Forward: By me (The Girl in the Café)

I’ve had a crazy month or so working on the London Coffee Festival Virtual as the presenter of many segments and panels, as well as being the co-host live the entire day of the event (with numerous self-imposed outfit changes). Unfortunately I wasn’t able to watch the whole programme as it played, like viewers at home until this week. I thought it would be great to get someone else’s perspective on the programme, so asked my friend, writer and active specialty coffee lover Ronita to tell me what her favourite segments were during the LCFV and the LCF Fringe (two days opened up to other coffee related content creators) so that you can scroll on-demand straight to her top picks!

Ronita has impressed me over the years with her curiosity and enthusiasm for specialty coffee, but mostly her active partaking in events both online and in real life to further her knowledge, network and confidence.

I’m so happy to have Ronita guest write on my blog this month (she’s my first guest writer!) I hope you enjoy the parts she has picked for you, links and all. Here it is!

London’s Second Virtual Coffee Festival

Highlights and Thoughts

By Ronița Dragomir

It’s been a little over a week now since this year’s London Coffee Festival went digital. As someone who’s binged most of its content (with tiny bathroom breaks here and there), I thought it might be fun to share some of my favourites with you, fellow coffee lover who is currently reading this!

Before we get to it, however, I feel it’s only right to mention how much I appreciated and enjoyed to see somewhat of a change in the lineup scheduling, in order to include a wider array of topics, some of which, I’m sure we can all agree, were much needed and long overdue.

From what I could tell after watching Friday’s talks and some Fringe events throughout the weekend, the first thing that stood out was the general shift to a more hands-on approach by making quality coffee skills a lot more accessible to the average consumer and helping to demystify the world of specialty coffee for whoever’s on the other side of the window, looking in.

I remember a time when I, too, was an absolute novice in this industry and felt completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of rules and information that was going around. Most people I would meet at these sort of events were champions or the usual coffee experts. It made mustering the courage to ask questions much more tricky and don’t even get me started on how much I felt the burden of my gender during those first few years, but that was then and I know better now. The feelings I’ve felt, however, will never leave me and I’m sure there’s more people like me out there for which joining the specialty coffee family can be quite intimidating - you’re not alone!

But before this piece quickly gets away from me, let’s get started on that list I mentioned.

One of my favourite talks during this year’s festival has got to be the “Making Space – Inclusion in Coffee & Hospitality: A Panel Discussion “ where Lorraine Copes, (Founder of Be Inclusive Hospitality), Amani Kiflemariam (Founder & CEO of Amatte), Christen Dali (My Lifeline Coldbrew Coffee), Julius Ibrahim (Second Shot Coffee) alongside Celeste Wong (@The_Girl_In_The_Cafe - obviously!) addressed the topic of racial and gender equality, as well as diversity and representation within the UK coffee scene. It was a truly important and powerful panel that I recommend watching, in case you’ve missed it live. I would personally love to see more panels like this in the future, maybe even during The Global Coffee Festival Live in September, wouldn’t that be something?

Another good episode. I’d suggest checking out is “In Pursuit of Best Practice: Putting Taste & Sustainability Centre Stage” during which Eva De Keyser (Senior Sustainable Development Manager at Alpro ) and Sierra Yeo (Alpro Coffee Specialist/ founder of The Kore Directive) talk about sustainability and what that looks like from a barista's point of view.

In Pursuit of Best Practice: Putting Taste & Sustainability Centre Stage

Eversys: A Journey on the Road Less Travelled

I also enjoyed hearing Kamal Bengougam (Eversys Group Commercial Director) talk about the Eversys new Enigma super automatic coffee machine and how we should try to not fear change, but rather embrace it, and allow technology to give us a hand in taking things to the next level - “A Journey on the Road Less Travelled”. (please scroll to 03:52:24) Don’t worry if you miss it though, as Celeste announced here that she will be hosting the Eversys Podcast coming out later this year, in which this will play. Excited for that!

Another super interesting coffee business talk I was excited to check out was WorkFair’s “Reimagining Work in Coffee - How to find, build and be part of a successful team”, this time on youtube as part of Saturday’s LCF Fringe Events. If you’ve ever worked in a café (or wanted to at least) trust me when I tell you, you’ll want to give this one a listen.

I mentioned in the very beginning, that I really loved seeing an increase in short, easy to understand classes, particularly when it comes to tasting coffee. Who doesn’t enjoy a good cup tasting? Even more so if it’s in the comfort of your own living room and each step is beautifully explained to you by none other than Gwilym Davies, former World Barista Champion, coffee roaster and founder of The Naughty Dog - “The Global Coffee School: Cupping & Tasting at Home”. This is just a snippet of course; if you want to get the whole experience you can now register for the Global Coffee School’s module on cupping on their page.

My love for cupping is quite real and I am happy because it is also what led me to both Saturday’s Fringe event “Cross-Continental Cupping with Capsules” organised by Drink Morning, featuring the ever-so-lovely Sierra Yeo (Alpro/ The Kore Directive) and Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood (Founder of Colonna Coffee, Peak Water and co-autor of the Water for Coffee book) and Sunday’s “The Right Roast Presents: Live Cupping - Exploring four different coffee processes”.

As you’ve probably guessed, I could go on and fill page after page with things I’ve enjoyed seeing, doing and listening to during last week’s Virtual Coffee Festival, but, instead, I’ll stop here, in the hope that at least one of my favourites has made it on your list or, if not through this article I will have convinced you to go back and rewatch parts of it over a big, delicious cup of coffee.