Featured Stories
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is thrilled to announce its flagship North American Specialty Coffee Expo will take place in Houston, TX at the George R. Brown Convention Center, April 25–27, 2025. This extraordinary gathering will welcome more than 17,000 attendees from 85 countries, showcasing the best in coffee innovation, culture, and sustainability as well as several networking opportunities supporting the commerce side of the trade business. Proudly supported by Title Sponsor Middleby Coffee Solutions Group, Diamond Sponsor Sanremo Coffee Machines and Platinum Sponsor Pacific Barista Series. Coffees from Peru will be featured as the Portrait Country with unique cultural activations, and a pop-up café experience.
Following a preliminary release in June, the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is proud to announce the adoption of three Coffee Value Assessment components as its official cupping standards: SCA-102 Sample Preparation and Cupping Mechanics, SCA-103 Descriptive Assessment, and SCA-104 Affective Assessment. These standards, approved by the SCA Standards Development Panel, supersede the 2004 Cupping Protocol and Form, advancing the SCA’s comprehensive approach to coffee evaluation. Use these free resources in your cupping practice at sca.coffee/value-assessment
Following the success of the 2023 Educator Summits, the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is thrilled to announce the upcoming dates and locations for the Educator Summit 2024 Series across Asia. Happening December 3, 2024 in Juengpyeong, Korea, December 8, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand and December 10, 2024 in Taipei, Taiwan. Learn more and register at education.sca.coffee
As presented to SCA members on August 30, the SCA Board of Directors, led by President Pamela Chng, nominated a group of seven professionals from a pool of dozens who responded to our annual call for nominations made in June. As the number of candidates this year is equal to the number of open seats, there is no need to proceed with a voting process, and the SCA Board has confirmed the seven professionals listed below as members of the SCA Board of Directors, in accordance with Section 7.4(f) of the SCA Bylaws.
The Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) for Cuppers Course is a two-day, immersive professional development experience tailored specifically for coffee cuppers and other sensory professionals.
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is proud to announce that the Mr. Coffee Perfect Brew Intelligent Multi-Beverage Brewer has been awarded the SCA Certified Home Brewer mark. In a crowded and competitive market, the SCA Certified Home Brewer mark helps consumers find and choose the best coffee makers, backed by the science and experience of the Specialty Coffee Association.
The quality of water used to brew coffee is decisive for the taste experience in the cup. Water treatment plays a particularly important role in vending, gastronomy, and the hotel industry, where high demands are placed on coffee specialties.
The quality of water used to brew coffee is decisive for the taste experience in the cup. Water treatment plays a particularly important role in vending, gastronomy, and the hotel industry, where high demands are placed on coffee specialties.
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is proud to announce that the Mr. Coffee Perfect Brew Intelligent Multi-Beverage Brewer has been awarded the SCA Certified Home Brewer mark. In a crowded and competitive market, the SCA Certified Home Brewer mark helps consumers find and choose the best coffee makers, backed by the science and experience of the Specialty Coffee Association.
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is thrilled to announce its flagship North American Specialty Coffee Expo will take place in Houston, TX at the George R. Brown Convention Center, April 25–27, 2025. This extraordinary gathering will welcome more than 17,000 attendees from 85 countries, showcasing the best in coffee innovation, culture, and sustainability as well as several networking opportunities supporting the commerce side of the trade business. Proudly supported by Title Sponsor Middleby Coffee Solutions Group, Diamond Sponsor Sanremo Coffee Machines and Platinum Sponsor Pacific Barista Series. Coffees from Peru will be featured as the Portrait Country with unique cultural activations, and a pop-up café experience.
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is proud to celebrate the recertification of the ZWILLING ENFINIGY Drip Coffee Maker as an SCA Certified Home Brewer. This recognition underscores the commitment of ZWILLING to delivering high-quality coffee brewing solutions that meet the rigorous standards set by the SCA.
The Specialty Coffee Association is pleased to announce that manufacturers can now register their interest in the next cycle of Qualified Sponsorship for the World Barista Championship (WBC). Open categories include Qualified Espresso Machine, Qualified Grinder, and Qualified Water Filtration Sponsor positions for the 2026-2029 World Barista Championship.
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is thrilled to announce its flagship North American Specialty Coffee Expo will take place in Houston, TX at the George R. Brown Convention Center, April 25–27, 2025. This extraordinary gathering will welcome more than 17,000 attendees from 85 countries, showcasing the best in coffee innovation, culture, and sustainability as well as several networking opportunities supporting the commerce side of the trade business. Proudly supported by Title Sponsor Middleby Coffee Solutions Group, Diamond Sponsor Sanremo Coffee Machines and Platinum Sponsor Pacific Barista Series. Coffees from Peru will be featured as the Portrait Country with unique cultural activations, and a pop-up café experience.
