maximize their earning potential. As we heard from Manuel, a kilo of cherry wood ordinarily earn 34 cents when sold to commercial companies whereas in 2021, Manuel was able to sell his sorted ripe cherry to us for 46 cents, which is a 35% increase in earning potential.

And for the groups whom we purchase parchment we purchased for $2.90 per kilo as opposed to the $1.50 per kilo price offered from some commercial buyers. Whilst we know that the highest price doesn't always guarantee the best quality. In the context of Timor Leste, a combination of engagement in education and training and a deserving price act as a motivational tool in which to elevate the coffee quality this exciting origin has to offer. We would like to thank our partner farmers for working so hard throughout the harvest, our partner roasters and fellow coffee lovers for the support over the past three years, and to those of you that have made it to the end.

Thank you so much for listening. We hope there's been something of interest for you. Thank you! Bye! Hi, everyone. Welcome to this presentation. My name is Abhinav Khanal. I'm one of the cofounders and the executive director at Bean Voyage. Today, I'm gonna talk to you about why the coffee community should care about food sovereignty. And my presentation will dive a bit deeper into a project that Bean Voyage has been leading over the last couple of years, kind of, at the height of COVID, and then talk to you a little bit more about some of our learnings from this process so far. To get started, I want to give you a quick introduction to what Bean Voyage is.

Our mission is to ensure thriving income for smallholder women coffee farmers. And our big idea, the one that kind of really drives our model is basically a bundle of services that we call care trade. And the care trade model consists of training, financing, market access, and mentorship for smallholder women farmers. Primarily working with coffee farmers in Costa Rica and recently launched a new project in Mexico. The major outcome that we're working towards in all of our projects across different communities is looking at improved livelihood for smallholder women farmers and their families. And that can kind of mean, you know, income growth, which obviously, is a key metric for us, but we're also looking at other metrics such as agency and ability to build their own businesses.

The final piece that that I want to talk about introducing Bean Voyage is our partners. And so we basically partnered with smallholder women coffee farmers in Latin America. And throughout the year, we recruit them on average farmers that are part of Bean Voyage's program on less than five hectares of coffee farms are usually considered a small sized coffee farmer. Now, I'm going into this context of why I'm talking to you about food sovereignty today, I want to take you all back to March 2020 where, you know, for smallholder coffee farmers and mostly for the women that we worked with, a regular year, even if it is a good year, there have been different kinds of disruptions whether it's because of pricing, whether it's because of production as a result of climate change.

But the destruction that this pandemic has brought to them created a real threat on their livelihood. One of our partner farmers that we worked with for many years talked about how they were losing up to 70% of their regular contract as a result of COVID19 in kind of the March 2020, April 2020 time where a lot of coffee shops were closing and lot of buyers were afraid of purchasing more coffee. And losing, you know, 70% of their contracts had a direct impact on their livelihood, and obviously, on their ability to support their families. A lot of the times the producers we worked with are, you know, the sole breadwinners of their family or the people that are really able to pay the bills and feed the family.

And so this was quite an urgent situation that we faced in March 2020. Now, when we got this data in April just a few weeks later, we surveyed a larger group of families, we worked with about 67 families and we asked a series of questions and one of the kind of the biggest response, which was a big learning for us was that almost 40%. So, 39% of the families that had been part of our program at this point, they had just joined the program were facing food insecurity. And having heard from the communities that food baskets, you know, consisting of various materials, rice, beans, a few other elements would be a temporary kind of measure, a temporary relief for them.

We launched a very simple platform on our website which allowed for farmers, not just part of Bean Voyage, but across the sector, across the country to apply for food baskets. Initially, we ran this for about five months, ran it through a crowd funding campaign, which helped us to stay in this program. Now, this is what the food basket consists of. And so we started by providing, you know, some basic food materials so there's, you know, things that you would consider soup and pasta and beans, rice, can tuna, chicken stock, but then we also provided a few other materials such as toilet paper, pads, soap, hygienic materials that would also be very important.

And in terms of the timeliness of these products also very important to provide, especially during a pandemic where people might be requiring more soap, for example, but you know, as a result of limited income are not able to directly invest in that. So, that was our kind of initial might, I say, urgent response to the pandemic. However, fastforward a year later, and then we did the fivemonth program. Fastforward a year later, in April 2021, we started having conversations with some of the same farmers while talking to some of the new farmers that had joined our program. At this point, we're working with a bit over 500 farmers across Costa Rica.

So, we're getting quite a lot of data on the state of food security and seasonal hunger. And then we started to understand that the problem of food insecurity among coffee growing families is not simply a one off cause, you know, that was created just by the pandemic. In many cases, it's something that has actually existed for a longer period. It's a chronic problem and its root can be in a variety of issues, but it relates to climate change, relates to the fluctuating food prices. It relates to monocropping, and of course, with natural disasters that happen often in many communities. As we were collecting some of this data, we started realizing that the question that that we usually ask at Bean Voyage, which is what keeps our farmers awake at night.

That's the question we tend to ask to drive. our programmatic decision and issue areas.. All of a sudden had this one more topic that we needed to look at.. And so until this point, Bean Voyage has done a ton of work. around climate change adaptation,. we've done a ton of work around market readiness. for farmers to be able to sell their coffee,. and then we've done a little bit of work. around kind of economic empowerment. and focused on kind of finance and business growth,. but we hadn't done much work on food security.. And so this gave us the concrete data. to be able to look at incorporating food insecurity. as one of the key agenda items on our work. and so invested a couple of months to further research. and further design think with our farmer partners,. a program that would not only provide an instant relief.

Which the food basket did, but actually long term relief, and actually a sustainable solution. And so that's what led us to the Food Security Initiative which we launched in August 2021 in collaboration with the Coffee Institute of Costa Rica, the ICAFE and with the Starbucks Foundation. The Food Security Initiative basically takes the program that we did in 2020 a step further and perhaps that are more sustainable, you know, towards a more sustainable direction. It provides food baskets for a set period of time, providing that kind of temporary relief for families that might be facing food insecurity at the moment, and so that we are providing that immediate relief.

However, we're adding on two different elements that become a crucial component for this program sustainability. Number one, we're providing training and so through a series of training programs that we're offering for the same farmers and we're doing this program for 100 families right now. By offering training on diversification techniques, we're basically providing resources and workshops for farmers that might be thinking about coffee as one of the crops that they have and perhaps introducing other products that they can introduce to be able to diversify their income. So, that's number one.

We've also been providing business skills training, soft and hard skills so that they can actually right to their formerly their own business plans so that they can apply for additional funding from the government or through other entities. So, that's the first piece. The second piece is our finance. And so through a partnership with the Starbucks Foundation, we're able to provide micro grants, an average of about $250 per farmer that they are then able to invest in a concrete project at a farm level. And so this could be setting up a beekeeping system at the farm level so they can generate revenue through that.

It could be, you know, hand keeping home gardening, a variety of ideas that that producers come up from this program itself and are able to get the capital to actually invest in it. In many cases, this is not only creating an opportunity for them to start a diversified business, but in many cases, we're also looking at this as an opportunity for them to perhaps grow some of the nutrition that they are, otherwise, unable to purchase because, you know, it's simply too expensive or unavailable where they are. So, that's the new program that we have initiated. And just to kind of give you a quick sense of where we have worked, here are some of the areas of Costa Rica that we've been working in kind of going into further details.

A majority of our farmers in Costa Rica come from the Brunca region further south in the country and then the second large majority comes from the Paraiso region of Los Santos. We've also been working with some families in the Central Valley, around San Jose, some families in the West Valley, some families in Tres Rios, Orosi, and of course, also Turrialba. So, these are the main regions where we've been focusing and providing our support with a vision to further, you know, grow this program over the next couple of years so that it can be a sustainable source of, you know, not only the food baskets, which can be provided at times where seasonal hunger is being faced by farmers, but also receiving additional training and kind of capacity to be able to build diversified businesses as well.

A couple of kind of quick key impact metrics that I want to share here. Till date we've provided a little bit over 2,400 kilograms of food baskets to families, a little bit over 600 liters of milk, and more than 500 kilograms of hygiene product. We've been really lucky to support over 100 families and roughly over 480 individuals who are receiving direct support through this program. As part of the training, and that was something that we were slightly worried about. Because of COVID, we haven't been able to do trainings in person. And so we've been offering trainings virtually using WhatsApp and Zoom to provide some of our materials.

And we were definitely worried about the retention and attendance rate. So far, 75% is an average of participants that are attending all of the training sessions. And we have all of the producers have attended. Most of the training sessions, either kind of live on the Zoom or through our platform that we've created for them to be able to continue learning even if they weren't able to attend the live sessions. Finally, we're in the process of awarding $15,000 in micro grants to the group of farmers. So, 100 households will be applying for this $15,000 in these micro grants to be able to invest in a specific project at the farm level.

A couple of key data points that came up during this process during this work process that I want to share here. Two things that I want to talk about. The first one is the impact of COVID19 on income of our farmers. And so there's kind of two data points that are interesting in this graph here. The first one, as you can see on your bottom right side, you can see that for about 40%, 37.3% of our farmers have seen a decrease of their income by more than 50% and that's a significant cut from your income, especially in a time like COVID when expenses are actually going up and we're seeing inflation all around the world.

Now, there's another group which is about 45% have seen it, decreased by less than 50% and so they have seen a major decrease in income but not as much as the other group. And then we have a smaller percentage a little bit over, a little bit less than 20%, that have seen that their income have stayed the same, which has been really lucky and, you know, wonderful to hear as well. So this is one data point that we wanted to share to really talk about the impact of a pandemic like COVID in exacerbating some of these challenges that farmers have been facing for a while in the future. Now, the second data, which, I think, is perhaps a more interesting data and part of this conversation that that I wanted to have with this presentation is expenditure on food since COVID19.

And so about 25% of the farmers are saying that, you know, their expenditure and food has remained the same. About 46.5% of the farmers are saying that they're spending less than half of preCOVID food expenditure. So, there there's, you know, there's spending on food has significantly dropped. And then there's about 25.4% that are actually spending more than half of preCOVID food expenditure, but less than the full amount. And so there's a kind of a middle ground. And so you're seeing this 46.5% figure, which tells you almost half of the farmers that are part of our program that that are currently part of this program have seen such significant fall in their ability to actually purchase food, whereas, you know, their household participants have stayed the same, if not increased over the last few years.

And so, you know, you're seeing a situation where farmers are put in a place where seasonal hunger which would happen maybe for a couple of months, you know, during the seasons where the income generation is lower. Now, all of a sudden the same people are having to face hunger pretty much throughout the year. And that, I think, is one of the most stark data points that has caused for us at, Bean Voyage, to think a bit more about what it means to provide a sustainable program and a sustainable supply chain for smallholder coffee farmers, especially for smallholder women coffee farmers that we work with and we hope to over the next few years dive deeper into this and create programs that really look at it from different angles, from a supply chain angle from, from a market perspective, from a gender perspective, and many more.

A couple of topics that that we've really been covering. And this was interesting for us because it was quite informed by the data that we received. We did extensive baseline surveys with our farmers to really understand what were some of these gaps, right? So, there's that big figure of the fact that, you know, almost half of our farmers are buying less than half of what they were buying preCOVID, that's the really big data, but we've also collected other data on topics that they would like to learn a bit more about or businesses that they would have wanted to start but perhaps didn't have the right capacity or the resources to do so.

And so few topics that came up which we divided into hard skills and soft skills workshops. Basically, in hard skills, there were topics such as beekeeping, hand keeping, home gardening, and bio input in coffee farms whereas in, soft skills, you know, producers were interested in learning more about, you know, empowerment and personal branding, personal finance, how to start a project financing, project innovation, and network management. So all of these topics were within the kind of scope of, you know, materials that Bean Voyage was able to provide in collaboration with the variety of trainers that that kind of, you know, granted their time and talent to basically make this a very successful training program.

These are just some photos from some of the workshops. We've organized very few in person sessions as a result of COVID19 and so a lot of the sessions as you can see have been hosted online. And despite the fact that they've been online, we've been very lucky to see really, really amazing participation rate from our farmers and our partners in the program so far. In terms of the finance thing, basically at the end of this program, farmers are submitting and they've already submitted the grants. They submitted, you know, short, very simple grants. We did not make this a very complicated process.

One of the things we realized is in times of crisis, the reduction of red tape is absolutely crucial to make this a smooth process for our farmers. And so we basically created a simple canvas which is really kind of inspired by the lean canvas that many of you are probably familiar with. And so we created a simple canvas where our farmers were able to write in very short answers to questions around what the project is, what the design of the project is, how much the budget costs so that it gives a review committee that is formed with a few members of the team from Bean Voyage, from Be Café, and the Starbucks Foundation, and together, they have reviewed the proposals to basically grant on average about $150 for each farmer to implement their own project.

Over the next few months, our team will be monitoring the projects and will be providing followon support to the farmers to be able to see a successful implementation in the coming year. With that, I would like to kind of share a couple of pictures that that our team has taken and would like to generously or thank our generous sponsors, Starbucks Foundation, Icafe Team, and the entire community of Icafe that has continued to support us with knowledge materials. The Western Union team which has been supporting us with the training materials on some of the soft skills as well. In addition, we would like to thank some of these following organizations, including the Pollen Keepers, Huerta Donde esta, Ekko Granja has San Lucas.

Professor Oscars Chavarria was an entrepreneurship specialist and Johnny Castro Perez who's a Bio Inputs specialist, all of whom have put forward a huge amount of support and provided a great deal of support for this program to be successful. With that, I would like to wrap up this presentation. And thank you very much for being part of this and look forward to answering some of your questions in the live conversation. Thank you so much and we'll talk to you soon. Byebye. Hi there, I am Dr. Fabiana Carvalho, a neuroscientist here in Brazil. And today, we'll be talking about multisensory flavor perception.

And as the title of this short talk I chose, "Is it the coffee or is it the cup?" Since our coffee drinking experience goes beyond the product itself, it goes beyond the coffee, right? Okay, so when we think about flavor, flavor is actually a construct. So, our brains integrate the information coming from our external senses. So, the information coming from vision, audition, the tactile information, gustatory information and also, faction, all this information is actually integrated by our brains. And then we sense, we have the experience of flavor, okay? So, we can divide, so to speak, the senses in two groups, we can call the primary flavor senses, consummatory senses.

So, those senses are stimulated once the food or the drink is already in the mouth, so the act of actual consumption, okay? And then we have gestation. We have, what we call, somatosensory, oral somatosensory information. That's the oral tactile information responsible for mouth feel. And we have retronasal olfaction and we have the auditory consumption sounds as well. So, those are the consummatory senses. On the other hand, we have, what we call, anticipatory senses. The anticipatory senses are stimulated before the food or drink is placed in the mouth so they help building up our expectations to what is about to come, right? And then we have the senses of vision.

We have the orthonasal olfaction informing the brain about aromas. We have audition. So, audition, that's not really related to the food itself, during consumption, I mean. And we also have the haptic cues. The haptic information is actually any tactile information felt by the hands, okay? So, we can divide the flavor senses into consummatory senses and anticipatory senses. When these senses When the information from these senses is integrated by our brains, the brain will follow a rule, so to speak. That's called crossmodal correspondences. So, crossmodality is a phenomenon, okay? In which a attribute from one sensory modality, let's say color can influence the perception of an attribute from a unrelated maybe, a attribute from another sensory modality, let's say, taste.

So, we can have a color affecting the processing or the perception of an attribute that is in another sense. So taste. So, a certain color changing how we perceive a certain taste, okay? And regarding crossmodality, so we can say that we have this crossmodal bias, we get biased. So, a attribute from one sense can bias the way we perceive an attribute from another sense. And actually we can have this happening in two ways, okay? What we call subadditive and what we call super-additive. The subadditive type is when those two attributes actually, they do not match. So, something is presented to us like the example I give here in the slide.

So, we have a pink kind of a milk drink and it's actually bitter. So, when we drink that, it's bitter. So, what happens there? There is a break of expectation due to this mismatch of these two attributes, color and taste, okay? When we see something light pink, we do not expect that to be bitter, right? So, in this case, the product promised something and delivered something else. So, there is this mismatch and there is this break of expectation. Usually, consumers do not like when there is no fluency, when our expectations are are actually broken by these I promised something and I delivered something else.

On the other hand, we have the superadditive mode of crossmodal correspondences. And it happens when there is an expectation and the perception actually matches the expectation that was triggered by a attribute, in this case color. So, we have this pinkish, light pinkish drink and it's actually sweet. So, our expectations are fulfilled. And when it happens, the whole consumption experience is more pleasant. So, consumers like experiences that are superadditive with that are fluent for them, okay? And regarding this matching, one attribute matching an attribute from another sense, Um we can divide them into intrinsic and extrinsic product use, okay? So, when we talk about intrinsic product cues, Ahwe are talking about sources of information that physically belong to the product itself.

So, in this case, you're talking about a color of a product, just like the previous example. So, it's the color of the beverage itself, okay, so it's light pink. In this case, I just swapped the color of fat banana and a lime. Soit will be... So, the red belonging to the product itself and the purple belonging to the product itself. On the other hand, we have what we call, product extrinsic sources of information. They are somehow associated to the product, but it's not part of what's going to be consumed, okay? So, here we are talking about serving, we are talking about packaging, we are talking about any environmental sources of information, so where the product happens to be purchased or consumed, okay? So, they are all external sources of information, but they are somehow associated to the product itself.

And what are the main crossmodal correspondences when we talk about sensory perception of food, okay. So, I'm going to talk about the sensory crossmodal correspondences because we have other types. So, we have semantic crossmodal correspondence, for instance. But today, I'm going to talk about the sensory ones, okay? So, let's start with colors. So, there are colors that are associated or matched to certain basic tastes, okay? There are several studies showing that. And I'm going to present a review article that some summarized several results from studies that has been, that have been conducted since the 80s.

And we can see that the report, that the colors. red, orange, and pink are associated to the sweet taste.. And we can see yellow and green. more on a light green shade associated to sour,. then we have blue and white associated to salty.. And then we have black, brown, and green,. more of a dark shade associated to bitter, okay?. And in addition to color,. we also have the association between shape and taste.. And it's interesting to mention that. actually the first crossmodal effect ever described. was the association between geometrical shapes and sounds.. So, this German psychologist presented two geometrical shapes. to the participants in this test. and ask them to name these two shapes, okay?. So, if you were to call these shapes a name,. which one would be Bouba and which one would be Kiki?. And more than 95% of the participants.

Called the spiky or more angular geometrical shape Kiki. And they called the more round geometrical shape Bouba. And they say that the Kiki is a sharp sound. So, it should be matched to a sharp shape. And on the other hand, Bouba sounds around so it should be matched to a round shape. Yeah, so this is an example of a crossmodal effect between vision and audition. So, shape and sound, okay? But the And it's called BoubaKiki Effect. And this BoubaKiki Effect, today we know that we can extend it, okay, goes beyond this shape and sound, crossmodal correspondence. So, these two shapes, Kiki and Bouba, they have been associated to basic taste too, okay? So, Kiki has been associated to bitterness and sourness, okay, whereas, Bouba has been associated to sweet, to the taste sweet.

And I give examples of some experiments. The first one is the beetroot one. So, the researchers, they chopped the beetroot in two ways, more angular shapes and rounder shapes. And the participants perceived the rounder beetroot as being sweeter, okay, when compared to the sharp shaped ones. And their studies with chocolate showing that the more angular shape. can trigger the expectation of bitterness whereas the round shape can trigger the expectation of a sweet taste, okay? And there is this study with Latte art. They drew on top of a cappuccino, a Kikishaped Latte art or a Boubashaped Latte art.

And they reported that the participants perceived the Kiki shape on top of the Latte art as being more bitter. So, the cappuccino with that type of Latte art on top was perceived as being more bitter than the cappuccino with the rounder Latte art on top. So, what it has to do with specialty coffee or the cup in which we serve the specialty coffee? Well, this crossmodal correspondences or crossmodal associations, they have been reported to impact the expectation and also the actual flavor perception of several foods and several drinks including specialty coffee. So, I'm going to tell you the results of a few experiments we have done here in Brazil, testing the effect of the coffee cup on the expectation and perception of flavor.

So, several flavor attributes of specialty coffees, okay? So, let's get started with the color, the color of the cup. So, in this experiment we used four colors. Okay, so four cup colors. The white one that was my control cup. We also use the yellow cup, a green cup and a pink cup, okay? With the yellow and the green, we were expecting to trigger the expectation of sourness in the coffee. So, we hypothesized that we were going to see an increase of expectation of sourness. And the coffee that actually had this very vibrant sour note, acidic note, would be preferred, would be liked more when paired with these two cups.

And we hypothesized that the light pink cup would trigger the expectation of sweetness. So, the specialty coffee that have a very, very obvious sweet note, and it was like caramel, toffee kind of note, so dense and sweet. So, this coffee would be preferred, would be liked more when paired to the pink cup, right? So, this is it. We served two types, two coffee profiles in these four cups. So, one coffee was a Kenyan one, so very vibrant acidic fruity notes. And the other coffee was a Brazilian coffee with very obvious. The acidity was very low and very, very obvious notes going to this sweet notes.

So, brown sugar, caramel, butter toffee and all those dense and sweet notes. So, what did we see? We saw that, actually when the coffee was presented to the specialty coffee consumer during the experiment and we're presenting the coffee and the, using the light pink cup, we saw that the expectation of sweetness were higher. And we also saw that when we were presenting the coffee in the green cup, the expectations of sourness or acidity were higher, okay? Here in Brazil, actually the yellow cup worked for both, okay? So, the yellow cup increased, enhanced the expectations of both sweetness and acidity towards that coffee, okay? Here in Brazil we have several yellow sweet fruits.

So, it was nice to see that the results actually also depend of the culture, okay? So, we have a cultural effect as well on how people match colors and basic tastes, okay? And this yellow here was an example. And regarding their perception So, after they actually drank the coffee served to them, they reported that they liked more the Brazilian coffee when served in the pick when tasted from the pink cup and also when tasted from the yellow cup. So, the two colors that actually triggered the expectation of sweetness and they liked more of the Kenyan coffee when the Kenyan coffee was served from the green and the yellow cup.

So, these two colors also enhanced their expectations towards acidity and actually the coffee delivered that acidity and the coffee was liked more in these two conditions. So, moving on from the effect of cup shape on the coffee drinking experience. In this study here, we tested the three shapes developed by Tim Wendelboe from Oslo. So, the three shapes were the tulip shape, the open shape and the split shape. And in this study here we tested amateur consumers, but also professionals. And what we observed was that, for both groups, the tulip shape enhanced the perception of aroma of the coffee.

The split shape enhanced the perception of both sweetness and acidity in this coffee, okay? But when we have a look at the liking results, we can see that despite the split cup, had enhanced the perception of these two pleasant attributes of the coffee, sweetness and acidity. It was liked less, the coffee was liked less when tasted from the split cut. And when we had a look at the effect of expertise, so when we divided these two groups of participants, so the amateur consumers and the professionals, we saw that these low liking ratings come from the amateur consumers and not from the experts. And this is curious to think about.

This study was conducted here in Brazil. And to be honest, this split cup is very modern, we can say like that, we can define like that. This split cup is very modern. It has a very modern design from, for Brazilian consumers maybe, because I could hear that. I could hear people saying, oh, but she is serving coffee on a plant vase. So, it was like a flowerpot. So, people thought I was serving coffee in a flowerpot. So, what I did here without having the intention to do so was to add a subadditive element. You know, because flowerpots are for flowers they are not to They are not the perfect or the suitable vessel for me to serve coffee.

So, there was a mismatch. So, the perception was not fluent here, okay? So, this might have affect the liking ratings. And the third study I would like to share with you was the study about the cup texture, okay? So, for this study we used two coffee cups. One was the tulip cup from Tim Wendelboe. And we have a smooth surface in the outside and also the inside. And the other cup we served using a Loveramics cup. And this cup is rough on the inside wall and also the outside wall. In this study here, we wanted to test the effect of a smooth surface versus a rough surface on the coffee flavor perception, okay? In this study we also tested professionals and amateur consumers, okay? And these were the attributes we measured, okay? So, we asked them to tell us or to rate the aroma intensity

How sweet the coffee were to them, how acidic this coffee were to them. And we also asked them to rate the quality of the body using a scale going from smooth to dry, rough, and the quality of the aftertaste or the afterfeel, okay, so the mouth feel that stays in our mouth after swallowing the coffee or spitting it out. And again the scale goes from smooth to dry rough. And we can see the results here, okay? Regarding the professionals, we can see that the rough cup enhanced a little bit the perception of acidity. And for the amateur consumers, the smooth cup enhanced a little bit the perception of sweetness.

But if we look at the aftertaste results, we can see that for both groups, the professionals and the amateur consumers, the rough cup enhanced a lot the perception of roughness, of dryness in the aftertaste or afterfeel. So, the after taste of the coffee actually was impaired by this roughness of the outer surface of the coffee cup. And what we see here is what we call sensation transfer, okay? When we hold something with our hands that we call haptic sensation, okay? So, we have the tactile sensation felt by the hands that can be weight, that can be texture, in this case texture. So, this rough haptic information

Triggers the expectation of that, of something rough on my tongue, okay? And in this case of the rough surface of the cup So, we have the tactile sensation that's rough. And when we put the cup on the lips, we have the confirmation of the roughness on the lip. So, what we do here is kind of putting a magnifying glass on the roughness that is in the coffee. Every coffee is a little bit dry, okay? We have sensory components in the coffee that makes it a little bit rough, a little bit dry, okay? But it can be masked. This can be easily masked by several other attributes that are also in the coffee cup.

But when we put a magnifying glass on the roughness, we are going to perceive it, okay? So, what is happening here, we are going, we are enhancing the perception, the perception of an attribute that is present in the coffee cup already, okay? But otherwise it's not going really to be perceived as something really conspicuous in there. And it's very nice when we think about it applied, okay, to the coffee service. And I have the huge pleasure to work with two Baristas competing in the Barista's championships in their countries. The first one was Matt Winton back in 2018 when Matt created a multisensory routine.

And I was very happy to contribute to the creation of this multisensory routine. So, Matt talk about, thought about colors, textures, and sounds to match the courses of service. And he won the Swedish Barista Championship in that year. And the other Barista I was very happy to contribute was Daniele Ricci from Italy in 2020. So, Daniele also developed a multisensory routine. So, he paired sounds texture and colors with his courses and he won the championship as well. And it was a huge pleasure to contribute to both of them and really see how this crossmodal effects, how this multisensory aspect can actually effect how we perceive the flavoring coffee.

So, this is it. And I would like to finish by saying that, adding value to a product includes creating a experience of consumption, okay? It's not only about the intrinsic quality of the product itself, so the intrinsic quality of that coffee, but adding value. It's also about creating a experience of consumption, okay? So, we really have to think about that. As for wine, the specialty coffee industry should nurture from the academic research to really optimize and deliver a really engaging coffee drinking experience to the consumer, and that's it, thank you. Hmm. I have to talk to how to communicate specialty coffee in the best way for High Density 2022.

I have to start speaking English because my horrible English and Okay. Hi, guys! And welcome to High Density 2022. I'm Valentina Palange. I came from Italy. The cofounder of Specialty Pal. Yes, with the Specialty Pal, it's a communication project and we talk about specialty coffee and lifestyle. We are in two. You see me and there is another person, the name is Luca Rinaldi, is a photographer. He stays always behind the camera. I want to thanks the Batista League for inviting me. I'm here to give you suggestions and tips about how to communicate specialty coffee in the best way. High up to help you because, you know, it's like coffee, the social media word industry.

There are many opinions. So, this is my opinion. Let's start with the first tips and suggestion. Never take anything for granted. Never. Because many kind of topic can be obvious for you but it doesn't means that can be obvious for other people. So, when you start your business on social media, always ask to yourself which kind of audience is the best for me, which kind of topic I would like to talk about, the marketing positioning. It's very, very, very important to understand the way you have to take to get the best from social media. In my case, I start from the beginning. Coffees and the seed of a cherry because many people don't know anything about it.

And the second tip that I want to give to you is to be always yourself and follow the trends because now on Instagram like, TikTok, trends are very, very, very important. What they mean as trends, for example, a specific music on TikTok, the songs are super important and they are becoming important also in Instagram. Especially for 2022, there will be very important reels, videos, so use this kind of format and use like, songs that get viral or, for example, also voiceover and But remember, always be yourself because you have to put your personality. I think that personal branding in this time can be the "K" of your success.

Always, always remember to be yourself, to be creative and play. Play with your creativity. Don't be shy. For example, I create this character of grandma because you know, in Italy, there is a strong tradition about coffee and grandma is the one that that teach how to make coffee to the people, to the sons, to the daughters, to nephews. And I start with the Moka Pot. Grandma and tradition, for me, are Como se dice Mezzi. So, I take something of the tradition but I tell the innovation. The third tips that I give to you is to look. To look outside unique, okay? Look outside, look at what, for example, cosmetic industry are doing on social media.

Get inspired from other words, okay? Because you can bring what you learn into the coffee industry and make the difference. I remember and remember, be always kind with your community because community is the most important thing on social media. Without community, we are nothing because if we speak, if we talk, if we get viral, if we, if people following us is because they love us and they trust in us and they are the engine of our communication. So, community is very important. Take care of it and be always kind and always kind, always kind. Okay, sorry for my English. And I hope that this suggestion can be useful for you.

If you have some questions, you can ask to me. You can write me through DM on Specialty Pal on Instagram. It will be a pleasure to answer you. So, have a nice day and bye! Hi, everyone! I'm Casey from Girls Who Grind Coffee. Thank you so much for having me today. It's such an honor to talk to you. So, I love the idea of "Beyond the Bag" because it girls who grind coffee, that's what we're all about. So, I asked a lot about how we find the producers that we work with and how we decide to buy certain coffee. So I thought I would take this opportunity to talk a little bit about that. So, the coffee that I've chosen for you today is called Las Guerreras, which means warrior.

It's produced by three women who live in Guerrero, which is a state in Mexico. So, firstly, I met Ensembles, their organization who we have bought the coffee through. I attended a virtual origin trip of theirs that they did a little while back and I was just immediately drawn to their ethics and their holistic approach to coffee. Laura from Ensembles, who I believe is speaking at the event today, hopefully, you can check her out. She asked if we would be interested in buying this coffee produced by these three women. And obviously, we were. So, when I'm looking at buying a coffee, we have certain criteria.

We don't just buy coffee based on cut profile alone. We aren't looking to just fill a menu and are offering, we want to actively support organizations, projects, and individuals who are actively working to break down barriers for women, and most importantly, provide them with access to tools and education that they need to be able to empower themselves. So, this coffee does just that. The three producers live in an area where the odds are against them. Crime is high. Human trafficking is a sad reality. And in some of the villages, a high proportion of the male population leave to find work in the north.

So, this leaves women vulnerable and without many opportunities to make a living. So, nearly 100% of the coffee produced in this area is bought by one single company at very low prices as you can imagine. And because of the violence and crime in the area, not many businesses are willing to invest there. Ensembles wanted to change this so they started a coffee project. And they're providing education and training to women in the area so they can produce quality coffee. They're actively breaking down barriers and trying to fix a very broken system that hasn't been working for a long time. We've recently received quite an emotional video from Rebecca, who is the daughter of Bernardino, one of the producers of this coffee.

She wanted to tell us how proud she is of her mom. How this project has given her a bit of peace in her life and now that she can see who is buying her coffee and how much we're enjoying it. She feels valued. And I think that's very important. So, this coffee, for me, highlights the positive change that we need to see happen in our industry. Organizations like Ensembles that we need to support because they're bringing value to people's lives. And I think it's so important to ask questions about where your coffee comes from because the value system does not work for so many people, so it's so important that we make informed decisions when we're buying our coffees.

So, I hope you enjoyed this coffee as much as we do. And I hope you've learned a little bit. Thanks so much for watching! Bye! Hi, I'm Emma and I am an SCA AST tea and coffee consultant. I work with clients to support the start and the growth of their businesses. And I'm Brook, a qualified interior designer. I support our clients by bringing their cafe visions to life. We worked for Caffeina Consulting, a seed to cup coffee training and consultancy company based in the UK. And today we would like to show you some of the design and planning stages we go through for our cafe clients. Very often we will be approached by someone who has a vision or an idea, but they are not sure where to begin.

Our job starts by helping them ensure that they have considered all aspects. Sometimes this means they change their mind about their idea once they realise how involved the project needs to be or they shelve it whilst they go back and source additional funding, or they may even go back to the drawing board about something like their location. For those that want to proceed, we start by helping them extract their concept, we work through their initial thoughts which includes thinking about their location, their brand, their format and their style. And from a design perspective, I always start by asking for inspirational images, maybe some on site photos or some images that branding that they've collected along the way.

Thinking about, what kind of style do they like? Have they already thought about their brand? If they aren't sure, I strip it back even further and start to identify what they really don't like because then we can work out what to avoid. I often find it easier for people to tell me what they don't like rather than what they do. Another great place for people to start is Pinterest because of them they can collect their different ideas and images, and this is also a platform I can help collaborate on. I also start to pull images from their Pinterest boards to bring together more a cohesive design and branding style.

So, whilst Brook and client are thinking about the initial design ideas, I get to work trying to understand what the function of the cafe will be. I'll ask questions such as whether or not they have thought about their coffee supplier already or what kind of menu they want, et cetera. From that, I can start to understand what type of vibe we're going for. Is it a speciality cafe with a focus on the coffee menu or maybe it's a lunch destination with a full kitchen and chef, or perhaps it's a grab and go concept or something that needs to transition from day to night seamlessly. Once we start to understand all of this, Brook then creates a mood board to present to the client which we'd like to start by showing you.

So, we're going to go through a few different mood boards that we've done for previous clients. So, this first one was a former industrial warehouse in Belfast, which is really a nice project to work on, had really high ceilings to make a dramatic statement and the client wanted to maintain the heritage while warming up the large space with colour and texture. So, you can see we've kept the texture is quite basic in a way, almost sort of stripping it back, but then adding, you know, the levers, the velvet and then just those little design details. So, they wanted to keep the exposed brick and maybe quite a raw finish on the bar.

And then we also like to think about how maybe the menu could look and little touches like that. That's just all in the sort of initial stages. This is a project that is due to open any day now. Um so the client come to us with very strong ideas about what they wanted, which was amazing, then they had an excellent eye for detail which allowed me to create some really nice touches within the full design. We needed to contrast the Burling inspired industrial feel with luxurious fabrics, dark warm words to create a, you know, a moody atmosphere, day or night. It was just two storey multi purpose space with different styles in the different areas.

So, the whole whole site needed to fly. OK, so after the mood board is agreed in principle, now bear in mind it is flexible at this stage and open to updates as the project develops. We start to look at spatial planning. If the client has already found the space we can begin immediately. If they haven't, we often help them look at layouts before they commit to the lease or sale of a property. Some clients will come to us just for this part and not for the whole project. We try to be flexible and allow as many stand alone services as we can, as not everyone needs help along the whole journey. Spatial planning for me is a crucial part of the design process to enable us to get the best use of space.

I use a program called AutoCAD to work up a few different variations of layouts. We work to scale, which also helps because the client can usually see how many covers they're going to get in and if that fits with their business plan. And this, I would usually do in conjunction with Emma, so that we know that the flow of workspace actually works within the bar or, you know, kitchen area. So, here you can see, we have two examples of layouts for a multi use space. We created these for client from the original plans they got from the landlord. We gave them several different proposals which they considered before they even sign the tenancy.

This is a really great way to see potential and to work out the number of covers before you commit like, Brook mentioned. It also allows us to really give them an understanding about just how much space you need in places like, you know, behind the bar or in order for customers to be seated, because I think sometimes people don't understand just how much space they actually need to allow. So, this is an example of a lighting design we've done previously for a bar. It definitely has a lot going on and a lot of detail in it. So, I colour coded the drawings and highlighted it to make it easier for the electrician on site.

So, these just to give you a bit an example 'cause you can't see it too much here, but they all have different numbers and letters on them and that will be corresponding to a sheet that actually gives out as a part of the final design pack. So, then if you drop down into the colour coding, this then specifies what switches are going on. So, to make sure that the electrician is wiring them correctly and so that the client has the flexibility to zone different areas and to, you know, use dimmers to turn war lights down, but the pendant lights up for instance. So, it gives you a little bit more flexibility and, you know, exactly what you're getting and there's no sort of surprises.

So, I find it always helps to provide these highly detailed plans. So, the contractors are on site and they're happy, ultimately. Now, it's really essential to have these plans in place because they can be the difference between a client signing for a space or not. Also a drawing pack will be needed for planning applications and for the contractor to cost and build from. So, once the initial layouts are agreed Brook will get to work with the mechanical and electrical drawings and things like the lighting plans as you've just seen, as well as everything else that's needed for the local planners.

So, as well as all the layout and M&E drawings, I also have to create lighting specification, tile plans, and flooring options. I also design any purpose built furniture and the coffee bar itself. If we're working with a kitchen contractor or a Joanna, I usually assist them too. So, this is just another example of an elevation of how the conduit and the wall lights were planned within the space. So, these were bare walls, which is where you can see all the sort of industrial conduit details. So, once we move on to looking at the bar layout, we really need to have a good idea about the menu dependent on available space.

So, for example, do they have a separate kitchen or not? The bar can look and feel very different. At this point, we must ensure that we think about function as well as beauty. How can we create a great work flow that is ergonomic and comfortable for staff as well as something that has maximum wow factor for customers? The specification of coffee equipment can really help here. Can we consider an espresso machine and grinder that works as a centrepiece? Perhaps we could have a bespoke colour or bespoke panel on the equipment to help it really fit the brand identity. We also really need to incorporate the customer experience.

We have to think, do we want bar service or table service? Will we have a large morning rush from commuters? Do we have any potential for any bottlenecks? Can we accommodate additional queuing space if we were to face further COVID restrictions? So, here you can see in this plan, this shows the type of detail we go into when laying out the bar. Usually, this is also sense checked by another of our colleagues Chris, who has experience at management level within the industry. Between us, we make sure we consider the customer and the staff and we try our best to cover every eventuality. So, at this point we're really making sure that the beauty and the function really match.

How can we maintain the design? How can we ensure that everything looks just so and provides the best customer experience whilst being really functional for staff to use? This bit usually excites the whole team is how we can really start to visualise the way the space will look and work. Clients can finally see how their ideas are looking. And it has also proven useful for those with investors as it feels a bit more tangible. Don't be threatened to make your equipment part of the design. Without your coffee machine, you cannot function as a cafe. So, don't hide it away, choose something that first and foremost does the job.

But experiment with the design of it. Most modern espresso machines look great and put in a contemporary statement on the bar, really does accept customers. The other thing to note here is that storage is also always a big issue. Design it in from the ground up if you can, a clever use of space is to incorporate hidden cupboards within clear sight. Class E space comes at a cost premium, especially in city centres. So, double up and utilise every area you can using retail display areas with concealed storage behind as you can see in this image here with the treat poor selfsection. It can be topped up after the store closes and can help lessen the load in your dry goods areas behind the bar.

