I was invited to a dinner tonight put on by the UC Davis coffee department and went as Kent's (Marzocco) plus one. I met the Probat, Cropster (who insisted I'll be using the software by the end of the week lol), Baratza guys and the faculty department head at UC Davis who invited me to the opening ceremony tomorrow for construction to begin. I'll be taking lots of pics of the event to post in this thread but I wanted to mention here in the HB community that the Espresso Education Center begins constr at UC Davis! Woohoo! I'll be a guest speaker in November and will be coming to some of the coffee labs over the next few months.

That's very exciting, Cher! I look forward to your photos and write-up. Did you know that Janet's a graduate of UC Davis?

I wonder if they'll do for coffee what they did for wine industry?

Yes I need a day or two to rest up after the last 24 hours but I will post some pics here and talk about the event today. I remember Janet mentioning she was an alumni. The campus is one of the most beautiful university campuses I've been on. It's beautiful there! I did get a $55 parking ticket though!

That is what their goal is. I'll post more later but the work that these students are doing with coffee is pretty incredible. They're basically putting a scientific language onto what we've all been discussing over the years and didn't have verbiage specifically to articulate it.

We shall see. The UC Davis professors in my former field are biased to the point enough that I don't even read their material any longer. Time will tell also how much corporate donations to the center also cause a bias. I think the influence of Illy in Italy has that subtle unseen control over the direction things take.

I would be curious to see the bios of the professors and where the funding for this campus is coming from.