Presenter Bio

Camila Khalifé is a coffee quality specialist with a background in communication. She started her journey in coffee in 2014, when she founded Botánica, a training center and quality lab in Ecuador. After working in different roles, she specialized in coffee quality and education; she is a Coffee Quality Institute’s Quality Evaluation Assistant Instructor and a WBC Sensory Judge.

Camila is also the Communications Lead & Programs Co-Lead of The Chain Collaborative, an organization focused on community-led development in the coffee sector that works with local leaders in coffee growing communities in Latin America and East Africa. 

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Registration is open for Roast Summit 2024!

We're thrilled to invite you to this exclusive gathering of coffee roasting professionals. Set against the backdrop of beautiful Portland, Oregon, this two-day event promises to be an unforgettable experience. On February 22-23, 2024, we will convene at two remarkable venues: the historic McMenamins Kennedy School and the innovative Buckman Coffee Factory. Discover the latest trends, insights and techniques in the world of coffee roasting, while networking with industry leaders and fellow coffee lovers!

Registration is $150 for two days of education and networking. Includes lunch meals.

Event Schedule

(All times listed below are in Pacific Standard Time. Schedule is subject to change.)

Day One (February 22) | Presentations
McMenamins Kennedy School

9:00 a.m. – 5 p.m.
(Lunch included)

Day Two (February 23) | Workshops & Coffee Tour
Buckman Coffee Factory

9:00 – 3:30 p.m.
(Lunch included)

Day One Sessions

Day Two Sessions

On the second day at Roast Summit, attendees will meet at Buckman Coffee Factory and will be assigned to one of four groups that will rotate through the following sessions:

Cupping Workshop

An exploration of award winning coffee from the fall 2023 Cup of Excellence (COE) Season. Students will learn the basics of how to cup and score coffee using the COE cupping form, taste a range of scores and processes from winning COE farmers, and learn why the COE cupping form is built for evaluating large groups of coffees. A unique opportunity to taste and score some of the best coffees in the world. Presented by Alex Pond with support from Scott Merle.

Green Coffee Workshop

A hands-on workshop that will offer attendees the opportunity to sort green coffee samples, identify and classify defects, and explore the correlation between green coffee defects and cup quality. Presented by Todd Arnette and Camila Khalifé.

Roasting Workshop

Hands-on course with roasting theory. Presented by Mark Michaelson, Paris Kennedy and Alex Munoz of The San Franciscan Roaster Co.

Portland Coffee Shop Visits

Lora Woodruff of Third Wave Coffee Tours, will guide the group through the city with stops along the way at some of Portland’s most notable coffee companies.

Sponsors

Hotel & Travel

Event Lodging

McMenamins Kennedy School
5736 NE 33rd Ave.
Portland, OR 97211

To reserve your Roast Summit 2024 accommodations, select your desired room reservation dates. Click on “Special Codes” and select “Group/Block” from the menu, then enter the following code: 2402ROASTM
 
You may also call the hotel front desk at (503) 249-3983 and provide the name of the event to reserve a room.

Closest Airport

Portland International Airport (PDX)
7000 NE Airport Way 
Portland, OR 97218

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Session Description

Coffee roasting is an incredibly complex and difficult craft. Understanding and controlling the myriad of small variables involved in coffee roasting can be just as important as getting the larger details correct.

This session will focus on identifying variables worth paying attention to as a coffee roaster and using them to understand better how to guide our roast toward creating the flavor and consistency we seek.

There is so much more to the profession of roasting than basic heat transfer.

Presenter Bio

Rob Hoos is a coffee roasting consultant and owner of Iteration.Coffee. Rob is the author of Modulating the Flavor Profile of Coffee and has been a roaster since 2008. He has extensive experience in the specialty coffee industry, including roasting, training, purchasing and profile evaluation. He is a subject matter expert for the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) and conducts coffee roasting workshops online and in-person at his lab in Rainier, Oregon.

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Session Description

This session will review the current SCA standards for green coffee, take a look on how green coffee is sorted at origin before it is exported, and discuss the impact of defects on the cup, as well as the challenges producers face to meet the standards.