So, as you can imagine, getting the design signed off by the client is just the beginning. We try to work with an experienced contractor where possible, but whoever is in charge of the site work needs to fully comprehend the scope of work, regular site meetings are essential. Making sure that the initial design is stuck to or by making any alterations if needed. It's not unusual for issues to crop up once work starts on site. The key to handling this is to making sure communication is great between the whole team. By the time ground is broken on site, the Caffeina Team have usually started work in the background, on building the brand, creating policies and procedures, thinking about food safety and recruitment.

Alongside this, we are usually building out a training package, working on food and beverage supplies and sourcing equipment. If there is a delay on site, then we must communicate that to everybody within the team because otherwise we could end up inadvertently causing extra problems. Sometimes we like to bring in specialists to work on a project, so we must keep them upto-date with any changes on site. This could include timings and sizes, for example, bringing in a specialist can really create something special but just make sure that whatever they proposes function within the design. This will mean running past Emma and the team to make sure we don't cause any issues from an operational perspective.

Here are a few of the examples of what we've worked with in the past and this was a beautiful mural, sort of, taking you down the stairs to a membersonly area. In the next slide, we have, again, another mural a little bit softer and sort of wrapping around the whole room, and to the right, you can see, these are actually hand painted decors on the window which reflected back to the branding. And then, this is So, this is the visual that we previously showed you. This is Romeo and Juliet. And we got the machine and grinder sprayed off site, of course, with a specialist in the pink and gold branding, detailed colours.

So, it becomes a, sort of, a real wow factor in the space and the customers love it. And it's almost come apart of their brand identity as a whole actually. Yeah, it feels like this one has become the world's most instagrammed coffee machine because everybody who walks in the site immediately takes a photograph of it. So, it's really, really has got that wow factor. This is also one of my absolute favourites. So, this is a stained glass window that we commissioned. The middle section is David Bowie, for those of you that haven't picked that up, with angels sort of running around him. So, this is in a recording studio in the basement, of a project that soon to be released.

So, very exciting. So, before we finish up on site, obviously we need to really think about the final, the opening. So, it's, it can feel like the beginning of something huge for the client. But for us, it says we are starting to kind of finish up. As we creep towards the final stages of the project, it's really vital that we keep our eye on everything. Just going back to one of the things that Brook was mentioning about specialist contractors, you need to be really careful that anything extra that you've had in that is perhaps outside of your remote or outside of your control, you really give consideration to because some materials are not suitable for use in certain areas.

So, you could go to get final sign off from somebody like building control or have a visit from an environmental health officer and find out that actually some of the materials used by the specialist contractors weren't actually suitable. You also have to really think about things like food safety and cleaning and, you know, constantly assessing how you're going to minimise risk to any staff or customers. You know, if you've designed a kitchen space at home, it's really different cooking an evening meal to designing something that's perhaps going to have 6 or 8 or 10 staff members in one area. So, we really have to think about that.

So, some of the things that we would recommend is as you are thinking about opening, you know, stress test everything. If you think your electrician has signed everything off, go round to test it all again anyway. Make sure that you're checking things like drainage before your contractors leave site. We highly recommend having a soft opening with family and friends because that allows staff to test the flow of the space and it gives you time to make any last minute adjustments before you open for good. And it's also nice to allow a bit of flexibility with regards to furniture, plant placement and styling as a whole.

It really adds to your brand and gives you that feel as soon as you walk into the space. So, it can't be left to last minute but equally, it's nice to consider it once everything's in and you can see it all. Um This is often a bit where Brook and I will go around and have a final, you know, adjustment when we have seen how people have operated in the space and the way that people are actually enjoying the space and the way that staff are using it. And then we are able to go back and kind of assess and think OK before we've, you know, done, how can we, you know, improve this space, what can we move around? How can we adjust it slightly? Now, we'd love to continue talking about this for hours on end but sadly our time is almost up.

So, I would like to say a big thank you for tuning in and invite you to reach out if you have any questions. If it's coffee related, I'm here to answer them. If its design related Brook's certainly will. Speak to you soon. All right guys, thank you for tuning in. This is Barista League, High Density 2022! Whoo! Whoo! And those of you who don't know me, my name is Piyapat, AKA DQ Fluky flook! Whoawhoa-whoa, wow! Today, I'm gonna show you guys how to choose the milk jug. But before we get started, you shout out to our sponsor Chobani NonDairy Oat Milk. Huge shout out to our sponsor Chobani NonDairy Oat Milk.

Speaking about milk jug, there are so many milk jugs right now on the internet. So, today, I'm gonna show you guys how to pick the best one for you. But before we get started, let's talk about what is difference between each other milk jug, right? Number one, the most important part before you're getting a milk pitcher is you need the one that you feel really comfortable using it. Not the more expensive one, not the coolest one, or not the sharpest one that you can buy, but you need the one that you feel really comfortable using it. But honestly, this look pretty hard. How are you gonna know before you're buying it or getting it, right? So, let's keep this hard

Wow! Number two, the size. There are so many different sizes of pitcher on the internet, and also, different person have a different size of the hand. For example, I'm gonna put a big hand, I can use really, really small pitcher, but some people use it really well. So, I personally prefer the big pitcher. Even though I put in a small cup, the big pitcher is better for my hand and I feel really comfortable using it. That's why the size also is pretty important. And also, the size of the drink determined the size of the new jug as well. For example, if you want to make a latte, right, let's go with 16 oz or 12 oz latte, you cannot see in the middle in here because you won't have enough milk for your drink.

So, the size of your drink also related to the size of the jug. It's a good one. Number three, handle. So, different pitcher also have a different type of handle. So, this one, you can actually see it, take a little closely. They are like a pretty triangular shape. And also, this one if you compare side by side, you see? This one, it does a little bit longer than this one. So, different handle also change different way of handling. So, the most important question is how you handle a pitcher. Number four, and this is gonna be the last thing that I'm gonna talk about today is the shape of the spout.

So, different pitcher also have a different shape on the market right now. You can actually see some of them look like a "V" like this. So, this one little, actually a little sharper, right? And I also have this one that actually looked like a round spout. So, are these specific spouts will provide you a different type of flow? It will be thicker flow, thinner flow, really sharp like charity, so it depends on you what kind of flow that you feel really comfortable using it, and what do you want the result is come out. All right, let's move on to the pouring. But before we start pouring, I want to eliminate the area that could happen in my pour.

So today, I'm gonna cut out some factor that can actually affect my pour. First of all First of all, the cup. So today, I use 7 ounce cup. Second one, milk. Of course, what do you expect? Chobani NonDairy Oat Milk. Number three, espresso. So today, I'm gonna use seasonal holidays espresso from Coffee Project New York "Crowd Pleaser". And number four, the milk foam. So today, I'm gonna use a technique milk transferring by steaming only in one jug and then I'm gonna pour to this to milk pitcher. So, by using this technique is allowing me to get the same amount of foam and exact amount of liquid in two pitchers.

All right, guys, let's get started. You guys can come over here and take a look at my latte. All right, guys, so first of all, I'm gonna use these two pitchers, which is pretty much the same size, but different spout. All right, one of them is my personal pitcher, nasty jug and another one is brand revolution from our sponsor Chobani. All right, let's go. So, we're gonna handle this out. Amazing. All right, guys, let's move on to the second round. So, this round I'm gonna review the jug size a little bit. So, I got these two jugs from the same brand, the BUPM. But they are completely different shape of the jug.

You can take a look closely. All right, now you got it. All right, let's gets started. All right, let's start with this one. And that's all for today. Thank you, guys, for watching. Thank you, Barista League, for having me. Thank you, Academy of Coffee Project, to letting us use this nice and beautiful space to filming this video. And I hope you guys liked it and enjoy it. See you next time. My name is Tonny Gitonga from Nairobi, Kenya. And I'm super excited to be with you today. So I also glad you're off to a great start and as you're taking all the precautions that we are being advised to. So today, I'm going to talk about how roasting effects of brew and I'll also share a few documents attached to these videos so that you can always refer to them whenever you want to get a deeper understanding.

Now to start off, I'll talk a bit about the solubility in coffee, which is basically the speed at which water is able to dissolve coffee compounds. Light roasts are less soluble unlike that roasts which tend to be more soluble. This is because during the roasting process. There's an expansion in volume that takes place in the bean, meaning that the expansion in dark roasts has really developed and complete. That's the easy solubility. So as you can see from my display over here, we started off with the same ones. From the green all the way to the longest profile where you see that the volume in the longest profile is much more compared to the green one.

So this really explains how the expansion in volume of the bean during the roasting process works. Now we move forward to the grind tense. Light roasts are much more suitable to be brewed using a finer grind compared to a dark roast which will work best with the coarse grind. This is because dark roasts are more, sometimes, tend to be bitter and what you're trying to do is reduce the contact time between the water and the coffee to reduce the bitterness. Now we move forward to the water temperature, that roasts will best brew on lower temperatures. And which automatically tells that that light roasts will best prove with hot water which recommended temperature is around 1926 degree Celsius.

And actually, this is why cold brew have no bitterness but are super sweet and have a really balanced acidity. Organic acids are more pronounced in light roasts and could bring about the taste like that of unripe fruits when it's too light. These organic acids are transformed to nonorganic acids like, formic, acetic, and quinic in darker roasts. And this is due to the Maillard reaction during the roasting process. So as you can see from that discussion, your choice of roast parameters could really affect how you brew your coffee, and of course, the taste in the cup. Now we try to push this conversation further.

My friends and I are decided to get into this little experiment where we took coffee from Burundi, same farm, different processes. So I have a natural on my right and washed on my left. We subjected this coffee to different roast parameters. First crack, one, we need development, and of course, second crack, which could be a representation of a dark roast. For all these coffees, we started off with 60 grams weight because we did the roasting on any cover, later on, exported this information to crops, just to get a more fulfilling document which was shareable now with you today. So starting off with a natural first crack.

As I mentioned, we started off with 60 grams and had 53.1 grams at the end of the roast, which was 11.5% weight loss. Agtron as you can see, it's really light in the cup was 95. And for the taste notes, we had citrus fruits, you know, like a really raw lemon. It was juicy, funny enough, but it was also very dry with some tannins. Now moving forward, trying to compare that with the washed, we started off with 60 grams, as I mentioned, and had 54.2 grams at the end, which was 9.67% weight loss. Agtron, as a natural, was 95, which is really light, as you can see. I'm pretty sure you can see that. And for the taste notes, similar this, we had the dry tannin, really, you know, acidic and high, high, high acidity.

And then we move forward to the one minute development which could be a representation of a medium, medium roast for us today. And here, we had for the natural, for the natural, we had 13.17% weight loss which was 52.1 grams at the end of the roast. For the Agtron, we had 75, as you can see it's much more, it has more colors than the light roasts. And then we did For the taste notes, we had some really nice black tea, citrus notes like, those of sweet orange. We also got an amazing mouth feel, medium acidity. So it was really pleasant and fulfilling, and that's for the natural. We actually had a pineapple in that as well.

I almost forgot that. And then we did Baroni washed for the one minute development. We had 52.7 grams at the end, which was 12.17 weight loss. And then we had a color change at 26 seconds. You know, 75 Agtron, similar to the natural. And for the flavors, we had citrus fruits, fresh, really juicy, tropical foods like those of pineapples similar to the natural. I think it's because of the farm. So moving forward to the dark roast, as always, we started with 60 grams and had 50.4 grams at the end of the roast which was 16% weight loss. For the Agtron, we had 65. And as you can see, it's really, really dark compared to the first two.

So for flavor, it was really It had quite a lot of bitterness. It had a black tea kind of a taste and a bit you could really get some overturns of smokiness of small loads of smokiness, so at the end of it because it's not really, really dark, super dark. And so that's for the natural. So we moved to the washed. We had 52 grams at the end of the roast which was 13.3% weight loss, 65 Agtron compared to the Natural is quite similar. Was really smoky. We also had a dry and bitter taste towards the end. And that really explains a lot on how different roast parameters bring out different aspects in the coffee.

And this was an experiment that we tasked ourselves to do. We'd have chosen to just talk about it and, you know, explain and everything. But I figured my friends and I that sharing more details and actually doing the experiment would also help us understand more the points that we were talking about previously. So that's it for today. And to get this information, as I mentioned earlier, we have these documents shared on the video just on Instagram. And you can also find me on Instagram at iamtony. Where else can you find me? Yeah, Instagram can do. And I really hope to see you soon. Thank you so much. And chowchow.

Thank you to, Barista League and High Density, for inviting me to talk at this conference. My name is Camilla Morgan and I'm Sales Manager for Victoria Arduino in the UK. I'm also a CA Community Coordinator and Outgoing Chairperson for the Kore Directive. And it's my experience with the Kore that I want to share with you today. Hopefully, these tips in there for your own project or organisation, you might find useful as I share a journey with you. We have achieved so much in the last few years building up our community by connecting with people working in our industry. It's not been easy. However, could work rarely is.

The Kore Directive is a womenled initiative founded in 2018, seeking inclusivity, equity, and empowerment for women working in the coffee industry. We also included by marginalised individuals seeking a supportive voice and a safe space. When Sierra Yeo founded the Kore, she had had identified a gap and sought to fill it. If you want to start a movement of your own, this is a good place to start. Find your audience by identifying either a gap, what good you can achieve and your purpose. Our purpose was to create a place where we can all be heard, grow, and network safely without prejudice. When the Kore Directive started out, Yeo hosted sold out events like the Zero Waste Latte Art Evening, which I would like to add the Kore created and Yeo since taken off as a global format.

Yeo hosted mental health panel talk, which I attended as a guest and it was a moving evening and packed to the rafters. There was cupping evening at assembly, coffee roasters, and learning opportunities like technical machine knowledge sessions, I hosted one of those sessions at Victoria Arduino showroom, given a mythos one, grind and maintenance training for Kore women in October 2019. It's after this event that I got more involved. The Kore was going to be disbanded early 2020, but then something happened that made us want to connect with each other again. COVID19 lock down. Hospitality went into a free fall so we had to get involved and help the community stay sane.

So, what did we do? We formed a committee by the help of our community, held elections, and then we got to work. We had already built up a strong presence on Instagram, and it was through this network, we promoted a weekly Zoom chats and invited coffee professionals from anywhere in the world to connect with us. We became a social support group to each other during these dark months. It was a lifeline. We then started to Thema Talks by changing the conversation topic. We posted each week to let everyone know what the next topic would be. We covered everything, all sorts of mental health, imposter syndrome, being green in coffee, gender equity at work, cancel culture.

List is long. You can go to our Instagram and see all the topics for yourself. We also invited people to communicate with us on WhatsApp, which was an easy way to connect with each other during the week. But when you have over 200 active members and several different topics of conversations, all running at once, it became so hard to follow. Also, if you've been away for your phone for more than, let's say, a day, expected to be many, many messages missed and too many to catch up on at times. So, we knew that this was an effective way to communicate with each other. We knew that we had to move our talks to different platforms so we searched and considered plenty of different options.

However, there were more businessled rather than communityled. So, we eventually found this group chatting out called Discord, which I can recommend. There you can have several different topics and conversations running on different channels and then you can direct message to, having an effective communication hub is essential. Make sure you find what's right for your group, things evolve and change and it's important that you change with it. As an organisation, we haven't shied away from the difficult topics surrounding racism and sexism either. It's important you use your voice when you have it.

In summer 2020, we coordinated an Instagram campaign focused on accountability and antiracism embodied by the #coffeecantbecolorblind. On course Instagram, we published redacted testimonies and had several conversations about discrimination in the workplace. Many of them were conducted offline for privacy, but most of all for support. And in the wake of Sarah Everard's murder, we had lengthy and deep discussions with our community about sexism, misogyny, and how men can help women and minorities feel safe. Difficult by important conversations for change. We hosted another successful Zoom Talk on this very topic.

This is ongoing work which is necessary even beyond the coffee industry. So, keeping people engage with these conversations will always be relevant. At Cafe Culture, which is a coffee trade show in London, we've got an amazing opportunity to host a fullday of talks at their people in culture stage. It was an incredible opportunity to get voices heard and raise issues and topics not normally covered at these type of events. We had a brilliant turnout and we were supported by some incredible panellists. We were keen to offer a platform to people who may have never had the opportunity to speak on a talk stage before.

It was challenging event to be involved in as we did run it on a shoestring. But if you believe in your cause, find new platforms to share your message, asking people in charge of these events for inclusion might be of added value to not only to you, but also for them. For them, you can get something, both of you can get something out of it, but most will ask, it might be scary, but stay focused on your goal, aim high and beyond. That's where our next journey takes us. At the beginning of the pandemic, I got the call from Emma Haines at Caffeina Consulting, telling me about coffee association by AfroColombian women from Wartown in Colombia called ASEM.

Her friend Catalina Gutierrez from Cata Exports had found this brilliant coffee grown by one of these women, Gusteifa Carabelle. This coffee had never been sold outside of Columbia before. Usually was sold to the Colombian Coffee Federation for a much lower price than what it deserved. The coffee was good and we managed to get hold of three sacks of coffee parchments. A positive initiative was just what was needed to bring people together. Well, I can say is joined these very dark times and in turn help make a difference for these marginalised Colombian women. Several roasters got involved and supported a project with the time, effort, and packaging.

Profits are got reinvested into these women's coffee farms with the aim to grow better coffee year on year. Thanks to everyone who bought Luis' coffee. You can make a positive impact even beyond your shores. You can also collaborate with other likeminded organisations. At Manchester Coffee Festival, we collaborated on a Sierra's events with Bean Voyage who are a feminist nonprofit social enterprise in Costa Rica, on a mission to eradicate a gender gap in farming communities. We hosted a Pura Vida Party. So, Pura Vida is a Costa Rican expression referring to way of life. We hosted talks an online Zoon capping event with producer women in Costa Rica.

They spoke so candidly about their challenges and experience with such care and passion. I was moved to tears. I found the call so touching and inspiring. I've decided to personally work and support Bean Voyage and their producer women from here in the UK. I'm also half Costa Rican on my mother's side so there is a deeper connection there. Building a community isn't easy. When you find a common passion and working towards a goal with inspiring people, willing to invest the time for the greater good, it's worth to sweat and the tears. Our aim is to be worldfocused and you can find the Kore Directive on Instagram where you can DM us to ask for a Discord invite.

Our website is thekoredirective.co.uk Engage with your community and you can achieve great things. Hi, I'm James Harper and I create a podcast that I think you might like called filter stories. It's in that kind of BBC documentary, NPR style show where I travel the world to explore the stories around coffee that no one wants to talk about too much. You can find Filter Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. How to start and build a personal brand that feels authentic to you and your followers? For those of you who are wondering who I am. I run a website and blog about coffee lifestyle and travel called The Girl in the Cafe.

I'm also an actress model produced films, create content, consult cafes, and brands on strategies. I test a lot of coffee equipment as well. And I also have my own brand of The Girl in the Cafe coffee beans, which I collaborate with the ground coffee society here in London supplying cafes, homes, production companies, and offices. And I originally came to London from New Zealand via Melbourne, Australia where I have been in the specialty coffee industry for over 15 years as a barista in some of the world's top artisan cafes. So, I've learned and experienced a lot in my coffee journey. I have since developed a business that I'm still exploring that encompasses everything that I love, which is film, media, people, and of course, coffee.

I originally got my moniker from working at one of the first artisan and Tibetan London Cafe School, Flat White here in London, Soho, where I kept bumping into people who would only recognize me as The Girl in the Cafe, the girl who basically made the coffee. They didn't know my name. So, that's why it became my moniker. And one of the things I unintentionally and eventually, intentionally created was a personal brand. When I started posting on Instagram, my journey of a project that I was embarking on, I wanted to create an audience for my web series. It was relatively organic, but there are definitely some things that I wish that I had thought through more specifically and consciously when and before I started, which I want to share with you today.

To be honest, it goes through phases which reflect my life and the phases that I'm going through. I guess, which is one of the difficulties and the beauties of building a personal brand on your own, but that's what it's all about. And it's also about enjoying the process. So, let's define what is a personal brand. A personal brand tells others what kind of person, product, or company you are and represents your values and what you believe in. A successful brand communicates this through a mix of perception and reality. I believe one without the other will make the brand fall flat. So, why do you want to have a personal brand? This is something that everybody should think about.

These are some of the other strategic reasons why you might be wanting to establish a personal brand or a brand identity. Showcase your barista skills, you wanted to help you get a better job, to help others know about product or service you are offering, to create more opportunities, differentiate yourself or tell or share a story or a journey. Enhance your expertise. Make a change, build a community. People who relate to what you communicate will want to be a part of it and that's where you're following in your audience will grow. I would suggest that you think about this and that you choose maybe two or three points of what I just shared to focus on, at least, in the beginning.

Whatever the reason, if you create a personal brand with intention and purpose, it will broaden your learning and experiences. You'll meet interesting people and you can create a lot more opportunities for yourself. So, let's get into it. How to start a personal brand? Established a name for yourself. Usually in an area of expertise or interest like, coffee or some aspect of it, I'm assuming that most of you are in the coffee industry, maybe you're really good at something or you like, you enjoy latteart, for example, or you might not even be that good at something. So, just choose something that you're interested in exploring, even if you're not good at it yet? Journey, this will inform your brand story and support credibility.

What are you passionate about? Who or what do you support? What are your beliefs? What has your journey been or what is your current journey? What is your bio, what are the things that you have actually done and achieved? What problem do you solve or do you want to solve? These are really important questions to ask yourself. The next one is skills. What are your skills? Are they strong? Do you have qualifications? Are they credible? Do you have credible testimonials? What's your personality? What are your passions and your interests and what makes you uniquely you? Image and reputation. Your content needs to show an appearance of this and everything you communicate, but it's also got to be based on authenticity.

One of the things I would really recommend is choosing three pillars. This was really a game changer for me. When I started to really look at my personal brand intentionally rather than just kind of doing it willynilly, I chose three pillars and these were to inspire, educate or entertain. So, any picture that I posted or any kind of content that I posted had to fit into one of those three categories. So, if it was a picture of my cat, I would have to ask myself, does it fit into the category of, does it inspire, does it educate, does it entertain? If it didn't fall into either of these categories, then I wouldn't include it because that wouldn't have been part of my, The Girl in the Cafe, personal brand.

With my coffee stuff, if I was maybe writing a tip about grinding coffee or how to extract coffee or a fact about coffee, that would fit into my educate pillar. And so that was really easy for me to identify that that would be a good post for my The Girl in the Cafe brand to post on social media. But you can choose your own pillars that means something to you. It will make the practicality of posting social content so much easier. Okay, let's get into goals. And you can refer to the "why" segment as well. What are these goals? Is it to have fun, make money, be popular? Who is your target audience? What do you already specialize in or want to specialize in? Do you want to make a living from your personal brand? And I've left the most important till last.

These are values. Have a really good think about it. What are your values? What inspires you? Try to look inwards to yourself or what the brand is going to be built on. Not only know your value, but also create value for your audience and followers. This is really, really important. Whether it's a personal brand or another brand. I know quite a few brands, like specifically what I'm thinking of is a clothing brand. It's an indie brand, it is selling, you know, a few units already online. It's relatively new. But the problem was the founder and the director of the brand kept asking me, you know, why, who is my audience? Like, why are people not

Like, why is it not going off, like flying off the shelves? So, I told him who I thought his audience was and who his buyers were. And for him, I think it was really difficult because he had a different idea of who his buyers were. It was who he wanted them to be, not who they actually were. So, you need to When you're thinking about your audience, you need to think about who your audience is and it's usually the It's usually you when you started your business or it's usually you when you start to create your personal brand. So, you know, because you're talking to people like yourself basically.

And you're answering questions or exploring things that people. who are similar to you are actually exploring. or want to explore to.. You're the one that's sort of that has the courage. to actually talk about it and go there.. So, that's one of the things that I would also suggest that you look at. when you're thinking about who your audience is.. But, you know, in terms of values,. one of the things that this particular example that I'm thinking of,. the reason why he was having such a sort of struggle. trying to create his messaging for his brand. was because I don't actually think he knew really who he was. or what he was trying to do other than really like make money. and do something cool. or have something that sort of looks good. in this sort of following trends in a way or following sort of messages.

Isn't really that authentic,. if it doesn't really come through from you.. Hopefully, if he can figure out who he is,. what the values of either him or the brand.. And I think that that kind of really interconnected.. Like, you can't really have someone. that thinks one thing or values one thing. and then, you know, tries to sell a brand on. or an item or a product with a different message.. It's gonna be really difficult.. So, you want your, whether it's a brand or product or a service or whatever it is,. I think the values need to be in line because they are really interconnected.. So, really, that's why I'm going through all of this stuff. because I think it is part of the process of making the overall process. and the long life of your personal brand much,. much easier because you can always come back.

To these sort of foundations. So, it seems like a lot at the moment that I'm going through, but, you know, it's quite confronting. So, it will take a bit of courage and a bit of vulnerability. So just, just trust me on this. It'll be regardless of whether you start a personal brand or not, it's gonna be beneficial for you anyway. So, things that help, it's being relatable, real and authentic are really, really important. It's gonna require you to be vulnerable like, I said before, and should translate through into your website, your logo, your social media from photos to captions that reflect an authentic you.

I actually had an experience recently where I was pitching something. and it went really, really well and they said, "Oh yeah, just send over,. you know, a couple of pages to, you know, explain what,. what we've just talked about.". And I said, "Yeah, that's fine.. I had some, I had a word document basically. and I just sort of added a few things and put a couple of pictures in.". And I sent it actually to my film. A very good friend who happens to be a film director. and he does pictures and things that they call "treatments". for like commercials and stuff.. And he emailed me back and he said,. "So, the words reflect, you know, who you are. and like what the project is about.". But he just said, he said,. but the whole document does not reflect who you are,. what you do or your brand at all. And I was just, you know,.

And when I looked at it was terrible. It was a word document. The photos weren't even in the right place and it was all a little bit rough. It was a lot. It was really bad actually. And I was really grateful to him to sort of say this to me. And he was like, "You know, because your website is so good, you've done so many great things. You've worked with amazing people, you work with amazing brands, you've done all this stuff, when I look at these two pages, it looks very amateur and really something to sort of didn't reflect who I was basically." And I really, there was a huge, huge lesson for me and consequently I was able to get someone to actually help me design the document.

And, yeah, we hit it out of the park. It was amazing. It's, yeah, really excited. But it was a very, very good example of, you know, your, your brand, your look, your everything that you value and I value things to be done properly. I value authenticity, I value professionalism, I value doing a good job and the original document that I created did not show any of that. So, yeah, that's just an example that I recently experienced which relates to my values basically and my personal brand. So, to sum up, you need to be authentically you, find clear ways to communicate through photos, pictures, and captions which will also inform a certain look and aesthetic.

It doesn't need to be perfectly curated and you don't need to be in all of the photos. However, people do like to see who is behind the messaging, which is how you create this personal part of the brand because people can see an actual person. There are many people who are incredibly successful online who take the worst photos. I purposely don't have all professional photos on my feet because I don't consider myself a good photographer, but I will put effort into my writing and when I get a great photo from someone, I love posting it up. If you don't know how to start your personal brand, find the thing that you enjoy the most.

It could be coffee, flowers, interior, or whatever you do and focus on that to begin with and be specific with your thinking. If there were some key points, I would say that you should think about having some selfawareness, know your own unique story using your own voice and create value in some way, whether that'd be through your journey or your story or something that you want to teach. Personal branding helps connect people at all levels and can open up many opportunities. Creating a successful personal brand is important because it tells a story about you and your business. It's something that I find really challenging, but I also really enjoy it and it gets easier.

The clearer you are about what it is that you want to achieve all the message that you want to communicate. I would suggest not looking at coffee industry profiles, I can provide a few profiles and the notes for you to look at that I think are good examples. It's just because you'll end up comparing or copying and you really want to be authentic and have your own style. Lastly, I see social media as something to connect us. Everyone has a unique story. No matter how much you and I are similar, there is always going to be something about us that makes us different from one another because we have unique experiences and perceptions.

So, there's never any real competition, and I think that's pretty awesome. Part of your story will be your experience and journey, whatever that may be. And when we tell it in a truthful and authentic way, it resonates with people and you're gonna be able to connect, so don't be afraid to tell your story. Thanks so much for your time. I hope this helps you on your way to creating an amazing, authentic, personal brand that you feel proud of and that other people feel proud of too and really want to like, go with you on whatever you're doing. If you want to connect with me, I'm at the_girl_in_the_cafe on Instagram or you can find everything at my website on thegirlinthecafe.co.uk Thanks so much to High Density and the Barista League for giving me this opportunity to share some of my experience with you about creating a personal brand.

And I'd love to know how you guys go what you thought of this, and Yeah, and if there was If there's anything that you could add to this as well through your experience or anything that I've left out so that I can add it in next time. Yeah, I hope you all having a great year so far. The Coffee Markers project has helped me in different aspects of my life. I stopped caring about things that used to bother me. And started looking on the bright side. I'm from Grajaú. In the favelas, we're used to another reality. No one cares about us. This course has changed my life. I could be in jail, I could be dead

It has changed my story. I have developed new abilities and this project has shown me a new way of life. The Coffee Makers has taught me about new perspective of life. But this is our goal: To provide them such a good and comprehensive course That will make the coffee shops owners fight for them. We want to ensure that they will get all the knowledge They need in order to become great baristas. The "Coffee Makers" project When I opened this café, I became the owner It's my business and I needed to stay focused on what has to be done to make it succeed. But after a few years, we had already gained some experience.

I started growing restless, And I figured out there was something missing: How could I become involved in a social project in São Paulo? How could I include it in the environment of the cafeterias in such a big city as São Paulo? My approach was like: To offer young and underprivileged people a technical course That could give them a good education background and an incredible knowledge Which could enable them to get job opportunities after finishing this course. At first, when we started planning and developing it, We ended up with 3 months of daily classes, so we had to calculate the expenses To know how much it would cost.

Then I realized that it was not feasible for me. I almost gave up on it. We know many coffee shops owners, a network Who were willing to help but they haven't thought about how they could do it. Every time we find a partner to join us, we don't want their money We want them to share their knowhow, their time with us, their commitment. And this has made this project successful. When they get to us, they are lost and frightened As if they were abandoned people. It's understandable because before they get here, They have already been kicked around many times. It's a tough reality, many of them are on correctional rehabilitation programs.

When we approach these boys and say: "Listen, I'd like to offer you a technical course, It's very nice, for free and you’ll also get some money for food and transport." They don't take it. I was a surprise for all of us. Out of the blue, a project came up to help us. The people from the ghetto find it very weird. They had never had this before: "Why are you giving them this chance?" "Cool and free of charge?!" "Oh, this is impossible!" This project has an altruistic purpose, But also a more commercial purpose Which allows us to help people who need a technical course. At first, they need this little push to start their professional lives At the same time, we stimulate the market growth in this field Which has lately had a shortage of skilled workers.

I didn't simply have a someone who taught about coffee. I had a friend to support me with other issues besides the course. The one who recommended me this course, the one who helped me was Tom. What they need is someone who believe in them and care for them. Once you give them your love and care, they feel ready to fight to be winners, to be amazing. I come from a rough area as well, it's not easy. They just didn't have any perspectives for their lives. We have realized that we can find this potential in boys in other communities, too. In Grajaú, for instance, we have found other talents as well.

They just didn't know They were going to find themselves in the coffee business world. When you take them to places where they know they'll be treated with respect as anyone else And that can belong anywhere they would like to, It's amazing. Because they're like birds, Birds kept in a cage. When you set them free, they feel lost, But when they learn to fly, Nobody can stop them. They share their achievements: "I finally finally poured my bedroom's concrete slab" "I could renovate the living room and the roof that was falling down." It's a tough reality. These are the boys we want to reach with the project.

We work with the top of the coffee supply chain. Our coffee is a very special and artisanal variety. The producers have to care for the land So the coffee can score 80 points or more. When we get the coffee at Sofa Café, we take over. We do the roasting, the selection and tasting of the coffee. Depending on the type, variety, season, harvest, storage time of the coffee beans, We'll be choosing a type of roasting suitable for them. To get the best quality we're looking for. We also have one last task: harvesting! Which is carried out by the baristas. These are the guys who are here on a daily basis preparing the coffee.

Everything has the right proportion We use technical sheets for everything. So that we can achieve excellent quality standards. Being able to provide our clients this service which is also about the coffee producers Who have a great responsibility since the production starts. Appreciating coffee is what I like the most Because it's incredible to drink it and taste a note Of something you had already tried before. It's like taking an introductory trip To the "World of Coffee" from a cup, such an unique experience. Regina was like a mother to me. Regina and Diego were like my mother and my father.

You can learn a lot about coffee talking to her, If you don't know anything about it. If you spend a little time with her, you see a totally different world. Then you want to learn more, You want to listen more and more from her. I will never forget her for the rest of my life. This is not simply about making coffee. You're going to deal with people. I was very shy of serving the clients. On my first day, I froze. I still remember it. Then, day by day, I was learning with the other coworkers around me. This way, I started developing the subjects of study about coffee. Serving, business Hygiene, because we work with food.

When Regina made us an invitation to join the project There was no way we could turn it down. Because we are called up to embrace this Internal movement which is our responsibility as well. In fact, I've helped talking a little with them About these experiences. "You're having such an opportunity And you can't blow it" But it's a difficult age, they're in transition to adulthood, it's complicated. As actors, we understand the important role our bodies play Interfering in our personalities. How will we speed up this process Of breaking this barrier A social barrier, perhaps? They don't have to put themselves In a less important position, Because of their roots.

The purpose of the Coffee Makers is helping them with this first step in their lives. We already know some of them will keep working in the coffee shops business. Others will stay with us for more a year or two. They will take it as an opportunity to find out about other work areas They possibly want to work in. I didn't know there was this world of specialty coffee. It was a surprise to me. For me, coffee was just coffee. The black coffee. But I was wrong. It's such a big world. And I've fallen for it. I've changed my taste Because, before this course, I barely used to drink coffee. I didn't use to drink it so often. When I did it, it was the traditional one.

Specialty coffe has totally different characteristics: The taste, the flavor, the intensity. Ari stands out from the others. She's a girl who takes the initiative to work. I only heard compliments about her during the internship. As the others were working, teaching, She was paying a lot of attention to it. While I was talking and the others were finishing to prepare an order She was there, close to them. Then for the next order, she was like, "Can I prepare it?" She has always been very proactive. There's no rule to prepare a drink. You can create many things based on the techniques. There will be always something to learn.

Because there will be always someone who can make a new drink in a different way. Mari is an amazing person. I can't describe her. She is a bit shy but a very caring person. I think one of the biggest changes for her Was realizing that working there is great. She posts her photos on instagram. Photos of the Latte Art that she does. Since she has a talent for drawing, they are awesome. Guilherme has been very responsible during all the project. He has developed his skills, he's good at coffee tasting. Man, a barista's life is a lot of fun. It's full of adrenaline. He's a boy who learns things quickly.

He's very smart. Some of my friends began drinking specialty coffees with me. I've been teaching them about it and they find it amazing. It's awesome to be able to share a little bit of what I experience here With the people from my neighborhood. It's totally different for them. Today, Paulo, who was a student from our first group, is a teacher. He has competed in Baristas Championships and achieved the sixth position. He's already done the roasting for two different cafeterias. If you want to become a master coffee roaster, you have to study very hard and be very committed. He's a living proof that it works.

I was on a correctional rehabilitation program. When I left the drug trafficking, I realized that wasn't the only option I had. Somehow, people who get involved in the world of drug dealing Tend to believe that they won't get out of it anymore. That there's nothing wrong with it, although it's harmful. But I started to see life with fresh eyes and realized that I have a beautiful family who likes and encourages me. I've achieved all this with the project. Everything I wanted was to repay for all the help Of the teachers and all the others. It worked. I've been able to use what I learned in a positive way.

There's always hope for a mother. Before he joined the project, it used to be very sad, very painful. I felt he loved me. And if there's love, there's always a solution. Today these boys want to work, They don't want to go back to the streets, they don't want get arrested. They want us to be proud of them, they want to be winners and we push them to go on. I'm going to culinary school, I'm in the fifth semester. Almost finishing my studies. Mari has a degree in architecture. The students from other groups after ours took us as examples. In this last group, the guys were like: "I want to finish this course, I want to keep on studying".

Besides learning a new job, it awakens the interest for studying. For having more knowlegde. I think it's also interesting to teach them about Where the coffee comes from, where it goes to, how it goes. And what can be improved. These kids start to have a new vision of life. This is not only about making a good quality coffee, Selling good quality cups, but it's about giving them a new possibilities. It's something that really works, that can change these kid's lives. This is a workforce that is very important to us So we're helping one another. It's wonderful. It thrills me. Because it's everything so strong and so intense.

We make jokes about them being little "coffee monsters". Because they just rock at it. It's a lot of commitment. They also see the opportunity of changing their lives. So they give the best of themselves. Go to a cafeteria, have a coffee and be served By one of the boys who was my student is amazing. When I talk to a mother and hear from her: "Thank you, My son is working, my son makes me breakfast" "My son takes me for walks in the city". I think it's priceless. It's really awesome. Now I'm a father. I'm a father starting a family. It's been very different from what it used to be: A 15year-old boy messing up in the neighborhood.

Then something came up to mind: "No, man. This isn't right. There's much more you can do, There are people willing to help you, You should grab this chance." Every time all of us, the team And all the other volunteers hear these things, it makes us keep the project. If it has helped one of them, the whole project was worth the effort. The efforts of the forty people involved in it were rewarding. Honestly, the Coffee Makers is a big achievement to me As a businessman, as a human being. Hi, I'm Kat Melheim, your host for this panel on Branding and Brand Identity. I'm joined by four brilliant people who have curated standout brands in the coffee space.

Simon Soder and Elinor Vestergaard representing Morgon Coffee Roasters in Sweden. Todd Purse of Brandywine Coffee Roasters in the US and Brad Morrison, owner of Dark Arts Coffee in the UK and Japan. Each of these companies is incredibly unique. Yet, they all have one thing in common. Their branding is on point. When you see their coffee bags emerge, you know exactly who it's from. So, we're talking with the brains behind these notable brands today to get a better sense of what it takes to create a company that's recognized around the world. So, let's dive in. First of all, let's do a round of introductions.

Simon, let's start with you. Yeah. my name is Simon. and I'm an art director and designer, working at an agency here in Malmo, Sweden. And I'm together with Elinor created the Morgon Coffee Roasters brand. Morgon is so great. You guys have done a great job. Quick question for you, Simon. How would you define brand identity to someone who doesn't know anything about it? Brand identity, I think of it as the interface of the brand or, you know, where you connect with your audience, or how you talk and your tone of voice and where sort of you fit into a cultural context I would say. What position do you need to have? And I think brand identity is the way to get that position.

