Here's a nice rundown of some of the big, the small, the humble, the loud. A healthy chunk of the world of Specialty Coffee passed in front of my lens and many great conversations arose from these greetings.





Big start, the man: Peter Giuliano, the engine of SCAA that quietly hums and transports us all forward, to a better coffee future, closed the wonderful Symposium with a great lecture on "Value".





The Lion, the King, the most driven, focused man in coffee who knows more than pretty much any other, the gentle giant, George Howell. I was fortunate to meet him and Geof Watts of Intelligentsia at the same moment, and it turned into a discussion of the Loring Smart Roast and some roasting theory. Great conversation!






Geof Watts of Intelligentsia, humble, quiet. I imagine his brain was memorizing and absorbing every word spoken in the Sensory Lecture at the Symposium. I enjoy the slight halo that surrounds him here.







Three Kings, in the Sensory Lecture at the Symposium, George, James and Geof. I hoped my knees stayed underneath me, while I engaged the group, since it was open forum, but at the end of the lecture, when a round about Q&A opened. I got up the courage to cross reference a statement made by the Speaker, to a cultural issue that opened a wonderful back and forth dialogue between George, James, the Speaker (an expert with a sensory lab she runs) and myself. More detail about that whole amazing (best part of Symposium) event here






A very dapper Tracy Allen , a man who knows how to get green coffee to people. And much more. He now serves on the SCAA Board and runs his own new consulting firm.






A person of great interest to me, and to you, if you enjoyed the 96 point Cerro Azul AAA Colombia Geisha from Victrola Coffee Roasters in Seattle WA, you owe your thanks to this young, humble, and quite talented man, Dennis Peseau.






Winner of the greatest beard ever outside the band ZZ Top, the ever stalwart, Doug Garrott of Orphan Espresso.






A man with two cameras and a busy pace, Mark Prince of Coffee Geek. Mark stood next to me at the Slayer booth while I was serving espresso I roasted myself (the only non-professional to be invited to do so ). Mark was grilling Jason about the features and use of the Slayer single group. He used "HB" espresso over and over and over, getting it "just right".




You might notice something peculiar here. I was the only amateur to participate in a field of professional roasters. I included a green coffee given to me by Erna Knutsen herself two weeks prior, a Sumatra Mandheling, fitting, seeing how it was and still is her favorite.






Finishing high in the Brewers Cup Championship, and an incredibly fun, laid back approachable Todd Carmichael of La Colombe. He came up to me at the Slayer booth and hugged the wall, which happened to display a poster of the beautiful Slayer with custom claro walnut sides and paddles, which apparently is exactly the same as the one he ordered. I liked him, a lot.






Halfway thru Expo, I realized that I was sharing the same hotel with the world renown latte art expert,Hiroshi Sawada.






Chris Nachtrieb and his nice daughter, of Chris Coffee Service. One of my favorite Site Sponsors, the best customer support in the industry, he was looking forward to chatting with Dan.






In the hierarchy of professional roasters, the upper deck has few. One of them is Jen Apodaca of Blue Bottle Coffee. She leads a team of roasters for Blue Bottle Coffee's rapidly growing company. And a little bird whispered in my ear that a certain Loring Roaster was going to be installed in their new Los Angeles location.






The ever passionate, driven, focused and energized, Jason Prefontaine of Slayer Espresso. He could explain what makes Slayer different and better, to anyone, using simple terms, and he can and has done it over and over ad-infinium, yet still speaks with the passion as if it were his first time explaining it. I enjoyed my time on bar next him at the Slayer booth (one of the most popular booths year after year).






Here's someone to keep a keen eye on in the future if you're a roaster. If you can find any nuggets of knowledge from him, covet them, they're solid gold; Kees Kraackman. He's his own established figure in Amsterdam, and I hold his roasting talent and knowledge in equal or greater regard than even Tim Wendelboe, if for no other reason than the fact that Kees keeps to his tasks humbly, without flash and self promotion. He owns a cafe, a roastery, and a consulting business for both fields, as well as now joining Boot Coffee Consulting for an extension program for that market in the Netherlands and beyond.






Heather Perry of Klatch Coffee. I greatly respect what she's done in the past for Specialty Coffee in the past. There's been more astronauts on the moon then people who've taken her position as two time winner of the USBC.







Steve Holt of Ninety Plus Coffee. Steve is deep in thought here. Standing in front of the Alpha Dominiche booth. He's a kind guy, quiet. He was very pleased with my roast of his Perci Red Geisha that Khristian Bombeck (Owner of Alpha Dominche) prepared himself, for a small group of us to enjoy. But by the look on his face that I captured at some point during that time, you'd think the opposite was true. I just wish I had a better shot of him. I may need to go thru my camera once more.







Speaking of Khristian Bombeck, his Alpha Dominche booth was likely one of the most visited. The hum never slowed, the barista's never broke pace from full speed. I will detail my impressions of his incredible brewer separately.






Jay Derose, of Ninety Plus Coffee. Jay was on bar all day, the day I had my slot on a single group. He was pulling exquisite shots of all of Ninety Plus's best, on their gorgeous custom 3 group Slayer.






Nick Cho gave lectures during the Symposium of the SCAA. The man that took on the Alpha Dominche and dang near won.







Tim Wendelboe came, on his birthday to participate in the same lecture that Nick Cho did. His world famous roastery now ships worldwide.






An impressive man, quite tall, both in the industry, and in real life. James Hoffman, at the Sensory Lab/Lecture. He is very clear speaking and my impression is that he "knows well what he knows". There is no fluff or even a hint of braggart in him when you meet him. He's utterly gracious, humble and knowledgeable. I really enjoyed the time we were able to chat. I like a person who has an opinion that they'll stand on, unwavering, in the midst of friend or foe, someone who can clearly ascribe his opinion without trumpeting.






