We are pleased to announce that we have received sufficient nominees to fulfil all open coordinator roles to form the SCA Ireland Chapter Committee for the term of 2022-2024.

The Specialty Coffee Association has announced that the 2022 World of Coffee trade show, originally scheduled to take place in Warsaw, will be moving to Milan, Italy. The five World Coffee Championships—Latte Art, Coffee in Good Spirits, Cup Tasters, Cezve/Ibrik, and Roasting—will also be held in Milan, June 23-25.

The Specialty Coffee Association stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian coffee community whose homeland has been under attack for the past few days by Russia. We strongly condemn the Russian regime’s invasion of Ukraine and the violence and displacement being inflicted.

The CTG is kicking off a new season of Ask The Pros in 2022, with episodes streaming February through March!

Submissions are now open for the 2022 Specialty Coffee Expo Best New Product and Coffee Design Awards. Deadline for submissions is March 14, 2022

As a beverage equipment technician, we can see many different types of machines that heat water. These are espresso machines, drip coffee machines, tea brewers, hot chocolate machines, hot water machines and others. Servicing a machine with a heating issue begins with understanding the heating circuit, its path, and the parts in the path.

What sets apart one technician from another? What are the two different paths a technician can choose to take? And what lessons can we learn from Greek mythological figures Prometheus and Epimetheus?

How many techs does it take to turn a bolt?

From managing your fellow humans to financial literacy and digital tools, setting up a service department is a skill in itself. If you’ve been tasked with founding or leading a service department for a roaster-retailer, this one’s for you. (And if you enjoy brilliant tech-based jokes, this one may also be for you…)

Today we are celebrating new members on the Leadership Councils for our three guilds: Barista Guild, Coffee Roasters Guild, and Coffee Technicians Guild!

Learn all about the 2021 winner of the Sustainability Award in the Project Model Category: the Alto Mayo Landscape Peru REDD+ Project. The project creates incentives for the local community to conserve the forest and reduces their reliance on unsustainable farming practices.

This week, Diogo Amorim and Hugo Ferraz, trainers at abcoffee’s Premier Training Campus located in Porto, Portugal.

In South Korea, November is known as the coffee season of the year, making coffee more aromatic with the autumn leaves. Every November, Cafe Show Seoul has been held for the last two decades and SCA South Korea Chapter joined this year’s Cafe Show with a variety of programs.

We’re thrilled to announce that nominations are now open for the 2022 Sustainability Awards! The deadline to submit an application is January 7, 2022. There are three categories in the 2022 Sustainability Awards: Business Model, Individual, and Project.

Once upon a time at an unnamed company in an unnamed city, a coffee company opened a new café. They had exotic tastes in espresso machines and had purchased a beautiful, completely unheard-of model directly from a boutique European manufacturer. The crate was opened with care, the machine lifted onto the counter, and the whole staff gathered around to admire it.

“Hey,” said a bright young barista. “That machine doesn’t have a UL sticker on it.”

And at that angst-filled moment, the manager of the new café suddenly got very curious about UL. Could the machine be installed? Was it legal? Was it safe? And what, just exactly, was UL?

Join the Barista Guild Leadership Council for a new instalment of Livelihoods in Coffee, an ongoing conversation within our community.

In any system where steam is generated, there is always a possibility that over-pressurization can cause a catastrophic failure of the pressure vessel. This could result in destruction of property, injury, and loss of life. This is a bad day no matter how you cut it.

Learn about the good old pressure relief valve, and how it can save you and your espresso machine a whole load of bother.

It’s exciting to see so much interest in the testing and reporting of water quality among technicians these days. Let’s talk about what a TDS meter actually is, what is measures, what it doesn’t measure, and how to make the most of yours.

SCA Board Vice President Juan Luis Barrios, Second Vice President Konstantinos Konstantinopoulos and CEO Yannis Apostolopoulos will host a conversation with the six professionals who were chosen after an extensive interview process to fill the final ballot in the 2021 SCA Board of Directors election.

“In my day-to-day you’ll often find me on the phone helping techs in the field figure out what’s going on with the piece of equipment they’re in front of. We’ve all been there. After having dealt with traffic, circling the block several times looking for parking, only to be confronted by a frustrated café manager who needs their business-critical piece of equipment back in operation so they can get back to bringing in the monies. In those types of situations, it can often be a challenge to take a step back, gather information, and work toward sussing out the root cause.

It’s times like these where having a mantra comes in handy.”

The 2021 Milan World Coffee Championships, featuring the World Barista Championship, World Brewers Cup, and World Cup Tasters Championship, will take place at HostMilano, Italy, this week from October 23-26.