And also, of course, my profession is working with visual style and I think visuals are important for a brand to have. But it's not everything. Morgon say like, you can talk of it like, you know, the whole package. How you How you talk, walk and talking, how your treatment to the world sort of. Yeah, kind of like personality of a brand. Yeah, sure. Cool. And then, Elinor, let's go to you. Tell us about yourself. Yeah. So my name is Elinor Vestergaard. and I work as a copywriter at BBDO Nordics, same as Simon, but here in Gothenburg. And as Simon mentioned, we're behind Morgon Coffee Roasters brand identity.

Very cool. And I have a quick question for you as well. So, what is a trend in branding that you have seen all over lately? And what is one that you think should die already? A trend that really makes me happy is kind of retro rebrands or brand identity that embraces the nostalgia of the '70s and the '80s, especially when it comes to like logo types, but I think also when it comes to colors, fonts and styling. I think Kodak and Burger King are two great examples of this and where you can kind of bring older versions of your logo type back, but still add a little 21st century twist to them, so big fan of that.

And a trend that should die already, maybe a bit harsh, but one that I would politely ask to step aside could be minimalism and mainly because it's been two years of Covid. And I feel like we need some extravaganza right now. And also let's challenge names in logo types with only lowercase letters and in a Sansserif font. Matter, good to know where. Let's do something else. Just putting it out there, yeah. Controversial opinion but I love it, I love it. Todd, over to you. Yeah. Hi, I'm Todd Purse. I'm working with Brandywine Coffee Roasters, running all of their creative projects and branding.

And I'm real stuck to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. And a quick question for you. When you're stuck or having trouble creating an idea, where do you go for inspiration? That's a very hard question in a lot of ways, but easier these days. I have a four year old son and he's probably my biggest source of, like, clearing up that imagination block, just because they live in a world of just pure imagination at this point. Like, just going in and hanging out with him, like stopping what I'm doing, just playing for 10 minutes or building legos with him or something. Like, it doesn't always make an immediate like breakthrough, but it starts the wheels turning and makes you feel like you're

You're reconnecting with something you kind of lose along the way. And finally, Brad, could you introduce yourself? Yeah, my name is Brad Morrison. I'm the Cofounder of Dark Arts Coffee here in London. Now, for about seven years, we've got a site here in Hackney, East London and also a place in Hayama, Japan. Right. And your first question. When was the last time you saw a branded product and thought, wow, they did a really great job and why was it impressive to you? Okay, so this I'm gonna pull a product which isn't it's a sort of a grouping of products. It's a collaboration between Palace Skateboards and Stella for the beer company.

I'm really enjoying the sort of collaboration between brands right now that are completely opposite in the way they present themselves. This one, they produced a series of videos where they actually set up a, an old English style pub in the back of the skate shop that you've got to through, like, a wall that was made of paper, It was done also in that sort of Stella through a video advertising style, which is a very There's a very There's a different language to it, but obviously then it was, had all these skateboarders and other things. And it was just something about it just really stood out.

So, yeah. Cool. Mash up between things that wouldn't necessarily coexist, but when they coexist they create something entirely new. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Great. Well, all right, let's get into the meat of this discussion. I'd like to start with you, Elinor, as someone who has experience working with many brands. Do you have a specific approach to creating a brands identity from initial idea to the final result? Well It's a big question. Yeah, it's tricky. But for sure, I don't think no process is ever the same. And I don't feel like they should be because I don't think streamlined creative processes are a good thing.

But I'd say it varies a lot, you know, depending on what kind of brand it is, what kind of products or service that they're providing. But I think for myself that a golden rule would be to, you know, always try to stay close to the brand's DNA. And perhaps pick a message or a feeling that you would like to convey and kind of let that be a guiding star throughout the process. And I think like a great example of this is Klarna, a Swedish company that provide online financial services such as direct payments online, and on paper that is not sexy at all. But they, you know, they chose to be smooth and that is the thing that permeates everything in their brand identity from, you know, tonality and, and color choices to graphics and communication.

And today it's one of the most popular finance apps in Sweden, because I think the thing is You know, people make snap decisions and emotional connections to a brand in a split second. And it's not always very seldom I think based on logic. So, I'd say choose your thing and then be that thing and go all the way kind of like that. Yeah, that's awesome. So, kind of identify your core thing and then run with it. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, Simon, as someone who works with Elinor and I'm sure you to play together with those ideas and you have a degree in the arts and art direction. Everyone has emotions, but you have this other, you know, this other side of education and formal training in branding and marketing.

Do you think that somebody needs that formal training in branding design etcetera in order to create a cohesive brand? I think to create a cohesive brand you need a strong framework. And I think, I think having a formal education, you you learn how to set up this kind of framework. Yeah. I mean, you could go by learning it by yourself also, but I think having a formal education helps you set up all those, you know Somebody has tried and failed before you and that's If it's done good, you know, you learn from others, other people's mistakes. But of course you can go, go ahead and make those mistakes by yourself.

I think you need to find your own path if it is through an institution or through your own discoveries. I think the most important thing is to find your own voice in all of this. You know, when you're starting, everybody's gonna have an opinion on your stuff and that's pretty good. Because you learn from it, you learn to work with your gut feeling when you fail and I think creating a strong brand builds on this, you know, have a strong gut feeling and make amake a...make decisions. Yeah, and I can imagine that having that education can help. Especially, if you're trying to coordinate across many brands, so that you have that framework that you can plug different brands into rather than

So, for Todd Todd, you're in charge of curating brand identity for one company, which is Brandywine Coffee Roasters. How do you ensure that everything you put out is in line with that one brand's identity? Well, yeah, it's a much different situation I guess. But really I try to put not too much thought into it, as little. II think I grew up in a weird time where like even the word branding and like consistency and stuff just doesn't really mesh well with me. And again it might be something that like, I'm just not good at. So, I lean towards the other way. But I kind of rely on the fact that Brandywines releases are coming from the same artistic spot.

So, you know, 99% of the bags are all drawn, hand drawn by me and then hand screen printed by our one screen printer Well, two now, but our one main screen printer is Spencer. So, I really feel like just keeping those consistent artistic voices is what gives us that consistent brand. And we are starting to branch out and hire some other artists in the artist series that we've been doing just to get some Pretty much it's an excuse for me to talk to my favorite artists and pay them to do a cool job and like, you know, make some connections that way, but also just to kind of expand the look, the visual look.

But yeah, it's something that I try not to put too much thought into after our initially. We knew we were gonna do the block bottom bags with a wax seal and screen printed and that was kind of the consistency. So, as long as it falls in that, then I feel like I can kind of go wherever I want with images and illustrations and kind of let, because part of what I think is special about, when we gets to do our Brandywine is, each piece of art is kind of as unique as the coffee that's going in the bag. So, we can relate. Even if the art is not necessarily meant to represent what the coffee tastes like or anything like that, but it's just meant to enhance and make the whole experience a little bit more whimsical and a little bit more fun and kind of lean into the creative side of coffee.

Yeah, and that's the strength behind you, one person being in charge of the brand identity of one company. You can kind of If it comes from you, it is part of the brand identity because you have created that so much. For you, Brad, you have a company in two distinct regions of the world, the UK and Japan. How do you maintain a cohesive voice for Dark Arts across continents? Or do you tweak your messaging for the different markets and customer races? And But this is something that's actually It's changing as we go along. There's some Very obviously there's language barriers and one of the things that we have that we hold quite strongly in the way that we present ourselves is in our tone of voice and our humor, which is something, which, with language barriers, it becomes a whole different thing.

So, that's something which has been work in progress as we try to reestablish sort of like vocal voice within that place. But visually we try to keep things the same way. We set up our brand with sort of a bunch of cornerstones that are things that are, that, that I really enjoy myself and so do other sort of longstanding members of the team. And we kind of developed I guess an imagery and a certain style that it seems to work very well out there. So, we've, we've held pretty, pretty strongly on our visual sense. So, yeah, I'd say like we're kind of We're open to sort of adjusting to the local market.

The But, you know, visually we try to keep things sort of the same across the two places. We're quite lucky in the fact that Japanese people, they love authenticity, they love things that come from outside of their country. So, when we keep things, you know, very much cohesive, it's like this, because we are the sort of English British sort of coffee company, but that's, that's there, they love that. It's like we take, for instance, like our packaging. When we were proceeding things up, I was trying to figure out whether we should You know, basically put everything into Japanese. And that was immediately taken off the table by, by our partners out there, that, that the Japanese people wouldn't want that.

They wanted all in English. So, yeah, it's been interesting. Yeah, it's been interesting. Yeah. Keeping to the core, but then tweaking a little bit here and there also sounds a bit like a trial and error, making sure that you're sticking to your, your center point, figuring out what Unfortunately, I'm not like Simon, so I didn't have any, any formal training, I probably I probably would've made things a lot easier because even as Simon was saying about having that framework, that kind of thing I think about had earlier on, it would have, maybe I wouldn't have gone the long way around. But yeah, we sort of work, work, work your way through.

Yeah. Well, it sounds challenging, but it also sounds like it's fun because otherwise, hopefully y'all wouldn't do something that was no fun. So, Todd, what's the most fun thing about creating your brand's identity? I think that just gets a kind of let my imagination roam and kind of lean into whatever I'm really into at the time. I think my favorite part of what we get to do are like the, the clubs and the bundles. We do some coffee clubs now where we'll do it for Halloween, where we'll all have a consistent theme. This year was a study in varietals. So, each shipment was a different varietal with a different Halloween themed art work.

And those are my favorite, just because I like working in like building little universes that people get to live in. And then we, we do things like we add extras like sweatpants and scarves and like random objects, I really like designing products. So, that's really fun for me too. But in general, I mean, I just love sitting at the I work from about 3:30 till 7:00 in the morning is my, like, creative time before the family gets up. So, just that time of sitting there and drawing at the table is probably like the most fun thing that I do and any of it. Back to you, Brad. We've kind of touched on it a little bit I think in your last question.

But what's the most challenging part of working in branding? For me it's keeping energy levels high. I find that Well, this is, this is me talking from my, my perspective because I'm We are still a small company. So, I do, I do the copy, I do a lot of the design work. I do social, media and formulating sort of marketing ideas. So, it Keeping, keeping energy levels to sort of keep on top of Making sure that we're always doing something. I think that's, that would be the hardest thing because the way I view brand identity is it It is the personification of a company which is It's If you're not speaking, if you're not doing something, you kind of cease to exist I guess in the minds of your customer base.

So, you, you have to be constantly putting out stuff, doing things, producing a tone of voice. So, yeah, that's most challenging thing. Yeah, it would be definitely keeping energy levels high and making sure that I'm always trying to do something interesting and enjoyable that my customers would like. Yeah. Yeah. Elinor and Simon, do you feel that as well, the need to keep energy up, to keep moving forward? Yeah, sure. You always have to sort of listening to the world around you and to sort of respond to it in a way. I think for a brand it's important to always have your eyes and ears open. And I think that's part of keeping the energy up in the brand.

Yeah. Do you feel like things have changed or shifted since Covid? I'm kind of going off script here, but do you feel like things have changed and shifted since Covid started? I know, Elinor, you mentioned like we've been in Covid, so next the minimalism. How about in terms of energy, like, what do you see as the biggest shifts? Yeah, for sure. I mean, just kind of like the isolation really effects your work I'd say because you draw inspiration from, from people because that's, that's the thing behind a brand and that's the thing that keeps a brand, you know, kind of alive. People responding to it and what not.

But it also kind of makes you want to do more and see how people react to that because a lot of people don't have anything else to do at least during lockdown. So, it was a great kind of pressure cooker at a time to just, you know, throw things out there and see how people interact with it, because people have interacted more with it than before. But, yeah, it's, it's tricky to maintain kind of like a momentum and the energy all the way I'd say. Yeah, and I suppose people have been interacting with brands in different ways as well. So, instead of seeing things out in the world, they're seeing things on their screens a lot more.

So, the visuals, Simon, as you mentioned, are probably a lot more important these days. And also, the workload for me and Elinor. I have just moved to Malmo in the pandemic, so we're gonna have to work to figure out a way to work with each other, you know, over the screen. And to make these photos and, you know, being part of this process that is taking place in the roastery. I mean, this sort of scenario is happening all over the world right now, that people can't meet them in the same extent as before. And it's a bit trickier to have this faceto-face interactions. Yeah, that's definitely I think an important part to mention that there's the, there's the outward facing brand identity for customers to see, but then there's also the internal workings of how do you create that.

And that's a whole, that's a whole another topic for a panel discussion. So, yeah. Well, Elinor, let's ask you then, what do you wish you knew when you started with doing branding and brand identity? I think perhaps that people like to be surprised and that you should always try to challenge, you know, the status quo of what exists in the given category that you're doing. And I think also don't be too literal. Sorry. Because a lot of brands and companies are unaware of what their unique selling point is. And they often get stuck in their production, in their products and the hard facts and numbers.

So, I think always try to search outside of that and rather find and focus on the effect perhaps of the product or service, because I feel like that's really where people really start to relate to your brand and I think that is, that's key. Yeah. Brad, I kind of want to ask you the same question since you didn't come from formal training. What do you wish you knew before you started the branding? Oh, um I don't know actually, that kind of stumps me a little bit. I mean, I thoroughly enjoy this side of the business. I wish that this is all I did. I wish I didn't have phone calls about vacuum cleaners that didn't work.

And all I would do is, doing this. But in regards to what I know now, I think it would just be to have a little bit more confidence. I've definitely got a lot more now in the way that I approach our branding and our brand identity. But, if I had known that right start, I played things very safe at the start, Ithe idea being that the mysterious nature of our brand would be enough to sort of like perpetual to sort of move us along. But I probably could have come right out the gate being quite loud and obnoxious and trying to shake things up. I wish I had known that because it's, it's much more fun, be that way.

But, yeah, that would probably be about it. Cool. And I feel like that kind of goes along with, with what Elinor said, focusing on the effect that you have. If you're kind of tiptoeing into your brand identity, you can't see the full effect. But if you're hitting it right off the bat, than you get instant, instant feedback a little bit more. Yeah, well, that's the other thing and then it becomes a give and take and then you actually start having, but, proper dialogue with your customer base. It's the, that interaction I think between you and your customers through social media, through your email marketing or through other avenues, whether it's events or whatever.

The way that you kind of, it kind of comes and goes, you know, that sort of back and forth. It could be a really enjoyable and very sort of fulfilling part of your job. And we'll then feel the next thing you do and feel the next thing and give you more ideas. And I think, you know, if you play it safe and you do tiptoe at the start, you might not get that, that sort of intensity or response from your customers. Cool. All right, last question. Simon, back to you. Is there anything worth mentioning that we haven't yet touched on? Well, I thought about that question because we got these questions beforehand and what I wanna give you, somebody was gonna start a brand.

You know, it takes time for a brand to find its place into the world. And so my tip for everybody is gonna create a brand is to be patient and, you know, just go with your vision, stay with your vision and have faith in it and, you know, work with it and eventually it's gonna, sort of, build itself overtime. So, I think being patient is a good thing in creating a brand. I think that's a great insight. And thank you all for your insights about creating brands and making brand identity cohesive. I'd love to hear from each of you, just like as a last little thing, whether it's something you brought to the conversation or something you heard somebody else on this panel say, what is one takeaway that our viewers should leave this panel with? Brad, let's start with you.

Give me a second. Yeah. A take away from what was being said. Well, I guess a little bit about what Simon just said in regards to being patient. I think if you You know, obviously things weren't This kind of goes with every part of business I guess is that, you know, if you kind of stick to the plan, you know, trust what you're trying to do. You know, not everything will work, but if you're honest to yourself, you're authentic in the way that you're presenting yourself, I think that's like one of the, one of the key aspects of brand identity is authenticity. I know it's one of those like buzzwords but it's

I think it's Because of how much we are bombarded with advertising these days, that, the way in which people can see straight through brands right to the, you know, they can just see through the marketing. Yeah, sorry, I'm kind of trailing off, but Simon, yeah, what he kind of said in regards to just being patient and sort of sitting with what you're doing and just, you know, being methodical, keep going, keep moving forward and, yeah, being patient. How about you, Elinor? I totally agree with both Brad and Simon here. And I would say, you know, make sure to implement strategies to establish your brand identity overtime and be cohesive, because just like you said, if you want to grow brand awareness, you have to remember the brand identity is something that is built overtime.

And I feel like there's actually a negative trend right now with brands, all the time changing their appearances for instance, constantly, just to try to kind of stay relevant. And I think you need to find other ways to do that, kind of tap into the conversations that are happening instead of changing appearances because otherwise you will lose your voice and you will lose recognition along the way. So, like you guys said, kind of stay confident and believe in what you're doing and dare to stand still with that and let it, you know, let it marinate for a while because it will take time, but that's, in the end that's how you get recognition and build something that's true.

Yeah. Simon, any last one takeaway? Yeah. Well, I think you can work with whatever you got, that's something we learned today. I can be strong with saying that it's a really good thing to have, to have a formal education. But I think working with whatever skills that you have, you can create a really strong brand from, you know, just stay with your brand and build it from yourself into the world. So, that's something I'm leaving this conversation with. Yeah. Very cool. And, Todd? I'd say, just do what you really love because if you try to imitate other things, it just can come across insincere and what you love might not click right away or it might not be a hit right away, but it's a long game and it's not something that you need immediate success with.

And like, yeah, and like I said, I did a lot of projects before Brandywine that never went anywhere. And like I got very lucky to hit when it hit in the community. But like, yeah, just do what is resonates with you and don't try to, you know, go, don't force yourself to be like other people and do other things. That's so perfect. And finally, where can people find your work, Elinor? I don't keep a portfolio because I'm a messy person. But you can, I guess, find me on Instagram where I think out loud and create weird content from time to time. And my user name would be Stroking Kittens. It's an old name but I've kept it for a long time.

I Yeah. It's a strong brand. We kept in consistency with your brand. Yeah, that is my brand, yeah. Simon? You can find me on Instagram, that's where I'm, I mean my sort of playground portfolio kind of thing. And that's Simon Soder at Yeah. Great. That's Check me out, guys. Yeah. And, Todd? Yeah, mainly Instagram is probably the best thing. It's Todd DE85 or Brandywine Coffee Roasters is the company. And then brandywinecoffeeroasters.com is the website and for, like personal artwork, I have createmagicstudios.com, and that's pretty much everything. Wonderful. And, Brad? You can find us at Dark Arts Coffee on Instagram.

I believe it's the same on Twitter and TikTok as well. And if you want to see photos of me and my daughter Mohali, that's FTW Coffee on Instagram. Awesome. Well, thank you all panelists for being here and for sharing your experience and expertise. And thank you viewers for tuning in. I hope you learned something that empowers you to create your own brands identity in a way that aligns with your visions. I know I did. All right, cheers everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye! Hello, everyone. My name is Sebastian Villamazar. I'm the cofounder of Equation Coffee and brand ambassador for La Palma and El Tucan, Del Agua Coffee Paradise, and Creativa Coffee District in Panama.

I've been working on the industry for almost eight years now and I've been involved with our projects since the beginning with the development of the brands, with building different sales strategies for the companies, going out there and visiting clients, trade shows, understanding about our industry, learning from our industry, copying coffees, brewing coffee in different competitions. And today, I want to share with you some of my experience. I want to thank the Barista League for the invitation and High Density for allowing me to be a part of this amazing video. Today, I want to talk about how to create brands with passion.

During this talk, I want to share with you three tips that have helped me a lot when we initially started to build these brands. And I think they are simple steps that can maybe allow you to give much more focus to your company, and hopefully, create the most amount of value for your customers and also for your team. Okay, so let's start with the first tip. My first tip which I think is gonna be the most important one before starting your brand or before even thinking about stuff like the look and feel of your brand or your clients or your product is something that in my opinion defines the whole vision of your company.

And this is something that I learned from a great speaker called Simon Sinek. Basically, he explains how you have to find your why. It helps you a lot because your why is gonna be your highest purpose as an entrepreneur. And I think that this is something that many people skip when they start building new brands, especially in coffee. You see that they're trying to sell coffees, but maybe there's not a higher purpose a rather than the transactional part of the business. And this is something that will help you a lot because it will guide you, in my opinion, through any decision that you want to make as a company.

Basically, what he is and what I've learned from that experience is that you have to sit down as an entrepreneur and think about your passions, you know. For example, in our case, it was after many exercises where we discussed brainstorm with our different partners and team, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to be in business, to help the world, we wanted to be in business to slow down climate change, to try to help farms migrate from monocultures to polycultures to invest in regenerative agriculture. And this is what we determined as our why. Our why determines why we are in business? And it is something that is critical in my opinion in the first step when you're starting to build a brand because it will help you keep focus aligned with the strategy of your company.

Also, it is very important because eventually it is what will connect with your customers that maybe share that same value or that same dream, and it will help you build those relationships in the long term. So, that's why my first advice or my first tip is start with why. You know, understand or think about which is your purpose. Why are you starting this company? What drives you even if it, if it doesn't, I have to do with your product, you know. What drives you first and then we will determine those other things. Okay, so moving on to our second tip. Once you know why are you doing this business and what you want to do as an entrepreneur? The second step will be identifying your who.

And this has two main components. The demographic component, which basically is list of different characteristics of your client or your customer or your target. And my tip here would be sit down and try to describe as much as you can from that customer that you want to relate to. For example, in our case, we know that we want to work with roasters that represent what we call us that third wave or fourth wave that are driven towards sustainability, traceability, transparency, and many of those descriptors come from the values that we also love and share. So, we've done this exercise a couple of times where we try to describe them in the best way possible.

How much coffee are they roasting in average? What type of coffees are they buying? If they're interested in origin trips? If they like to travel? What's that age range in which they are located? Where are those places where they are located? What type of cities? So, during that who, I think, it should start with a demographic, things that you can describe and that will help you identify those clients to make a much more, more clear strategy on how to find them. So, you maybe don't lose unnecessary time talking with people that are not gonna be aligned with whom you want to work. The second important thing that you must consider in your who is the psychographic characteristics.

So, in the psychographic characteristics, we're gonna write down all of those behaviors. Yes. So it's not about the age or how much coffee are they're roasting. But it has to do with a list of behaviors that those companies have, things that they like to do. For example, if they like to travel, if they're adventurous, if they want to save the world, if they care about buying products with certain characteristics. It has to do with all the behaviors that your potential clients have. And in that way with this combination, you're gonna be much more accurate when you go out there looking for clients in trade shows or in different magazines or coffee portals? It will help you be very aligned and help your sales team be focused and maybe don't go after clients that that won't have these characteristics.

So, my last tip, my third tip, it's gonna be your what. So, at this point, we know why we're doing business, we know what we're passionate about, we know what we want to change in the world or we know what is driving us to create this business or to start this company. We know who we want to target or who we want to build relationships with more than target. We've tried to put together a list of their characteristics and now we need to start focusing on our product. So, in our what, what I would try to invite you is to try to describe your product in the best possible way. In our case, the coffee industry is extremely robust.

There are many different qualities of coffees. There are many different characteristics of coffees and what we try to do in our productive projects was trying to develop or write down certain characteristics that that our probes had to meet in order to be able to match with those potential customers that we had identified and there were many characteristics related to quality. So, for instance, in coffees from projects like La Palma and El Tucan or Del Agua Coffee Paradise, or Creativa in Panama. We are focused on frozen coffees that have higher scores than 86 points that have different complex fermentation.

So, we knew we had to build a portfolio that had different fermentations with different profiles that would allow us to offer those characteristics to our clients so they could have much more flavors in their coffee program. So, we decided that that was gonna be the probe that we wanted to develop with the project and it has given us so far a lot of focus because in that way we don't lose time maybe investing or buying products that don't meet those quality standards. Another thing that I believe is very helpful when you determine which is gonna be your product is that you don't grab maybe businesses that eventually are not gonna be good for you.

For example, with products that have other characteristics.. In my experience, there's always gonna be opportunities. that come along that have to do with coffees. that are different from what you usually offer. or produce or sell and that's why writing down. or describing those products. that you want to sell or create or build or produce,. of course, I believe it will help you stay focused. when those opportunities come.. Also, maybe an additional advantage of writing down your product. is that you will be able to coordinate. all the different efforts from the rest of the team.. If you have, for example, a wet meal. and you know what you're going to produce,. then you're gonna be making all the necessary activities. to produce that specific profile, you know,. innovating in fermentations that can allow you to do that.

Or if you want to hit certain quality, you know, that you have to be more rigorous, for example, when picking your coffee in the proper ripeness levels. So, I think this is something that is critical to make sure that all the team is aligned and that you are first, as he said, selling something with your personality with the characteristics of what you wanna pursue as entrepreneur. Second, start targeting your right customers or offering your coffees to people who match your values and that you want to pursue. And third, making sure that those products that you are designing much what those customers need.

I think those are the three important tips that have helped me in the past. And maybe one last that I would recommend, which has also helped me a lot is writing all this down. My experience, it has helped me a lot to sit down and write these ideas and share them with other people from the coffee industry, close friends that have a good experience. And I think these have been critical or very important tips that have helped us positioning our brands that reflect the passion that we have as coffee producers and exporters. Well, thank you very much for watching me. I hope these are the tips that are very useful for you if you're in the green coffee business, if you're a coffee producer or an exporter.

If you want to follow more of what we do, you can find us in different Instagrams for our companies in Equation Coffee or La Palma and El Tucan, we usually share a lot of our ideas and everyday lessons from the coffee industry. So, thank you very much for watching. Thank you, High Density, for the invitation. And I hope you have a great rest of your day. Hi, everyone, my name is Elisa Criscione and I'm the Founder of Expressing Origin and Digital Coffee Future. It's a pleasure for me today to talk about digitalisation of the coffee value chain. But what is digitalisation? In the First Way School, we talk about digitalising coffee.

Well, it's definitely a very broad concept. And for me, it is really anything, any digital tool, any digital platform that you might want to use in your business, whether you're a producer, a barista, a trader to improve your operations, better monitor what you're doing, what is going well, what is going not that well and could be improved and really kind of providing this extra support that technology nowadays can offer us. But before going into deep dive of what digitalisation is and how it can be applied and seeing coffee, I want to understand a bit more with you, how did it come from? So, when we talk about digitalisation, it definitely comes from this idea of wanting and learning more about the coffee.

The coffee that we're drinking and the information that go with it. A lot of that need for information came from consumers that decided that they wanted to know more and more and more about the coffee that they were drinking, making sure that those sustainability claims that were provided to them were actually true. And at the same time, the industry started to see into technology, not only this idea of what it could offer in terms of guaranteeing that those sustainability claims and all claims were met, but kind of going beyond that and really seeing what technology could do to improve business overall.

So, this kind of gave us a bit of a pushing pool perspective, in which both consumers are driving the need for information at the same time, industry is really trying to make its best to collect information and keep monitoring what the industry is doing. So, technology nowadays is really used basically everywhere in the value chain. But how, how is different and now can be applied and producing countries through shipping, through roasting, and all the other different actors that we encounter in the throughout our journey. So, let's start from a very normal basic value chain. It's true that when we talk about coffee, you all know that we can find many different scenarios according to where the coffee is coming from.

And even not just based on a country, by country perspective,. but even within the different regions in the same country.. So, to provide a bit of information about digitalisation,. let's just imagine that we're talking about. a very, very basic coffee valuation at the moment.. So, we'll start with individual producers will go with comparatives. and that will go ahead with exporters, importers, traders,. and finally, consumers.. So, very straightforward by the chain.. So, talking with starting from individual producer,. where is that we can find digitalisation in there?. Well, very likely, definitely farm management systems. are part of that plan when it comes to individual producers,. a lot of those dynamics are in connection. with being able to weather monitor. or weather forecast, monitor inputs, monitoring quality,.

And also, post other activities that happen right after harvest. At the same time, going up in the value chain, we see the use of digital tools from cooperatives. So, in case of cooperatives, of course, they can go beyond using tools for farm management and they can also embed different digital platforms in their internal and external operations. So, one of the examples could be everything that has to do with inventory and logistics, the monitoring of how the coffee moves and the different lots that are involved and how basic of this coffee is being sold and when. So, everything can be actually connected digitally.

At the same time, a lot of emphasis is given to traceability and basic quality collection of information that are connected with the chain of custody. Digital platforms can also support with price information with janitor monitoring on the climate risk management as well. So, now we go step ahead and we look at exporters. You know, so really the coffee is ready to get shipped and what are those, those logistics there that can be digitalised. Well, definitely everything that has to do with actually shipment and logistics are part of, you know, digital solutions as well. A lot comes also to traceability, but not only the traceability in terms of chain of custody but also to transparency when it comes to kind of going deeper and deeper understanding, you know, what is this coffee and how it can be transparent to how the coffee sector.

I'm not just talking about price here but it could be way more in terms of social environmental responsibilities that we have as a sector. Also, what we can see a lot now in the last few days and, years actually, is being the use of online selling. And basically, the online trade that happens is where you can use platforms that allow exporters or comparatives with exporting rights to directly upload their offers online. And at the same time, buyers can go online and acquire those coffees. So, this is also a definitely a very big trend that is happening nowadays. So, going a step ahead, we end up with importers.

And again, in the category of traders, we see a lot of similarities. Definitely traceability is a part of that inventory logistic and everything that is kind of digitally tracing what's happening to the banks of the coffee is definitely part of the journey. And a lot of also the online selling is the online buying reflected at the important level. And a lot is also regarding the monitoring the quality that is definitely very consistent to how the whole value chain, and being kind of guaranteed in with very different platforms or path platforms that are vertically integrated throughout. Then when we get to roasters, which is kind of almost the last step of our very basic value chain, we see a lot of different platforms recommends.

Definitely quality is one of those that also allowed to monitoring the roasting curve and everything that has to do with the role of the roster with kind of turning the green coffee to roasted coffee and then being ready for selling. Also, this is something that allows in terms of monitoring quality, the roast is to buy maybe the same lot one year after the other and represent the same roasting profile. So, this is definitely something that can be better monitored to digital systems. At the same time, of course, ecommerce come in and being definitely a part of, you know, the selling and the marketing of roasted coffee that either goes through other platforms, other vendors, or directly to the final consumers.

And then finally, of course, also the traceability goes all the way to the consumers sometimes where consumers can basically scan a QR code and a bag and see where the coffee originated and who produced it. I mean, this is a bit of a whole review of what happens in terms of digitalisation and the extensiveness of digital tools that you can find throughout the value chain. But, of course, not everything is so straightforward and not everything is so easy to be implemented. So, at the end of the day, you might want to, you might be asking yourself like, why should we go through all this process? But for us, there are different solutions and different benefits that come from using technology.

And many of them are connected definitely on the business point of view of being able to have a better understanding of what's going on within your business, whatever this business is really, anyone can use these tools to and understand what the challenges are, where improvements can be done, and of course, everything is done through the collection and analysis and visualisation of data throughout. But at the same time, it happens when you can have more direct connection with services, information, and market. So, these three categories when it comes to information services in market is definitely something that has to do with every actor, but also especially, it can be used in origin to be able to connect even more directly to potential consumers and potential buyers of your coffee.

And here, it's a matter of understanding, you know, how you can access those information that are not often easily available, if not online. At the same time for bigger businesses, everything that has to do with the digitalisation can be, of course, improved and better monitor it. We come from an era where a lot of the contracts where only done in a paper trail and now we're moving towards, you know, the use a digital solutions really to be able to better monitor and mitigate risk, especially nowadays when we know that everything that has to do with logistic and trading has been extremely complicated in the past few months.

So, all this is to kind of get to the final questions and the final part of what I wanted to share with you today during the event. Why and how could we start understanding whether we want to go through a digitalisation process or not, and if digitalisation or a specific digital platform can really respond to my needs. So, this is a very big question. And what I tell anybody that, you know, who comes to me and sometimes they ask me, "Well, what would you suggest "would be the best traceability platform for my business?" Well, first of all, for me, the answer is always what is your goal? What is your end goal as a business, as a company, as an organisation behind using a traceability platform or any platform.

Is this really what you're looking for right now?. Can you tell me why you want to go in that direction?. And when you fully understand your goals, you can also understand,. you know, what are those tools. that can kind of guide you in that direction?. So, the first step is understand your goal with any digital platform. that you might want to use, then understand the priorities. within those goals.. Is your priority taking into account, for example, traceability. being able to communicate the chain of custody of that coffee. to your final, to your final customer if you're a roaster, for example,. or are you looking to guarantee that your sustainability claims. are actually true?. Are you instead interested in understanding,. you know, pricing among the value change?. So, are we going beyond just understanding the chain of custody.

Or do you want somehow a platform that not only gives you traceability solutions, but also is connected with your inventory, for examples, and everything that has turbo logistics. So, all those questions are those questions that you need to answer and you need to be able to answer in understanding what are your priorities within your goals, then once you've done with that, I would recommend going to listen, OK, to get there what are the benefits that I can get and what are the challenges that I will encounter. Because at the end of the day, investing in the technology solution always has, you know, the potential and the challenges and you have to get ready to be able to solve them if any challenges arise, but at the same time, to fully leverage the potential that the technology can offer you.

And this is not something that you can do on your own. A lot of the connection that you have to do is kind of taking together with you, your team, to be able to make the right decisions for the whole company and not just, you know, understanding what do you think you might need as potentially a manager, or you know, somebody else in the company. So, it's very important to kind of cocreate this digitalisation strategic process before going and choosing their solutions that makes, you know, that's the great fees for you. So, once you go through that, analysis of challenges and potential, you end up to kind of the almost the last step, which is understanding.

OK, you know your goals, you know your priorities,. you know how this might work,. but is your goal going to be the same goal?. Is your company going to be the same. kind of, you know,. company in three years or five years from now?. And this is a very big question.. Because at the end of the day, when it comes to understanding,. you know, OK, well, I'm ready, I know what I'm looking for,. but sometimes, technologies are great today. but might not be the best for you tomorrow.. So, it's very important to understand what you need in terms of projecting. that to the next phase.. And then finally, but also very important, try to choose really the platform,. that means all your criteria is very important. to work together with the tech provider, work together with a company. that is offering you their specific digital platform.

And digital service to really understand how this is making sure that it needs all your categories. Investing in technology solution takes a lot of time, energy, and also economic investment so it's very important that you do that, creating this preassessment before going and choosing for one. Anyway, so this is a bit of this journey that brings us to the end of the session today. If you have any further questions, you are more than welcome to connect with me and ask any questions you might have. Digitalisation is something that is definitely going to stay with us. The transformation is happening at a very high speeding coffee in many other sectors.

So, I guess, you know, we have to stay with technology. Technology will stay with us. And the best we can do is using technology that allow us to create an inclusive and efficient and effective sector for all the actors involved in the years to come. Hi, my name is Juliana Ganan. I own Tocaya roastery located in the Mantiqueira de Minas region in Minas Gerais, Brazil. You might have heard of Minas Gerais as being the largest coffee producing state in Brazil, but we're actually located in a very mountainous area with over 8,000 smallholder producers who harvest manually. The farmers we work with can produce as little as 560 kilo bags per year to over 1060 kilo bags per year.

We also sourced from other farmers within Minas Gerais and also from farmers from Espirito Santo, which is a state right next to us. So, I'm here to share with you our perspective on being a roaster in the producing country. Right off the bat, I think, the most interesting aspect is that we cannot import green coffee. So, being a roaster in Brazil means we can only work with Brazilian coffees. That can be a bummer, of course, because I would love to work with some washed Ethiopia or Kenya, and I hope to do that someday. But it can also be really exciting and challenging. It made us from the beginning to embark on a quest to really find different coffee profiles within the regions in our country and also made those better roasters, I think, because we had to really differentiate and find nuances between those coffees.

Most people think that Brazilian coffees are all about caramel and chocolate and mild notes, but we can actually find really nice coffees with floral and high acidic notes. You just need to know where to look for them. What I like about being close to farmers in ever since is that we get to visit the farms not only during harvest season when the best pictures are taken, but also, before and after that when we get a real sense of what's going on with them. For example, in the crop season of 2018, many of the farmers in our region didn't get to export some of their coffees because of the screen size criteria.

So, we actually bought many of those coffees and we never did that before. So, we explained it to our customers that the coffee was drinking just fine. It was just a bean that was a little bit smaller and the customers were really on board with it and that was something that we're only able to do because we went to the farm and we had a talk with the producer and we understood what was going on at the time. So, Brazil doesn't have a lot of washed coffees. We have a lot of naturals and popped naturals but not a lot of washed coffees. And since we cannot import green coffee, we had to come up with our own version of washed coffee.

So, in 2017, we worked together with this farmer from our region, Mantiqueira de. We did this experiment with 60 kilos of coffee and we did the fermentation in plastic drums, we did the drying part on raised beds, and the result was really nice. It was a really sweet and clean coffee, and the farmer felt comfortable enough to invest in real fermentation tanks for the next year in 2018. He got much larger lots of washed coffee then. And long story short. We've been getting his washed lots every year since then and the customers keep asking about them. And we have a name for them. We call them Lavado do Alvaro, which basically means Alvaro's washed coffee.

And we're really happy with the results of our own version of washed coffee. So, many times we come across really nice coffees, but the farmer has only two or three bags that are not even milled yet. And the million plants and coops will only take larger lots. So, we know that some farmers we work with, they have smaller processing plants inside their farms. So, what we do is we buy these smaller lots and then we drive all the way up to the other farms and with the help of these farmers were able to process and mill these smaller lots and then we bring them back to the grocery and are able to offer them as a single origin, which is pretty cool.

The last coffee that we were able to do that was actually my uncle's coffee. He's an organic farmer here at the Mantiqueira de region. He always sold everything to milling plant that exports to Japan. So, for the first time he got to taste his own coffee roasted in Brazil. We got six bags of his coffee and then we brought it to a farmer slash friend who helped us meal the coffee and now it's available at Tocaya. Okay, I hope this was informative to you. It was a pleasure for me. If you wanna chat more, you can talk to me on Instagram. And thanks so much for listening and ciao. Hello, Identity Viewers.

I'm Miguel Vicuna, and you might recognize the back of my head from the World Barista Championships. Outside of judging Barista Competitions, I also worked for Sweet Bloom Coffee Roasters in Denver, Colorado. I'm our quality specialist, licensed Q Grader, SCA AST, and a pretty phenomenal dancer. But enough about me, you're here for the coffee, which I have a really fantastic one to showcase for you today. It's a Gesha/Maracaturra blend from Nariño, Colombia. Notes are lemongrass, white peach, and grape. It was produced by Pablo Guerrero. But today, let's go beyond the bag. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about Pablo and El Obraje, the farm in which this coffee grows.