We are pleased to announce that the SCA Ireland Chapter has successfully formed a new committee to continue its important work within the community.
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The quality of water used to brew coffee is decisive for the taste experience in the cup. Water treatment plays a particularly important role in vending, gastronomy, and the hotel industry, where high demands are placed on coffee specialties.
Following a preliminary release in June, the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is proud to announce the adoption of three Coffee Value Assessment components as its official cupping standards: SCA-102 Sample Preparation and Cupping Mechanics, SCA-103 Descriptive Assessment, and SCA-104 Affective Assessment. These standards, approved by the SCA Standards Development Panel, supersede the 2004 Cupping Protocol and Form, advancing the SCA’s comprehensive approach to coffee evaluation. Use these free resources in your cupping practice at sca.coffee/value-assessment
The Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) for Cuppers Course is a two-day, immersive professional development experience tailored specifically for coffee cuppers and other sensory professionals.
Yoonseo Choi advises coffee retailers on how to succeed in e-commerce.
Payhere is a Point-of-Sale system chosen by one out of every three new coffee shops in Korea.
Kona coffee growers in Hawaii are now eligible for settlements in a 2019 class action lawsuit; Digital Coffee Future will host a series of webinars on the intersection of climate change and technology; Canadian chain Tim Horton’s has announced significant investment into the digital guest experience; UK press outlets cover the staying power of coffee consumption shifts.
US coffee roasters have seen significant cost increases in their operations due to shipping and transport logistics; Demetria, an Israeli-Colombian food-tech startup, closed a seed funding round after emerging from “stealth”; Hurricanes devastated more than 200,000 hectares of crops in Central America last year; a new coffee trend is sweeping TikTok.
World Coffee Research announces its next five year strategy will prioritize origin diversity; researchers at the the University of Reading, the Andean Information Network, and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru explore the similarities between Bolivia and Peru’s coffee and coca trades; 12 of the 16 winning lots in the recent ACE Private Collection auction with Hawaii’s Isla Custom Coffees featured controlled yeast fermentation in processing.
The Alliance for Coffee Excellence announced a partnership with scientific traceability company, Oritain, to build a database of coffee origin “fingerprints”; a new study explores the relationship between coffee leaf rust and a co-evolved hyperparasite; the International Coffee Organization’s Coffee Development Report 2020 finds the that the value of annual coffee exports has more than quadrupled from 1991 to 2018.
Rabobank Group, a lender known for financing agricultural traders, joined other commodity lenders in reducing its activity following a difficult year; the Hivos 2020 Coffee Barometer suggests there is little evidence coffee companies’ voluntary sustainability efforts have made an impact; Sucafina has announced a number of growth initiatives, including the acquisition of a Costa Coffee green supplier, Complete Coffee Limited; Seven Miles Coffee Roasters has launched a new telemetry system.
“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. Along the way, co-host Kimberly Yer leads us through stories of unlikely inspiration, the value of setting expectations, the push and pull of subjectivity and objectivity, and the shape of things to come through interviews with Dave Jameson, Cheryl Lee Su Yin, Nick Cho, Chad Wang, and Kristina Jackson.
25, A Publication of the SCA
LAUREL CARMICHAEL, SCA Publications Manager, provides an update on the CVA, with a focus on its capacity for information-sharing.
For her master's degree, environmental science researcher LORENA PIEDRA CASTILLO set out to model how climate change could affect coffee flavor, in the hope of providing coffee growers with valuable information to develop strategies to ensure the continued availability of high-quality coffee in Veracruz state, Mexico in the future.
Senior Program Manager for Coffee at IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, METTE-MARIE HANSEN shares key insights from the recently published report, The Grounds for Sharing. The report was commissioned by the Global Coffee Platform, IDH, and Solidaridad and traces how value for coffees sold in the German retail sector is created and distributed along supply chains.
EILEEN GORDON-LAITY, Secretary General of the European Coffee Federation, shares what we know (and what we don’t know) about the EU Deforestation Regulation coming into effect in the future.
Researchers Dr. NANCY CORDOBA and Dr. DEVIN PETERSON, joined by PETER GIULIANO, share early results of a multi-year Coffee Science Foundation research project, undertaken at the Flavor Research and Education Center at Ohio State University, to establish foundational knowledge about the phenomenon of sweetness in coffee.
World Coffee Research’s MAEVE HOLLER and Dr. ROBERT KAWUKI write about how the organization is fast-tracking innovation for robusta to forge the future of coffee.