The man who keeps so many gears of SCAA/Roaster's Guild alive, functioning and moving forward; Chris Schooley. Soft spoken, a vast library of experience and passion and ardor for roasting. Chris keeps it real. I find myself drawn rather to roasters, or in front of a pre-heated roaster myself, than amongst folks hawking Slurpy machines and latte syrups. Chris seems to me to be a man with proper intent on what coffee discussion and collaboration should be about. I quite like him. But I don't think he wants fans, he strikes me as too humble to participate in such a thing as coffee fandom. But I'd rather have hung around him and Tom Owens than anybody.






So much can be said about John Laird, and what he's done for the coffee industry here in the west coast, and the ripple effects he has had as things spread beyond. He's been behind so many projects, so many expansions, designs, collaborations, new companies, his CV is too large to list. He's starting a new project here in the bay area, Supersonic Coffee, roasted on a Loring, using an expansive well of knowledge and experience amongst his team, to bring a Nordic approach and much, much more to the west coast. I think I might be more excited about this roaster coming, than anything in a long while.






Hiver van Geenhoven, roaster of Chromatic Coffee, gets a nod for steadfast adherence to 1920's style cues and more importantly, his exquisite espresso he crafts in San Jose, CA. His espresso carries the torch much further than his suspenders and mustache wax.







Valerian Hrala, the man behind the video series of Boot Coffee Online Training. He's an incredible roaster in his own right, and an all around great guy to talk, explore and argue anything related to coffee roasting. His vast experience is a contribution to the entire Boot team.







Which leads me to other members of the Boot Coffee team, Marlee Benefield, Jodie Dowell-Weiser all work together with Willem Boot to make his amazing company what it is. Not pictured, but always present behind the scenes is their new acquisition, their lab manager, Stephen Ezell.






The man, the myth, the legend, and someone I can proudly call a new friend, Willem Boot. He's our emerald, our North Star in the west coast coffee world, and he just happens to be a neighbor. His contributions to coffee need no explanation. He's seen here with an ambassador for Salvadorian coffees.







Chris Elliott of Slayer, along with Todd Carmichael, keeping the Slayer booth energized.







When you pick up the phone and reach out the Ditting USA, the kind, warm and always helpful voice that greets you on the phone is the President of Ditting USA, Nancy Wideman.







Kentaro Maruyama, the worlds foremost coffee cupper. When I later met up with him on the Expo floor, I introduced him to Jay Ruskey, of Good Land Organics, the only US mainland coffee grower, down in southern California. Jay was there handing out a few small green samples of his coffee to people he'd meet. I put the two of them together, since Kentaro does do some sample roasting on his own, we'll see what comes of that.







Luigi DiRuocco of Mr. Espresso, carries on his families traditional ways of wood fire roasted coffee right here in Oakland California, for nearly 40 years now.




You have to end this sort of thing on a high note. There is no other person more worthy of all accolades for the amazing world of Specialty Coffee than Erna Knutsen. She was honored at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2014 SCAA and announced her retirement. We all owe a great deal to the work she's done over half a CENTURY.




Wheeew. That took a lot out of me. I need some coffee. Other notable's that I met by random during the evening parties were Chris Baca of Verve, a tsunami of energy and positivity and Graciano Cruz. As it turns out, one of Graciano's best friends is a guy I met thru Willem Boot, and we ended up having some amazing times together. He's a bundle of energy that never stops moving. Aleco Chigounis kept busy and I'd only run into him at after hours functions as well. Jesse Crouse and Colby Barr, both of Verve were very busy and always cupping, cupping, cupping, everywhere they went. I had several great chats with both of them, but I didn't feel the need to document them in biography style like I've done here, since we've met and hung out previously.

Maria, of Sweet Maria's was touring the Expo floor with the founders of Tierra Mia, a wonderful new roastery/cafe spreading up all of California, with a beautiful shop in downtown Oakland. I wasn't able to meet Tom Owens, he was under the weather again having just returned from another far away place securing for us the finest green coffee. If I had the chance to have met him, it would have been the feather in the cap for my whole SCAA experience, but alas, some day.

Cheers folks. Hope you enjoyed it.

Wow. I'm just sitting here running thru this post putting faces on names I've heard many times, and it occurs to me that an extraordinary amount of work went into putting this together and I'm just sitting here on my butt enjoying it. I can not thank you enough.

Tom:

Great photojournalism! You have brought us to the convention. These are the people we may never meet but certainly admire. Your images and your personal descriptions/anecdotes bring these people to life in a way that only good photojournalism can. Can't say enough about your efforts in putting this together-

Outrageous, Unbelievable, Over The Top!

My favorite photo is Doug Garrott

Tom, thank you very much for this and all the other work you've done. It is truly awesome to put faces to names. This should be stickied!

Wow, fantastic thread Tom, thanks! I'm late to work because I couldn't stop reading this thread!

You have to end this sort of thing on a high note. There is no other person more worthy of all accolades for the amazing world of Specialty Coffee than Erna Knutsen. She was honored at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2014 SCAA and announced her retirement. We all owe a great deal to the work she's done over half a decade.

You mean century?

Thank you for being so kind! It was a pleasure to meet you, and chat a little bit. I'm glad you enjoyed the Symposium, I really enjoyed the sensory science part of it a lot. Perhaps see you at another such event in the not too distant future!

Great photos Tom and great seeing you there this year.

BTD1986 wrote:Wow, fantastic thread Tom, thanks! I'm late to work because I couldn't stop reading this thread!



You mean century?

Good catch! It was pretty late at that point!