Pablo started off as an architect, El Obraje started off as an apple orchard. But in the year 2000, Pablo introduced coffee to Tangua on El Obraje and started planting and growing really fantastic varieties of coffee, Gesha mainly, and a lot of different other varieties as well as you can see by the planet. In 2009, he opened a processing facility in which he does a little experimentation with processing, wash, natural fermentation times, and things like that, which, you know, it's really awesome to experiment. But where do those experiments lead? With Pablo, it went pretty high. In 2019, Pablo submitted coffee to the Cup of Excellence and placed 8th.

And in 2020, placed 1st in the Cup of Excellence in Colombia, which is an amazing week to do. And it really just showcases his pride and love for growing and processing and making the fantastic coffees. This is the fifth year that we've gotten to buy coffee from Pablo Guerrero and El Obraje. And I really hope that we can continue buying more and more every year. It's just really fantastic to just showcase these kind of coffees to our guests, whether it's within our cafes or wholesale customers as well. And, yeah, I really just love these coffees when they come to the coffee table. We've bought different types every year, natural geshas, washed Gesha, purple caturra, and the quality that he always produces is amazing, and with such variety.

So, it's really fantastic to kind of connect the quality of that to our guests here. I'm hoping to visit. And not only do we want to visit Pablo, but we also want to bring him to us in our "Meet the Producer" series. This is where we bring producers to Denver, Colorado to have them tell a story about their journey and coffee, helping showcase their farm, their skills, and why they love producing coffee. And connect with our guests here in Denver, really kind of solidifying that bloom to bloom of coffee to that final cup. And, yeah, I hope you get a chance to try this coffee. I love it every year, no matter what it is.

And, yeah, I'm really excited to share this with you. And thank you so much, High Density, or I should say, thank you, Barista League, for always putting on these really awesome events with High Density and allowing me to go beyond the bag with this Pablo Guerrero Coffee that I absolutely love. Hello everyone. I am Professor Lucas Louzada Pereira and I work at the Federal Institute of Espírito Santo, in Venda Nova do Imigrante, a small town in the Serrana region of Espírito Santo. I would like to thank you for inviting me to participate in the event and to share a little of our knowledge and discuss a little about coffee growing in the state of Espírito Santo.

In particular, the canephora coffee growing, which is a coffee crop that has been growing in terms of quality and sustainability, and we will try to show some of the Institute's work in terms of the production approach of specialty canephoras. So the title of our talk today is Biotechnological Processes in the Production of Specialty Canephoras. Well, before talking about Espírito Santo, we need to talk about Brazil, understand Brazil and the context of canephora coffee production in Brazil compared to Espírito Santo. Well, our country is located here, in this big territory in South America. Espírito Santo is a small state in southeastern Brazil, between Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and Bahia.

Espírito Santo is here. And when we look at the production of canephora coffee in Brazil and in Espírito Santo back then, until 1975, it was inexpressive. Starting in the 1980s, the production of canephora coffee increased sharply, especially the production of conilon in the state of Espírito Santo. So after 2010, Espírito Santo produced practically 10 million bags of conilon coffee. So looking at Espírito Santo, which is a small territory that produces conilon coffee in Brazil, canephora coffee, conilon coffee is planted throughout the region of the state of Espírito Santo. So each of these dots represents a ​​production area for conilon coffee in the state of Espírito Santo. However, in Brazil, canephora coffee is known as robusta coffee.

These are different things, everyone. Canephora coffee is the genetic basis the mother, so to speak. We have the varieties, the clones, that are derived from robusta coffee cultivars and conilon coffee cultivars. We're going to talk a little bit more about that in a few slides later. So conilon coffee was introduced here in Espírito Santo in 1912, in the Rio Doce basin, northern Espírito Santo. And little by little, it spread throughout the state. So in Brazil, Espírito Santo is the largest producer of conilon coffee and the third largest producer of Arabica. So last year, we produced 9.95 million bags and we have an average production of 35 bags per hectare, which is a low average. This average can even be tripled when we apply technological processes.

So it is quite common to see a conilon coffee plantation producing 110, 120, 100 bags per hectare. Some producers do not have as many technologies and end up not being able to perform so well. In the case of Rondônia, which is a state in northern Brazil, located in the legal Amazon region, the state produces up to 2.4 million bags with an average of 37 bags per hectare. So here are some interesting facts. I will show some images of conilon/robusta coffee plantations. So note that, unlike arabica coffee, canephora coffee will be produced more in the upper part due to the pruning process, handling, the conditions that are applied to the production of this type of coffee.

And it is important for us to explain to you that each one of these lines we see is not the same variety. They are different clones. So the canephora coffee crop is composed of different clones. That is, within a conilon coffee cultivar group, there are usually 5, 6, 8, or even 10 different clones. Similarly for Robusta coffees and differently for Arabica coffees. In Arabica coffee plantations, we have the same area, a single cultivar, a single variety. In the case of canephora coffee, different clones make up the cultivar set. Well, to understand how the coffee growing works in Espírito Santo, I have separated some slides that talk about the climate characterization of Espírito Santo.

So in letter A, we have a map of annual average temperatures to assess the availability of canephora coffee production in the state of Espírito Santo. In letter B, we have the annual water deficit, so note that in the south and in the mountainous regions there are few water restrictions and the problem is in the north, northwest, and northeast. And under C is the diversity of soils in the state of Espírito Santo. When we combine these factors, we usually define the area of ​​suitability for growing conilon coffee in the state of Espírito Santo. So note that, considering the average annual temperature, annual water deficit, and soil types, we can grow conilon coffee practically in almost the entire state of Espírito Santo with the exception of a coastal region where we will have low suitability depending on the soil.

The north and northwest have water deficit restrictions that can be corrected with irrigation. And in the Serrana region of Espírito Santo, and Caparaó of Espírito Santo, the deficiency is due to temperature. So it is important for us to understand this because even though it is a small state of coffee production in Brazil, Espírito Santo can produce canephora coffee in practically all of its regions. So if we take the combination of these factors, we have an edaphoclimatic zoning for coffee in Espírito Santo. So in letter A, we have the ​​suitability to produce conilon coffee in the state of Espírito Santo, and in letter B, the ​​suitability to produce arabica coffee in Espírito Santo.

Note that we can produce canephora or robusta coffee in practically all regions of the state of Espírito Santo, with the exception of the higher mountainous regions and some extreme coastal regions of Espírito Santo. In the case of Arabica coffee, we have many restrictions. We only have the Caparaó region and the central Serrana region of Espírito Santo. However, we have to emphasize climate change. Climate change has been very present in our lives, and we have observed that the impact of human activity on climate change is very large. Therefore, we have created a panel considering the IPCC methodology.

And if the average temperature increases by 3.7 degrees in the next 10, 15 years, canephora coffee cultivation will practically disappear from Espírito Santo. It would move to the production area of arabica coffee. Note that here we are looking at the average annual temperature, the current scenario 2020/21. If we assume a temperature increase of 3.7 °C, this is what will happen to the canephora coffee growing in Espírito Santo. It will disappear completely and moves to the arabica coffee growing areas. So these facts are very worrying and make us think about new methodologies and we will talk a little bit about these methodologies for you now.

So to reinforce the botany issue of coffee. Within the Rubiaceae family, there are nearly 500 genera and over 6,000 species. So the genus Coffea is the most important member in economic terms. And here, if we compare arabica and robusta, we have some differences. So in this case we have the family, the genus, the species, and the varieties. In this case, in the family, we are looking at the Rubiaceae, the genus Coffea, and we are going to work today only with canephora and robusta coffee in our explanation today. Here we have an enlarged image of the coffee fruit conilon. It's a little more it can be rounder or flatter.

Why are there these differences? On the next slide, I will be able to explain that to you. Baiscally, as I said at the beginning, a canephora coffee growing consists of different clones, and each clone has a different behavior, each clone has a different physiological aspect, each clone has a different chemical and microbial composition. This leads to these differences in the fruit. And here is the unripe fruit, that is, the choice between harvesting the ripe fruit and the unripe fruit i s left to the producer. If we enlarge the image, we can see from sieve 13 to sieve 18, and we will see that the canephora coffee, the conilon coffee, the smaller sieves are flatter, rounder, and the larger sieves are more elongated, in the shape of an ellipsoid.

So everyone, compared to arabica, note that the smaller sieves of arabica resemble the smaller sieves of canephora coffee, and from sieve 16, the larger sieves are similar. However, the production clones of conilon coffee normally produce, on average, slightly smaller sieves than the varieties of the arabica group. And the coloring is different in terms of tissue, appearance In chemical terms they are completely different products. We may explain the chemical difference between the two species in more detail at another time, but today our focus is on the technological processes. So when we talk about biotechnological processes, the first thing we are going to look at is the microbial diversity of coffee.

So, in this study, we present this study was published in 2020/2021 and we present the development and behavior of the microbiota of arabica coffee in the state of Espírito Santo considering different altitudes, that is, before testing any fermentation, before testing any method, any process, it was necessary to understand how the microorganisms acted or act depending on the altitudinal strata, depending on the climatic differences in each region. So, in this study, we were able to understand a complex interaction between microorganisms and their influence on coffee quality. So the material is available to everyone.

It is in English, so you can read the studies. In higher regions, we have a higher rate of cooperation between yeast and bacteria, and in lower regions, we have a higher rate of coexclusion between yeast and bacteria. In other words, in a very simple way, it is as if there is a competition between microorganisms and it is pointless to do a fermentation process without understanding how these microorganisms relate to each other, and when the altitude changes, when the vegetative vigor changes, when the vegetal cover changes around the coffee plant, the entire microbiome infrastructure also changes.

So it is important for us to understand that there is a very large interaction. between soil, root system,. microorganisms, fruits, and fermentation processes.. In this sense, we need to understand. the scope of life in the soil, in the root system,. the nutrient quality of the plant,. the types of handling being adopted,. trying to reduce the excessive use of agrochemicals and chemical products,. trying to produce coffee as sustainably. and ecologically as possible to improve the quality in all aspects.. So when we look at a coffee crop,. it is a combination of many factors. that interact at the microbial level in the root system,. in the soil, which interact in the fruit. with the composition of bacteria and yeasts,. which will produce secondary compounds,. compounds that will be metabolized by these microorganisms,.

And all this will eventually be reflected in the fermentation,. with access for these coffees in the processing phase,. and later in the roasting process and in the consumption process.. In other words, the result of the quality that arrives in the cup,. whether in Europe, North America, Asia, or Brazil,. is the result of a series of factors. that relate to each other between the production of coffee in the field. The interaction between plant, microorganism, fruit, soil,. and then all this in the processing phase,. and how this will be reflected when we roast and industrialize the coffees.. So moving on to processing,. typically we can process the coffee using the Washed method,. which is known as "despolpado",. the Fully Washed, which is known here as "desmucilado",. the semidry, which is known as "descascado",.

And the natural method, which it's our "viaseco". However, in recent years, we have applied a series of studies in the development of new methodologies for the production of conilon and specialty robustas. So we can apply yeast in fermentation, bacterial cultures in fermentation, carbonic maceration, modified atmosphere, washed with yeast, and yeast inoculation in the natural process. So we have some images here. I am not going to go into all the processes because of our time today. I will stick to some smaller processes and some more innovative processes, processes that have brought an exceptional quality gain in the production of canephoras in Brazil.

So, before talking about the processes, it is important for us to reflect on the microbial diversity in the fruits. This is an image that is illustrated in the form of a metaphor, so imagine that in the pulp of this coffee fruit, there is all this diversity of fungi. This was found out in one of the studies that we did, which is a study on the metabolome of Brazilian coffee, where we observed that, in the coffee pulp, there is an absurd, immense diversity of fungi, bacteria, yeasts that act in the fermentation process. So it is important for us to understand this microbial diversity because there are microorganisms that reside only in the pulp, microorganisms that reside inside the tissue, which are the endophytes, and microorganisms that reside on the outside, in the skin.

So there is a very large microbial interaction between plant, fruit, and processes, which can be decisive in the production of specialty coffees. So the first method that I present is based on the publication of our study on how the microbial profile affects the sensory process, the chemical part, and the microbiological part depending on the application of carbonic maceration. So carbonic maceration is an anaerobic fermentation that was first dated in 1986. It is a classic wine fermentation technique that was introduced into the coffee field a few years ago. So the first reports are from Flanzy and Bernard in 1987, and the first registered patent was filed in 1986.

And these processes, why are they important? When I have an environment where I deprive the fermentation system of oxygen and create an atmosphere enriched with carbon dioxide, with CO2, I create a condition for the microorganism to go from respiratory metabolism to fermentation metabolism. It is like saying to the microorganisms, "We need to ferment the coffee", "We need to consume the monosaccharides and polysaccharides available in the pulp." So we take a stainless steel tank, enrich it with carbon dioxide, and we force the natural microorganisms to work according to the fermentation processes.

So this study was published in Food Chemistry last year and you can read the material as well. So when we enrich this CO2 environment, we force this anaerobic fermentative environment, forcing exactly the working condition of the microorganism. So notice that we took that study and subjected the coffee fruits to different conditions, at 18 degrees, at 28 degrees, and at 38 degrees. We observed a significant change in the microbial community at 38 degrees, when after 5 days of fermentation there was a very large predominance of lactic acid bacteria within the fermentation system. While at temperatures of 18 and 28 degrees, the predominance of other microorganisms as a function of the time and temperature binomial.

In other words, before carrying out any fermentation application, we need to understand microbiology, understand the technicalscientific aspects, and how each microorganism works. Why? There are microorganisms that work at optimal lower temperature conditions, others at medium temperature conditions, others at higher temperature conditions. So for this reason, we have to direct the processes to extract the best out of each fermentation. Another method that we have also used frequently is yeast fermentation. Here we have some images from inside the fermentation system. This is a phase of expansion, of development, where the yeasts are multiplying.

Here is the end of the process where we see a change in color, depigmentation of the fruits due to the wort. And here is also another phase of growth, of development of the yeasts in the fermentation process. Some scientific studies will also be available for you to read. This study was published in 2019, where we present the changes in sensory profiles as a function of fermentation times. Here, 4 meters of fermentation were applied in three different fermentation times, 24, 48, 72 hours. Note that in the beginning, the fermentations were not grouped. From 72 hours, there is a significant change between the processes.

Number 2 and number 4 refer to fermentations with yeast. In other words, with or without water, they group after a certain time. And the sensory profile also changes. So it is important for us to understand that, given this process, or given the processes, we will have a significant change in our sensory profiles. In another study, also published in Food Control in 2021, we present different panels between arabica coffee and conilon coffee fermented with the same methodology. We analyzed at the sensory level and also analyzed using midinfrared spectroscopy to observe the change in chemical classes between coffees and between the processes that were applied.

In the regions We have divided the infrared spectra into some regions. We divided it into six regions with different methods: washed fermentation, fermentation with yeast, dry fermentation, and dry fermentation applying yeast. How important is this result for us? In some spectral regions, we were able to observe a convergence of the chemical profile of arabica coffee to robusta coffee when inoculated with yeast. In other processes, such as the Washed method, which uses spontaneous fermentation, we observed a big difference between the chemical and sensory profile of arabica coffee and robusta coffee.

So we can say that it is possible to change the chemical composition of coffee by induced fermentation, and if we let the spontaneous microbiota of the fruit work, we have unique conditions for each terroir. In another study that we also published in 2020, we observed a change in sensory and chemical perception when applying the wet fermentation process to robusta coffee. In other words, with the fermentation of yeasts for a certain period of time, i t was possible to increase the perception of acidity of the palate and also a change in the chemical profile of the coffees due to the biotechnological processes that were adopted.

In other words, all this literature is available for you to access and think about. However, we must emphasize that fermentation processes are processes that require very strict control, a very clear understanding of how these phenomena happen, and, above all, the responsibility to produce food safely, because we are talking about food. Coffee is a food that needs to be treated very hygienically, with quality control, and we need to use technology to improve quality and maintain the production of specialty coffees in typically consolidated terroirs, where sometimes we don't even have that much technological intervention.

Well, that was a taste of what we have been doing in the state of Espírito Well, based on what we were talking about, that was a taste of what we do here in the state of Espírito Santo. This is the image of the campus where I work at the Federal Institute of Espírito Santo. Thank you for inviting me to participate in the High Density event. I hope to see you soon. If you have any doubts or questions, you can send me an email and I will see you soon. Thank you very much. Hey, guys, it's Oliver and Ludvik, roasters from Fuglen Coffee Roasters here in Oslo. We're gonna talk a bit about Fuglen brand first.

Yeah, we started in Oslo in 1963, and since then, we have opened a couple of shops in Tokyo, plus, the roastery. And now we also have a roastery in Oslo roasting delicious coffee. So, we were asked about having some fun facts about this coffee, and we don't really have that. So, here are some facts. Fun fact number one Yeah. This coffee is Harbegona from Ethiopia? So, fact number two Two, right? Two. Yeah, two. So, the coffee is brought from Heleanna that runs more proper training and she buys sources Coffee from smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. Fact number three. Hand source all the coffee with a team of workers before final approval.

So, let's taste the coffee. It's cute though, isn't it? It's good. Yeah? Subtle hints? Some subtle taste. I'm getting flavors of black tea, some nice florals. Yeah, some honeycomb. Sweet Yeah. Almost like a red apple thing that. I think the coffee is good. Me too. Cheers, guys. Hi, everyone. My name is Anna and I'm the Project Manager for High Density and all the Barista League competitions Europebased events. Mainly, the Barista League is a party disguised as a coffee competition. For baristas, by baristas. This year, we are doing 10 events in different cities all over the world. If you never heard about the Barista League competition before, here are some things we think are really special.

One is 100% free to compete. Two, we provide everything competitors need, including coffee and equipment. Three, there is no longer a book and no script to memorize. Four, no previous training or experience level is necessary. All are welcome. Five, I'm not gonna spoil it, but we have a big surprise for all the winners of this year's competition. We are super excited for 2022, and I hope to see you at some of our events though. Thank you so much for watching High Density. I hope you are enjoying it. Byebye! Hi, I'm Chad Trewick, part of the team working at Emory University on a couple of interesting projects related to the coffee industry.

The Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide and a series of workshops called Grounds for Empowerment. We're hoping to work toward cultivating a progressive market for specialty coffee producers. The fundamental problem is that while the specialty coffee market has expanded globally for 30, 40, even 50 years, and now accounts for by many estimates 40% or more of all coffee consumed. Coffee prices in the specialty market are still overly linked to global coffee commodity prices for the "C" price. This is allowing specialty buyers to purchase at near commodity prices but then selling them as differentiated in high value products.

This is leaving producers out of the opportunity to take an equitable share of this high value market. The graphic on the right represents the volatility of the commodity market with the blue line representing daily trades and levels and the red line the average for each of the years captured in the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide. The solution, we believe, is this guide, the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide, providing new pricing benchmarks. The guide anchors a marketdriven social movement which is going to allow producers to sell their coffees under a logic that is already evident in retail markets where we can see generally higher qualities are getting higher prices.

This logic can then reward investments in quality and sustainable agricultural practices and it releases the market from its dependence on commodity price, references. Investments in relevant price references, research reports, updating market conversations, and improving business and entrepreneurial capacity produce relevant and consistent valuations, a progressive exchange in relationships and development of networks, balanced price negotiations. All of this leads to, we hope, appropriate green coffee pricing for specialty and differentiated coffees, reliable incomes for producers, and super importantly, funds to invest in farms and the communities that depend on coffee production.

The Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide provides these relevant price references. A collection of data from 80 to now almost 100 coffee roasters, importers, exporters, and cooperatives described distributions of recent green coffee specialty prices. The guide summarizes more than 50,000 contracts and covers more than a billion pounds of coffee valued at more than $2 billion. The charts, one of them you can see on the right describes prices paid in coffee producing countries, which then provide a relevant price reference for negotiations for producers to consider as they go to sell their coffees.

The simple transition to using Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide prices as opposed to commodity prices would generate tens of millions of dollars each year for farmers and farm workers. If just half of the specialty coffee grown in six Mesoamerican countries had earned the median price for Speciality Coffee in the 201920 crop year, producers would've earned an additional $76 million. We know in order for information to be PIP to use, it has to be explained and trained. So, the grounds for empowerment workshops, convert this information into action. Grounds for Empowerment is a program to train smallholder farmers to use transaction guide to negotiate prices consistent with the quality and the quantity of the coffee they have to sell.

Producers, who are empowered with information to recognize the value of their coffees, then can make plans to secure prices consistent with these valuations. The business tools workshops engage small groups of women producers to produce relevant business knowledge and networking opportunities. Participants leave workshops with a stronger vision for the future of their farms and their futures with plans and connections to achieve a more prosperous and sustainable farm business. Grounds for Empowerment business tools workshops work with around 20 women producers at a time. We focus on storytelling, financial tracking, quality assessment, and importantly again, using the information and the transaction guide in order to support planning for the future.

Workshops are supported by trained university, students, and experienced industry mentors. Super important to expand networks. Producers also receive seed grants which allow them to make small investments in things that will help them to achieve some of their quality and production goals. The stories we cultivate together are posted on a dedicated grounds for empowerment workshop where anybody can go and read and find and be connected to these stories. We have successfully piloted this workshop in El Salvador a couple of times, Guatemala a couple of times, and even once in Nicaragua and with plans to do so in the coming months in Honduras.

I hope that introducing these two programs inspires a little curiosity in your minds about the different tools and increasing information available to producers so that they too can participate in the prosperous specialty coffee market. It is only through expanding and increasing the information available to producers themselves that they are going to have an equitable share of the market that we all work in together. Thanks for your time today. Hi, everyone. My name is Kellem Emanuele and I am the Chief Impact Officer at Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers. Before I jump in, I'd like to extend my appreciation to the Barista League team.

Thank you for the incredible opportunity to be here. It's a real honor to have been invited. I'd also, in advance, like to extend my appreciation to the audience for your patients with me as I work to focus on, this isn't a video, it's a new way of having a conversation and conversations are what I love best. So, what I hope to share with you over the next few minutes is a recipe of sorts. What I've learned based on my experience, working with teams here at Sustainable Harvest and also in my previous role, working in service to the global network of the International Women's Coffee Alliance. In both roles, it was

I have had wonderful opportunities to be part of teams. that are focused on really accelerating women's empowerment. in the coffee industry.. Before I get too much further, I want to take a minute. and level set on what I mean by empowerment. and the definition of empowerment that we've used. is really to focus on amplifying what's within.. It's the process of becoming stronger and more confident,. especially when we're talking about the feeling of controlling. one's own life, the feeling of selfsufficiency.. And in some cases, the focus maybe economic,. economic empowerment or social empowerment. or even political or psychological, but whatever the case,. I think a key point to keep in mind and the experiences that. I've had that it's been less of say, pouring water onto a plant empowerment. and rather more of pulling the extra dirt away.

So that the strength that's within can find the resources it needs to continue to grow stronger. And with this in mind, what are the three ingredients in this recipe to accelerate empowerment? The three ingredients are Listen, Leverage, and Launch. Within Listen, what we found is that it's very important to find the right people, find the ambassadors, find those who are interested, ready and open to learn and who are really positioned to own it. Now, it may not be at the beginning of your project or your engagement or your process, but the people that are part of the team have been able to fully embrace what you'll focus on, whether it's coffee quality or whether it's forming a new organization, but what you want to look for are whether or not you've got the right people at the table who are really ready to take on whatever it is you're about to embark on.

And when you identify who the right people are, we found that it's important to cocreate, cobuild the program so that those who are involved in the program feel that they feel and do have a voice in its creation and evolution, not only will this ensure long term buying, but it'll also help you to navigate and avoid any unexpected that comes along because you're working with people who have all had a sense of buying from the beginning. Another aspect of listening is to really lean in and identify the strengths, the strengths of the people at the table, the strengths that are created by the group working together and the strength of the shared goal that you have together.

Now, whether that goal is to improve coffee quality. or reduce defects or that goal is to amplify voice and visibility,. it can be very easy to identify what's missing,. what are the barriers?. What are the obstacles standing in our way?. But it's also important to identify what are the strengths?. What do we have going for us, even if it's to begin and start small. and identify that what we have going for us. is that we're here, we're on day one.. But identifying those strengths provides a common basis to begin, to grow,. and move forward and take on each,. each new challenge that that is before you.. So, when we focus on listening, what do we mean?. Just to recap, we mean finding the right people,. people who are really engaged and ready to learn. and positioned to be ambassadors as the project continues.

To take shape or even wraps up. Listening also means cocreation. Having everyone involved various roles but involved nonetheless and creating what will unfold. And the third element of listening is to not only be clear on the challenges that you seek to overcome, but start from a place of identifying strengths. What do you have going for you by working together? What's at the table that you can continue to build on and fortify and amplify? So, that's listening. Next step is Leverage. And with Leverage, it means similar to identifying strengths, but it's one step further. It's looking to identify the partners in the area, other agencies, other organizations who have a demonstrated track record for what it is you seek to accomplish.

And perhaps, that accomplished maybe, accomplishment that you're striving towards is entrepreneurship, right? Building that next generation of farmers who see businesses as, who see farms as businesses. A key opportunity with leverage is to not look to recreate the wheel or do it all yourself, but identify those who have a track record for doing the topic that you need, the focus that you need because oftentimes not only have they developed the materials they've That are important to breakthrough, but they've also developed and honed in on how to train and bring others along. So, really leverage what's around you, to build efficiencies, but also grow the process on the program.

The next element of leverage is to really identify tangible opportunities, tangible opportunities that helped fuel success and build that sense of ownership, that growing confidence that, yes, we can take it to that next level whether the next level is becoming a Q certified expert or the next level is simply learning how to properly use drawing tables, but focusing on those tangible results can begin to build that track record that accelerates the growth, that accelerates that feeling from within of empowerment moving forward. And the third and final phase, Launch. Launch into that next level of empowerment.

But what does launch mean? Well, it's really up to the individual participants in the program. Of course, launch means successfully achieving the ends you sought out to achieve, an increase in coffee quality, track record for successful Excuse me. Successful production, or hey, winning a World Barista Competition. Sure. There are many definitions of launch, but it's important that you recognize that the definitions that matter are the definitions of launch for those who are participating. So, it may be, yes, coffee quality improvements, but it may also be maintaining your own online bank account or successfully navigating social media.

So, the third and final element of the recipe. is recognizing that listening and leveraging. leads to the opportunity to be an agent. in the launching of that next level of empowerment. for the people who are part of the program.. So, as I wrap up, I hope that the recipe. I've shared not only helps shed some insight into work. related to women's empowerment in the coffee industry,. but also is something that anyone can adapt. in their own work to overcome barriers,. whether you're a home enthusiast,. trying to figure out the best way to communicate. with your neighbors about why coffee is so exciting,. whether you're a development professional,. really trying to breakthrough and engage with new communities,. or even if you're a coffee roaster looking to engage your audience. to reach, reach more with your coffee drinking,.

Reach more with your customers and have an even greater impact. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me kellem@sustainableharvest.com If you have questions or even insights to share. Thanks so much for your time. Bye. Hey, my name is Sarah Huggins, and I am a cofounder of Daughter, New York, the Community Centric Cafe in Brooklyn, Crown Heights. This year, High density is really focusing on what community looks like in the cafe. And I, specifically, will be talking about how we, as owners, can shift our focus to prioritizing people over profits. For a little background, myself, Daughter opened this past April with myself and Brian Stoothhoff and Adam Keita, my coowners at the helm.

The three of us all met working in cafes in Brooklyn years ago and united with a shared passion for community and a shared desire to create a space that was different for anything we'd ever seen for both sides of the counter. So, the first thing we did was we set up shop and a little cart outside of our space four months before opening and use that time to serve coffee, sometimes for free, sometimes for a little bit of startup capital. But all with the purpose of fostering conversations with anybody who would talk to us who walked by. Those conversations all centered around one thing, that being what our neighbors wanted to see occupy this space.

We really wanted to do that so that we could kind of transfer some of the power back into the hands of the neighbors as to how the real estate in their community is used. And what happened, in April, when we opened doors was a direct result of those conversations. From the menu that our head baker Tyler designed to the floor plan that architect Chris designed to the events that we've been so lucky to host. All of those things were results of what the community asked for. When talking about putting people over profits in the cafe, there is really no one size fits all solution. With Daughter know that because we are constantly evolving our practices to do better.

But today, I wanted to share some of the strategies we've had from the start. that have really worked for us.. Basically when opening a cafe, we sat down together and identified things. that we had seen in other cafes patterns that we had seen that. we didn't want to carry into our own cafe.. Things that hindered organic relationships with the community.. The first of those things being a lack of transparency of finances,. now this is an issue that permeates both sides of the counter.. On the customer side of the counter,. it becomes an issue and it hinders true community. because what they're watching is you sweep in profits mostly. from their own pockets with no real commitment. to reimburse with them, or at least, if your books are closed,. no like, accountability to invest back in them,. and it's necessary to invest back in your neighbors.

To be a part of good community. Good community builds each other up. And so when you open your books, you can show that level of accountability that you're setting your prices intentionally, that you are paying your employees intentionally, that you are paying yourselves intentionally and that you are reinvesting and putting your money where your mouth is. Now, on the flip side of the counter, it becomes a little more obvious. We have all worked at cafes where we have watched ourselves be the sole creator of any profit behind the counter, all for minimum wage while watching our owners live in seeming luxury.

And, you know, we, as a cafe, can't set out to solve all the problems of capitalism, but what we can do is work to kind of close that gap and less than the level of estrangement that our workforce feels from the capital that that he created. So, we opened our books. By opening our books, we were able to show the community that we pay our staff $20 an hour and we pay ourselves as owners $20 an hour. By becoming hourly employees, we were able to ensure that we weren't making exponentially more than our employees that we were making incrementally more than our employees. Just based off of the extra requirements of what it takes to be an owner.

Because to truly foster community, to truly be with the people, you have to put yourself among the people in any way possible. And that brings me to my next point. The second thing that we identified as an issue in truly being among the people is presence. Being physically present is crucial and it's pretty much impossible to accomplish by weekly droppings. Being physically present is another issue that affects both sides of the counter. With your employees, I think I can speak for us all when I say that we've experienced that moment as baristas on the floor, if we can take ourselves back to that moment of you have a coworker that on the floor with you there, your comrade there, your confidant, they understand your struggle and then the faded promotion happens.

And then within days of being taken off the floor all of a sudden, they can't even recall what it was like to be a barista. They can't even resonate with your complaints. And, you know, the same is pretty much automatically present in ownership in most places because owners haven't been on the floor in years though many of us started as baristas, it's almost like you can't, they can't even register that they're asking too much. Task after task will be continually applied to the job too. The barista becomes kind of a machine and the job becomes pretty much undoable. And there's nobody to go talk to about it because a relationship doesn't exist where there is safety to be honest about those things.

So, in our case, the way that we fix that is by committing to be on the floor enough days a week to build a real relationship and to build safety between ownership and employees, and that all comes with familiarity. You really cannot build that level of camaraderie without struggling alongside one another. It just doesn't work top down. And again, yeah, a weekly dropping doesn't build a relationship where there's that level of safety. The same is also true on the other side of the counter with your customer basis. Customers are so used to going to cafes where they know it's just an echo chamber of their advice and their opinions and their complaints and their praise even.

But with us, our customers know us. They see us many times a week. They see me four times a week. I know them on a name basis. I know about their lives. I go to their things that they invite me to. We are living in community. This minimizes the echo chamber that is created of just opinions going into a barista and then bouncing around a management system until they go nowhere basically. It's direct contact, which is also pretty, very, pretty much impossible to create when your entire job exists behind the desk. It has to happen through continual questions, continual contact, continual being in your space and getting to know people, and serving people.

For us, it's always worked the best for our customer basis to see us in a position of service as well. We are here to serve them not just entitled, but literally, physically, make them their coffee, greet them first thing in the morning were the first people they see. You see all these things might be progressive, tendencies, and might be different and it might not work for your cafe, but the takeaway from this is that via financial openness and transparency and just being among each other, we can build these spaces that foster organic community because they build safety. And, you know, you might not employ any of the strategies that we've chosen to employ.

But there are always ways to create those things in your spaces and there's always room to expand those things. So, thanks for listening in. And I hope we can put people over profit together. Oh, hello, everybody! My name is Chelsea Thoumsin and I am happy to be here today for Barista League. Today, we're going to be talking about ways to develop your palate with relatively minimal resources and by only changing one variable at a time when brewing your coffee. Now, before we get started, a little bit about me. I am currently working for Ally Coffee as Account Manager and Sales Representative of the Southeast.

In the past, I've been a barista, I've been a quality specialist, I have been a coffee buyer, and I have been wrapped up in the coffee world for over 15 years now. So, I'm always trying to find ways to help those wanting to develop their palate with things they have at home. And hopefully, you have a basic setup for our part. Well, if not, hit me up and we can help you with that. But I think sometimes when baristas, and I know for myself when I was starting out, it is difficult to figure out what to switch up first. So, while there are many variables you can change while brewing, I always recommend changing one at a time, especially when you're starting out.

So today, we will be brewing a control brew and we will be brewing a brew that has a slightly coarser grind and we will be tasting the two to compare. And you can do this at home, I will give you the recipe in a minute and you can play with it. It's a really fun time. So, what I'm going to be using today is actually Little Waves. And, you know, it's a washed Colombian coffee. I really like starting out with simple coffees like this because you can bring out the most clarity within them when you're dialing in your control. Let's get started. Okay, so here I'm showing you the difference in the grind size between the control, which is on the left, and the coarser grind, which is on the right.

Check it out. Here, I'm brewing a Control. First, I'll rinse the filter and I'll go ahead and take out that rinse water. Don't forget that part. This is sped up like two to three times. So, I'm not actually moving this fast. We've got our ground coffee. You know, shake it to make the bed level. We're going to start our timer and a kettle and we're going to do around 30nd bloom around 75gm of water bloom. And you'll notice that throughout this process, I try to start pouring in the center of the bed of the coffee and spiral out and then spiral out and back in. So, we're starting in the center, spiraling out and spiraling back in.

And I just do this repeatedly. So, again, this is our Control. We're going nice and easy. I'm shooting for around three to four minutes of brew time. And I think I normally go between like a 40gm and 75gm pulse of water every time I do this. Okay, go ahead and wrapping it up here in the next pulse or so, right, to 500gms of water and then we're going to let it draw down. Again, this is sped up two to three times and then brew is considered done once the bed is dry. It was around 3:30. Great. Going ahead and start the next one. Put that one off to the side. Now, this is our coarser ground coffee.

And as we can maybe guess since the coffee is actually coarser, each particle size, the water is going to move a little bit more quickly. So, our total brew time all things the same should be faster. And also, what happens is when particle sizes are greater or bigger, the extraction is actually lower and we can talk about what that equates to in terms of flavor. You can see that, even though this is sped up, the water is drying down pretty quickly each pulse. We try to keep the coffee bed as even as possible, as well as the texture of the liquid on top the same. So, you see I have one type of brown on top of the coffee water there.

Okay, so our variable total brew time was 2:45. So, let's go ahead and start getting tasting. Now, I like to, at this point, I take mental notes about comparatives but I also really like to take written notes, then I recommend that you all try that too because if you're doing a succession of these, it can be really easy to confuse yourself. So, let's go ahead and taste the Control. We'll try. And gently, swirl this. And just take a little bit. You want to taste coffees at different points at different temperature points. So, when the coffee is too hot, one, you risk, run the risk of burning your tongue, which is never fun and affects your palate.

But you do want to taste it when it's on the warmer side, a couple of minutes later, that are like medium warm and then cooler, and then if you really want to get into it like, room temp. So, I have two different cups here. Again, this is the Control. They look different, so I don't confuse my cups as well. It's a pro tip. I recommend you do. And this is the one with the coarser time. So, let's taste. Now, when I taste, I don't know if you could really hear it, but I'm like kind of breathing in as I'm sipping. I'm not really slurping. You can do that if you'd like. You can also take a cupping spoon and cup out of your vessel.

That's also fine. But I'm swirling it just to incorporate it a little bit more. Cool it down touch because it is still pretty hot. And then I am kind of drawing it into my mouth and sort of chewing on it, make as much noise as you want. I just kind of chew it, and then I'm going to talk about like, what I am experiencing first. So, I usually like to have other people tell me what they're doing, but since, I'm the only one in this room, that's fine, I'll talk at you for a bit. Well, I noticed that it's like really sweet. It's got chocolate going on in there, a little bit of raisin. It's a pleasant finish. It is hotter.

So, it kind of actually has a slightly astringent finish which will be interesting to see if that kind of eases up when it cools down. Sometimes it does. Now, let's taste our Brew that is slightly coarser. I'm also smelling it. You can also smell the aroma of the actual coffee itself. You might be able to note some differences there. Okay, so right away, I'm noticing, it doesn't have a much going on. It tastes a little bit watered down. It's not bad, but it kind of has this like, tackiness at the end, that's different than the astringency in that one. To reiterate things that I'm paying attention to personally, the sweetness is at, we pay attention today aftertaste.

Sometimes when things are hotter, nuance of flavor doesn't really come out until it cools down a bit. So, whatever works for you to pay attention to and whatever you are sensitive to, hang on to those things when you're tasting, right? So, if you're supersensitive to bitterness or supersensitive to things that taste savory, keep that in your back pocket as you're tasting through coffees, especially when you're dialing in recipes. So, we're going to repeat the process. It's been a couple of minutes. It's cooling down more, things changed. This is a really fast way to get over caffeinated. So, if you want to stick up by all means, use that.

All right, this is round two, I would say, hmm, it's probably like 5, 57 degrees cooler than I last tried it. Again, you can just give yourself little sips. Kind of smelling some more molasses, maple syrup kind of things. Okay, that's really interesting. So, now what's happening is that the acidity or the pleasant, "pleasant sourness", if you will, is kind of amping up. It takes a little bit more like green apple. And those more subtle things are starting to come to life, which is what I find really exciting and tasting coffees as they cool down. All right, let's taste our other one. It's slightly sweeter. Like, it's fine.

It's definitely not bad. But I'm not getting things like Granny Smith apple and molasses. It's sort of just like a flat sugar and sort of waxy Hershey's chocolate. It's just interesting to me when you put these two things side by side, they were essentially crafted exactly the same except for the grind size. So, I'm gonna taste this one again because I like to end on a nice note. This one just keeps getting better. It's just the sweetness is really coming through like, very delicious brown sugar. It tastes a little bit weak, meaning that there is not really enough coffee material that kind of came through in that time as well as a little bit under extracted.

So, it's just kind of blah, just a little bit peppery, tasty. And then I've had a lot of cups of coffee like this. It's still actually quite good. I would drink it. But knowing how much more you can bring out of it. Yeah. It's also really a fun thing to do if you have, like a roommate or a friend who's around and, you know, give them one of them and be like, how's this? And they'll be like They'll give you your feedback and they'll give them the other one, see it, what's that, and they'll probably think it's two different coffees altogether, when it's not. It's just the same coffee with It's like grant change, in this case.

