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.

The publication of the new Coffee Sensory and Cupping Handbook by Dr. Mario R. Fernández-Alduenda, Technical Officer at the Specialty Coffee Association, and Peter Giuliano, Executive Director of the Coffee Science Foundation and Chief Research Officer of the Specialty Coffee Association is now available for print and digital purchase in the SCA Store.

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.

Exhibitor registration is now open for the 2022 World of Coffee trade show in the United Arab Emirates from January 12-14, 2022. World of Coffee Dubai will mark the first time SCA’s premier coffee trade show expands to the Middle East. This event will run in addition to the SCA’s annual World of Coffee Warsaw trade show scheduled to take place in Poland June 23-25, 2022.

PETER GIULIANO, Chief Research Officer of the SCA and Executive Director of the Coffee Science Foundation, interviews lead author SARA YEAGER, Coffee Scientist at Toddy, about the newly published article, “Acids in coffee: A review of sensory measurements and meta-analysis of chemical composition,” authored by Sara E. Yeager, Dr. Mackenzie E. Batali, Professor Jean-Xavier Guinard, and Professor William D. Ristenpart.

The 2019 SCA Board of Directors elections will open Friday, November 1, and close on Saturday, November 30, 2019. 

Almost 100 competitors joined us across three World Coffee Championships this past week at HostMilano, and now you can find the full rankings for each round of competition.

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.

World of Coffee will take place in the beautiful city of Warsaw, June 23-25, 2022. Poland’s capital city was scheduled to host the show in 2020, when the pandemic forced a postponement of the show. We are now extremely excited to welcome back exhibitors, attendees, sponsors, and the wider coffee community for Europe’s largest specialty coffee trade show.

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.

For International Coffee Day on October 1, doors of coffee shops, coffee roasters, and training centers were opened throughout Italy for an amazing new event: Coffee Boom.