The following day, a hands-on workshop will offer attendees the opportunity to sort green coffee samples, identify and classify defects, and explore the correlation between green coffee defects and cup quality.

Presenter Bio

Camila Khalifé is a coffee quality specialist with a background in communication. She started her journey in coffee in 2014, when she founded Botánica, a training center and quality lab in Ecuador. After working in different roles, she specialized in coffee quality and education; she is a Coffee Quality Institute’s Quality Evaluation Assistant Instructor and a WBC Sensory Judge.

Camila is also the Communications Lead & Programs Co-Lead of The Chain Collaborative, an organization focused on community-led development in the coffee sector that works with local leaders in coffee growing communities in Latin America and East Africa. 

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Session Description

This talk details the development of an electrochemical method to assess solvated coffee compounds using a three-electrode electrochemical method, performed using either commercial or home-made potentiostats. Dr. Hendon will demonstrate that there is a well-defined relationship between total dissolved solids (concentration of coffee material by mass) and current passed at reducing potentials. 

Presenter Bio

Prof. Christopher H. Hendon is a computational chemist with interests in energy materials and coffee extraction. He obtained his BSc. Adv. HONS from Monash University (2011) and PhD from the University of Bath (2015). After a two-year postdoc at Massachusetts Institute of Technology he joined the University of Oregon in 2017 as an Associate Professor of chemistry where his research group focuses on materials with useful defects. He has published over 115 papers, was named a Cottrell Scholar in 2021, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar in 2022, the Samuel R. Scholes Jnr. Lecture for excellence in scientific communication, and has been awarded the Rippey Award for Innovative Teaching twice. In coffee, he authored, “Water For Coffee”, and has written numerous peer-reviewed articles on the topic. Presently, he leads a laboratory studying the chemical physics of coffee beverage production. 

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Session Description

Strong partnerships with your green coffee suppliers—importers, exporters and/or producers—are key to running a roasting business. This session will draw from Stumptown's 20+ years of Direct Trade sourcing and roasting, and provide perspective on communicating with suppliers about your coffee needs and preferences, managing inventory and projecting needs, and evaluating and monitoring quality from green through roasted.

Presenter Bio

Shauna is the vice president of coffee at Stumptown Coffee Roasters, where she oversees all sourcing, logistics, and green and roasted quality. She also leads sustainability strategy for Stumptown, a certified B Corporation, both within coffee supply chains and the company’s overall operations. 

Prior to Stumptown, Shauna led global sustainability initiatives for Volcafe, one of the world’s largest coffee trading firms. She worked collaboratively with the company’s in-country agricultural extension teams across Africa, Asia and Latin America to create a consistent approach to farmer support services called the “Volcafe Way." 

Shauna got started in coffee researching her master’s thesis on the economics of shade-grown coffee in Costa Rica. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia and Yale University.

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Session Description

Lora Woodruff, the owner of Third Wave Coffee Tours, will guide the group through Portland, Oregon, with stops along the way at some of the most notable coffee roasting companies in the city.

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Presenter Bio

Scott Merle is a specialty coffee veteran and has experience in every aspect of the value chain from origin to barista to roastmaster.  He has extensive knowledge of green coffee sourcing, purchasing, roasting and blend development, and is proficient in various types of coffee evaluation.  Scott has participated in multiple International cupping panels, was a founding member of the Coffee Roasters Guild, serves on the editorial board for Roast magazine, and has served on multiple committees and councils within the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). He remains dedicated to improving coffee quality throughout the value chain, and enjoys sharing his knowledge through trainings and workshops.

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Session Description

This session will present preliminary results from a massive study at the UC Davis Coffee Center investigating the impact of roast profiles inside a commercial drum roaster (a Probat P5). The talk will focus on how the differences in roast profile affect the titratable acidity and color of the beans, and how the data collected will ultimately help inform a new "coffee roasting control chart."

