Espressology: Annual Leadership Conference

Since I am a District Coffee Master, this year I was participating in Annual Leadership Conference which was held in Barbican. Everything for me was new (I have never been to Barbican before). I have met a lot of wonderful people from other districts, regions and even remote parts of the country. Our, that is DCMs, role was to support different stations throughout the conference, e.g. I was sampling Christmas beverages. There are pictures where I am on the bar with Iris and Mark, preparing the drinks for sampling and there is Zaza on the background, who is very very funny, he was a Commandor, all he did was he repeated all the orders in a very loud voice and cried "Excellent!", "You are doing fabulous job! ", "Faster, faster!" and "Show some spirit!". I was cracking laughing!

On the second day we had a Coffee Authority module, where we learnt a lot of things about how farmers are coping(I really liked the speech from our very special guest Peter, head of Costa Rican Farmers Support Centre), watched beans being roasted on a portable roaster and then with help and direction from Coffee Quality team we did cupping just like professionals do. It was so exciting and so new fro me, that I caught a coffee bug and the idea of this blog was conceived. There is so much to learn about coffee, it's crazy!

I am hosting a Store Coffee Masters meeting in couple of weeks time and I can't wait to share this excitement with the guys!

That was a display that we did after US campaign for using tumblers instead of plastic cups. It would save 365 cups a year. Very simple and very strong idea.