One of the main reasons to join Barista Camp in Riccione last summer was its lineup of speakers. Where else can you meet Andrew Tolley, Scott Rao, Sang Ho Park, Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood or Christian Klatt under one roof? Not only to listen to presentations that those bright minds prepared, but also to engage in a conversation with them during three days at the Camp. Summer is long gone, but we thought it a great idea to give you a warm reminder of it. Especially when Brno is covered in snow while we write this article!
Thanks to our partnership with Barista Guild of Europe we had the opportunity to be in Riccione, busy recording all the talks for you. Participants had to make quite some effort to attend these lectures and so we hope you will appreciate the opportunity to enjoy it in the comfort of your living room. If you haven’t subscribed to the official Youtube channel of BGE yet, this is a good time to do it!
Spoiler Alert! You might need to get your coffee ready for over 3 hours of pure coffee wisdom that follow! Enjoy!
Andrew Tolley — Coffee Shop Economics
Taylor St Baristas’s co-founder is an active SCAE committee, a judge and a very present person on the coffee scene in the UK and Europe. He talked about profitability of a business and how to achieve it! A very important topic delivered through a very meaningful speech. Watch it!
Rina Paguaga — Stories From Origin
Rina brought a very personal introduction into Nicaragua’s coffee production, together with a family story of her bringing up. Award-winning farmers are focused on sustainability and direct relationships with roasters worldwide. Rina talked about the challenges farmers meet and control of quality. She also focused on the necessary actions to be taken by the future farmers and their successful farms.
Sang Ho Park — Standardising Flavours
Previously Head of quality and roasting at Square Mile in London, Sang Ho founded his new consultancy company Spark Coffee Consulting and helped us understand the difference between subjective and objective tasting. He talked about the difficulties of flavours description due to different backgrounds of those who taste coffee, what does the flavour wheel references to and how FlavorActiv is going to be helpful in the future tastings. Learn from his talk!
Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood — Water Chemistry and its Impact On Coffee Flavour
The world-class champion works tirelessly towards understanding of water’s impact on the flavour of coffee. He explained his research and showcased its impact in a cupping. Knowing the water’s attributes helps us understand what will it make the coffee taste like. Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood delivered a speech full of knowledge and expertise!
Scott Rao — On Extraction Measurement
Scott Rao’s talk brings clarity into extraction measurements through his explanation of TDS and how numbers are a powerful way of perfecting your resulting brew. He also touched on batch brewing, the most consistent way of brewing. This may result in delicious brews, if done properly. We gain more knowledge from his talk every time we watch it!
Christian Klatt — Heating (in) Grinders
Product Manager for Hemro Group gave a knowledgeable talk on heat created in grinders, where it comes from and the affect temperature has on the grind size as well as its influence on the parameters of the resulting brew. Please watch it and learn from it!