Yeah, this coffee now is getting to be like, actually really juicy, we've got like red grapes and those apples are still there, and a little bit of cherry, maybe if I'm pushing it. Really pleasant finish. And by pleasant finish, I mean, like, it's sweet, there still is an aftertaste, but it's not unpleasant. It's not one of those things where I want to go like, brush my tongue or scrape my tongue. So, aftertaste is inherently super important, especially, that's how I delineate differences and tasting as well. So, pay attention to the aftertaste because I do feel like something that is well extracted and well brewed.

We'll make you want more of it, like you want to keep drinking it, not just because for caffeine, but because you're enjoying it. All right, let's taste this guy. So, yeah, the aroma kind of just smells like a wet paper bag. Again, some sweetness, it just sort of tastes like, the like LaCroix version of the actual coffee. Do you know what I mean? Like, the "essence", but this one by far is supremely better. But you can work at at home with whatever brewing method that you've got, play around with just adjusting one variable at a time. I hope that this helps. Again, take your notes when you're tasting, kind of, enjoy it.

If they don't line up exactly, and if another variable kind of slips in and it's slightly different, that's okay. This is just like basic science and the stuff that you should be able to do at home and have fun with it. So, take your favorite coffee and play around, you can see what else you can get out of it, all right? Thank you so much for joining me. And I hope you enjoy all of your coffees and your palate development. Thank you, Barista League, so much for having me. If anyone has questions, you can hit me up on Instagram at chelsea.tastes.things Yeah, shoot me a message. We can talk brew recipes or tasting anytime.

Thank you. Hi, everyone, My name is Sahra Nguyen, I'm the founder and CEO of Nguyen Coffee Supply. America's first specialty Vietnamese coffee importer and roaster based right here in Brooklyn, New York. Today, my talk is about how we can all work together as a coffee community and industry to tell a new story about Vietnamese coffee, and more specifically, the Robusta Bean. Now, why is this collective investment important? One, by elevating the Robusta Coffee Bean, we offer consumers everywhere more diversity in their offerings and we can allow customers to determine whether or not they like Robusta Coffee.

Two, we will be helping Robusta farmers, not just in Vietnam, but everywhere in the world to elevate their livelihoods by giving them a chance to improve their product, improve their coffee, and improve their lives. Three, by generating more excitement around the Robusta variety, we would offer a radical farmers or farmers of all coffee varieties around the world and a pathway to enter Robusta farming to sustain their livelihoods in the face of global warming. First, I'm gonna share a little bit about my background and why I started my company Nguyen Coffee Supply. Living in New York City around 2016, I noticed that there was a huge emergence of Vietnamese food and culture in New York.

And on the similar wavelength, I noticed that "Vietnamese Iced Coffee" started popping up on a lot of cafe menus. As a first generation Vietnamese American, I was super stoked to see more people engage with my culture. However, when I would try the Vietnamese Iced Coffee, I would always ask the barista what kind of beans they were using and they were never using actual Vietnamese coffee beans. They were using coffee beans from Central South America or Africa and adding sweet condensed milk to it and then calling it "Vietnamese Iced Coffee". While I appreciate, you know, the effort to bring diversity to "menus" or to share a cultural beverage, I found this to be really problematic because Vietnamese farmers and the producers of this culture weren't benefiting from this transaction at all.

And, you know, so much of the specialty coffee community we're upholding these values around transparency and single origin, this in single origin that, but I felt like these values weren't being applied to Viennese Coffee. And so I asked myself, "Well, why don't they just use single origin Vietnamese Coffee Beans?" And that's when I started going on a search across the city and supermarkets everywhere, even online with different craft roasters around the country. And I was really shocked that I couldn't find a single origin freshroasted, locally-roasted, craftroasted Vietnamese Coffee Bean in the market.

And I started to ask why. To my total shock and surprise in my research, I learned that Vietnam is the world's second largest producer of coffee in the world. Second to Brazil. And Vietnam is also the number one producer of Robusta Beans. As it went down this rabbit hole of learning and education, I started to realize that Vietnam as a coffee industry was explicitly excluded from the specialty coffee industry, right? And as we all know, especially coffee isn't a type of bean, especially coffee is a collective investment from everyone along the supply chain to educate, to share resources, to invest in farming communities, to make the coffee products better, and then as a result, make farming communities better through it.

So, this is when I started to think about starting when coffee supply to bring Vietnamese Coffee to America and presented in a way that was rooted in integrity and culture and in quality. So, in 2016, I made a trip to visit my family in Vietnam and I also went, to go visit a family friend and a lot who is now my producing partner. And so in 2018, I launched the one coffee supply, and because I couldn't find anyone to import our coffee beans, I learned how to import myself. So, we have a directory relationship and I also learned how to roast because I couldn't find any roaster who was willing to roast Vietnamese coffee or let alone Robusta Coffee Beans.

And so now today, our mission is really to help improve the industry through diversity, inclusion and sustainability, and cultural integrity by telling a new story about Vietnamese Coffee, by involving Robusta in the conversation, and simply by giving farmers everywhere, regardless of which country or continent there in an opportunity to improve their livelihoods, to improve their product, and to be a part of our evolving, especially coffee community. Here are five things we can all do as a coffee community together to tell a new story about Vietnamese Coffee. Elevate the Robusta Beans and change the future direction of coffee.

Number one, stop saying, "Robusta is bad" and question everything.. Saying Robusta is bad is like, saying all cabernets are bad. and all merlots are good, and that's simply not true. because good or bad is not inherent in the properties of the bean.. It's inherent to the treatment. and the production in the systems that surround it, right?. Yes, Vietnamese Robusta has historically been pushed. into the instant cheap coffee market.. However, what would happen, what could we achieve,. what could we discover if we applied some of the things. that we've learned about specialty coffee production. over the last several decades to the Robusta Bean, right?. And Vietnam is the number two producer of coffee in the world. and the number one producer of Robusta Coffee in the world,. what kind of impact can we have on this global community.

If we simply made this product better. Number two, remove elitist frameworks in the coffee experience and center the personal. For example, when we perpetuate a narrative, such as, Arabica is superior and Robusta is inferior. Are we considering the harm that this creates on the person? The person in the communities at the end of the supply chain, right? This is beyond our personal taste buds are personal opinions, right? These narratives deeply impact communities around the world, in this case, deeply impacting Robusta farming communities around the world by trapping them into economic exploitation and poverty because we are so fixated on this hierarchy that robust it is inferior.

When in reality, if we just open that up and ask, well, how can we make Robusta better? How can you make Arabica better? Arabica is unique in these ways, Robusta is unique in these ways, right? And then consider how we can involve the people in the communities in this process. Number three, be consistent with your values across communities and across borders. Over the last few years, I've loved, loved seeing the values that have come out of the specialty coffee community, such as transparency, calling out the origin, calling out the variety, calling out the processing method, all these things have really made coffee so much better across the entire spectrum.

However, what I discovered in my experience is that when I would bring up Vietnamese Coffee in these conversations, those values didn't apply and people were really, really quick to box Vietnam as a coffee producing community in a preexisting condition, right, which was one of systemic and historical exploitation. So, as we work within the coffee industry and we're thinking about how we can make coffee better for everyone, consider how we can be consistent with our values and apply to all farming communities everywhere. Number four, use your platform to educate, raise awareness, and spark dialogue.

This is the time to do it.. At Nguyen Coffee Supply, we are huge on using. our social media platforms to build community. and to shift the narrative, right,. because we couldn't rely on anyone else to do that for us.. So, we were telling new stories. and presenting new perspectives about Robusta. and what we found was that a lot of people actually were receptive to it. and they were really open to challenging. their own perception of biases around coffee, right?. And through this process of dialogue and communication and education,. it's created a much more inclusive coffee community around us. where people feel heard and valued. rather than judge or like outcast it, right?. And so if you're watching this, you are respected in your community,. you have a platform whether that's a cafe or a roaster. or importing company and people respect you, right?.

They go to you for your perspective on coffee on what you're sharing.. And by simply having a conversation. and opening it up for people to question their own biases. or, you know, knowledge about Vietnamese Coffee. and Robusta Coffee would have such a powerful ripple effect. and this ripple effect will ripple. all the way back to farming communities around the world.. All right now, number five.. This is a really important one. and this is a step in action that we can all take.. It is, ask for Robusta.. If you're a consumer or a customer, ask your cafe or your supermarket,. "Hey, do you have any Robusta Coffee?". If you're a cafe, ask your roaster,. "Hey, do you have any Robusta Coffee or Robusta Blend?". If you are a roaster, ask your green bean buyer or importer,. "Hey, do you have any Robusta Green Beans,.

Any single origin Robusta from Ecuador or from Vietnam, right". When we start asking these questions, it produces such a powerful ripple effect.. Well, all of a sudden now green bean buyers. will go look for Robusta Beans as they're sourcing.. And as this travels back to communities abroad,. farming communities will now start saying,. "Oh, there's a demand for Robusta, we can grow Robusta now, right?. Oh, there's a demand for quality Robusta.. What can we do to improve the quality of our products, right?. The storytelling is one thing, the narrow shift is one thing, right?. And the narrow shift helps to create these opportunities. for systemic change, right?. And so by asking for Robusta and creating more demand. and excitement for it, it will have such a powerful impact for Robusta. and farm communities around the world that have been for so long,.

Been historically and explicitly excluded. Now, that we have an opportunity to be a part of this, right? But like all, especially coffee movements around the world, it is a collective investment, including everyone from the consumer to the farmer, right? So, by asking for Robusta, we can create not just a narrow shift, but a total industry shift. Alright, everyone, thank you so much for watching my talk. Listen, this is a movement. It's the Vietnamese Coffee Movement, is the rise of Robusta. This is history in the making and we're all gonna do it together. So, stay in touch. You can find me through the socials or drop it in the caption here.

And if you ever want to talk more about Vietnamese Coffee or Robusta Beans, or Roasting Robusta Coffee, hit me up. I would love to keep the conversation going. Bye, everyone. Cheers! What's up, everybody! Thanks for joining. My name is Arii and I am the face behind Black Queer Sustainable over on Instagram. Thanks for joining me for this High Density session. I'm so glad that you're here. Today, we're gonna talk about all about how decluttering is a radical act of community care. So, you might be thinking that maybe this is a stretch, you don't really know what I'm talking about, where did I get all these ideas from? I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about mutual aid.

Mutual aid is a really, really big topic that I'm gonna try and condense it out into a shorter portion to make it easy to understand, if you've never heard of it before. So, currently, our economy is based on commerce or money. Essentially in order to get something, you have to pay money for it. Typically is the way that things work. And the value that we place on things is usually based in how much it costs, what the, how much like, we could sell it for, etc. Instead of like, maybe another option or values based system could be like, how much it's worth to us, like sentimentally. Under a mutual aid framework, things are not based on money, but instead, community care.

So, instead of our values being like, how much money can I make off of this, it might instead be like, how many people can I help by offering this thing or having this service or etc. So, mutual aid can be like, applied to a lot of different things, but particularly, so some of the things that you may see most often are gonna be like, personal fundraisers, anytime someone is giving money to a personal fundraiser, that's an act of mutual aid. And then there are also like community groups like, Getchusomegear that are really cool and can help with redistribution, right? So, they're collecting a bunch of things that people no longer want and then giving them out to people who do want them and need them.

And so that's another example of mutual aid. Typically, mutual aid work and mutual aid groups are not gonna be your nonprofits or, you know, those types of groups that are reporting to the state and the reason for that is because mutual aid work, we are focused and centre is our community and so we don't report to the state, we report to our community. So, now that I've told you all of that, you might be like, what does that have to do with decluttering? Well, despite what you might be thinking, you actually are in a really great position to support other people through mutual aid with or without money like, whether or not you have extra money to donate.

And that is through decluttering. So, what I think is really cool about groups like, Getchusomegear is that they're able to take products that maybe can't be sold or that people no longer want and get them into the hands of people that need them or want them. We can apply these same principles and practices to our own homes on a personal level, like it doesn't have to be and the whole organisation doesn't have to be started in order to create a system such as this. And so that's why I really want to encourage you to think about how you're getting rid of your things as you are decluttering as like spring, cleaning is coming up, you know, and things are, people are really getting into like trying to get rid of the stuff that they have.

For some people, that's like allyear round thing, like, you know, and so instead of just chucking it in the trash and sending it off to landfill, which is like really unsustainable. I think most of us probably already know a little bit about why. There are other options out there. And so we're gonna talk through some of them. The first step to getting rid of your stuff more sustainably is gonna be to call around and ask your friends and family. You never know like what stuff that you have that your loved ones might want or might be interested in. Actually, this jumper or what do they call? I think some people call them dungarees.

It's a little, yeah, overalls that I'm wearing. They're not mine. They're actually my partners'. And so that's like a really great example of sharing, right? But also of the fact that sometimes the things that you have other people may be interested in and so if you're not getting a lot of use out of it, then it's a great way to practice. Sometimes giving our stuff away can be like a little bit weird. You're like, you know, uncomfortable. You don't really know how to like talk about it or what because it's not something that we're socialised for. And so I really think that starting with your friends and family and being like, "Yo, sis, do you want this shirt? "I'm getting rid of it." Or like, "Hey, mum, like you always compliment me "for this bag and etc.

"Is it great place to start?" Obviously you're not gonna be able to get rid of all of the things you're trying to declutter just by talking to your family and friends, right? So, you'll probably still have some stuff leftover. And from there, I would suggest going to one of the free groups on Facebook. If you're on Facebook, and you're in the US, search Buy Nothing and then your neighbourhood and you'll probably find a group, what I like to call free groups. That is participating in this mutual aid economy by helping redistribute like, helping be a channel and like a place where we can, people can redistribute their things.

So, the third way is gonna be to call around, chat with your friends that work at nonprofits or maybe you have friends who know people who are getting nonprofits and community organisations, grass roots organisations as well and see what they need. Sometimes you'd be surprised like if, for example, you're getting rid of a coffeemaker or some other brewing supplies, there might be maybe like a refugee resettlement organisation in your city or maybe there's like a homeless shelter that specialises and getting people back to sustainability, you know, and like getting them in homes and long term, housing situations.

It's gonna be far more useful for them to have the coffeemaker or, you know, brewing supplies that you're trying to get rid of than it is for it to sit on the shelves at a goodwill or other kind of resailor, drifting resale place. So, that's something that I would highly, highly suggest. Try, you know, start with your Once you've Once you've talked to your friends and family and you've tried to get rid of it on the Buy Nothing group, definitely try local organisations and nonprofits because they can have a bit Your items can have a big impact whenever you go with them. The fourth thing is gonna be and this is gonna be the final tip, is to call around to donation centres.

So, if for some reason you went through all of those things, you can't find anybody, then that's the time when I'm like calling goodwills and I'm calling, you know, other types of places and asking like, what do you need because they'll tell you what they need and they'll tell you if the coffeemaker that you're about to give them is something that's actually gonna make it on the floor. 80% of the things that we donate to donation centres like, Goodwill are actually trashed anyway because their businesses, thrift stores or businesses, and they need to make money as well. And so a lot of times we donate trash and, you know, again, that's a whole conversation of its own.

And so just be sure that like the things that you're giving are really high quality but also like that you're, you know, feeling them out first before you dump things off there. So, Goodwill is always like my last or, you know, whatever you're savers, big, big box thrift store, that is always my last, last resort. I always try and go with local thrift stores and local community organisations. So, you've done all these things and now you still have some stuff leftover. Don't be discouraged because it's really important that we remember that sometimes trash Like, sometimes our stuff is just trash.

And that's not a slight at you, that's not has nothing to do with like, how you are as a consumer, but has everything to do with like, how our systems are setup and so. RI Systems currently are setup for us to buy things, stop liking them or they no longer have views and then like, throw them away, get rid of them. And so it's really, really important that if you're unable to get rid of your things, you don't let it weigh too heavy on you. Because even like going through all those steps is a lot more than what most people do. And so I'm proud of you and I think that you should be also proud of yourself.

These are all great ways of building community, taking care of our community members, and just making sure that our trash can go farther than the landfill. So, if you like this video and you love these tips, I hope that you'll join me. I actually have a whole challenge setup on the eLMS apps where you can declutter with me and go through all of these steps on your own with some, you know, some more tips for me as well as pictures from my own experience. So, I hope you'll join me over there. Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening, and have a great day. Enjoy the rest of the conference. Hello, everyone! My name is Selina Viguera and I worked for Blue Bottle Coffee in Los Angeles.

I'm really excited to be part of High Density this year. Since I was invited to speak about two really important topics, how to care for your staff and what hospitality should look like. I've been working with Blue Bottle for almost 12 years now and I've spent most of my time as a lead barista and cafe leader. I've also been a volunteer with the SEA since 2012 and the BGA cafe manager for Expo since 2015. My career at Blue Bottle started in 2010 as a barista at the Ferry Building. This was our highest volume cafe at the time and this is where I sharpened my skills as a barista, learned what hospitality should look like, learned a lot about our culture as a company and started to develop my leadership style.

I began volunteering with a Specialty Coffee Association in 2012 as a busser and timekeeper for competitions. I've been managing the Barista Guild Cafe since 2015 at Expo, which has then opened up opportunities for me to travel and run coffee bars for other events. I have been able to be part of the Barista Crew for the TED Conference in Vancouver in 2016, and I ran the coffee bar in Brazil for the 2019 World Coffee Championships. So I've never competed in any competitions or won any awards because competing terrifies me, but I think that I have made a name for myself within my community because of my true passion for coffee and people.

When it comes for caring for your staff,. I think about three major points.. Leading from the front,. leading with your values, and putting your people first.. So let me tell you a story.. In 2016, I was asked to help one of our cafes. in the bay area that was struggling.. They had just lost their manager. and the team was experiencing low morale. and the hospitality was suffering.. I had never worked in this cafe before. and I didn't know any of the baristas on the team,. so I had to come up with a game plan.. My first instinct was to just get behind bar. and get to know everyone individually.. Leading from the front just means being present. and taking the time to work side by side with your baristas. because this is the best way to develop a rapport with them. and establish trust. while giving yourself the opportunities.

To see where they're at and help improve on any of their skills. Leading with your values just means, for me, starting and leading with my barista mindset. I will always care about quality, hospitality, and showmanship. Anytime I'm on bar with my team. I'm constantly looking for moments to coach and improve and enhance this experience for my team and for my guests by finding the moments to improve on quality by giving them the tools to succeed, improving on hospitality or finding moments where we could've maybe interacted better with a guest. And this also develops a sense of pride and that just is me leading from the front and teaching them what I know and what I care about.

So putting people first is a concept that I learned when I first learned about servant leadership, which encourages leaders to treat their people like their number one customers because if you create a positive work environment, if your team is happy, they will make your guests happy. And I think this was really influential for me in my leadership style. And so what that looks like, for me, every day is taking the time to check in with my baristas individually. As soon as I come in, hey, bub, how are things going? How are you feeling? It also takes really like, separating some designated time to sit down and check in with your baristas regularly in a more formal basis where you can ask for feedback, see what's going on in the cafe, if there's any concerns, if there's any support that they need for me.

So that's a natural part of my job every day is checking in. A big part of leading people first or putting my people first is providing motivation, raising morale. What that looks like, for me is, when I'm behind bar and making things fun, I'm kind of funny, so I'm always cracking jokes, dancing, whatever it takes to keep the beat up light because we're really busy cafe and sometimes that can be stressful. And I understand that because I am barista first. And so raising morale and motivating is a big part of my job when I put people first. It's recognizing talent or understanding every individual's potential.

And so I am given the tools to develop each of my individual baristas, whether that's hard skills and improving on those hard skills, teaching them how to do the job, which is operational skills, and even coaching on soft skills like how to communicate better with each other and how to communicate better with our guests. So all in all, people leadership, create a positive work environment, and really focus on taking care of your people. So when it comes to thinking about what hospitality should look like, I think about the difference between hospitality and service, right? Service is something that we do to someone while hospitality is how we make someone feel.

And in order to figure this out for our space, I think it's important to remove yourself from behind the bar and actually take yourself all the way out and put yourself in your guest shoes. I participated in this activity called Journey Mapping a couple of years ago, which basically was right to write down the steps in my journey from before the ordering process until like the completion of it and be able to mark or grade or just say like this was a high point, this was a low point and what that was able to do was really like, tell me what the guest experience every day and understand what parts I might be able to improve on and accept which parts I couldn't like parking.

But to kind of sum up the important parts of thinking about hospitality is the first one is the approach to the cafe or what the experience is like while they're waiting in line. The second part is what that interaction with the barista at the register feels like or when we're taking their order, the third part is while they're waiting for their order to be put together. The fourth part is when we hand off their order to them. And the last part is just like the follow through. What happens, what happens now when they have everything in their hands? So to go back to the first point, when you think about what they're experiencing while they're waiting in line, it's everything from music choice, music volume, ambience.

What are they observing behind, you know, behind the bar? Just the physical space around them, right? Because there are things that we can control and it's just important to like take a step back and think about that. The interaction with the barista when they're taking their order is that barista educated that this ordering process felt really smooth and friendly was I met with eye contact, a warm smile, was I addressed by my name? What else? You know, was there a moment that felt like really personal and where we connected for a brief moment and just like making sure that we thank them before they step onto the next step, right? The third step is while they're waiting for their order, right? Whether they wait inside the cafe, they're able to observe what's going on behind the bar.

So this is where bar flow and the communication. and the professionalism behind the bar is really important. whether we realize it or not.. The fourth part is the handoff.. So whatever those standards might be for you. it's just really the important part is making sure that there's eye contact,. calling out their name and the drink to make sure that this is,. yeah, this is your drink.. You know, and making that another personal step in the process. directing them to the next step whether that's like,. oh, yeah, if you need anything else, the condiment bar is right behind you.. And then lastly, the step is just what happens next?. Are they going to stay in the cafe?. Are they taking everything out of the cafe?. So what does the condiment bar look like right now?. Like, is it a mess? Is it stopped?. Is it constantly clean and always ready to go?.

And our table is constantly bust as soon as people leave, right, because it's not a good experience if your guests are ready to sit down at a table, but have to call our attention because it's dirty from the previous guests. So I think it's important to break it down in this way because as service professionals, I think it's very easy for us to mix up hospitality and service and think that hospitality only has to do with our direct interactions with guests behind the bar, so take a step back, put yourself in your guest shoes, and understand what the whole experience is like for them. Because if there's moments of that or parts of that that you can control and make better, then that creates a better all

And overall, better guest experience. Why is this important to me? You know, I choose to be a service professional, I love working in coffee and the whole point is to have a product that's worth coming back for and to have an experience that's worth coming back for because I want to assume that even if this is your first time coming into my shop, that we provided such a great experience that you want to keep coming back and become a regular. It's really hard to condense these two topics that I really care about into a 10minute presentation on my own without a dialogue. But I think it's really important to, at least, like start the conversation somewhere.

Howard Schultz said, "We're not in the coffee business serving people, we're actually in the business of people serving coffee." And I take that to heart because this whole presentation was exactly that. I'm talking about how to care for my staff as my people and how that in turn takes care of my guests which are also people and being able to look at everyone's experience as a whole and being able to create an experience that people want to return to. I hope you found this insightful and that you can take something back to your team and your guests. I love talking about these topics, so feel free to reach out.

My Instagram handle is sellybean_13, which is spelled like jelly bean, but with an "S". Thank you again. This was my pleasure. Hi, my name is Jenn Chen. Thank you to, Barista League, for inviting me to speak at High Density. I have recorded this intro about 11 times now and I have the utmost respect to anyone who creates video content out there. So, I work in the coffee industry in a few different areas, writing and photography, and marketing consulting. I do marketing ad at Kaya and I'm an editor at Large at Sprung. So, today, I'm going to focus on coffee marketing, and more specifically, having a cohesive digital communication strategy.

So, this is beginner level marketing. And even though I have only 15 minutes to cover it, you'll need, at least, a few hours to fully develop it. We'll review why you need a documented strategy, how to create your own version. The strategy will cover three areas that I see clients and companies in need of. Brand voice, marketing calendar, and crisis management. The slides and worksheets that I referenced are also going to be available for download on Barista Leagues' website. So, what exactly is a digital communication strategy? It's an internal document outlining everything you do to digitally communicate as a business.

That means all of your social media platforms, website, email newsletter, podcasts, etc. Each of these is considered a marketing channel. The document describes each channel's goals, metrics, you used to measure success with content you'll publish, and the audiences you're interested in targeting. A strategy also includes how you speak to people, how you manage customer issues that pop up online, and when you'll be posting. I'm a big fan of documentation because my memory is terrible and because it helps others in the company understand what and how to write. But before you jump straight into these channels, we need to backtrack to how you speak online.

If you're brand was a person, what is their personality like? How do they speak to different audiences? And what kind of vocabulary do you use? All this combined is called a brand voice. You know, when a company has a strong unique brand voice when you can read something and instantly know which brand it was without even looking for a name. There aren't many companies out there who do this well. So, the three biggest mistakes I see here are when the brand voice is all over the place, meaning they probably have different people writing their various marketing channels. Two, when they adjust their vocabulary to whatever is trendy at the moment in the hopes of relating to the younger audience.

The second one is major because US brands have a history of coopting us profiting off AAVE language without acknowledgement. And a third mistake. Not having a section about inclusive language. So, to get started in defining your brand voice, we want to document your brand values and mission statement. If your brand values are single words, writing a description of what each one means. The idea is that whatever you write online will reflect, at least, one of your values and your mission statement. The next step is to look at personality traits. Look at existing content that you think sounds like your brand, ask around your company for employee opinions.

If the company is small, it's possible that your brand voice is reflective of the owner. And if you're completely starting from scratch, think of a few fictional characters that have treats you like. Aimed for, at least, three personality traits. I like to make a summary table out of this, but you can document to your own preferences for each trait. I write out a short description, things to do, and things not to do. And after this table, create sections for each trait and load in a few examples that demonstrate it. Next, we're gonna talk about audiences. Who do you speak to online? Chances are that you have a few different ones.

A roaster might have broad audiences like consumers, cafes, a wholesale to, and industry accounts. You can even break down consumers into types like people who are new to coffee and home baristas who have all the equipment and more to make espresso in their kitchen. So, write down your different audiences and their demographics and how you might change your voice when speaking to them. If your audience is people need a coffee, you're not going to get super technical and geeky upfront. You'll want to explain methods and industry terms. Lastly, we're going to discuss what others might call a style guide.

This can be as detailed as you want it to be. Some people like to dial down to the grammar they use like, always using a serial comma if they're an "M" or "N" dash type and what they do or don't capitalize. Think about your brand vocabulary, common phrases you use, tag lines, even the language you use. For example, do you write the word practice with a "C" or an "S"? Document office. Another part of the style guide is inclusive language. For example, using they, them as default pronouns when referring to someone unless, otherwise, stated. Words do matter and language does evolve. Thankfully, organizations and people more versed than me in the subject matter have covered this extensively.

Searching for inclusive language guides, online will give you plenty of resources to browse through. Okay, so that's part one, brand voice. Part two is your marketing calendar. This calendar can live wherever you want as long as it's easy for you to access and plan all the channels you're on. It could be a detailed Google sheet, a digital calendar or even native tools like, Facebook and Instagram's own scheduler. So first, I want you to decide how far out you can feasibly plan your topics and posts. Make this a reasonable, achievable amount of time. I usually recommend one month, but if you're just easing into this start out one week and then build up from there.

Next, write down all the digital marketing channels you're on. List, Instagram and TikTok, that blog you sometimes publish on, your email, news letter, etc. For each channel, you want to list two to three big goals you want to target. Yes, you want all of those marketing goals ever to be met by having just a few helps you focus on your content. Goal examples include increasing social media, referred Ecommerce sales, increasing newsletter, signups, and increasing sales leads. Later on, you'll need to make sure that these goals are more detailed and establish metrics to measure success. Remember, those audiences we had created two minutes ago? Note which audiences you want to target per channel.

So, this will help you decide what topics you'll cover. Step three, write down every topic you ever want to talk about. Once this list is complete, put it into bigger categories like company news, new products, new coffee offerings, industry news, etc. Fourth, let's talk frequency. So, between the marketing channels and the topics, decide what you'll be covering for each channel and how often. For example, if you set a goal for increasing Instagram referred sales on your website, you're probably going to emphasize new coffees and coffee details more often, maybe twice a week. Now, we get to put this all together.

For this example, we're going to use a month to plan things out. Start with significant dates like, holidays, events, etc. Then one channel at a time filling the categories you want at the frequency you had just decided. Repeat for each channel. It's okay to have the same topics for different channels, and finally, if possible, write out more of a detailed idea on what you want to cover. If every Thursday is going to be a coffee feature on Instagram, fill in which coffees will be featured. And after you completed all these steps, take a few minutes to schedule a recurring event to plan this calendar out.

So, if you're doing this monthly, schedule a meeting in the last week of the month to plan for the following one. So, once you get the system setup, you'll be able to customize it to your preferences and workflow. Remember to document the strategy and this process. There are plenty of free templates available online for you to use to start your own marketing calendar. And lastly, we are at crisis management. You can also call this handling social media conflict or a customer service strategy. The idea is to know how to respond when something happens instead of reacting in the moment and letting emotions get in the way.

If you've been on social media and followed brands for long enough, you'll have witnessed one going off on someone in a way that was clearly reactionary. So, to start, you want to list out all the things that might affect your brand's communications online. If you can't tell already, I'm a big fan of brands, brainstorming, and lists. Some examples include things like a customer DMs about a shipment being incorrect. Someone writing a negative and public review about your cafe or a natural disaster happening in your area. These days, you probably also have some communication plan in place if a staff member tests positive for COVID.

And now that you have this big list, start ordering them for minor to major. Crises can share at the same level. Lastly for each crisis or crisis level, write out of plan on how you'll react. Someone DMing about the incorrect order should be easy. You apologize, fix the human. A review that's public and very negative all might need a little more time to respond and someone else's approval and you probably know all this already at this point. Write all this down. This is not me advocating for the customer's always right or giving the customer whatever they want because I don't believe in that. I've seen some pretty great responses to negative reviews that don't apologize or condone a customer's behavior.

It can be done and done faster if you've planned for it ahead of time. Okay, so that's it. I know that was a lot in a very short amount of time. Hopefully, you feel empowered to create your own cohesive digital communication strategy. I have the slides and worksheets available on Barista League's website. So, I don't recommend doing this all in one sitting, especially if you need input from other departments. Lastly, you can find me on social media at thejennchen I'd love to know if this talk helped you to set up your own communication strategy. And if you want coffee marketing tips and random essays from me, you can subscribe to my newsletter on my website jennchen.com Thank you so much.

Hi, everyone! I am so glad you're here. And thanks to High Density for having me and offering me an opportunity to speak and share some thoughts with you all today. For those who don't know me, my name is Nora Burkey, and I am the founder and executive director of a nonprofit in the coffee sector call The Chain Collaborative. Our work is to invest in local leaders in coffee communities around the world and our mission is to cocreate opportunities and strengthen capacities for communityled change in the coffee sector. So, several years ago, I was looking through the various classes that were offered for coffee professionals, and mostly, I saw technical classes.

Such as classes for those who wanted to become a better barista or a roaster, etc. I, myself have some training in the more technical aspects with coffee as I started in this industry as a barista in New York City, but what always really inspired me about this specialty coffee sector wasn't taste or technique. It was the drive to do go through coffee, to trade right, to trade justly, to trade fairly, whatever you wanna call it. But this is really what interested me. The opportunity to contribute to justice through the way I drank coffee. So, what I then went on to study was sustainability, sustainable development, and environmental economic in social justice more broadly.

And I applied that to the coffee sector. And when I saw that they're basically no real classes about these things outside of the university level for folks in the coffee sector, I sought to change that. And in collaboration with three colleagues, Erika Koss, Dr Kate Fischer, and Hanes Motsinger, I created the SCA Coffee Sustainability Program, which essentially tries to define sustainability as technically as we define or explore other things in coffee. Like, how much water we should use per gram? But even things like the flavor weigh 080/100-pointquality scale, which have been very scientifically approached.

More and more people are also acknowledging the complexity of defining things like, flavor in specialty coffee. And they're discussing more openly the intersection of these terms with the idea of justice. For example, I recently listened to a talk by Namisha Parthasarathy from India from Aramse Coffee in India who explain how the flavor we're all essentially define certain taste as undesirable, even when those are actually flavors that are coveted in the Indian palate. Of course, this kind of thing demonstrates the ongoing western dominance of the coffee sector and the ability of colonising countries versus those that have been colonised, to still define what is valuable and what is considered good.

So, to me, sustainability is really about these types of realities and these types of discussions. It's about taking topics that are usually discussed technically and highlighting the politics, power dynamics, and injustices behind them. In a nutshell, it's about the constant pursuit towards more justice. However, it's still valuable, I think, to understand the technical definitions of sustainability because if we're criticising how certain definitions might be lacking or need to go further, we need to understand exactly what we're criticising. So, today, I'm gonna start with discussing how sustainability was initially defined starting what is essentially the first wave of coffee.

Of course, the idea of sustainability as improvement or continual reproduction of something doesn't really have a starting point. You could probably go back to any ancient religious text and look at their formula for how to improve yourself or keep going in some way. But how we understand sustainability now in my opinion as it's written in the concept of international development, which really began in earnest as a concept you could study at the end of World War II because that's when countries came together to create the United Nations and what are known as the Bretton Woods Institutions, which are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

And the idea of these groups really was to work together to ensure diplomacy, build a prosperous economy, and basically bring about world peace. And part of their thinking was that, in order to create world peace, we needed to lift people up and out of poverty. As a result, international development before or as it was understood at the time, the idea that we can reduce, that we can reduce poverty through the promotion of economic growth. Now, at this point in history, those who are responsible for creating policies and programs to lift people out of poverty were mostly governments. And how this relates to coffee, is that governments were setting coffeerelated policies, and of course, those policies affected millions of smallholder farmers around the world to resubject to that.

Pretty much right away, scholars began to question the motivations behind certain policies. For example, people noted the tendency for larger more powerful governments to force smaller, lesser resourced governments to adopt policies that benefitted wealthy nations rather than just a smallholder farmers, these policies were supposed to target. And the way we use to trade coffee is a potential example of this kind of policy. The International Coffee Agree, or the ICA, was an agreement created among UN member states whereby coffee was bought and sold through a quota system. The price was set collectively by the countries who signed on, based on the simple rule of supply and demand.

So, it wasn't based on taste, quality or genre of that, but on supply and demand. And this was all during the first trade with coffee, where these types of quality differentiations weren't really in the public mindset yet. Coffee was just coffee or as I like to say, "It was sort of coffee from nowhere". Now, the ICA was ended and resigned several times since it began, but it officially lost its relevance through price setting in 1989. There is a whole back story to this which I haven't mentioned, and I am not going to here. But reach out to me if want, if you do want to learn more. For now, I'll just state

For now, I'll just state that this back story reveals that part of the reason the United States and other countries are behind the ICA, is because they felt that by paying farmers enough money they could stop the spread of communism. And of course, by 1989 that was considered no longer. So, no more ICA. So, yes, politics form part of the downfall of the ICA, but there's much more to the story and it starts with the second wave of coffee. Basically, that's when people started realising that coffee comes from somewhere, and that different origins have different flavor profiles. Of course, the second wave didn't need to all coffees being priced differently because of that, because now we have the sea price.

What's interesting about the sea price is that it was created by Central American countries who were actually trying to differential themselves and charge differently for their coffee in order to break out of the ICA. But the question is, why would they wanna do that? Especially when lots of studies say under the ICA prices were actually higher than even fairtrade prices today. Well, to get to that answer, you have to remember that the ICA was dominated by governments as was international development in general at this time. And that meant it was powerful producer governments, Brazil and Columbia, for example, got higher quotas, meaning they could sell more coffee within the ICA.

While countries like Costa Rica were only allowed to sell very little. And since countries earn money through export taxes, not selling much coffee hurt their economy, and of course, they wanted to sell more. So, the second wave of coffee is more than just Starbuck and Peet's. It helped Central American countries change how they were able to sell coffee. But it's important to understand that how the sea price functions now, is not how it functioned then. Initially, on the sea market, buyers and sellers entered into real futures contracts, essentially agreeing to exchange the coffee commodity at a later date.

And honestly, this sounds a like bit like dark trade today, but we'll get back to that later. For now, let's just talk about the new sea market whereby the price is based on the trade of futures contracts. So, in other words, the contracts themselves, not the coffee, become a commodity that can be bought and sold on the intercontinental commodity exchange. And that means that speculators can engage too, not just people who actually want to purchase coffee. Hopefully, I'm making sense, but if not, I recommend deep diving into the commodity exchange. Now, for our purposes, I wanna note that current sea market is still based on the idea that coffee from one place is interchangeable with coffee from another.

So, in that sense, not much has changed since the first wave of coffee. The difference though, is price's now marketbased and set by market actors who are speculating, not by governments. And this highlights a big shift that took place in the international development near to. We move from the focus on governments leading the charge to market actors leading the charge. Now, the shift didn't just happen with coffee prices. It was with everything, and that's why you see cooperate social responsibility programs because market actors actually became way more trusted to make the decisions about development.

They were trusted to donate to the right programs or run their companies in such a way that would lead to economic growth for all. The extent, to which they have entrusted though, has changed overtime for sure. If you could remember back to the beginning of my lecture, when I was talking about technical definitions, get ready, because I am about to throw another one out there. OK, remember, when I say that international development at onetime was defined as economic growth? Well, in the 1970s and 1980s people began to realise this unbridle focus on economic growth was actually negatively impacting the environment.

And so, United Nations came together. and created this thing called the Brundtland Commission,. whose job was to define the terms of sustainable development.. And they walked away with the following definition.. Development that meets. "Development that meets the needs of the present. without compromising the ability of future generations. to meet their own needs.". Obviously, this was, in order, to making sure. we can still grow economically as the world,. but in such a way, we don't destroy the planet. for future generations to come who also need to enjoy the earth. and use it for survival.. OK, so also at this time,. a new economic theory came into playneoliberalism,. which said among other things. that "The best way to grow economy's lift people out of poverty. and take care of the environment whilst still let.

The market do the work". Neoliberal economists claimed, that "The governments were inefficient and only interested in themselves that the markets had to respond to consumers, and therefore, do what the consumers demanded, which will inevitably lead to a sustainable future," they said. Neoliberalism economists also said that "We should deregulate". So, in other words, their brilliant idea to save the environment was to not regulate any company that could potentially pollute the environment, and just trust that they were doing the right thing. Well, as you might have guessed, people started questioning that approach too.

And now we've entered a time where people still think markets should hold sway, but they also believe they should be regulated. OK, so, why am I telling you all this? Well, I'm trying to demonstrate that around the 1980s, two big things happened. One, the market got more involved in sustainability, and two, people realised that sustainability and development encompassed the environment as well as the economy. So, when you think about certifications such as fair trade and rainforest alliance, you realise that they were actually established as a response to these global ships and thinking. They came on the scene because, well, they didn't think that companies could affect all the problems in the world if they weren't regulated.

