Sunday, September 21, 2003


back from the mainland

sometimes it's just so comforting to return to my tiny island off the coast of the united states.

this is not to say that i didn't adore the scaa committee meeting lovefest in atlanta. lawd knows i leap at any chance to hang with the cool coffee people.

usually after 10 mins. with them i keep thinking "why aren't i running off with this fabulous coffee circus?" i lack words to express how amazing the scaa and the coffee trade really is.

the problem is atlanta, where people still smoke. everywhere. all the time. i was wearing a strapless silk dolce & gabbana dress with my hair down thinking "oh god no. cigars!"

the hair-washing, the dry-cleaning. . . it was a total waste of the delicate l'artisan parfumeur "la chasse aux papillons."

but this is not the fault of the scaa. i continue to be completely in love with the coffee community.

we had 2 days of meetings with all the coffee committees, including mine, the consumer marketing committee.

this group includes some of the most awesome girls ever, like colleen crosby of santa cruz coffee, kimberly easson of transfair, cate baril of green mountain, sarah thornton of fresh cup magazine. i worship them all.

actually in my next life i hope i can marry cate baril. that's how incredible she is. better than fresh mozzarella: she went and built houses for coffee workers in guatemala, for example.

the guys aren't bad either -- dan bailey of square eye, frank dennis of swiss water decaf, jim munson of the ever-wonderful dallis, and of course mark prince of coffeegeek.com.

we had to create initiatives, milestones, action plans, give dates and owners for projects, all this. very formal and corporate.

since we hardly meet and had tons of ideas, it was kind of chaotic at first, but the second day we stopped whirling like crazed tasmanian devils and actually got our act together (taz!).

then we had to put our plans into this certain format and prepare a report, which had to be presented.

so all that went well. the presentation was very interesting -- i got to hear more about the alternative coffee market, the so-called q contract. apparently this is actually going to get real in august 2004.

and i got to hear one of my absolute heroines, margaret swallow of coffee quality institute, talk about the coffee corps. (i've talked about this before.)

i did impress on the committee that it was crucial to deliver on the promises it had already made to the existing scaa c-members. the scaa is migrating its website and has hired a firm to re-do it, so we hope very soon to finally have a good site with consumer info.

and i do believe many of the long-delayed mailings to members will happen no later than the end of october. since i am doing this mailing personally, i think it can really happen this time!

i also spoke to some pro members about cool events for c-members: a 2-day roasting lab with terry davis of ambex in tampa, florida for january.

this is a 15 person event; no more. i was sure that home roasters would leap on this chance to get pro training for nothing, but so far the response seems lukewarm.

if you are interested, do email me or a post a comment below with a proposed date. i don't want to cancel this one!

i'm also looking at setting up a 10-person latte art workshop here in nyc with ken nye of higher grounds in oct. or early nov. again, if you're interested, email me with a proposed date or post a comment below.

we also talked about a lot of awesome things that will happen for consumers at the upcoming scaa 2004 conference in atlanta.

there will be an entire slate of special events for us there -- 8 or so seminars -- including hands-on espresso and roasting workshops, as well as a chance to meet authors like ken davids and mark pendergrast.

in short it's never been better to be a consumer member of the scaa, and i'm dedicated to improving and enlarging the membership benefits, besides holding these cool events.

i do have a lot more to say, and i could gush on about meeting incredible people like geoff watts of intelligentsia, rick peyser of green mountain, sue mecklenburg of starbucks, david beeman of cirqua water, just so many others.

i'll list 'em all later. however, i will say that while the roasters' guild prides itself on being party animals, this meek bklyn girl with her yoga lifestyle put them all to bed. and it was scarcely 1am.

the last men standing were terry davis and myself, and i have to tell you, terry fell before i did. . . heck, in new york that's still early.

we shoulda been up until 4:30am, then we might have been able to begin talking about the verb "party." 7am, that's more like a serious time even by bklyn standards. . .now, noon, that would have drawn some admiration!

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