Presenter Bio

Laudia Anokye-Bempah is a Ph.D. student in the Biological Systems Engineering Program at the University of California Davis. Her research focuses on the kinetics of coffee roasting, with the ultimate goal of designing a “Coffee Roasting Control Chart” that will be used to produce the desired attributes in roasted coffee. Prior to her doctoral studies, Laudia received her MSc. in Biological Systems Engineering also from the University of California Davis, where she researched the use of desiccants for proper moisture preservation in green coffee during storage and transportation, and a BSc. in Food Process Engineering from the University of Ghana where she is from

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Presenter Bio

Alex currently serves as the Sr. Education and Program Manager for Cup of Excellence. In this role Alex organizes, drives, and instructs COE’s global education efforts. Alex has instructed classes in countries around the globe that have taught thousands of people how to accurately cup and score coffees using the COE cupping form.

Alex started in coffee in 2005, working as a barista in his hometown of Eugene, Oregon. In 2009 he competed in and won the Northwest Regional Barista Competition. Alex has worked guest barista shifts in Iceland and Sweden and has volunteered for numerous national and international coffee events, including the Nordic Barista Cup, as a USBC Judge.In 2012 Alex joined the team at Portland’s Heart Coffee Roasters. Over nearly six years at Heart, Alex directed their training programs, managed quality control, and worked as part of the green buying team.

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Presenter Bio

Todd Arnette has more than 27 years of experience in the coffee industry working in all spaces of the coffee value chain. Mr. Arnette is the owner of the Academy of Coffee Excellence, an Arabica & Robusta Q Instructor and is an Authorized SCA Trainer in roasting, sensory and green coffee.

He has served as the Chair of Education and a content creator for the Specialty Coffee Association and manager of the CQI Quality Evaluation Program. The Academy of Coffee Excellence, Todd Arnette and his team conduct training programs and consulting projects worldwide.

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Session Description

In this session, Scott Rao will talk about between-batch protocol and other factors that affect roasting consistency, such as controlling green-coffee temperature, ambient roastery temperature, and day-to-day airflow levels.  Scott coined the term between-batch protocol (BBP) to emphasize the importance of managing a roasting machine's thermal energy between batches.

Scott will discuss how to construct an effective BBP on various roasting machines, including drum roasters, air roasters, and sample roasters, and he'll provide numerous examples using Cropster graphs. He will explain how bean and air probe readings differ from drum-metal temperatures between batches, and how to adjust a BBP for different batch sizes and different seasons.

Presenter

Scott Rao has been in the coffee business for 30 years as a cafe owner, roaster, consultant, and author. The Coffee Roaster’s Companion and Coffee Roasting: Best Practices have influenced a generation of roasters and shaped the global roasting vocabulary and conversation. Thousands of roasters worldwide have attended Scott's seminars and worked with him as a private consultant. Scott’s popular Instagram account @whereisscottrao offers expert-level tips and discussion about coffee brewing and roasting. 

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Session Description

This session will discuss current green coffee grading vs green quality of different processes, what are we lacking in the coffee industry in terms of green coffee quality and processes in the specialty coffee industry? (honey, naturals, extended fermentations, etc).

Presenter

Dr. Luz Stella Artajo Medina holds a Bachelor's degree in Food Engineering from Universidad de Caldas, Manizales - Colombia and a Ph.D in Food Technology from Universitat de Lleida, Lleida - Spain. She also holds a Master in Coffee Economic and Science from Università degli studi di Trieste in Trieste, Italy and a Master in International Business Management from Universidad de Barcelona. She started her professional activities in laboratories dedicated to olive oil analysis in the area of Research & Development and Quality Control.

Luz joined the coffee world in 2007 as the auditor of the Cup of Excellence in Colombia (COE), one of the most prestigious coffee competitions in the world. She has been working with the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) for years, as a Regional Coordinator in South America back in 2012, and currently as a consultant for different projects. Dr. Artajo is also a Q Instructor (Q Arabica Grader and Q Processing), and is part of the first cohort of the Q Processing Expert Level, as well as a Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) Campus Inspector. She was recently recognized as 2022 Distinguished Instructor by CQI, being the only woman in earning this achievement.

She has been training international cuppers and working in processing projects mainly in Colombia for the last five years, and in different countries all around the globe. Her expertise is being appreciated in the field of processing specialty coffees as well, working closely with farmers in origin.