So, they acted as nongovernmental regulators of the market and they helped consumers to know which companies to buy from. Because at the end of the day, companies are no less interested in their own power and bottom line than governments. And while both are ideally supposed to respond to their consumers or constituents, they can both lie to those consumers and constituents such as by green washing or acting corruptly, etc. To summarise a bit, I think that too often review certifications as just schemes to pay farmers more and we often criticise them if they don't meet that mandate, but I think what they really are relates to a term we use a lot these days and specialty coffee, differentiation.

Certifications helped and still help consumers. to differentiate between companies and prices. that are more robustly regulated than others.. And ultimately, this is where I want to end my talk today.. I want to suggest that nothing we are seeing in the current market. is really all that different from what came before.. So, before, after fair trade, there was direct trade.. Most easily defined as direct contracts between buyers and sellers,. which again, sounds a lot like. how the Central American countries initially imagined selling coffee. on the sea market.. Again, nothing very new.. But then, after direct trade,. which has no real standard and isn't a certification,. we're seeing a greater push for companies to prove their claims about such things. as direct contracts are fair pricing, so enter technologies like,.

Watching and conversations on traceability and transparency. The thing is this all This is all essentially regulation by a different name and differentiation by a different name, and it's similar to what the initial certifications were trying to do, which was to help prove to customers that companies were doing the right thing. Of course, in a highly competitive market, I'm sure that any block chain developer would not want to have their product compared to a certification, but for better or for worse, that's what I'm doing. OK, so let me pause and add one more thing, the social. After the realisation, that sustainability included the environment, not just economics came the realisation that it also included social aspects and this has deepened even more over time.

So, applying a social lens to these new methods to differentiate ourselves on the market, the traceability, we essentially see that inevitably these methods are putting pressure on farmers to provide us with information. The idea, of course, is that doing so, increases the company's sustainability efforts. And the idea is that when you provide more information, you can charge more as a company. When you charge more as a company, you can give more back to farmers or the idea is that when you build a brand based on being able to show the traceable environmental impact that the farmers you buy from are having, these practices can become more coveted and more people can convert to them.

Or the idea is that when you highlight the fact that considering gender equity and buying coffee is a key element to sustainability, you forced this issue into the limelight. But all of these efforts take an incredible amount of data collection and the burden supply chain actors. I'm not saying these are bad efforts. What I am saying is in the current state of affairs, sustainability and coffee feels like that old adage where if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it actually fall? And what I see is that as we continue to focus on new elements of sustainability, we're also wanting to make sure that everything we're doing is reported and proven, and maybe it has to be this way.

But my hope is that this lecture also makes you ask yourself whether or not it should be our job to make the coffee sector more sustainable. For me, the answer is yes, if true sustainability is defined is constantly striving for justice. But if what sustainability really is a sustainability we can see, then maybe we need to broaden where we are looking and how we're looking so, that we don't continue to only highlight those who have a platform to prove their efforts. Anyway, that's it for me. I'd love to hear what you all think about this talk, about sustainability, differentiation, justice, etc., or whatever else is on your mind.

You can contact me via the chain collaborative website or through our social media. And I hope to hear from you soon. So, thank you again for listening. Hi, everyone! My name is Sam Spillman. I'm the director of coffee for Caffe Vita in Seattle local roasting company. Now, as a director of coffee, I spend most of my time tasting things. It's not a bad gig. I am QCing coffees and making green selections to add to our single origin and blend the offerings. On top of that, I spend a lot of time developing recipes for our cafes. And I tell you all this and that I just want to express. I love tasting things and I love building recipes which is exactly what we're gonna be doing today.

So, today, I'm going to be sharing with you these Barista series plantbased beverages, the Oat option and the Unsweetened Almond. Now, let me tell you a story. When I was a barista when I started about a little over 10 years ago, which feels like yesterday, honestly, these plantbased beverages started making their mark in the industry and I honestly didn't know what to think. I am as a young 1819 year old I was like, why drink this when you have cow's milk? I was very wrong and I'm gonna tell you how. As I started tasting more alternative plantbased beverages, I started realising that, wow, these have very unique flavours and I had this misconception that they were packed with sugar which was, again, not true.

The almond, that the Unsweetened Almond option actually has zero sugar and the oat only has 3 grams, which is pretty wild when you think about it. And you're gonna be very, very surprised if you haven't tasted these on their own. That's another thing that as we're going through this exercise, I want you to think about. And for a while, I had only had plantbased beverages and when they were paired with other things, when they were in a latte or a recipe, but I've never really spent a lot of time tasting them on their own. So, the first step we're gonna take today is we're gonna taste the Unsweetened Almond in the oat by itself, which sounds like a pretty simple exercise.

And it is. So, let's start with the Almond Unsweetened. Make sure to give it a good shake just to make sure everything's incorporated. And if you can pour it without spilling, you get bonus points. I made a couple of splashes. OK, so let's go ahead and taste the Unsweetened Almond. What are you getting? I get creamy, a nice kind of savoury, buttery flavour, and a soft nut. It's not like artificial almond. I mean, the sweetness that I'm getting from this is, in fact, just coming from pure almonds. It's pretty incredible that this alternative plantbased beverage has pretty much all the qualities that you would get from a whole cow's milk option, but there's a little nuttiness that exists in the flavour, which is really, really nice.

Not overpowering, but it's present. So, now let's taste the plantbased Oat option. Again, give it a good shake. OK, so let's go ahead and taste. How can you go wrong? This oat beverage honestly reminds me of oatmeal cookies. Again, I get lots of creaminess. It tastes like oatmeal like brown sugar, oatmeal or oatmeal cookies. It's very delicious but not overpowering, not over sweet, very pleasant and balanced. So, now that we've tasted these core ingredients, we get to build recipes off of them and that's the fun part. So, what I found in my role with Caffe Vita but also at home is that these plantbased beverages can act as the perfect foundation that we need in a recipe.

So, with our beverages, I'll speak a little bit from my experience with Caffe Vita and recipe development. We have a recipe development team that we bring together ideas and recipes and syrup ideas and beverage ideas all centred around coffee and we taste them together and we try different variations. We try to nail down the perfect option that's going to speak to our clientele and our guests are coming into our cafes. So, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. We've been working on developing a lavender latte but not just an ordinary lavender latte which is good in itself, but we want an elevated experience.

So, what we did is we got Coco Lopez which is like a canned coconut condensed options, very sweet, has like present coconut flavours and then we added lavender bitters to it. Now, we tried this in a latte with cow's milk and then we tried it with all these different plantbased beverages. And with oat, it was like the perfect combination. I don't know what it was but the foundation that the Oat offered that slight sweetness, tone down the lavender a little bit so it didn't taste like a bar soap and brought balance to the beverage. Now, we took it even a step further and with the Oat, we want to create like a little shake cortado option where we shake it with ice and we serve it, but with all these other beverages it was getting watered down.

Well, because the Oat has such creaminess and denseness, it was able to stand when adding ice to it and shaking it. So, we took four ounces of this with espresso, our lavender syrup, and shook it with ice and strain it into a glass and it was delicious. Now, without that that Oat beverage, they wouldn't have been balanced. So, this played such a key role in that recipe. Now, with the Unsweetened Almond option, this is the first thing I will suggest for anyone who's looking for, wants a treat of having like a mocha like, we source a single origin chocolate sauce that we use in our cafes for a mochas but they don't want the all the sugar.

So, I'll suggest almond because that slight little nuttiness creates this nice creaminess, creates a nice foundation for the mocha and that nuttiness complements the chocolate flavour. It's very, very pleasant. Now, the Oat kind of play the role of the Almond in that scenario and the Almond cannot play the role of the Oat in the lavender scenario. So, it's really cool to see that these beverages that we're using as a foundation in our recipes play different roles and can actually elevate and offer something new to that recipe, and whereas like, not to throw dairy under the bus but, with dairy, you have dairy and that's great for a lot of recipes and it does a lot of work.

But what these alternative plantbased beverages offer is a touch of flavour that can complement a recipe and even elevate it that much more. I am a huge fan of always trying to figure out how we can make things better, how we can make things taste better. And I've found that these plantbased beverages can help in that process. At the end of the day, at the end of my story, fastforward 7 to 10 years, I have actually found that theseplant based beverages are essential to my recipe building and with that everything that I thought they were, they're not. You can get all the creaminess, that nice sweetness was little to no sugar, which is incredible.

So, thank you so much for taking the time to taste with me today, maybe next time we'll get to do it in person. But in the meantime, if you create any fun recipes that you want to share or if you have any questions about these plantbased beverages, feel free to reach out to me through my Instagram at samline. Or reach out to our pacific friends, they would love to help too. Until next time, have a great day. Hi, I'm Foster, the Beverage Director here at The Annex in St. Louis, Missouri and the 2019 US Coffee in Good Spirits Champion. I'm super excited to be here with you today with a High Density 2022 to be able to talk to you about how to craft seasonal menu is for me and you.

Here at the Annex, seasonal menus are a regular thing for us between our coffee and teabased drinks are nonalcoholics and our cocktails. We're releasing between 8 to 10 new beverages about every three months or so, which saying it out loud now, does sound like a lot, but there are a slew of benefits to offering you, guests, a seasonal menu. I really believe that seasonal menus offer the staff here a chance to express their creativity and helps them stay engaged. We're constantly learning new techniques how ways to incorporate new flavors. It's a real good chance for them to express themselves and to share their ideas.

It's also really a great way to help keep our guests engaged, guests find new favorites when we rollout new seasonal menus, help to keep them on in the long term. They keep coming back when they find something that they love and it's a great talking point. Another upside to, for us, at least, is that we have Because we have a food side here, we have access to a lot of great vegetables, fruits, fats and oils and everything. So, those ingredients that might, otherwise, just sit there since they're already in house. This creates another stream of revenue in which to funnel those ingredients into really.

So again, there are so many upsides to incorporating a seasonal menu into your cafe. And so during this talk, I'm gonna touch on essentially three main things. The first is going to be just some factors that you'll want to consider leading up to rolling out a new seasonal menu. Second one is going to be just some tips and resources that we use here when we're planning a new seasonal menu, and then finally, a simple way you can evaluate the success of the menu that you've tried. So, let's go ahead and jump into it. So, the first thing that you'll want to consider when you're rolling out of seasonal menu is the access to the ingredients that you wanted to use.

Especially right now when there is still a supply chain issues, it's gonna be really frustrating for you, your staff, your guests, if the ingredients that you have in your seasonal drinks keeps running out and you can't make, you can't offer it. And so just making sure that any ingredients, even if they are very unique somewhat rare that that they would make a really awesome beverage if you can't reliably get a hold of them, you might want to move on to another idea or find a way that you can have them inhouse whenever you might need them. The second thing that you might want to consider is the impact of workflow in your cafe when incorporating these new drinks.

Something that's thought of maybe a little bit more in the cocktail world versus the coffee world is the number of touches. A particular drink takes in order to serve it. An example of this might be a Dry Martini, which really only takes about five touches between your gin or your vodka, your vermouth, your orange bitters, you stir it, you garnish it, and then it serves. That's the five touches. In contrast, a Vanilla Latte, for example, will probably have somewhere between seven or nine touches, depending on what you want to count and if you're grinding fresh. And so that's fine. But then that means that seven or nine touches is your norm.

And so this new seasonal beverage that you're considering, how many less or how many more touches does this beverage take versus something like a vanilla latte. On a similar note, you'll want to consider where these ingredients might be stored on your bar if these things have to be stored simply special or any type of container that might be, you know, anywhere between one or five steps away from where you normally serve and prepare your drinks, that's gonna impact workflow as well. And so making sure that you account for that so that your staff is ready and maybe you can figure out a way to lower the number of touches or to condense where all of the ingredients are so that it's easier on your staff when you serve these drinks, that's a really good idea too.

Another thing you can consider when leading up to a seasonal menu is using this as an opportunity to kind of round out your existing menu. So, for example, you might use an alternative milk as the default in the seasonal drink. Maybe it's teabased, maybe it's decaffeinated, maybe it incorporates just different types of juices or maybe it can involve some kind of carbonation as well. It's just a really good opportunity to take a look at your existing menu and offer your guests something else that that's really different, something that that can really stand out on your menu. So, these last two are just tips that I've learned after rolling out as many seasonal menus as we have.

And one is it's never too early to start thinking about what you want to do. We often will rule out of menu and will enjoy it, will be having a great time talking with our guests about it. Kind of sit on our laurels a bit and maybe recoup our creative juices. But then we're right back into R&D probably like a month or so after we've rolled out our current seasonal menu. And that's because drink recipes can change as you R&D them. Things won't taste exactly as you thought you would, you can't source something exactly. Someone else has a really great idea and you kinda have to like weed out, maybe like, 10 good drinks to maybe like, 3 or 4 really great ones.

And so it's never too early to really jump into that process.. Maybe as long as you want feeling like you really forcing it. and you're letting creativity flow naturally.. And the other tip that. we've learned here is maybe doing a soft rollout. of your new seasonal menu.. So, before doing a big push on social media,. posting signs up and everywhere,. when we are ready with our seasonal drinks. we might just put out a small seasonal menu. at our counter where our guests order. where they can see those new seasonal drinks,. and just on a Monday or Tuesday or something.. And what this does is that it allows the team to develop that muscle memory. to get more familiar with the recipes, the talking points and to incorporate. into making those new drinks along. with all of our other drinks currently on our menu.

So that they get a feel for the workflow before they get hit with a busy weekend crowd and then having to maybe learn it then. And so doing a soft rollout really just helps ease the process of delivering these new drinks, both on your staff and on your guests, so that your staff isn't struggling and so your guests aren't waiting in an order amount of time. So, just to recap all of that. So first, before rolling out a seasonal menu, make sure you have easy access to the ingredients that you want to use. Next, make sure that you take into consideration how workflow might be impacted by these new drinks.

Third, take a look at your existing menu, identify any gaps or opportunities, you can use and use your seasonal menu to offer something new for your guests and then jump in early as far as the R&D process goes so that by the time spring, summer rolls around, you're confident in what you're releasing and you can release it when those seasons are actually starting, and then soft rollout so that the staff has an opportunity to learn the recipes, develop the muscle memory and be able to really deliver an amazing product and experience for your guests. So, that's what you can do leading up to it, let's go ahead and start talking about what you can do to actually create some of these drinks.

And that brings us to our first little tool here. This is something that I developed for my team here just to help them kind of visualize these things as I'm talking about them. This is a flavor map, that's very similar to a lot of other flavor maps that you can find online when you're talking about food and wine. For example, just starting over here at the gray, here we have a salty, spicy, sweet, bitter umami and acidity. And the way you want to read this is that the solid lines represent flavor pairings and combinations that are really strong. And the dotted lines represent flavor pairings that in isolation either fight against each other or don't work or can really just be unpleasant.

And so when you create a pair, you want, at least, one solid line between apparent. So, for example, this combination of the sweet and the bitter is just an example of the latte really, the espresso is bitter and the milk is sweet. Another example just from the cocktail world, a classic cocktail, something like a daiquiri would be the sweet factor here from the simple syrup, the lime juice is the acidity and the alcohol would take the place of the better here, which would be a strong factor. And then finally, as an example of a drink that we have here, as a seasonal drink or golden milk, incorporates the spicy, which because we use cinnamon, we use turmeric and we use ginger, we combine that with maple syrup and the milk, of course, they would steam it with.

And finally, the bitter component comes from the cocoa powder that we also use in it. And so it really creates this really unique flavor combination that's complex, but balanced as well because of just the different ways that those flavors are able to play off of each other when they're in balance, which does bring me to another thing that, I think, is important is that when you're first creating these drinks, finding the balance first and moving from there is generally how we try to work things here first. It's easy to just make a drink sweeter or less sweet, more acidic just by adding more of that element or taking others away.

And so if someone wants an extra sweet but, you know, that's not a problem. But by finding the balance of all those flavors that will take a little bit more intention and so by making sure that your recipe is as balanced as it can be and then if you want it more sweet than that, that's easy enough to accomplish. So, that's the first resource I can offer you. The other two are these are these amazing books that we like to use. And the first one here by Amy Stewart, "The Drunken Botanist". She does an excellent job of doing a deep dive into all types of plants, herbs, fruits, the flavors, where they come from, the history.

The book is more cued towards cocktails, but because there's just so much good information. And, you know, you really can use this to really understand the types of flavors that can be incorporated by using all these different plants and fruits and herbs. So, yeah, just a really, really great resource. And then next anyone who's ever done a barista competition will recognize this standby. "The Flavor Bible". I might even recommend beverages, the vegetarian flavor bible even more. And so this book just really does like the best job ever of explaining how different, not only general tastes really, but exact flavors of different types of apples, strawberries, herbs and just how and the best combinations that exist out there.

This kind of also has actual seasonal categories as well. So, if you're looking for flavors that people naturally associate with the seasons, this book has that as well. So, just an excellent resource for everything to do with flavors naturally. All right, so now that you've rolled out your seasonal menu and you'll want to know how it did. So, that brings me to our last to here. This grid is another tool that is really commonly used in like other restaurants, bars. And it goes by a lot of names, but we're gonna go with dogs, puzzles, plow horses, and stars here. And so what this represents basically down across here, along the X access on the popularity of student items.

How many people are buying and then going up on the Y axis is the profitability. This might be how much money you make off each one of them, how much you've made in gross sales, net sales. You can set your own standards here. Same with how popular certain items are. You can set your own numbers here. But essentially, what each one of these quadrants represent is dogs represent items that don't sell well and they don't make you a lot of money. And so we're generally looking to have as few dogs on our menu as possible. Above, it puzzles, puzzles represent items that should In theory, be doing great.

They utilized great ingredients. They would make they have the potential to make you a lot of money, but for some reason, they're just not selling, but not very popular. And so that's something we have to sort of figure out about why they're not selling. What is it about them that we can sort of drive sales towards. Then the plow horses, the plow horses represent items that we sell a lot of, but the profit margin on them is relatively small. So, this might be like your drip coffee, it might be like a larger latte. So, we need them, but we want to get those and all the other ones up into this stars category, which are the items that we sell a lot of and they have a really good profit margin and we make a lot of money off of them essentially.

So, what you can do once you have your seasonal menu out, I would recommend letting it go for, at least, six weeks, if not a whole three months, just to get some solid data essentially. But once you have it, you can plot it out here along with your regular menu items. So, if your regular menu items, for example, might be represented by dots, in this case, and then your seasonal drinks represented by Xs might fall somewhere like this. And so it's just a really easy visual representation of how your menu is doing and just where you might need to make some tweaks. All right, everyone, that's gonna pretty much concludes the talk for seasonal menus for me and you.

I hope you've learned a little something in this in the short and condensed talk. If anyone has any other, the questions, I can be reached on Instagram. My handle is mattkfoster I can be reached on Facebook and LinkedIn as well. I really want to thank, everyone, and the High Density staff, for putting this together for everyone and including me in on it. It's been great being able to talk to you about how we do seasonal menus here. And, yeah, I hope everyone out there to stay safe and healthy. And I hope you go have fun now, crafting your own seasonal menus. Thanks, everyone. Hi, everyone. This is Ben from Canada.

I'm one of the cofounders of Monogram Coffee. I am a threetime WBC finalist, and I also coach Barista competitors at Worlds as well. And I am here to share five fun facts about the coffee that I chose for the "Beyond the Bag" segment. So, the coffee I chose is Finca Takesi. This is a Bolivian coffee from the Yanacachi region of Bolivia. And this coffee has always been special to me even before we started purchasing it. It's always been one of my favorite coffees. And I think there are five things that make it special to me. So, one is the altitude of the coffee. So, I know we put the altitude, the coffee on the bags all the time when we talk about, about coffee and this usually is connected to quality.

The farm at Finca Takesi is actually one of the highest farms in the world, and actually, for two reasons. So, one is just the altitude. It goes all the way up to about 2,800 meters which rivals even some of the top of Ethiopia. But the other thing about it as well is also the latitude because really the altitude only matters because it affects the average temperature that the coffee grows up. So, as that the average temperature goes down, you've slower maturation, you have more intensity of flavors, you have more sugar. So, not only is Finca Takesi very, very high, but it's also quite south of the equator and this equates to a very, very high altitude.

So, some people think that Takesi is closer. to the equivalent of about 3,000 meters above sea level.. Some people say it's like 3,600 meters above sea level.. All I know is that it is so high.. They're actually sections of their farm. where they can only plant the Catuai because the geisha that. they plant will not survive at that altitude.. So, it is a punishing altitude but it results in flavors. of the coffee that are just incredible.. So, this is one thing that makes it very special.. The other one is actually that. they use very traditional processing methods.. So, when they first started the farm. they spoke to their partners and said,. "How would you like us to process coffee?". And they all said, "We think that the land. and the terroir is so incredible that you should just do a traditional wash.".

So, they use very traditional system.. They washed the copy of water, they fermented overnight,. and then they just dry it really traditional.. The result is, I think, that you taste the qualities. of the variety in a really intense way.. And I think there's a lot of cleanliness to the coffee. and I think it just lets the coffee shine,. but I think it's also kind of special that they're using more traditional methods. and just letting the coffee speak for itself.. Another thing that I think is really cool. is they actually are starting to produce multiple styles of geisha.. So, they discovered on the form. of a tree that they thought was Maragogipe. and they picked it and kept it and it looks like Maragogipe like,. big leaves, large seeds, but when they kept it,. it tasted like a geisha. and they're still doing genetic testing on it,.

But they think that they actually have two varieties of geisha on their farm, a more traditional Panama Geisha and then this large seed geisha that they don't really know what it is, but it's super interesting and really, really delicious. I think another thing that's cool about this farm is the vision of the owner. Mariana and her father started this farm. And when they started it, it is in a region that's not really known for coffee and that really high altitude that we talked about that that many people in that region thought that that farm would not be successful. I think largely because they didn't think the plants would live, but also at that altitude.

The yields are so low that they didn't think that they would be able to get enough money to make that farm sustainable. And I think it's really cool to see the vision that they've had in making such a special farm in such incredible coffee, but there was actually a running bet in that area for how long that farm would last and when they would close, and so far, they've beat the odds and they're producing incredible coffee there. And then the other thing that I think is really need is this model of farming with, with a region that is so high that the yields are low and the farming and harvest as long is that it's actually changed the model of the farm a little bit.

They are able to have more permanent staff because that the harvest season so long, sometimes you can go up to 10 months. So, they use a lot more permanent staff, which means that you see the same people year after year and it's giving them an income that they can rely on even to the point that we have had some trips where we've met the same pickers again and again and we've asked them, "Why do you stick around?" And they said that, "Picking coffee at Takesi is easy, which I've never heard of pickers say. And so I think that the team at Takesi and Mariana have created an environment that is really comfortable and special and it is really fair and equitable to the people that that worked for them all along the chain.

So, that is the coffee I've picked. I chose the Red Catuai, and I hope you've enjoyed it. Thanks so much. Hello from Canada! I am Grant Gamble, I'm the Founder of Culture Coffee Project and the CoFounder of Leader board, The Coffee Game. Now, I'm here today to talk to you about levelling up your sensory skills. So, my hope is that by the end of this lecture, you've a handful of exercises that you can start doing today and honing in on your sensory abilities. Now, a little bit about me is that it's not just a stranger talking to you, I've been in the coffee industry for about 15 years. I've done a lot of different things, but currently in my day to day, I run a marketing agency for the coffee industry.

Now, it's really cool because that's enabled us to host, create, and work on events and initiatives for our clients, but also for our own endeavours. Now, something that we've launched recently is Leader board, which is alongside my good friend, Sunil Pabari. Now, if you don't know what Leader board is, it is an arcade themed quarterly virtual coffee competition that you can do at home. Now, players received 10 different coffees blind from 10 different roasters and compete with other players around the world to identify them. There's a lot of prizes to be won, there's glory to be had. But the most exciting part of this project, for me, is actually the educational component.

Now, in all my years in the coffee industry, what I've noticed is that a lot of the coffee education is theoretical, and unless if you're working behind a bar you never really get the chance to put that theory into practice. So, what's really cool about Leader board is that each season we have different coaches run the lectures and those lectures pair back to the coffees that we've chosen for that season. Now, it's really great because, obviously, that's a fantastic educational opportunity, but then it also makes me look super smart when I get to do things like this. So, what I'm gonna be doing today is pulling from four different lectures to give you those exercises that you can do at home.

Now, I'd highly recommend that you actually go and watch these lectures because I may do a terrible job of representing them, but I will do my best. The first exercise we'll be focusing on today is the act of tasting intentionally. Now, this was a lecture that was put together by Angela Ferrera back in Season 2 of Leader board. You may recognise her name because she's actually on the team of the Barista League. Hey, Angela! So, I really love this exercise because it's something that you can do subconsciously in your day to day life. You could literally be doing this exercise right now as you're listening to me.

So, I'm a firm believer that everyone has a great palate and everybody is a great taster. It seems though as if the best tasters are often the ones who can describe what it is that they're tasting in great detail and with relative confidence and speed. Now, it's important to remember that taste, especially flavour perception is completely subjective. It's based on your own experiences and your memories. So, the more experiences that you have and the better that you can consciously remember those experiences when you're tasting the better taster that you will be. Now, the way that you go about setting up this exercise is just to be conscious of what it is that you're consuming and what it is that you're tasting.

Now, when Angela goes through this exercise in the lecture,. she breaks it down in two categories.. So, she would have a chocolate category with two different items. that fit within that category.. So, semisweet chocolate and milk chocolate.. A citrus category that follows the same method and a nut category.. Now, when you're tasting the items within this category,. what I find is a really nice trick is to just forget. what it is that you're tasting.. This way you eliminate any bias that may already exist. that you have towards that. and open your mind up to tasting more things.. So, start with the milk chocolate and then move on. to the semisweet chocolate and think about the specific and finite. details that might be different between them. is one of them a bit more tart and more acidic,. is one of them sweeter, is one of them have a different texture,.

Is one of them have a longer after taste. And as you go through this, add it to your memory bank so that you know that when you taste the coffee, oh, this is semisweet chocolate, not milk chocolate, then move onto your next category and so on so forth. Now, what you can do to expand on this is broaden your horizons with what it is that you're tasting. So, wherever you shop for your groceries, try to switch things up a little bit. So, if you have three apples on your shopping list instead of getting three Fiji apples, why don't you get three different varieties of apple? Or if you do have the chance to try different fruits and vegetables, why not try it.

A lot of times when we're tasting with other people, they will have different experiences and different memories than you would, especially in the coffee world where we have people from all around the world with lots of different cultures and backgrounds. So, a lot of times in coffee, someone may say that this tastes like tamarind. If you never had that, you might not know that experience that they're having. So, why not when you're at the grocery store, if you see a tamarind, pick it up, buy it, add that to your flavour library. So, the next exercise that we'll focus on was done by this random guy in Norway, he's a roaster, Tim Wendelboe.

I've never heard of him before. Maybe you have. But he put together this really great lecture and exercise that you can do at home with one coffee and instant coffee. So, if you do want to see Tim Wendelboe drinking instant coffee, check out that lecture, would highly recommend it. But there's also some great stuff in there. Now, the basis of this exercise is to hone in on your language that you're using when you're describing coffees and to focus less on the flavours and more about the actual characteristics of the coffee. So, what you do is you have your reference coffee, your instant coffee which is actually a really great thing to have on the cupping table.

When you have that baseline reference coffee that tastes like coffee, it becomes much easier to find other things in the cup that you're focusing on. So, you have your reference coffee and then you have three cups set up and use the same coffee for this. You're gonna grind this coffee at the course's setting that you possibly can so it will end up being quite watery and quite a little extraction, then you'll grind it at a normal setting and then you will grind it at the finest setting. And you'll brew these coffees either as a cupping or is brewing, however, you're more comfortable with and then wait for it to cool down and start to taste them.

So, start with the coarsest one. And think about not the flavours, think about the characteristics. So, what is the acidity like, what is the sweetness like, what is the body, the texture of the mouth feel? Try to think about those things and then move on to the next. How does the second coffee compare to the first and then from there move on to your third. All three of them should be quite different just based on that grind setting and extraction kind of playing a factory in there. And once you've got a handle on those, go back to your reference coffee and then go and taste them again. What you'll notice is after having your reference coffee, you'll be able to pick up so much more in the cup because you'll have that kind of coffee taste out of the way.

Now, I really love this exercise because you can do it very easily with just one coffee and then instant coffee that we all know that you have in the back of your coverage for when guests come over. Don't lie. So, it's really easy exercise to do and a really fun one. So, the third exercise for you to try at home is one that was done in Season 5 of Leader board by Aashifa Hussain. So, you may also recognise her from the Barista League, she is also on the team and is the Ultimate Bean Queen for the Battle of the Beans. But I really loved this lecture because it was a lot of fun and something that you can totally do at home.

So, for this exercise, what you'll need is just set up a regular cupping. Doesn't matter how many bowls that you have as long as there's more than one coffee and you're gonna need nose plugs and also earplugs. So, what Aashifa does is that she goes through and tastes everything normally without any interference with her senses and then she takes them again with a nose plug. Now, anyone who's been sick knows that when you're sick, you can't really taste because your sense of smell and your sense of taste are connected. Now, she goes through and cups with this nose plug and can't really pick up anything, removes the nose plug, taste again, boom, senses are back.

Now, the most interesting thing is when she puts on earplugs and starts to go through and cups the coffees. As she's cupping with her sense of hearing kind of disabled, she starts to pick up more in the cups. And this is something that I personally really related with because when I'm cupping coffees, I typically will put on music to drown out everything else so I can just hone in on my sense of taste and smell. So, this is something that you should try on your own time with your next cupping. Just try it up, plugging your nose, tasting everything, see if that changes anything, but then try plugging your ears, putting on music or putting on earplugs and see how that will affect what it is that you're experiencing.

The fourth and final exercise that I'll share with you today is one that was touched on by Sarah Ball in Season 1 of Leader board. Now, Sarah is the former Canadian Cup Tasters champion. Anyone who's done a Cup Tasters competition knows about this exercise, as well as anyone who's gone through incubators course. So, this is a lecture, I would highly recommend that you go and watch. It's one of our alltime favourites. It's about 40% comedy and 60% very useful information. There's a few exercises in there, but what we'll be focusing on is the act of triangulation. So, triangulation for those that don't know is essentially having a cupping of three different bowls setup in the shape of a triangle, two of them are the same, and one of them is different.

So, you have two truths and a lie an odd one out. Now, it's taster's job to taste all three of those cups and find the odd one out. So, to do this exercise at home, you will need an extra set of hands. It could be a partner or roommate, anyone else that's in the vicinity. And you'll have two different coffees, start with very different coffees so you can have a Pulped Natural Brazil and then a washed Ethiopian as an example. Set it up where two of those bowls are gonna have one of the coffees and the other bowl will have the other. Now, leave the room and have whoever is in the vicinity, mix up those bowls, make sure you label them ahead of time, and then you'll go and taste them and try to find the odd one out.

Now, from there, you can start to graduate in two coffees that share more similarities. So, you could have two different coffees from Central America and then you can graduate from there and have two different coffees from Colombia that might have different varieties. And very soon, you'll be able to be tasting two coffees from neighbouring farms and be able to tell exactly the differences between them. The last actionable exercise that I will leave you with is to play Leader board. It's a plug, I get it, but hear me out, there's a good reason behind it. The best way to play Leader board is actually to do it with other people.

So, either playing with your friends in other countries 'cause you're having the same coffees or to use it as like a team building exercise or calibration exercise with your cafe and roastery. When you taste with other people, it's fantastic because they're coming at it with different experiences, perceptions, and biases then you have. So, when you taste them together, you're kind of like putting pieces of a puzzle together. They'll be picking up on things that you're missing and vice versa. So, when you taste with other people, you often times will find things in the coffee or realise things in the coffee that you were missing before.

So, that's it for me.. I hope this lecture has been entertaining and helpful for you. and that you have a few exercises that you can take away. and do in your own time to level up your sensory skills.. I'd like to thank for nominating me to speak on this topic. and also to the Barista League for holding this space.. Thanks so much. I'm Grant Gamble.. Bye.. Hey everyone, my name is Casey ChartierVignapiano.. One thing that wasn't on my bingo card. for the year of 2021 was that I would get a job. from my coffee Instagram.. But what I found out was through my coffee Instagram,. through my coffee training classes I held,. through the website I made,. through all the funny comedy sketches I made,. making fun of really rude coffee regulars was that people were watching. and that I was actually teaching myself marketing and video production.

And those are valuable things to have in a company. And I'm here to talk to you about how you could do the same, how an Instagram conduction as an online resume, how your website and how you're funny Tiktoks can actually get attention of folks who I want to pay you for what you're doing naturally. So, let's get started. We're gonna break this up into a few sections and we're going to talk about conception to creation. That sounded weird, but I'm going to go with it. So, let's do some preproduction and this is going to help you really strengthen what your concept is going to be. First things first, I'm going to ask you, what is your 'it', what's your 'it'? Now, this should be simple to answer.

If someone were to come up to you and say, "Hey, what's your name? Also, what is something that you think is really cool about yourself that you're proud of? What's something that you like doing? What's something that doesn't feel like work to you?" Whatever that answers, that's probably what your business is going to be. For me, it was COVID 2020 and I realised that I really missed being in front of people teaching them about coffee, but I also wanted to make it a bit more accessible 'cause I thought problem in our coffee community was a lot of information was gatekept and things weren't really approachable and we use jargon that's kind of confusing, and not a lot of people know what distribution means off the top of their head.

So, I decided to, A, solve my problem of missing being in front of people teaching them coffee and B, solving that issue of inaccessibility in coffee, and thus Casey Makes Coffee was born. And a lot of that came from the heart, it came from something that I needed in myself and something that I saw others needed for themselves. You join the two and you create a really strong business concept, and you can do the same. So, what is your 'it'? Ask what your 'it' is. Secondly, you want that statement that it to be simple but not broad, there's a difference between simplicity and broad strokes. So, think about it like this.

If I were to say, "Huh, I want to be the best coffee educator on the internet." That sounds nice and I'm not saying that you can't be that but those are broad strokes. How can we measure the success of that statement? This is something in marketing that we do, where we identify what our value propositions are. Value propositions is just a fancy term for what is the result you're selling and you want it to be the result, you wanted to be specific, simple, effective but you don't want to talk about your features, you want to talk about what you will solve, what your result is. So, for me, my value proposition was my coffee education style is more accessible and directed towards those with learning disabilities, neurodivergences and those who have short attention spans.

That's a little bit more specific but it's still simple enough that I can understand how to track the success of that and the way that I would track the success of that from my business was how many people were downloading my worksheets, you know, every month? How many people were, I gaining in followers each month? Those are things you can track, being the "best" most "effective" coffee trainer on the internet, not really something you can measure effectively. So, think about that. So, now, we're going to identify what your solution is. So, think about a solution and not so much a feature. Say you were, I don't know, a poppy baker and your body proposition or the thing that you want to sell is that you have the fastest boiler ever on the market.

That sounds nice, but as fast as boiler ever, really, something you can measure. And what does that actually mean? And is it something that captures people's attention or is it something to just make yourself seem cool? Something else you can do is, I am a coffee maker with a boiler that speeds up in the time that it takes for you to brush your teeth. See that's a little bit more specific, but it's so simple and it captures people's attention because they think of the same solution to their problem in a different way. Moving forward, let's develop what our business is. So, this is the fun part.

This is where you take all of your ideas, put them in a container, give them a lot of love and understand what you have to offer, and put it in a really pretty packaging book. Think about what your target audience is going to be. For me, I really like to train folks who are new to coffee or beginners or folks that feel like they just need to take a step back and go back to the basics and have it explained to them in a different way. So, that's my target demographic. For you, maybe it's the expert levels, maybe it's the folks who don't have an espresso machine at home and you're teaching them how to make espresso without one at home.

So, think about a specific audience, OK? Now, you're going to get more into the graphic design and you don't have to have a graphic design background. I didn't, but I learned a lot from Canva. And I got myself a Canva Pro subscription, which is about $12.99 a month I think, not a lot. If you can't afford that totally OK. Canva still has so many free resources and it's really easy to use. So, you can make graphic designs without knowing anything about adobe creative cloud suite and it's really easy and functional and super cute looking. So, with Canva, you want to make yourself a brand identity.

So, you can make a logo there, you can identify four colors. for your color branding palette.. I like to use website Coolors to make that,. which is a very simple tap space bar color generator. that gives you the hex codes and allows you to play. with generation methods,. so, you can create a really awesome looking color palette.. So, you create a fourcolor color palette and through Canva you will make templates. for your text based Instagram grid posts, you can make banners,. you can make logos, you'll also want to identify. at least two typefaces or fonts that you'll use for your branding.. And the reason why we are choosing it in the beginning rather than doing it. as we go along is that it's going to make your brand look really cohesive. and it's going to look the same across the board,. which is going to allow folks to associate a certain type face.

And color with you. And that's the beauty of marketing is that you're able to communicate through color, through font without actually being there and being present. So, getting it all together and agreeing on what it's going to be in the beginning, super important. And yes, you can change, you're not always going to like Poppins as your main type of face so you can change it, but play with it for a little bit and make sure you're not changing it too much. Lastly, I suggest you learn a little bit of SEO which sounds maybe a bit intimidating. But for starters I'm going to give you a few topics to focus on which are then going to allow you to dive into the world of SEO and become really good at it.

The first thing you're going to focus on what keywords are, what that means and why they're awesome. Identify a few keywords that fit in with your business plan and use them always, always, always, in your Instagram, in your website, in your blog writing, every time. Second, internal linking. When you are building a website, you want to find ways to sneak in links to other pages on your website. The reason why we do this and why it's so effective with SEO is we want people to stay on our website as long as possible. So, if you're writing in about me and you say, "I have about eight years of experience in the coffee industry and I really love coffee training," I'm going to hyperlink coffee training so it brings you to a page that shows you the services that I provide.

When folks are interested in your content, they're going to see a link and be like, "Yeah, I want to learn more about that." They're going to click it, go to another page on your website and then maybe that page has another internal link, like, "Oh, wow, I want to see how Casey can help me produce a coffee video." Click. So, you see we are bringing them through the website without them even realising it. Stores like IKEA do this, where it's kind of a one way path, kind of, think of it like this, you're directing your audience on where you want them to go next and you can do this with internal linking.

Alright, let's talk a little bit about video production. You may have seen a few of my videos if you're familiar with my work. I started off with an app called Videoleap, which I found out through Tiktok. And Tiktok is honestly, a great place to learn about video editing. Especially video editing, that is mobile friendly and quick to use. Videoleap is free, but you can pay for a premium account, which I suggest because it gives you a lot of awesome features. You can do things like overlaying text, you can choose royaltyfree music tracks, you can also color grade, you can add filters, you can key frames so that you can zoom in really close to music.

