COFFEE CONVOS

learning sessions featuring

leading Bay Area coffee legends

SATURDAY

Saturday: Session 1

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Saturday: Session 1 〰️

10:15 - 11:00 AM

Color is a key indicator of quality and roast level in coffee beans. Surprisingly, little is known about the effect of different “roast profiles,” i.e., the temperature versus time inside the roaster, on the dynamics of color during roasting, with most prior work focusing on laboratory-scale roasters that offer limited control over the roast profile. Learn how despite the dramatic differences in roast profiles and coffee origins, the bean color always maps onto a “universal roasted coffee color curve” when plotted in the L*a*b* color space.

In a world of apps, AI, and instant everything, coffee still tastes better when there’s a human story behind it. This panel explores how roasters, café owners, and producers are building trust, loyalty, and real connections that no machine can replicate. From farmer relationships to café counter conversations, discover why the future of coffee might just depend on keeping it personal.

12:00 - 12:30 PM

Presented by Jen apodaca

Consistently a crowd favorite: Presented by 🏆 2019 US Cup Taster Champion, 🥈 2022 US Roaster Champion, and Owner of one of our favorites, Mother Tongue Coffee.  Come learn the difference between coffee taste and smell,  the coffee flavor wheel,  how to read flavor descriptions on retail bags, and more!

Saturday: Session 2

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Saturday: Session 2 〰️

1:45 - 2:15 PM

Coffee for Wellness, Planet, and People? Yes Please. The next wave of coffee isn’t coming. It’s here. And it’s healthier than you think. Ildi Revi, Chief Learning Officer at Purity Coffee and global coffee educator, and Trish Rothgeb, co-founder of Wrecking Ball Coffee, introduce Circular Health Coffee (CHC), a groundbreaking category that redefines how we evaluate, produce, and consume coffee. Join this eye-opening Coffee Convo as we learn more about coffee's ability to impact your health.

Q Grade panel

2:30 - 3:15 PM

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3:30 - 4:00 PM

We love to joke about converting tea drinker - but what happens when the chai, tea, and matcha makers fight back? Are they rivals? Fremenies? Flavor-world diplomats? In this session, our panel of steeped-in-passion beverage pros will spill the tea (on where these worlds collide, where they complement, and why the future of your daily cup might be different than you think.

SunDAY

Sunday: Session 1

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Sunday: Session 1 〰️

SUNDAY

Green coffee defects is a laborious, time-consuming manual system of visualizing and hand sorting coffee defects of a known sample size weight. Learn how research creating a machine learning model that utilizes a computer vision system enables the severity and prevalence of defects in green coffee to be objectively quantified and expedited, while sensory science is used to verify the defect detection threshold for various green coffee defects present in a brewed cup of coffee.

11:15 AM - 11:45 AM

We all love to rise to coffee. There are also stars who rise to the occasion in the coffee industry. Meet the rising stars who are making their mark as new age coffee influencers and find out how they plan to keep rising and roasting to the top.

12:00 - 12:30 PM

How do we say coffee? How do we try to find words that embody in some ultimately satisfactory way what we are smelling and tasting in a cup? Kenneth Davids, longtime editor of Coffee Review and author of four books on coffee, takes us quickly through the way contemporary sensory science says we experience and find words for what we taste, and then very broadly introduces systems the coffee profession has generated that try to help us find language that satisfies our need to express both to ourselves and others what we experience in a cup of coffee.

Sunday: Session 2

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Sunday: Session 2 〰️

1:45 - 2:15 PM

Surfs up - big waves ahead! Learn how these supply-chain experts are surviving climate swings, price jolts, and policy turbulence. From de-risking origin ties to leading real climate action, find out what it takes to stay afloat in the choppiest waters yet.

Coming Soon: 2:15 - 2:45 PM

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Coming soon: 3:30 - 4:00 PM

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*Speakers and topics subject to change and depending on availability.