Podcast Specialty Coffee Association

This week, we’re excited (and a little bit sad) to release the sixth and final episode of the World Coffee Championships Podcast’s first series. “Worlds Apart” tells the stories of the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship and the World Brewers Cup, two competitions that take vastly different approaches to growing the specialty coffee community…

This week, we’re excited to release the fifth episode of the World Coffee Championships Podcast. “Turn It On” tells the stories of the World Coffee Roasting Championship and the Cezve/Ibrik Championships, two competitions with incredibly close-knit communities at their heart. Along the way, co-hosts Anna Oleksak and Sara Al-Ali lead us through stor…

This week, we’re excited to release the fourth episode of the World Coffee Championships Podcast. “But I Need It!” continues the story of the World Barista Championships from where we left off in Episode 03, nearly halfway through the competition’s journey, to today. Along the way, co-host Roukiat Delrue leads us through stories of evolutionary mee…

“We Were the Punks” traces the early days of the World Barista Championships from a rag-tag group of volunteers looking to raise specialty coffee awareness to a powerful, monetizable stage grappling with questions of scale and professionalism. Along the way, co-host Sonja Bjork Grant leads us through stories of spit buckets, snakeskin boots, backst…

This week, we’re excited to launch the second episode of the World Coffee Championships Podcast. “Paint a Picture” traces the history and evolution of the World Latte Art Championship through the medium itself, from early etchings to the innovative realistic pours that grace the competition’s stage today. Along the way, co-host Rie Moustakis leads …

This week, we’re excited to launch the first episode of the World Coffee Championships Podcast. “It’s a YES!!” traces the history and evolution of the World Cup Tasters Championship through stories about rule-breakers, phone calls home mid-competition, and backstage ballet. Co-hosted by Gloria Pedroza, 2006 World Cup Tasters Champion and long-time …

Coming soon to the SCA Podcast channel: The World Coffee Championships podcast! Across six episodes, the series offers a glimpse behind the scenes, bringing to light some of the hidden stories woven in and around these annual events that serve as the culmination of local and regional events around the globe. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, a…

There are big questions facing specialty coffee sellers and buyers. According to numerous studies in different coffee-producing countries, prices paid for green specialty coffees often don’t cover the full cost of production, let alone support thriving livelihoods for farmers and their families. Moreover, unless price discovery moves beyond commodi…

With producers facing issues of climate change, migration of the younger generations to urban areas, and fluctuating coffee prices, it has become increasingly difficult for smallholder farmers to be successful and sustainable. It’s been 17 years since the last coffee crisis, and since then the industry has largely failed in making sustainable coffe…

This week, we're taking a break from the 2019 World of Coffee lecture series to share Recap's fifth episode. The Recap podcast offers a brief overview of recent coffee developments every two weeks from the Specialty Coffee Association. Now a pandemic, the COVID-19 outbreak continues to have a devastating impact on the coffee industry. Around the wo…

This session brings together recent work on the history and anthropology of coffee in the context of a discussion about the role of specialty in rebalancing the fundamentals of the market. Professor Jonathan Morris presents an overview of the history of price volatility across the five eras of coffee history he has identified, with some suggestions…

Consumer-driven changes will reshape the global coffee world. To help companies throughout the coffee value chain prepare for the future, today’s presenters - Maria Catroviejo and Michaël de Groot - look ten years ahead at key change they expect to stir up the coffee market, offering a TED-style discussion about how changes in consumer preferences,…

The SCA has a history of investigating the scientific principles of coffee, from chemistry to physics to agronomy and sensory perception; this research is then used to develop education, standards, and best practices. In today's lecture, learn about the science driven by the SCA's Research Center, with reports on projects and outputs of our researc…

In December of 2018, the SCA launched its Coffee Price Crisis Response Initiative to develop alternative economic models for the specialty coffee sector. In today's lecture, recorded at World of Coffee in Berlin, representatives from the SCA Sustainability Center and Board of Directors identify factors that contributed to the wholly unsustainable e…

Throughout its long history, coffee has been cast in very different roles: exotic beverage, colonial good, global commodity – but also as a staple of the local cuisines of the countries where it was produced. Leaning on an ongoing Sociological study conducted in Paris, today’s lecturer - Noa Berger - will show how specialty coffee changes and adapt…

This week, the SCA Podcast is taking a quick break while we put the finishing touches on an upcoming lecture series recorded at last year’s World of Coffee event in Berlin. In the meantime, I’d like you to meet Recap. It’s our newest podcast! Every two weeks, Recap offers a brief overview of recent coffee developments in less than five minutes. If …

Coffee shows an appealing bitterness when properly roasted and prepared. But how do the compounds that make coffee taste bitter develop during roasting and how do you analyze and identify them? What lessons can be learned from academic research on coffee roasting to make coffee even more pleasantly bitter-tasting? And after a century of intensive r…

The original brewing control chart is overlaid with acceptability zones describing cup flavors. However, these terminologies (strong, bitter, weak, over, and under-developed) are outdated and their definitions are not standardized in the industry. In this lecture, the newest results from the UC Davis Coffee Center will be presented, which used the …

Last April, much of the discussion - at Expo and Re:co Symposium - was centered on the Coffee Price Crisis and the future of specialty. In a special episode to kick off the new year, we’re releasing a two-part lecture on the C market that sought to provide clarity and actionable data for the specialty industry. Over the past few years, many began t…

Last April, much of the discussion - at Expo and Re:co Symposium - was centered on the Coffee Price Crisis and the future of specialty. In a special episode to kick off the new year, we’re releasing a two-part lecture on the C market that sought to provide clarity and actionable data for the specialty industry. Over the past few years, many began t…

Hundreds of smallholder coffee farmers in Yepocapa, Guatemala have experienced leaf-rust, drought, volcanic eruptions, and price fluctuations over the last few years. Profitability is the main constraint these farmers face, in maintaining healthy households and addressing price issues and other shocks - much like many other smallholder coffee farme…

The UC Davis Coffee Center is engaged in comprehensive sensory research using trained panel descriptive analysis to investigate how different parameters related to coffee brewing impact the flavor, and how these can be manipulated to an individual's desired effect. Of these factors, time can be an important variable—in multiple ways—and this talk w…

Coffee freshness is one of the core values of specialty coffee. But why is preserving the freshness so important? We might strive to maximize coffee’s potential to keep its vibrancy as fresh as the day when roasted or we keep coffee fresh to ensure quality and consistency. Regardless of why we may want to keep coffee fresh, understanding the fundam…

World Coffee Research predicts that within the next 30 years, the demand for coffee will double while viable land in current coffee-growing countries will diminish by half. How can we combat this? Through an engaging panel discussion, learn about the future of coffee production in emerging origins such as Myanmar and Nepal and the role consumers, r…

World Coffee Research is working to improve the genetic potential of coffee cup quality. To start this task, you first need to define the meaning of “quality.” WCR believes it is a market-driven definition and organized new protocols to assess quality from the perspective of the coffee industry. With experts and partners, WCR produced the coffee le…