There's a lot of awesome features. So, I started off with Videoleap but I then transitioned into using Adobe Premiere Pro. And if you have a creative cloud subscription, you might already have access to this. Next, when you have a video concept, you're really super stoked about shooting, make a shot list, organise upfront because when you get on camera and you turn everything on and you start talking to the camera and you don't have a script or an organised structure of where to go next, you're going to feel like a deer stuck in headlights. So, make a shot list and that looks like this. You'll see there's two columns.

One column is dedicated to your texts or your script, and the second column is dedicated to the shots that that line corresponds with. When you do this, you have a visual outline of all the shots that you're going to need and what I like to do after fitting in my script in my shots into a shot list is, I letter grade the shots. So, say for instance, I'm making a corporate video where I'm trying to show clients how this machine works and all the features that it provides. What I'll do is I'll chunk it up into how many shots I need of the machine front facing, of the machine from the side, of just my face, of a close up of me tamping into a portafilter, and I'll grade those A, B, C, D, E.

And with that I will be able to organise A1 shot, A2 shots, A3 shots, and then we'll do B 1 through 5 and we'll do C 1 through 3. And with this letter and number grade system you'll be able to produce this B roll, these clips that you need with Es and you can just go right down the list. It'll also help you visualise just how many clips you need and how long your video might be even after editing. So, once you gather all of your clips and you record them and import them into Premiere Pro, I like to rename all of the files by what those takes are. So, typically when I'm shooting I will only shoot the actual take and letter and number of that shot.

So, say for instance I'm doing my talking head, and I'm doing line four. I will say this is shot A4, take one, clap, do my line and turn the camera off. With these small clips, I'll be able to rename them what their shot name is. And then when I bring them into Premiere Pro, I will have a whole list that these are all my A1s, these are all my A4s, these are my B2s. And then it just becomes a game of plug and play. So, it makes the editing process very quick. Now, that we talked about video conception, preproduction, let's talk about the digital marketing aspect. So, with Casey Makes Coffee, I was able to grow my follower pretty fast and I think the reason why I was able to do that and I didn't realise at the time was that I was making content that was educational and shareable.

I call them shareables. I would make parasols that were about four or five slides that talked about things like temperature stability, or why cone shape in your filters matter and how they affect the taste, or how to dial in espresso really quickly as a barista. And I would do these, people would share them, distribute them through their following and I would get those followers and then I would get their followers, and it just spread very quickly. So, I was able to get something called organic reach, which is not something I pay for. So, this was all free marketing. So, these slides actually act as both educational tools and marketing for my brand.

And I've gotten a lot of opportunities from those. So, the first thing I want to say is just be yourself. You know, I was trying to fit at one point into the mold of being a really nice aesthetic coffee bureau. And it's just not who I am, as much as I want to be aesthetic and cool and, you know, have that awesome color grade, and like cool moody lighting, that's just not who I am. So, I started being myself, I've even made videos where I'm literally crying and talking about how hard it is to be perceived as somebody who's super young when I'm like actually a year away from 30, and how that affects me in my professional life, people really resonate with that.

Did I think I was being annoying? Absolutely. But what you think is annoying in yourself, other people find as a gift. They think it's relatable. They think it's something that they can realise in themselves. And you gain a lot of really genuine connections from that. So, just be yourself, even if it means crying in front of a camera, listen, we all cry. Maybe we need to see a bit more of that in the future. Now, if you're taking the educational route or a lot of your content that you want to mark it on your Instagram, let's say is something that you want to write a lot about that's called microarticle in captions.

So, nowadays you'll see folks that are coaches, that are educators, consultants, use captions as kind of a way to create "small" type articles, micro articles, in their captions. But here's the thing, if you write a lot of text and it's just one block of text in your caption, the chances of people scrolling past that are super high. Why? Because it's not readable. And this brings us back to SCL and SEO writing and copyrighting, you don't want to put more than two or three short sentences in a paragraph. It should be broken up because the eye follows through that content more easily than if it's just the chunk of text.

That's intimidating. People don't want to read that. They don't have enough time. In our culture, nowadays, you have about three seconds, maybe, not even to win someone's attention. So, you want to break it up and segment that text and you'll notice that in captions you will break up the text with emojis and this is something that I like to do. So, remember, you don't want more than two or three sentences in a paragraph in your caption. Use something like emojis to make it visually appealing and to break it and segmented into parts, use headlines, write it like an article. People find that interesting.

And in fact in digital marketing, long captions are becoming the way to "blog" as opposed to traditional blogging on your website, which is still an important SEO tool. But really nowadays you're getting most of your needs from Instagram or Tiktok. Lastly, with digital marketing, especially on Instagram and Tiktok, you will win reach through activity. So, make sure you're posting every single day at least for the first month or two, post every single day. Use strategic hashtags. I like to use displaypurposes.com to get my high ranking hashtags. You'll put in one hashtag that you think relates to your content and it will generate a list that are relevant and also highly ranking for that hashtag.

Make sure you're following new profiles, set a goal of 5 to 10 new profiles a week, a day, whatever your comfort level is. This is the way to increase awareness of yourself. It's kind of a hello, and it allows people to interact with your content and maybe at best follow you. Also, hashtag hunting is an old trick that photographers on Instagram use, hashtag hunting is going on a hashtag that you feel like you're very relevant in and interacting with all of the content do about 10 posts a day. It sounds super silly, but it's a good way to work with the algorithm of Instagram and to kind of say hello to folks.

Liking posts are great, but commenting on posts within hashtags even better because it allows you to give your voice to your brand and not just a like. OK. Let's talk a little bit about influencership, which is becoming a really cool way to make some money and an awesome job for folks who have an online presence. As part of my job, I do some influencer marketing and let me tell you, digital marketers are putting all of their eggs in the influencer basket, it's effective, it's fun and it's a nontraditional way to market and it works. It works because while you are paying folks to market for your company, you're also not constrained by time.

So, say for instance, you were to budget about $200 to paid advertising on Instagram. That is only going to be in a finite amount of time. Usually, when you're doing paid advertising, you spend $200 over the course of 4 to 7 days, after that 7 days that campaign ends. But with influencer marketing, you are paying folks and compensating folks to use your product and advertise it in a way that's comfortable for both parties. And then content can exist and it is attached to somebody who has a reputation, is respected in the community. And if you build a good relationship with that influencer and you see it more as a partnership and less than using them for clout.

It really does make a difference. So, if you want to do some influencer work and that's something you're interested in, I highly suggest making something called a press kit, which can be very easy. It's a one page graphic or PDF or maybe even an email template that you make that shows your work engagement rate on average, your reach for the last 30 days to 90 days, the type of content you post and pick about three things that you think best exemplify the work that you produce, whether they be reels, photos, videos or all three. Pick something that does very well. What I suggest is making an email template that has this one page of all this information, who you are, what you like to do, links to your other social channels but also provide this work and maybe a QR code, so it's easy to access or just link it in the email.

If you're really interested in doing influencership and you want to pitch yourself, make that email template shine. I like to say pitch, not plea because many times I see a lot of folks who are just pleading, "Can I please get a free machine, or free merchandise," and stuff like that, but that doesn't really seem professional to me. The folks that stand out are the ones that introduce themselves. Say, "Hi, here's my press kit attached is off my information. I would love to talk about a potential partnership with you. Let me know how we can best reach each other. I'm happy to jump on a phone call with you." Keep it professional. Professional pitch, not plead.

Well, that about does it for my time. I hope you found that helpful. Again, I know it's a lot of information and the world of digital marketing can be really scary, but it could be a fruitful one if you know what you're doing and you do. Because guess what? The things that we know how to do well are things that we got through experience. So, just give it a shot. I started off with an iPhone and a two origami pores that my friend helped me by and now I got a job from what I was doing. So, you have something in you that you can monetise, that you can make money from. And you know what currency is subjective, maybe currency means community for you.

You can build your community and you can get that back too. This is Casey and it's been nice talking with you. I hope you have a good one. Bye. Hi, I'm Stacey, and I'm the head roaster for Harken Coffee. And I'm so excited to be here with you all today. And to having the opportunity to share with you all a coffee that is so near and dear to my heart. This coffee comes to us from producer Ashok Patre from Ratnagiri Estate in India. It's a natural, anaerobic, catuai with lots of personality, and I think it's super delicious. But that's on the label and we're here to go beyond that. What you may have noticed on the label as well is that it says that "it's a collaborative coffee", and you're probably wondering, what does that mean? Well, it means that this coffee was built on friendship and all kinds of levels of friendship.

And I'd like to tell you that story. So, here we go. In 2018, Damian Durda, who has become one of my closest and dearest friends, moved here from Poland. And while he was at work, he had the opportunity to cup some coffees from what was, at the time, known as Pearl Mountain and is now Ratnagiri Estate. And with an open mind, he cupped these coffees from India, even though he had never really, you know, cups specialty coffee from India, if you will. And he was blown away at the complexity, cleanliness, boldness, and sweetness of these coffees. He's even scored one of these coffees that in '86. And after that, he knew that he had to go and meet this producer.

So, later on that year, he had the opportunity to go to India and meet Ashok and his wife, and right away, they hit it off. You could almost say that it was love at first sight. That year they produced the first micro lots to come out of Ratnagiri and Damian brought them all home here to Vancouver. The next year, he went back to India and they decided that they were going to completely restructure the entire farm, training the staff about picking, processing, processing methods, packing and so on. And they produced even more micro lots that year. And that was the year that Damien brought me back samples to try and I had never really tried any coffees from India that I particularly blown my mind, if you will, you know.

But I went in with an open mind and sure enough these coffees were bold, sweet, complex, and delicious. And I knew that I had to have some for Harken's line up. So, that year, I bought a natural and a washed coffee and what I decided to do was put them in a box side by side so that people would have the opportunity to try these two coffees and to gain a better knowledge of how special coffees coming out of India could be. And that year, Ashok also decided to ask Damien to become a partner in the farm. And since then, they've been working on processing methods, reaching new clients, and really putting India on the specialty coffee map.

And I think you'll see that with this coffee that I've shared with you all today, India is well on its way and definitely deserving of a spot in specialty coffee. So, thank you. And here's a little tour of Ratnagiri. Enjoy! Hope you all enjoyed the little peek into what's happening and origin right now at Ratnagiri. Yeah! Thanks for hanging out with me. See you later. Bye! Hello, and thank you for joining me. My name is Craig Batory. I'm a digital marketing and coffee professional based in Detroit, Michigan. Today, I'm gonna be presenting to you the process of how to optimize your coffee website through SEO.

An SEO is crucial for any business with an online presence. In today's presentation, I'll be covering topics like, what is SEO and why is SEO important. I'm gonna deep dive into SEO strategy, implementation, and other methods of attaining proper SEO for your business. I also be showing direct examples of how to perform SEO on websites such as Squarespace, Wordpress, and Wix. An SEO implementation is somewhat standard for all web building platforms. So, you can take these examples and apply them to whatever web building platform that you're using for your coffee website. Thank you for joining me today.

Big thank you to the folks from High Density. Really appreciate you. And so without any further ado, let's begin the SEO presentation. So, in this presentation, I'll have my little handydandy cursor here. So, you'll be able to follow along as I read the slides and give you examples of on page SEO and other things. Anyways, what is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of optimizing websites and web pages to make them reach a higher position on the search engine results page, like in the Google search. Now, this means in the broadest sense possible that when people search for your product, it will, hopefully, show up on the first page of the search engine results page, which to folks in the industry is known as the SERP, SE-R-P.

As you start doing SEO on your website, you may hear the term SERP being thrown around, and you can just refer to it as the search engine results page. Now, the SEO focuses on improving the rankings in the organic aka the nonpaid search results. So, if you have a website and you want to get more traffic, SEO should 100% be part of your marketing efforts. So, the big question. Why SEO, why Search Engine Optimization? Well, it should be obvious. You want customers to discover your brand. And so you may have heard the term SEO being thrown around like as a special procedure requires training or hiring a professional.

It's truly not the case. Proper SEO really only requires you to be familiar with your product and familiar with your customers. And especially, coffee these days, it does require good SEO. In the last 10 years, and especially, coffee marketplace, more and more customers are searching for very specific terms. For example, a Colombian Pink Bourbon or Ethiopia Wush Wush coffee, origin processing, variety, roast level, they're all becoming extremely important factors for searching for coffee. Thus, it's important to include those descriptions in your SEO. And when I say that to including descriptions in your SEO, that means including those descriptions in your keywords and your Meta descriptions which will break down here shortly.

So, let's take a look at how SEO works. Sorta. And I say sorta is because of what I'm gonna explain here. Search engine results vary from user to user. Google, for example, takes all of your browser history, your location, your shopping history, anything it can do a sign an "online profile" to you only accessible to its index and robots. Google then uses your online profile and all the data about you to show you the results that it thinks you want to see. And so, for example, let's take a look at the two exact same search descriptions, Ethiopia Guji Natural, and what I did here as I completed searches under different, with different Google Accounts set to different locations.

So, you can see here as I am searching for Ethiopia Guji Natural under my own Google Account is producing these said results for me. So, you can see now if I switch my browser to private, I'm gonna turn the VPN here and it's gonna change the location. And different companies and different results are coming up. So, this is just an example to show you that Google will show different results to different people at different locations all the time. Oftentimes, I can search for the same thing twice and it might show me different results because Google knows I'm a coffee professional, the more in depth I search for a product, the more in depth the search results will be.

So, think about that when you're creating SEO for your product. Let's go over a few terms and everyone will have these slides available at the end of this presentation. So, please, go back and reference these when you're building your SEO, if you need to. The SERP we already went over, the search engine results page. Keywords and Keyword phrases, these are the terms used to identify your product. Keywords and Keyword phrases should be as descriptive as possible, but without being too narrow. The Slug is the U RL of your product page. So, we made a coffee company here. coffeeiscompan.com/slug That's the URL.

Lastly, the Meta description is the description shown in the search engine results page of each website. Now, Google will choose whether or not it wants to display the Meta description that you've inserted or if it wants to scrape material from your website and insert its own Meta description. Again, it really just depends on whether or not Google deems your description better than its description. Before we start actually getting into what writing SEO looks like. Let's go over. What makes good SEO and bad SEO? Good SEO practices typically will land your website or web page on the first page of the search results page.

Again, this requires you to be familiar with your product and familiar with your customers. Bad SEO is nonSEO. And have you ever heard the term, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." SEO works the same way. Good or bad SEO is still SEO that will get your site recognized. It's the lack of SEO that will not get your site recognized. To begin, let's go over the four steps that I use to write SEO when I'm helping my clients. Step one, becoming your own customers. Think like your customer and think how your customer would search. Step two, think like a robot, or better yet, think like the person who invented the robot.

Google is not artificial intelligence. Google is only programmed by the smartest person who can program. Step three, document your work. Whether that'd be in an Excel sheet, a doc, whatever it is, track what you're doing so you have a reference point to go back. And step four, implementation, which we're gonna go over right now. Here's an example which you may be familiar with. Writing proper SEO starts with the product of the subject first followed by a spacer, followed by the brand or the company. So, one example here is Ethiopia Guji, that's the product. Coffeeist Coffee company, that's the brand of the company, and the spacer is the dash.

Another example. Ethiopia Guji product. It's a Natural, which is still part of the product, and we're using spacers in between to separate all these terms followed by the brand of the company. So, if we do search for Ethiopia Guji Natural, again, let's look at some examples of how it appears on the search engine results page. So, now let's discuss how we're gonna implement actual SEO on our website. First, let's take a look at Wordpress. The first thing you're gonna wanna do is go to your plugins and add the Yoast plug in. That will be done by clicking Add New, searching for Yoast. Go. Select Yoast and install now.

And there should be effort you install and activate button. Go ahead and push that. So, after we clicked activate, we're gonna go down to our plugins and make sure that the Yoast SEO is activated. It is. We can see that here. So, now we're gonna go and implement SEO. And again, I'd like to stress that good SEO doesn't have to be perfect. It can always be changed. It can always be updated. In fact, I encourage you to always go back at least, every six months and update your SEO based on term searches and what people might be searching for. Bad SEO is not an existing SEO. So, let's begin by going over SEO and Wordpress.

So, once you have your Yoast plugin installed, go to the left sidebar menu and select SEO and there'll be a number of dropdowns from the SEO tab. Go through these and familiarize yourself. The first thing you want to go to is search appearance and that's how your site is gonna look over all the search engines. So, it just looked at general. Those are the content separators. Now, we're into content, and these are gonna be the templates for how the search engines are gonna read the content on your website. So, you can set a Meta description here and have it be the template for all of your pages. You can also see above the SEO title.

Again, this is a template for how each SEO title is gonna automatically look on each page or product after you've downloaded the Yoast plugin. So, that's what Yoast is doing for you. It's automatically implementing baseline SEO. You just have to go back and fill in all of the details. So, let's go now here and talk about how we can fill in these SEO details on each page, post, or product. So, the example here we're gonna go into as a blog post about Lamar's OKO. The template we're using is pretty dense so we have to scroll down to get to the Yoast plugin. And it's gonna be at the bottom depending on your template, it might be on the right side but here we have the Yoast of the bottom.

Pause real quick and clarify that the term template I'm referring to is the template of your Wordpress site. Not the template of the SEO I just discussed. So, you have the focus key phrase here. That's the key word or key word phrase. Ideally, you want to use several key words be as descriptive as possible, but don't be too narrow that you exclude other audiences. So, you can also see the Meta description and the slug, both areas that you can insert your content in. Let's scroll up now. The one more area of SEO you want to hit is to make sure we have a featured image. And also, tags are both things that Google indexing robots can read.

The last thing we can go over here is the Yoast readability reports. Now, this is helpful because this will tell us how it thinks our SEO is performing based on its metrics. Takes this information with a grain of salt, it's adequate at best. Last thing here, if we scroll back down to the Yoast SEO plugin, we can see previews as mobile and desktop view. And this is very helpful in previewing the SEO. Now, let's jump over to Wix and talk about setting up SEO and Wix. Now, unlike Wordpress, Wix does have SEO templates built in for you to insert SEO. You don't need to download any additional applications.

Let's go to our products here. We're gonna go to our product pages, we see that there's product image essential. On the righthand side, we're gonna go to edit SEO settings. Now, here it's gonna be similar to Wordpress in terms of what we can edit and insert with the URL slug. Remember, what the slug is. That's where the characters after the website name. The title tag which is the name that appears on the SERP and the Meta description. Again, which will appear as a description in the SERP, only if Google chooses it or chooses their own. There's also a lot of other SEO settings in here you can play around with.

I would highly encourage you to play with these but do some Google searches before you do. There are some options with SEO that you can tell search engines to not index your page and to not list your page on the SERP and that's the last thing you want. One example is the switch here. It's pretty obvious. Let's search engines index this page. Obviously, we want this on. If you have a product or a blog that you don't want to be displayed publicly, that's when you would turn this setting off. Now, let's go over SEO on a Squarespace website. And let's jump right in. Select your pages and select the little cog next to the homepage.

SEO should be one of the menu options. Select that. And there will be The SEO should be displayed here for you and you should be able to edit these settings with another click, like so. So, here we have our homepage SEO settings. The SEO title format is here because we have the subject name Craig's Coffee, the separator and the brand roasted in Detroit. I personally like to have the homepage SEO slightly different than the rest of the website because it looks unique and it's usually your homepage that is gonna show up first in a very broad search. Again, we can change this to whatever we want on the fly and Google will index for this and, hopefully, display it as we've type it in here.

So, when you're conducting your homepage SEO, you'll be able to set up templates like Wordpress for each page is SEO. So, let's go back and adjust our product SBAO SEO, excuse me. Again, click the gear icon. Gear icon, select SEO. And again, we're gonna have a list of options here that are gonna allow us to change the visibility on the search results page. So, I want to show you now how to implement SEO on individual products. Now, keep in mind, the process of how we're implementing this SEO on a Squarespace website is the same for all pages. The same process for all pages. So, we want to select the product and edit it, and once the menu comes at the end of the product, we want to go to marketing.

And marketing will have the option to change the SEO. We can enter the SEO title. Again, the product, product description followed by the spacer, followed by the brand. And again, the SEO description, which is the Meta description, Google, like always, will determine whether or not it thinks your description is better than the description it will produce for you. So, keep that in mind when you're writing your Meta description. You want to make sure that you always click save when you're completing SEO. I can't tell you the number of times. I forgot to click save and backed out of a page or renavigated to a page and the SEO didn't save.

Make sure to save your work. So, while I still have you for the next couple of minutes, let's go over the last couple of steps of crucial steps, I should say, of proper SEO. Proper SEO is not just about creating and cataloging search terms for your website. SEO represents an entire infrastructure that goes into optimizing a website. These include Google maps, Google images, business listing, basically any tool offered by Google. So, in order to optimize your site as best as it can be, you need to also have a Gmail Account, a business listing and a Google Admin Account. If you just do quick Google searches of all these terms, you'll be able to set these up very quickly if you haven't already.

The last thing we'll go over here is SEO outside of Google because it's not all just in the back end of your website. Working with Google and other search engines is only about 50% of your SEO. The other 50% relies on digital marketing efforts, whether that'd be back links which are links to other sites or other sites linking to your website. Social media, Google indexes, tweets from Twitter, and also, shows top results on Facebook. Email Marketing. Emails are also indexed by Google. Content Marketing, which is blogging or vlogging or producing any written content including social media and paid advertising.

Advertising is an important part of SEO. And the last little tidbit of information I'm gonna give you is set up a Google Analytics Account and set up a Google Merchant Center Account. Both of these things will be exponentially beneficial for you when you're trying to sell your product online. So, finally, SEO and your Coffee Company. Three main takeaways from today. No one, yes, you should absolutely be optimizing your products and your website. You remember, bad SEO is nonexistent SEO, even if you're doing the bare minimum SEO, it's still better than nothing. Number two, have supportive elements to support your SEO, whether that'd be social media, a blog, email marketing.

All of these things will get your website moved up on the search engine results page. And number three, choose your Google Account to its utmost potential. Create a Gmail Account, if you haven't already done so, create a Google Merchant Account, create a Google Analytics Account, and create a Google Ads Account, which is used to be AdWords and start using all of these tools for your website to move you up on the SERP. And boom, you're done. That's it. That's easy, right? SEO isn't a hard process. What I find it's more difficult actually figuring out the back end of the website. That's what's difficult.

Implementing SEO is actually somewhat easy. So, I trust you can do it. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me or go check out these resources. My name is Craig Batory. You can find me at craigbatory.com or shoot me an email. helloatcraigbatory.com Thank you again. Everyone have a safe and wonderful year. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the panel on Sustainability in Sourcing. I'm so excited to be joined by three incredible panelists who will share their insights and the sustainability from point of view of traders. My name is Sunghee Tark and I am the CoFounder and CEO of Bean Voyage, a feminist nonprofit working with smallholder women coffee producers in Latin America and also one of the curators for this year's high density.

Before we jump right into discussing, I would like to first invite the panelists to briefly introduce themselves. Jeanine, let's start with you. Hi, everyone. I'm Jeanine NiyonzimaAroian. I am the Founder of JNP Coffee, which is a trading company, producer and exporter of specialty coffee from Burundi and I'm also a Founder of a nonprofit called Burundi Friends International. I've been on the SCA US Chapter as a Coordinator and I have recently been elected to the Board of SCA's one of the directors on the board. So, I'm excited to be here and I can't wait to share with everybody what we're all doing in our own little world.

Thank you. Thank you, Jeanine. Line, would you like to tell us briefly about yourself? Yes, of course. And thank you very much for having me first of all. I'm really excited for this. I'm Line Cosmidis. I had the Falcon Specialties. We are an imports and exports, it's a green coffee base in the UK. And I graduated as Agronomist. So I've been in coffee for pretty much my whole career. And I have some experience at origin where Western Latin America and the Western Tanzania as well, with coffee and I joined Falcon about four and half years ago. So, yeah, I'm very excited about all this. Great. Thank you.

Last but not least, Ivan, please let us know about yourself. Hi, everyone, pleasure to be here. And I'm Ivan from Belift Green Beans. We're Indonesia's first experimental at scale coffee exporter in Mill. And we focus in exporting, you know, 84, plus noncoffees from Indonesia, fairing from Java forests, Bali, basically all around Indonesia. And this is our third year. So, we're very new, we're very grateful to be here to represent Indonesia. And since our inception in 2019, I guess you can find our coffees in the US and Asia Pacific and fingers crossed, hoping to expand more to other regions this year.

And since our inception with partner with more than 15 local coops who also upholds the value of quality, traceability and impact. So, looking forward for this panel. Awesome. Thank you all of you for your kind introduction and we have only about 30 minutes together. So, I would like to jump straight into discussing. So, sustainability has been used quite abundantly in many occasions in our industry as you must be all aware. And it is a convoluted term in many senses, So, Jeanine, I'd like to hear from you and your definition of sustainability. How do you and JNP define sustainability and incorporated into your business practices.

Yeah. So, thank you for the question. So, sustainability to be questioning, can actually be view and understood and explained differently by so many. But for us sustainability really start with the farmers, because we believe that if the farmers are not sustainable, there is no coffee. So, it is extremely important and critical for us that we make sure that our farmer partners are sustainable, have viable business operations and they can actually stay, you know, viable and working years after years. You know, specifically with Burundi because it's a very small country and most people don't even know about that.

But most farmers in Burundi have anything between 25 to 50 trees each on average. So, there are some that have like 5,000 trees. But the majority of them are small holders. So, it's for them to be sustainable, it's very difficult. You have to do other things, other than just like, you know, buying coffee. Specifically from the fact that coffee, it's a crush crop for them. So, the way we go buy and, you know, and doing business in coffee and one of the other was so backburners who give you As I mentioned earlier I'm also founded a nonprofit called Burundi Friends International. So, I was already exposed in working with the farmers prior to even getting into coffee.

So, I have a little bit of understanding, I guess in terms of You can't just go in just trying to solve one problem, actually you have to kind of look at, once you go into just solve one problem, actually you need to do more than just one thing. So, as I said, you know, it's so important for us to make sure that they are farmers, partners are sustained, can stay in business, are producing high quality coffee, we are, you know, paying good money for the coffees, but we also do more than that. So, and when I say we do more than that, we also make sure that, you know, they just don't get the money and then go use the money and then be done.

But we're also building other modules to make sure that they are viable. Like, you know, education. You do, you know, like, financial scene programs of education to our farmers so they can actually learn about how to save money. So, when they save money that they receive from the coffee, they can start at the business, you know, that would generate other income. So, they can be able to stay around tomorrow because as I said, just the coffee, it's not sustainable. You have to do more. So, that's, I can just kind of go more and more into this. But for me, it's just about really the roundness that you have to kind of look at that coffee at different angles in order to actually make sure that it's sustainable because if it's not sustainable, as I mentioned, we won't have coffee tomorrow.

And it's Yeah, it's a serious issue. Super important. Thank you for sharing. And, Line, how does Falcon defines sustainability and how are the company sustainability values incorporated and adaptable across different regions that Falcon sources from? So, it would be quite great to hear It's actually from, you know, close culture references, it's not be possible. Yeah, absolutely. And for us sustainability is responsibility really. So, the coffee production and the shipping of coffee generates waste, generate deforestation and all of that has impact on people, we have impact on the environment. And we for specialty, we import coffee from like 15 different countries.

So, we do have to take our share of that responsibility. So, we organize our activity around how we can minimize the impact on the three levels on the sustainability which are like the environment, the social, and the economical. So, we tried to always work with long term relationships with, like super important for us and it's the same for our suppliers, it's the same for our clients and it's the same for our employees as well. So, that's something that is really important to us. And we want to diminish really the financial risk that rests with small businesses, that rests with farmers, but also like smaller trees, and people, you know, micro trees are in the market and there are many.

And we also give like equal opportunities to all the partners and to all employees to be working with us and for us. And on an economical point of view, I think it's interesting because I've always saw that sustainability on that point was just a logic. I mean, for me it's really basic map and then what Jeanine was saying is, if you want to be sustainable, you need your partners to be sustainable. So, we need our suppliers to be sustainable and we need our clients to be sustainable, because otherwise we won't exist. And I think the systems where companies try to squeeze all they can from the rest of the other companies and the supply chain to thrive, isn't gonna work anymore.

This doesn't work long term and it's not gonna work anymore. So, we really tried to like get out of this and then make everyone sustainable in the supply chain. So, that would work a lot better. And, well, I think what I want to say is that, for us sustainability isn't really destination, it's really a goal. It's more It's part of the DNA. It's part of the core value. And I don't think that these values should be like changeable, adaptable, depending on the context where you apply them because there your core values, it's really important and you stick to that. However, every departure is very different.

And it's needs, its challenges and I think our work there is to try to have to assess the hurdles in all these supply chains and to see what angle we're gonna use to tackle that and then how we gonna prioritize the sustainability tools that we have. And it can be, to stand as financial guarantees in Ethiopia to, to producers to be able to establish a washing station. It can be testing in cemeteries in Peru and to give higher chances for producers to get paid high prices, or like the agronomy training that we do as well to increase the quality and access different market. It can be increasing the proportion of coffee that we get from women through Bon Voyage, for example and participating in the trainings that we do with them as well.

And it can be also establishing coffee production in some conflict areas in Colombia, where the drug industry has left in a very depressed and very unsafe regions to try and to work on that. And there's loads of different things and I think across all this quite change as well, the demand really drives deforestation and there are growing conversations about carbon. And so that really defines our internal strategy on the environment total view And we're not scientists of the company. So, we hired one and we hired a data analyst and we had Director of Sustainability to be able to work on this point.

And we got grant from the U K Government, that's gonna allow us to work on the project of measuring the carbon emissions from seeds to the moments where the coffee is delivered to the rotary. And the idea is that, when we manage to measure all the stats, then we will be able to work on how we reduce that, how we offset that and how can we hopefully become carbon negative. Thank you for sharing. And, Ivan, how about you? How do you put your sustainably values and principles into practice at Belift? And if you wanna shed light on some challenges and opportunities, you're more than welcome to as well.

Yeah, thank you, Sunghee. For us sustainability is, we have a quite simple philosophy on sustainability. For us it's inclusive and circular relationship based on trust and communication, right? So, I mean, Indonesia, as you might all know, is a very long, is a legacy coffee producer country with, you know, I think a lot of history. But for us at Belift, we focus in trying to make Indonesia relevant and grow Indonesia into more of a specialty coffee country. More known for our, or what used to be known as, you know, the Java and more, well, high quality coffee. So, for us it's really driven by three pillars when it comes to actions.

Number one is, is the product itself, right?. How can we make high quality products at respectable quantity. and, you know, create value adds, right?. Whether it's certifications, whether it's experimental processes,. but then also moving on from product,. it's like what Jeanine said, it's the people, right?. It's the people who grow these coffees. and what's unique with us at Belift is that,. we've been able to find youth led initiatives,. which is quite rare,. from what I've been hearing from other countries.. But a lot of people that we work with us at Belift. are actually first generation farmers.. They actually, you know, came back from the city going back. to the village because they see the promise of specialty coffee,. let's say in Jakarta or in Vendome,. or in Medan, like the top three cities, right?.

So, Indonesia has this interesting dynamic with sustainability. in the local market as well,. where the specialty coffee market or specialty coffee shops,. the retail is thriving.. So, people are actually seeing this as an interesting opportunity. and they're more than willing to come back to their home,. be with their family again and plant coffees. or build better what wet mills. or do all these things that the market needs.. So, people is very interesting for us,. but also like what Line said, with rainforest,. like women let initiatives.. We're very new to that areas of impact,. but it's been showing like,. you know, much higher promise and very good results. and that's a new area that we're still trying to figure out,. but we know that that's the future, we know the future of coffee for us,. includes a great part of it is always a woman that initiatives,.

From all across the value change, right? Whether it's pickers in Gayo or likes Soders in, I'd say in East Java, and that's a big thing for us. And then, and then now Now, enter the last planet, right? So, like that's for us, it's like how we use the land that our ancestors gave us the water that is there, also the air. And I think it'sAnd it's that... It's in that sequence, right? So, its product, people and then planet. Because I think Indonesia is I won't say behind, but I think we're lagging a couple or maybe a few years in terms of specialty coffee. From what I know, like Indonesia is more well known for their, for our or for a more blend coffee.

And what we're trying to do at Belift, at least to start in the sustainability journey is to make farmers receive a proper pay for their coffee, for their work. And again that's the product and hopefully that leads to more and more people because now we've seen more and more people wanting to work with us, wanting to learn from us how can they improve their coffee quality. And again these are typically youth led or women led. And then from there those who are more advanced, like some of our producer partners in East Java or let's say in Flores, now we're trying to figure out like how can we plant more trees, how can we make this more sustainable and more long term in terms of the use of their land, their water and the air.

So, I think in a very simple way And then for us being an origin, how can we translate this into our buyers, partners, right? And that includes the roasters and if I can, to the end user, the consumer them self because I was, I am still one of them, right? I consume coffee daily. And I want to know how can this coffee impact the producers. So, yeah, I think for us it's just Because we have a lot of infrastructure in it and Indonesia already set up and all that. So, for us, I think it's maximizing all those things that are left behind from the Maybe like Indonesia coffee 1.0 and then improving, improving accordingly to what the market needs and then translating it, right? And then I think that's our communication all across the value chain.

So, yeah, it's an inclusive and circular for us. Thank you, all, for sharing. It's really inspiring to hear from all of you and your focuses and how you are defining and prioritizing, you know, the sustainable values in the work that you do in the industry. Jeanine, amongst various, I think sustainability priorities, JNP seems to be focusing a lot on one of the social priorities of sustainability by making, empowering women, a core part of its business model, right? How does it relate to your sustainable value that you were mentioning earlier about the, I think especially about the farmers driving livelihood.

And then you share with us, the why behind it? Behind, you know, the empowering women in the Burundi, in the context of Burundi? Yeah, thank you. So, women in my point of view, they are the core value in our societies and particularly in places like Burundi. Where most people don't realize that, but you know, women, like in societies like the African Society particularly, they do everything, let me put it this way, they do everything. They are the one who needs to take care of their children, they are the one who needs to make sure everything is taken care of in the house. They are the one who are making sure that the children are going to school, they are the one who make sure that their children, you know, get medical attention when they need it.

They are the one who makes sure that, you know, food is on the table. So, but not only that, but they're also the one who work the land. So, they are the one that you find in the farms, you know, with the baby on their backs and taking care of the coffee trees and they're also the one who pick the cherries. But unfortunately in most cases they are not the one who deliver those cherries to the windmills, and that's the disconnect. That's the disconnect that we found. And then one thing that we're trying to change just to make sure that those women actually come back and receive the payment. And the way we do it, we actually do it by incentivizing, you know, high quality production, you know in general.

But specifically because when we actually just make sure the woman is able to come back and get the second payment, she now knows that tomorrow, if she does a better job again with, you know tending to the, you know to the trees and making sure that the right, you know, right cherries are delivered to the windmill, she's going to receive more money in the form of a second payment, which we actually now call as for us The Chimmy. We actually trademarked that name, which also means let's be thankful, which we have kind of used across, you know the platform to all the group of farmers that we work with right now in Burundi, which is you know over 6000 right now.

So it's very important and, you know to, you know We live in the first world society, things are a bit different. You know, there's more of a shared responsibility if I might say, but not so much so when you actually go to places like Africa where a lot of the time like women work behind the scene. And I'm sure it's a lot the same in other developing world. So, but we found out if we are able to actually empower women, you're not only helping, you know, the family, but you're actually able to also empower the society. You're actually able to actually build up the community. So, it is so important, you know, for us to really keep focusing not only on all the farmers, but particularly just giving you know value to the, you know to the women farmers because they are the one at the end of the day.

If you can't give them the right attention, you're actually going to reap you know, bear fruits in my point of view. So, they are the center of my attention I guess, maybe because I'm also a woman, but also because my mother was also a very key part of my family and a role model. My mother was, you know, raised and went to school because, you know, her father had coffee and was able to actually you know pay tuition for her to go to school you know through coffee. So, it's And I saw the work that she actually was like doing, like behind the scene itself in our own family that nobody had any idea.

So, you kind of like see your family being successful but in places like Africa, you know it's a lot of time has to deal with that core person in that household in their family, which in our case our women. And we actually were We have gone out all the way of just, not only just empowering, making sure that you know women are producing high quality coffee, or producing you know they were still providing second payment that we come back and then the second payment in the form of a premium and also incentivizing that they produced a high quality coffee. But as I mentioned earlier, education. We make sure that they are educated and make sure that we have them to, be able to save money, so tomorrow they don't, they don't come back and they are poor again.

But above and beyond that, we actually have a very specific, you know, example work we have. We have a group of women built it on windmill. And for me it was like in lining because, you know, those women who were farmers, who didn't know about how to actually manage, you know, things like a windmill, sudden now there are owners of windmill. So, they have to be involved in not just only just producing, but quality coffee, but actually managing, you know, windmill. It was like, oh, my goodness we didn't even know how difficult and complex this is. But just to kind of see the, you know, the tender care of even the coffee beyond that, when the coffee under raised beds and how will you go from one windmill to another one when you have a woman behind it? It's, you know, quite of difference.

But also when we start seeing because of like this, you know, encouragement about women behind the coffee, we actually even start seeing of another, other. You know, male farmers who actually come to us and say, hey, you know, you've been helping our sister, you have been our mothers, but how can you also bring the same, you know, knowledge and support, you know, to our community as well, because, you know, we are all one. So, as much as I emphasize and I think in my point of view on women, I think that's all the farmers benefited. You know, if I say if you encourage women, if you put the women at the forefront and give them the encouragement, the power that they need, they are not only just like helping themselves, but they are also helping the family, they are also helping the brothers, they are also helping their children.

So, it's a complete solution. Thank you for sharing. That's really inspiring. And switching the gear a little bit here. Line, since you are representing both importing and exporting side oftentimes, it would be good to kind of hear from you about sustainability and your relationship with roasters and buyers as an importer. How do you go about communicating the importance of it importance of it with your clients, especially everything that you've shared previously I think and that was shared across the three panelists. And what are some challenges and opportunities that exist in this area? Yeah.

I think first of all like sharing what sustainability is for us is a bit like, it is really introducing yourself, it is bonding, it is sharing the business culture because it is so important for us and it's part of our core values. And I think it should be at the heart of all the conversations that we have and in the way we treat people and/or with the clients or like supplies anyway. I think I might take the example of Patagonia because I think a lot of people would know that. And people know that Patagonia is an awesome brand. So, what did you do, how did you it? And people really, you know, put that together.

And I'd like people to feel a little bit the same way when they work with us and when they buy coffee from us to know what we stand for. And then they're not only they're buying from us, but they also back up like all the projects that we're doing and then they participate somehow into this. I think that would be, for me like it would be really, really important to be able to do that. And we really want to support our clients brand doing this. So, with the information that we get and how we communicate that, it's really for our clients to take ownership of the work we do and include this as part of their brands as well.

