WOW, what an experience. The bearded one (Eugene) have been in the coffee industry for several years, with my exposure limited to our CoffeeLIFT journey. While this started in 2019 already, really getting involved with coffee shops, talking to owners, baristas and delivery drivers only started in mid-2020. The coffee industry is amazing to say the least and the specialty coffee industry is truly special.
It is the most caring group of businesspeople I have ever seen together. The Creative Coffee week hosted by the Coffee Magazine was an eye opener. While this industry event is still quite young, started in 2018, it is amazing how much are shared and how valuable this is to the industry. The competitions hosted by the Coffee Magazine and reaching its climax at the Creative Coffee Week are invaluable to skills development and the general improvement of quality and excellence in the industry.
From us at CoffeeLIFT, congratulations to the winners of the Shot in the Dark competition, being:
- Frederik Dreyer – Gegrond Coffee
- Trevor Fitz – Beethoven Coffee
- Rory Lambson – Black Sheep Coffee Co
Personally, I never knew how many serious and exceptional coffee roasters existed in South Africa. Neither did I know the extent to which they go to find the best quality coffee available in Africa and the world and bring it to their customers. All of this, while striving to ensure that the coffee farmer is treated with respect and paid fairly for his or her coffee. Always aiming to deal directly with the farmers, it leads to building lasting relationships between groups of beautiful people. We love that! Coffee brings people together.
For that matter, I also did not know that there could be so many different recipes to use an Aeropress. And to witness Mike from Sevenoaks Trading tasting coffee was an experience, quite a loud affair…
For Eugene and I it was such an honor to be part of the Creative Coffee Week and to top it off, being given the opportunity to share some of our experience we gained during the last year. Eugene, being true to himself made his own invaluable contribution to the coffee industry by entertaining the attendees with a catchy song that I just cannot get out of my head. We will post our one and only music video on Youtube in due time. (Just in the process of making sure we can handle the fame afterwards…😉)
Business in general has not been easy due to the restrictions we experienced the last 18 months. Going forward we are all hoping and praying that the economy will start to grow and that restrictions will be eased to allow businesses to freely serve their customers again. In the interim, seeing how the coffee industry support each other is an inspiration. We would like to be part of that support system, doing so by sharing our experience and as much information as possible to assist business owners in the coffee industry to improve their businesses.
The pdf. version of our talk at the Creative Coffee Week is available for download. Please use the information and share it with whomever you want. We will expand on the different aspects in future blogs. Our desire is for it to be used and hopefully to be critiqued by many. In the process we would be able to learn and improve our own understanding of the many issues facing different businesses. As we do, we will share some more. So, please send us your comments and questions to johann@beverageseal.com.
Please note: No coffee was spilled in writing this blog…