How we do this? I think I would say two key words here. I'd say transparency and trust, which are like, like very related anyway. So, we have, we have a price transparency project, we call the blueprints where we tried to as many supply chains as possible to be fully transparent on price. So, we get the farm gate, not only the FOB price because that we have it as an importer anyway. But we get the farm gate price so that we try to explain a little bit of context to the roasters and how that translates from farm gate price to the FOB price and then they have the offer list price. So they really understand a little bit of the different structures, the different collections as well.

We do take people with to origin with us, which is my absolute favorite part of it because these moments when you're there and then you really have the roasters and the producers together at the same time at the same place is not only like full of emotions but it's also like the meaning behind it and what it means for all the parties involved on that day. And it seems transparent because they can ask all the questions that they want you, they are there and I think that is like really, really important. And then it's all initiating all these conversations that we have here today, but like on social media as well.

Like some podcasts, like however, you know we can, we can do that. And also make people like the clients participate. So, that's really important. At the end of the day because of a position and the supply chain, we really link between producers and roasters and making them participate, making them create these links and those bonds where producers is so important. And if it's not through travel to origin because not everyone can do this. There's a lot of projects that we, that helps that too. We had For example, our partners in Uganda, the coffee gardens, needed to expand the drying section and improves, like do some improvements at the washing station level.

And we helped them raise funds through our network of clients so that they could actually do this for the producers that they are working with. So, it was really cool to exchange on that and then they directly like talked a lot, like together as well and the coffee gardens were like sending from the state, which was really cool. We currently have the stamping project, The technical lead project. And they are incentivizing producers to stumps the trees, so that they can increase the yields and allow, you know, better income to be able to invest, reinvest in the farm. And again, we're using our network to connect with producers and roasters can donate through that.

And there is, you know, there's a lot of things you can do to connect. And, yeah. In terms of opportunities, I think they're massive. I think the more people, the stronger and the more powerful you are. And we can see it today. It's just like, you know, you have different people that are, which Okay, we're in the trade with traders but we're in slightly different places in the supply chain with different continents. And you know, we're all doing different things and the fact that, if we do that all together then it's like, it's like a noble effect. And I think And it's a bit like what Jeanine was saying, it's like you train and yet you focus on women and then it has that effect is a lot bigger than, than, you know, just on these people.

And, yes, so the more we have people backing up our project, there's more projects we can do. Because at the end of the day, the market drives, like the demand drives the market, the demand drives how we can put all these tools, you know, in the field. So, yes, I think that this is, this is great, like opportunities are like everywhere in sustainability and you can always progress, you can always do better. And it's really important to be aware of where you can do better and what, what the priorities are. Challenges, there is a few. I would say one of the challenges that we face is, how we can gather all the information from the projects we do.

I think there's a lot when you do a sustainability project, whatever that is in the field. You have so much impact that you can gather information for and then you can report and you can analyze. And I think we still like getting part of the information, but, you know, we should be able to find the methodology and the tool, and the time to get other like more and to be able to do more. So that's, that's a bit challenging. It's like the multi level for this project. Then the communication is how you increase the visibility, how you make and we have clients sometimes that, like really good clients that have been working with us for ages.

And I mentioned something that is like one of our core projects and they didn't even know. And we're like, how did we miss that? How is that possible that these people don't know what we're doing? I think finding the right way to communicate always is really challenging. And the last one for me, which is really important one is the brainwashing, pink washing, social washing you have in the industry. How do you distinguish yourself from the people that are doing this in the industry that honor genuinely implementing sustainability projects? I think that's like, that's really big. And again it comes to communication I think, yeah, really.

Super important. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. And lastly, Ivan, what do you think is unique to traders role when it comes to being able to make our industry a little bit more sustainable? Thanks for the question. Yeah, Sunghee. For me, I think being a traitor because you're in the middle of it, right? You're in the middle of the farmers and the end users and then there's like importers and everything in between. So, but being more focused in exporting the coffee and being in Indonesia where coffees are everywhere. For us it's actually being really focused in the farmer vision. So, like, what is it exactly that you want to do? Like, why are you doing coffee? I know we all hate the complexity but in the specialty coffee I think were quite unique people who love the depth of it.

So, that's what we try to do here at Belift as well, going into the depth of the conversation, of the relationships and also learning from them, right? Like, where do you want to go from here, right? Like you're here for instance, like do you aspire to be like a CEO winning producer who focused on like highend coffees, like 89, 90 plus coffees? Or do you want to be like an 8284? And I know numbers are not ideal, but this is, this is the way for us to make it simpler or make at least eliminate some of the other factors of the depth. But, so we tried to start there for sure always with the producers.

And that's, and that's, that's growth, right? So, that's, that's changing every year. You know, every harvest season, whether, you know, we have different, different ideals, different goals, but, so we try to follow that and stay there, right? Like we never want to exert anything more in the producer more than they want to, you know, more than they want. Because I think from there, it just becomes unsustainable. Like, for like Because even if we know their potential, right? But it's their land, it's their coffee. So I think for us, we just have to be really cognizant of that in Indonesia and be there with them, be there with them along the journey.

And from our side being the trader, being the exporter, we just have to really learn the market where things are because I just believe there's always, and as crazy as this sounds, but there's home for every coffees if you find it, right? There's always home for every coffee, whether it's for a blend lot, is it for single origin. And then different markets have different perspectives, different markets have different trends. So, I think it's just Like specialty coffee is not supposed to be easy, like it's supposed We're doing a lot of complex work, we're doing a lot of, I mean, life changing work, right, for many of these producers and also for the consumers, right? Because I think there's the paradigm of consumers wanting to be more involved, but how can they do that? Like, what Line said, sustainability is challenging.

Like the complexity, you had the term Blockchain and then all these things just get, get lost in the, in the translation. But, so that's why for us, from there, once you get to know them once you build the trust. I think it's, it's, it's really fun to see like that relationship happening life, right, when people meet each other, when people learn from each other. So, for us, we try to be, we try to take a backseat, right? Like how can Now you talk to them and then let's be observing the conversations or for us sometimes it's a lot of translating work, right? How can we As most farmers don't speak English.

Most traders outside the Indonesian region don't speak Bahasa and that's not just a problem. But even in Indonesia, you go to, you go to Gayo, they speak different language than let's say in, in Lintong. And in Lintong, it's different than Java. Java is different than Bali. It's almost like a make mike. It's like almost like a subregion on its own, like one island has their own culture, region and aspiration, right? And, so for us, it's, it's really For me it's also even learning, right? Because I'm from Java, but I have no idea of what, you know, people that say in Papua what their cultures are or like from Toraja, Sulawesi, or from Bali.

But, but it's, it's really fun to see that Again, like when the youth are in it, things are just different. Like things are moving quite fast because we You know, sometimes at the beginning of Belift, people almost didn't believe what I mean, on either side, right? From the buyer side, they're like, no, you can't Indonesia is not Indonesia is not built for that. And from the producer side as well. Like many producers when we asked them, can you make these kind of coffees? We see your location, your, we test here and there like it's possible. So, they don't, they don't want to do that either. But now when the youth is involved, it's very fun to see that the possibility I think for Indonesia is quite limitless, just speak us the sheer nature of the volume of the legacy.

Like, you know, it's common for people. to plant coffees from coffees over generations.. And even now I think this year we start. to get inbound requests from Gayo, from Sumatra.. Like that's the one region that we haven't been able. to tap in as far as like sharing with the work that we do,. right, because it's so big,. like the wet hull.. And it's really solid but hell, don't get me wrong.. But now some people are trying to create the differentiation. as well to access different markets.. And yeah, so the last part for us it's. As a trader it's education.. Like how can we bring education of the market into the farm level. to make sure that they own it, like they own the knowledge. and then once they own the knowledge,. they can then make a better decision for themselves,. for the region, for the consumers, for everyone, right?.

And then tying it everything to the long term inclusive, you know, relationship that I mentioned. Whether it's like If there's like a bad harvest season, how do we, how do we sustain the relationship? If there is a really good harvest, how do we not over extract the relationship on our front, right? So, and that's what we try to do with all buyers and hopefully we can do that as well, be representative of them for their own. You know, if it's importers then their rosters or if rosters than their consumers. And just try to bring a new Indonesia to the market, that's all we try to do and Because I think, I think now everything seems to click because, you know, the youth is back, the local market is thriving, the global market is also open to like, you know, a different kind of Indonesian coffee.

And, yeah, we just have to keep improving year over year, but it's, it's I think it's very exciting work, very fulfilling work as well. You go sleep very fulfilling, fulfilled. Thank you. Thank you so much everyone for sharing your insights I think. Yeah, there are quite a bit of, I think contact share, but I think one thing that I noticed that our conversation is, while the term in itself is quite complex, you know sustainability itself. Amongst the three of you, there is a general understanding that putting the health and wellbeing as well as the agency of the producers at the heart of everything that you do.

So, that's quite admirable. And thank you so much for sharing. And perhaps that's, you know, due to the fact that, that is an area in our supply chain that's simply been overlooked throughout our history, and also because it fundamentally forms the roots and the foundation of the entire value stream from which, you know, all of us, you know, access based on that. And moreover, I think it's echoed through all of your remarks that it's important that we understand the interdependence of everyone in the value stream to achieve sustainability. And it's obviously not an easy job for anyone to make our industry more sustainable and equitable, but with everyone with the right intention and action towards it.

Like all of you here, I am hopeful that we get closer to making the industry a little bit more sustainable. But lastly, I would like to invite each of you to share any additional comments that you didn't get to share during our conversation together and also to let us know where we can find you. So, let's start with you, Jeanine. Wow! Well, thank you. I think it's a journey that's really kind of what I want to share with everybody. It's a journey. I actually have to tell you when I got into this business in 2012, I really thought it was just easy to kind of just come in and fix the problem and be done.

But it's a journey, especially when you're dealing with developing world where most of these coffees that we are enjoying come from. Things change constantly. So, you really have to be ready with the change and be able to be ready to position yourself and be able to, be able to respond to those challenges. And it's not easy because it's not one thing constant, but it's changed, kind of like really kind of what we're experiencing right now with the, you know, with the pandemic, it's just like change. You know, life is about change and I really kind of find out to be very true for me in places that we work because the change are real and the change all the time.

So, really what I want like to encourage everybody just like get involved because the opportunities are better. Actually, the opportunity to make it, you know difference, they are huge. So, I always kind of looked at it and there's say, you know brought this very small country, the poorest country in the world, but there is a lot of opportunities and there is opportunities to kind of like make a difference. And I think that Anyone who wants to, you know, do that, they can also join our movement by buying our coffees. And you ask where can you find your coffees? You can actually find our coffees by going to our website which is jnpcoffee.com.

We have coffees in different ports in the US, from the east to the west. We also You can find our coffees in Europe now. You can also find some of our coffees in Asia and we are doing some exploration as well, expanding in other in other continent. But we're just grateful for all of the people who are behind us and who are supporting us and also look at this as collaboration, collaboration is very key. Even with the two of you that we are talking, you know, we have here, you know, Falcon and the Belift. I mean, we can all work together. Sometimes I think that there is also that feeling like, oh, gosh, I'm doing this, so maybe you know that person is doing that, but we can all work together, we can actually all lift ourselves up, we can all grow together because there's just so much that we can do, you know, together, but not only just individually.

So, that's kind of what I have to say and I want to thank you so much for inviting us to this call today and look forward to more discussions in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Jeanine. And now to you, Line. I think I just wanted to highlight the fact that we're being at that position in the supply chain is like, it's so empowering. And I think we can, there's so much we can lever, there's so much we can do. And I've only worked for exporters and importers and I wouldn't be anywhere else. It is, it is incredible what you can do. And I think it's usually over looked, like people don't really know what imports and exports.

And they usually think that we ship containers. We don't just do that. And I think, I think having this conversation is really important to show that we have the responsibility of doing more. We have the responsibility of raising awareness of being the messengers of what's going on in the two worlds, something that's really important. And I'm glad we're having this conversation with like, we're traders here and show also the diversity of it, like we're not all the same. And we do, we focus on different things and that's great because we can As Jeanine used to say, like we can all go all together and then it's always great to know that.

You know, other people are doing like also great things and it's so inspiring. And in terms of like finding us. So we Our website is falconcoffee.com. And we are in Instagram as well, on other social media too, the Falcon Specialty or Falcon Coffee and we have coffee, specialty coffee in the UK, in Belgium and we have also in both coasts of east and west coasts in the US. So, get in touch if you want, if you're interested or even if you want to know about our projects or, you know, donations. And we have people that donate through our projects without being client of ours, which I think is also really cool because it's about community, isn't it? Thank you.

And last but not least, Ivan. Thank you everyone for being here. I feel like I learned a lot just being in this panel. And Belift is very new, but I think we're very committed to continue the tradition of, you know, everyone here like how we do specialty coffee, right? And I think just wanting to invite everyone here, watch this to, to rethink Indonesia. I think it's, it used to be, it is a different country now especially and not just us, but I think the farmers led initiatives, have brought us here. And, you know, we have coffees, you know washed with yeast fermentation, natural, lactic, anaerobic fermentation, carbonic maceration coffees from Indonesia as well that are, that are, I think are amazing.

Some of our coffees, producer partners coffee this year also made it to like COE. So, I think, you know, the Indonesia's first COE, so I think there's a different Indonesia coming out in this decade, a different Indonesian coffee coming out and we're more than happy to share knowledge, right? Like for us, this journey is about the Indonesian farmers as much as it is about Belift. So, please do let me know in any way I can help facilitate that learning. And like everyone here said, you know, we also have our coffee in the US and in Asia Pacific as well. And we're trying to expand to like other regions as well to like Europe, Middle East, Asia, East Asia.

So, if in the end If anyone or perhaps Lean or Argentina as well can. We can facilitate that conversation or anyone who watched this would love to learn about it. Our website is beliftgreenbeans.com Also, that's our Instagram handle, so at beliftgreenbeans.com I'm happy to send you samples or just even talk about Indonesian coffee and shed a light on what we're doing. So, thank you, everyone. Thank you all of you. So, with that, we'll end the conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today. And we look forward to continuing this conversation in the future. Thank you. Bye, everyone. Have a great weekend.

Hi, my name is Shea Broussard. I'm an acupuncturist and herbalist from Durham, North Carolina. And I'm really happy to be here with you today. I'm here today to offer you three accessible selfcare tools to incorporate into your day. These tools are meant to help reduce stress, increase the overall access to calm we feel in our body and hopefully improve our mood. These three tools are, three acupuncture points for a calm heart, Qigong Breathing exercise, and coffee centered mindfulness practice. So, the first practice is going to include three acupuncture points which I will happily teach to you.

For those of you have never had any exposure to acupuncture, the points that we're talking about our, different points on the body that are located anatomically and they're the interface energetically from the macrocosm to the microcosm, which would be the exterior to the interior. So, we use the intelligence of these acupuncture points and they can be used with needles by professional acupuncturist, pressure by yourself, or you can actually even use visualisation to use these points. We're gonna be using both pressure and visualisation in the exercise today. Just as our body holds a tremendous amount of wisdom, each acupuncture point holds its own message and intelligence, and the ones that we're picking today are about bringing some calm to our heart and grounding us into the ground.

Let me teach you the first point. The first point we're going to use today is Du 20 or Celestial Fullness. It's located at the top apex of the head, midline with the nose and even with the ears. So, the way that we locate Du 20 is by looking at the very top or the apex of your ears and drawing a headband up to your center line that would be in line with the tip of your nose. Often there will be a small little divot or a place that's very comfortable for your index finger to kind of sit there. Sometimes it's slightly back from the apex as well. So, either place, if you want to take a second and just try and find that point.

So, this point Du 20 is the most young point on the body and that simply means it is the point that is closest to the sun. So, when we are using this point, I like to think about it being a by regulatory valve. So, if we're thinking too much, if our head is too busy, this could be a space that allows some of those thoughts that are not providing or lending to our health and wholeness, a space to kind of dissipate out into the world. Or if we're kind of feeling lost, we can also invite wisdom or light or warmth through this point, which is what we're going to be doing in today's exercise. So, let me teach you the second point.

Pericardium 8 or Palace of Weariness is located in the palm of the hand. Here's the graphic to give you a little more clarity. Pericardium 8 is located between the index finger and the middle finger and the spaces between these bones. And if you clench your fist and pull your fingers back, often it's located right beneath the tip of where your middle finger would fall. You can also just kind of follow down from the calluses over this ridge until your finger falls in a divot between your index and your middle finger. And that's another way to find this point. So, the idea of using pericardium points is that in our biological bodies, pericardium is the protector for the heart.

And so energetically in East Asian medicine and in five element theory, Pericardium points our guiding to protect the heart. They have virtues like openness, warmth and safety. I love the name of this point, Palace of Weariness because it is inviting us to go to a very specific place that literally was made for us and inviting us to rest. I don't think that in our society we have a lot of permission to rest. And this is a point that is built in that invitation for us to rest and bring some warmth and safety to ourselves. So, that's point number two. Let's learn point number three. Kidney1 is also called Bubbling Spring.

This point is located on the sole of the foot. If the foot was divided into thirds, this point would be on the top third line, closest to the toes located in the center of the foot. So, just as our first point, Celestial Fullness was considered the most young point in the body for being closest to the sun, Bubbling Spring or Kidney1 is the most yen point in the body, which means not only closest to the earth but closest to the water in the earth. So, this point being Bubbling Spring is literally where we can draw up the water source energetically with our feet. It's also a very good place to root down from in that point and we'll be experimenting with both of those sensations today.

So, as you saw in the diagram,. I'm not going to show you my foot on camera,. but in the diagram,. Kidney1 is located just off the ball of the foot.. And if you run your finger down the center line of your foot over the ball. as when you're standing up on your toes,. as it falls into that big divot in the center of your foot,. you'll easily find Kidney1 or Bubbling Spring.. So, with all of these points in mind,. I'd like to start teaching you how to bring attention to these points.. So, this can simply be done with a visualisation,. and I highly recommend practicing. this visualisation in times where you have space and some quiet. because once your body has experienced this meditation a few times,. you can call on this in places that are busier or more stressful,. your body will have a memory of a way to calm.

With these things, these talks. So I'd like to invite you to close your eyes or simply bring soft focus to the screen. On your next inhale, bring your attention up to the first acupuncture point on the top of your head. Du 20 or Celestial Fullness. Imagine a small ember of light emanating from this point on your head. With each breath you can imagine this light getting a little bit brighter and a little bit more open. This is a point where we can invite in wisdom when we're feeling lost. We can also let go of thoughts that are no longer serving us. This point lets us know that we have the wisdom and the support that we need to move through the day.

Invite the sun into this point. On your next exhale, imagine rays of light dropping down into the points of your hand at Pericardium 8. This Palace of Wariness invites us to rest. The virtues of having an open heart, inviting warmth into our chest and our palms and having the sense of safety we deserve, resides in these points. Connect these points together with a golden bar so that you now have a large triangle of light from your head to the palms of your hand. Take a few moments and breathe here. On your next inhale, bring your attention back up to the top of your head and on a long exhale extend to raise from the top of your head all the way down the length of your body to the points on the bottom of your feet, Kidney1.

This point is Bubbling Spring. The kidney is the water element and this point allows us to connect to the earth, allowing us to draw water up as a resource from the deepest depths of the earth to nourish our body and soul. On an inhale, imagine water coming up from the earth into your feet and filling up your body. On an exhale, imagine roots growing out and rooting down into the earth. Connect the space between the soles of your feet with a bar of energetic light. Acknowledge the large triangle that extends from the top of your head all the way down to the sole of your feet, connecting you from the sun to the center of the earth.

In one last inhale and exhale, inhale the water up from the earth into your hands all the way to the top of your head and exhale down the sun, passing calmly all through your heart center, off the tips of your fingers all the way down your legs, settling you comfortable and calm in the earth. Congratulations! Now, that you've learned your first three acupuncture points and you know how to use them, I'd recommend practicing 35 minutes a day in a quiet place. That way when you find yourself behind the bar or if you find yourself in a stressful meeting, you can quickly call your memory and attention to these points and your body will have the memory and practice to be able to use them to calm your body down in that moment, in a very discreet and effective way.

Now, that we've learned some acupuncture points, let's move on to the next selfcare tool. Qigong Breathing. OK, let's begin with our Qigong Breathing stance. You want to have your legs hip distance apart, slightly bent at the knees. You'll bring your attention to the point that we just learned Pericardium 8. Slowly allow your palms to lift and turn towards the sky as you inhale up your arms softly. Imagine in your gathering light to the top of your head, lightly press on that ball. And as you exhale, let that light shower throughout your body all the way down your legs to Kidney1 at the bottom of your feet.

Allow your arms to lift effortlessly as if there are strings on your wrist. Exhale down the energy. Imagine this golden light pulling out the bottom of your feet on the ground in a puddle. Inhale up, shoulder blades, slide effortlessly down your back. Qi. And light descend throughout your body down your legs, out the bottom of your feet. One more cycle, palms up, gathering light above your head like glittering throughout your body, down your legs off your fingertips. Bring that light into your belly and smile if you feel Things to remember when you're doing your Qigong breathing exercises are remember to keep your knees soft and your shoulders relaxed.

Think about your shoulder blades sliding down your back. The cycle for breathing is to inhale, your palms up to the sky and exhale your palms down to your feet. This can allow you to set your own pacing for your breathing and your movement. Last thing to remember is used the three acupuncture points that you learned today as guides. This will increase the effectivity of your Qigong practice by using the intelligence of these acupuncture points. OK. Now, that you've learned three acupuncture points and you learned how to use them in a Qigong meditation, I want to move to the third tool for today which is coffee as ritual and a reminder.

So, humans love and crave ritual because, one, it offers us a sense of appropriate reception, which means, it offers us It allows us to feel the space that we take up in a moment, and number two, we simply need more magic and simple beauty than we often allow ourselves in the world. So, coffee by nature is already a ritual. It connects you with a plant. Each preparation step is very meaningful and the more intention and care that is put into each step, it creates a finer experience with the end product. So, I'd like to offer an expanded version of bringing mindfulness to coffee to elevate it to a practice.

So, we've touched on the fact that by nature coffee is a ritual, really it just is about bringing your attention and slowing down the process. The way that we can use coffee as a reminder is it's built into almost all of our everyday practices already. So, if we can link our coffee with other things that are good for our body, this is a great way to create an easy habit without a tremendous amount of effort. So, I would highly suggest taking your meds, taking your herbs, drinking an extra glass of water, or taking the time that it takes for your coffee to process, to do three or five minutes of either of the practices that we've talked about so far, the acupuncture points or the Qigong breathing.

Most of us already know what five of our senses are, which would be sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. And what I like to refer to as a sixth sense is intuition or nostalgia. So, a quick little meditation to bring some mindfulness to our morning coffee drinking is to check in quickly with our sixth senses. Starting out with sight. Is there some beautiful coffee art in your cup? What does it sound like when you drop coffee on the floor? Meditations can be super light hearted too. Most of you are already trained with a high sense of smell. So, smelling the coffee really taking in, how does it make you feel.

Our smell is often linked to nostalgia in places. So, is this one of the times that nostalgia or intuition comes up or sense of taste? Even if we only have time to savor one sip in a really big way it makes a difference. Also do you have a favorite cup? How does it feel to touch this cup? Does it feel good to touch a warm cup on a cold morning? This is a simple check in you can do. And the easiest things are sometimes the things that are most accessible. Cheers. OK. The last one is the easiest one. And if none of these other practices have resonated with you and it's totally OK if they haven't.

I highly suggest you adopting this one last one and that is finding one time minimum a day for you to say the phrase good job body. I feel like our bodies are like Children, they believe themselves to be 1,000% awesome, unless we tell them they're not and they really do well with reminders. So, if there's any point in the day where you feel proud of your body, proud of the food choice, proud of a cup of coffee that you made, proud of the way that you handled an interaction, I highly suggest that you just take the time and say, "Good job, buddy." Here's a quick recap of the selfcare practices we've learned today.

Three acupuncture points for calming the heart, integrating those into a Qigong breathing exercise and several steps for coffee centered mindfulness practices. Thank you so much for your time today. I've so enjoyed being here with you. I'd like to leave you with the last couple of tidbits. If you were someone who works behind the bar, I highly encourage you to share some of these tools with interested coworkers so that you have someone to practice with. This can really change the amount of stress that occurs in a workplace situation. If you are located in the US and you would like more access to medicinal herbs, I run a project called the compassion access project.

Within that project there's a program called get you some care that is specifically for serving coffee workers who hold marginalised identities. On March 20 which is the spring equinox applications are opening or get you some care, you can find the link in my Instagram. I'd also like to challenge a call for care to the whole coffee industry, especially if you are a person who is a coffee shop owner, a manager or a person with resources. I highly recommend that you start integrating mindfulness practices and make them accessible for your employees. Take steps to reduce stress in your workplace and ask your employees and the people around you what they need to feel better about their job and working in the environment that they're in.

If you are located in the US and you are interested in participating in a coffee and care program, please contact me through Instagram or my email address. I'll leave you with some follow up slides so you can take screenshots as reminders if you like. Until then take care of yourself, take care of each other. You're loved. Hey, guys, how are you? My name is Pedro Echavarria. I worked at Pergamino Cafe. We're a family business. We are actually fully integrated from our farms where my father started producing coffee more than 40 years ago, now to our cafes and to our roasted coffee that we ship all over the world.

So, thank you for having me. Today, I'm showcasing a little bit of our newest coffee in our shops. It's called in Inza Cauca. So, other than our own farms, we actually work with 1,500 small producers throughout Colombia. We look for some of the finest coffees that our country can produce. And Inza is definitely one of those regions. Inza is right up there, tucked into the Macizo Colombiano where most of the big rivers in Colombia are born and one of the biggest hydric reservations of the world. We worked there with 150 producers. This lot actually comes from 20 of them. Although it's not certified organic, a lot of these producers have a lot of organic practices.

Practices that we're trying to foment. We're actually sponsoring community biofertilizer plant, that's gonna produce biofertilization at cost for about 80 of these producers. So, that's another really cool fact about this coffee. This coffee is gonna be very gentle. It's gonna be very remind you of black tea plum. It's gonna be a very delicate coffee but also very intense, and it's one of our favorites. It comes to our menu once a year and we definitely love the community. Actually, this community was the first allied producer program that we had in our company back eight years ago. So, we've been working with them for a long time.

We know them very well and we loved their coffee. So, it's a pleasure for us to be able to roast it. It's a privilege to be able to showcase it to our customers at our shops and now shipping to the rest of the world. We actually are one of the few origin companies that also are fully integrated and can ship roasted coffee. So, we are We serve as a bridge between our farms and our allied producers to that final consumer wherever he or she can be located. So, you can order online through us.pergamino.co And we are currently having a 10% discount code with Barista League at checkout. So, thank you for having me.

We hope that you're able to taste this coffee and enjoy it as much as we do. And any questions, just follow us on Instagram Pergamino Cafe and we can answer it through them whatever you guys need. So, thank you for having me and have a great day. Hello. Welcome. My name is Marvin Duncan and this is getting to an understanding when you have no teacher. So, I'll sort of start off with a situation and you tell me if it sounds familiar to you, right? So, awhile back when I was starting off as a barista, I used to work at this cafe that would do single origin formers and I loved them, but mine was never the best.

There was this girl named Katie, hers were the best. So, one day, I went up and I asked her, I was like, "Hey, Katie, what are you doing to make yours taste so good?" And she's like, "Honestly, I have no idea, but if you do want to watch, we can see what I'm doing different." So, I watched her and she was extremely careful, you know, like very intentional with everything. And then at the end of it, I tried it and it didn't taste as good as it normally did. So, it was a very formulative experience because I was questioning, I was like, "Well, if we can't even get consistency between the same person, what's going on here, you know." I got my brain really racked, racking right there, you know.

So, if that sounds something familiar or something you're interested in, this talk one give you like the answers, but it could potentially give you the right mindset for you to create your own answers. So, a little bit about me, I'm Marvin once again. I'm based in Savannah, Georgia. And I am the Quality Control Manager for coffee roasters. And what I do, there is a lot of sourcing, I do like a lot of roasting, all that kind of stuff, making sure our coffee tastes as best as it could. So, a lot of what I do now and sort of what's been the theme of my entire career is answering those types of questions, right? And with those types of questions you sort of have to take a certain mindset which is sort of, you know, leads me into the next part, right? The mindset.

I sort of described the mindset that I would take when talking about coffee and when learning about coffee and I sort of describe it into two different things. One is the exploratory phase and then the other is the outlining phase. So, exploration. This is kind of like when you sort of put yourself or jump into as many unique experiences as possible. And unique is the key word there, right? So, you want to really, really widen the breath of different ideas that you take in at the beginning. And while you're doing this, you don't want to assume, you know, anything about it and you don't want to assume that there is a right or wrong and then you sort of look for confirmation for that.

You just want to be open to it and really immerse yourself in as many situations as possible. The second part is outlining. And outlining is just a word that I used to come up that describes this, but this is when you try to find a way to experience one situation in as many unique ways as possible. So, this is kind of like a creative test, right? So, the more untraditional or the more out there, your approach is, the more you can sort of gleam from that experience. And this sort of gives you an outline because it sort of describes what the outer edges of the truth are. And this can be beneficial because it solidifies your fundamentals.

Alright, so let's go back to that Katie example, right? If we want to analyse what happened there, first, we have to sort of pick our question. What happened there, you know, between what she normally does and then what she did right then. A lot of the variables were the same, right? So, the grind size, the coffee, the dosage, the amount of water, all of those things were the same. And what could have changed? Well, potential variables that could change was the water temperature, the pouring speed or the aggression or whatever. How many times she poured, you know when she poured, you know, those things could've changed as well.

So, we have to sort of go in and be an investigator and really tackle each of those things individually and learn about each of them. So, if we're talking about pouring speed, right? So, if you pour a certain amount of water within 5 seconds, is it the same thing as you pouring a certain amount of water within 15 seconds? Yes? No? Maybe? What exactly changes? Does it change the same when you use different types of coffee, right? What do other people say, right? Is there answer to any of this? That's what you sort of try to want to figure out and from there you move on to the next variable and then the next variable.

And the important thing is only changing one thing at a time, right, because you don't want to have Coffee is a weird thing that has a combination of effects when you change variables. So, if you change multiple variables, it won't be a 11 change. But some things to note about like the mindset stuff, right? Most people, they prefer one or the other. They're either really, really analytical and, you know, they expect things to happen, how they predict or they sort of really enjoy that exploration phase and they just love new ideas. But you can't really like focus too much on one or the other. You have to sort of use them both and a balance because you learn to most effectively when you sort of understand which situation you need, which

This approach is extremely important because, you know, you don't want to assume that anything is ever really 100% true or 100% false. Well, I mean, of course, there are some things that are 100% false, but you get what I mean. So, let's talk about a little bit about finding resources, right? We see we're trying to learn about something but we don't really know where to start and we're trying to build our information. Let's we're trying to explore a little bit. Well, how do we find these resources? Well, the first and most obvious one is ask somebody that's near you, right? Whether that be your friends, your colleagues, like your bosses, maybe even people on Instagram.

A lot of these larger Instagram personalities, they're really, really friendly. And if you ask a reasonable question, you know, like they're more than willing to like, you know, give you an answer. But what if none of them know or if none of them can give you quite the answer you're looking for, then we have to sort of turn to other resources, right? And much like anything else when you don't understand something, you Google it, right? So, if you type in a quick Google search of your question or if your topic or whatever, say, for instance, we're talking about water temperature on coffee, right? We Google that, see what we can find.

You can Like, you can find really great articles whether it'd be on coffee sites or just like blogs and they either have experts who sort of talk about that topic or they sort of interview other people who are very knowledgeable about it and you can really gleam a lot from that. But, you know, if you don't really want to do blogs, I mean, I think Google, YouTube is a great resource. I've learned so much through YouTube. And there's a lot of really smart people who just happen to just leak out information whenever they speak. And you can learn a lot from that. But, you know, say for instance, like you can't quite find it on Google or YouTube or whatever.

Books, books are without a doubt, like,. you know, the tried and true method, right?. You can learn so much about what somebody. has to say just based off of books, right?. You can become intimate. with their theories and their understandings. and their knowledge.. So, books, of course.. And as you sort of specify your questions,. you may have to turn to academia or research.. Research papers.. And there are papers coming out nowadays that talk about everything. from roasting, brewing, fermentation, agriculture,. you know, market research, cultural research,. all those kind of things are coming out now.. And, you know, your first question would be, how do I find. which one I need, and that I've personally found. a lot of success through following specific individuals. that appear at like coffee events, right?.

So, say for instance, Expo. If you go to Expo and you see a speaker that you really enjoy or you like their topic, I tend to follow them like through their social media and they sort of talk about their papers and you can sort of give them a search, they talk about their papers and they sort of describe what it is that they researched about and they sort of make it a more digestible way of presenting it. And also the cool thing about it is a lot of times these researchers, they either repose from other researchers or they sort of work in tandem with someone else and they expose you to another research resource.

And if you sort of keep along that track, you know, your 1 resource can multiply into 10. And I think a lot of this has been, you know, pretty common places, things that you could probably think of yourself, but I think there is a lot of help that can be provided when we use the resource of other disciplines, right? So, if we're talking about cooking, baking wine, whiskey, tea, kombucha, all of these things like they parallel the coffee industry. And if you are open, you can sort of really gain a lot and like, learn a lot about coffee through it. So, let's talk a little bit about why you should sort of reapproach your learning, you should restructure your learning approach.

Of course, like, learning is a very individual thing, but if you're a little bit intentional with it, you can sort of, you can sort of like, you know, be more effective what you're learning and you can learn exponentially. Also, it's a transferable skill, right? So, learning is a skill in itself, right, and you can apply it to coffee, but I've also applied it to other things in my life. Say for instance, like, tennis and really gained a lot. Another thing is you gain the independence of forming your own opinions, right? So, you can have a certain confidence when you go out there and you're on your on bar are working your job or running your business or whatever and you have that confidence because you understand the information you're working with.

And the last one is, I mean, I think the most important,. but you get to be that teacher that you needed. that you really need help with because like I think a lot of frustrations. that I had personally was I didn't know where to find information,. so I had to figure it out for myself.. You get to be that teacher for yourself. and then you also get to be that teacher for others.. Alright, so just a few things to like keep in mind as you go along, right?. The importance of failure, especially in the beginning,. it will take you longer to sort of establish your logic. and when you're establishing your lavender,. you have to give yourself time to do it wrong in order to do it, right?. And as you give yourself more time,. like the amount of errors that you make. will sort of decrease in the amount of like. positive intuition experiences, positive intuition judgement calls.

That you make will be increased. Alright, so another thing, right, is experiment, especially when you feel the impulse to be conservative, I think, is the most important time to experiment, right? Because you're more creative. Chances like that aren't common. So, you do want to have that exposure and you do want to have that experience and maybe try out something that you saw that only applies to that situation. I think a lot of times we feel like the impulse to be a little bit more conservative when things are uncertain. But I think you gain the most when you are experimental in those moments.

And I think something really, really important is you have to like view everybody else in the industry as your peers in learning, they aren't the law. And I think, you know, if you don't understand something that's completely OK if you want to ask him a question about it. And I think even more importantly, like, you know, if you can't replicate that, then I don't think we should be basing our logic on something that we don't understand quite like, like thoroughly. I think, you know, that's kind of like my next point, right, whether it'd be research or whether it'd be like professionals or industry leaders, something you heard down the street or whatever, right? Like, if you don't understand exactly how it works, you're basically using a tool that you don't know the proper instructions to, and you could

If you build your logic on that, it could come tumbling down later. And I think the last and most important part is coffee should be an enjoyable experience, right? So, whenever coffee does get tough, and it does, of course, like, I mean, you know, it's still work, even though we love it, it still work, right? It gets tough, but I think one of the best things for combating burnout is understanding why you're doing coffee in the first place. For me, personally, one of the key reasons that I really enjoy coffee is there's so much to learn about it, right? And, at least, from what I've heard from other people, that's a very common reason for other others as well.

So, even when things are a little bit tough, I think if you sort of think about what can I learn here and then make a game out of it, coffee will be really enjoyable. So, yeah, that's pretty much all for me. Hopefully, this was beneficial. And, yeah, by the way like a lot of this is sort of based about, based in the scientific method, right? So, if any of you are familiar, a lot of this is not like ground breaking or nothing like that. It's just a little bit more intentional with how we approach it, even if we're approaching it casually. So, yeah. Do you have any questions? Feel free to ask or whatever, but thanks for listening.

How can you know and control everything that happens on a coffee farm every day? There are millions and millions of coffee trees. Hi, I am Cristiane from Mió. Today I am going to share with you how much technology is present in daily life on our farm. And how much it has transformed the way we produce our coffee and preserve the environment. In 2018, we implemented a computerized system for planning and monitoring our farm machinery. This innovation has allowed us to experience disruptive agriculture that has dramatically changed our field operations. It has also established a positive impact on the professional development of our machine operators.

Ultimately, technology has brought a new level of performance to our management. Realtime monitoring of all operations allows us to effectively manage farm operations at all times. From the moment we began monitoring and interpreting the performance of our machines in the field, we recognized the potential for efficiency gains in each activity. Today, we are able to direct the team more assertively, even indicating the route that the machines must take to reach the coffee plantation, the locations of each stopover for supplies, and the planting and applications that must be carried out by each machine operator.

Our workers receive regular training and we hold a monthly meeting of field operational metrics with the entire team, where we present the description of the activities carried out and the performance of each worker. We also show how these activities fit into the annual production planning. As a result, we were able to improve the efficiency of our field activities by 60%. We reduced the property's machinery fleet and consequently our maintenance and fuel costs. The efficiency gains also enabled a financial increase in the salary of our employees, who now receive a bonus linked to the KPI of hours actually worked in the field.

To support our field staff, we have two analysts in our administrative area who monitor activities daily and constantly suggest necessary adjustments to maintain the shortest supply routes. They also provide the interface between the shop and the machines that eventually need repair in the field. The same analysts also integrate all operational data into our financial and operations management system, where we are able to extract information through BI reports that accurately represent the performance of each area. We conduct daily pest and disease monitoring and evaluate applications and interventions with an agronomist committee.

Our goal is to keep biological and chemical control in harmony with the environment. With the technology available today, tracking all of our processes and coffees is part of our daily routine here on the farm. We are constantly analyzing the impact of our actions on the final product in the cup, but also the impact on the lives of each employee here. What is the impact on society and our region? What is the impact on the environment, soil, water, and carbon? How do we make our best coffee, and at the same time, how do we take care of the world we leave for future generations? This is a small piece of our story, the legacy we leave behind, and the energy we have here at Mió.