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Session Description

The specialty coffee industry is built upon the idea that coffee quality makes coffee more valuable to coffee farmers, roasters, retailers and consumers. But how do we measure quality, and therefore estimate value? Traditionally, the industry has relied on tools like the SCA Cupping protocol to assess value. How can cupping be improved, in light of advancements in sensory science and economics? Peter will give key insights into the development of’SCA's new Coffee Value Assessment System, a thorough explanation of the changes this might bring to the cupping protocol, and offer a dose of sensory science to boot. 

Presenter

For over 30 years, Peter has worked in the specialty coffee trade, as a barista, retail manager, cupper, roaster, coffee buyer, and business owner. A long time advocate of coffee education and community, he has served as Chair of the Roaster’s Guild, President of the Board of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, and Chair of the Industry Advisory Board of the UC Davis Coffee Center. Today, Peter is the Executive Director of the Coffee Science Foundation and the Chief Research Officer of the Specialty Coffee Association. In these roles, Peter advocates for scientific research in coffee, and serves as a liaison between the academic research community and the specialty coffee trade.

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Session Description

Learn how to use physical measurements and observations to improve the quality of your green coffee buying and roasting practices.

Presenter

Chris Kornman is a seasoned coffee quality specialist, writer and researcher, and the director of education at The Crown: Royal Coffee Lab and Tasting Room in Oakland, California. He has extensive experience with coffee grading,roasting, sourcing, traveling, and tinkering. He is the author of Green Coffee: A Guide for Roasters & Buyers.

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Session Description

This live demonstration will help you maximize your machine’s potential with the proper care, cleaning and maintenance.

Presenter

Bill Kennedy is the president and CEO of The San Franciscan Roaster Co.

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Thank you to everyone who joined for the presentations and Q&A sessions. The recorded presentations are now available here.

A special thanks to our event sponsors whose support made it possible for this event to be completely free for attendees. Thank you, sponsors!

Sessions

Event Schedule

(All times listed below are in Pacific Standard Time)

9:00 – 9:10 a.m.  |  Welcome to Roast Summit

9:10 – 10:10 a.m.  |  Session One – Presented by Scott Rao
Batch Protocols and Other Tools to Manage Consistency

10:10 – 11:10 a.m.  |  Session Two – Presented by Luz Stella Artajo Medina
Current Green Coffee Grading vs. Green Quality of Different Processes

11:10 a.m. – 12:10 p.m.  |  Session Three – Presented by Peter Giuliano 
Understanding Quality: The SCA's New Coffee Value Assessment System

12:10 – 1:00 p.m.  |  Intermission

1:00 – 2:00 p.m.  |  Session Four – Presented by Chris Kornman
Converting Green Coffee Data into Practical Insights in the Roaster

2:00 – 3:00 p.m.  |  Session Five – Presented by Bill Kennedy
Roaster Maintenance: A Healthy Roaster is a Happy Roaster

3:00 p.m  |  Closing Remarks

Sponsors

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Session Description

This session is meant to take a holistic look at sample roasting and ensure it is successful. It is influenced by and influences all of our buying, brewing, roasting and marketing. It simultaneously is and is-not profile roasting, yet it often does not receive the care and attention to detail that profile roasting and product development do, despite being responsible for more of the overall flavor of the coffee. Together, we’ll look at the assumptions and thought processes that influence our strategy of sample roasting and buying, look at the current definition of sample roasting and add to it some practical guidelines, and look at ways to make our sample roasting better.

Presenter

Rob Hoos is a coffee roasting consultant and owner of Iteration.Coffee. Rob is the author of Modulating the Flavor Profile of Coffee and has been a roaster since 2008. He has extensive experience in the specialty coffee industry, including roasting, training, purchasing and profile evaluation. He is a subject matter expert for the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) and conducts coffee roasting workshops online and in-person at his lab in Rainier, Oregon.

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Session Description

This session will re-cap Amouri’s presentation of Tasting the Roast Curve presented at the Roast Summit last February (you can find the video presentation here). Roasting with specifications versus analyzing a curve/profile, importance of analyzing a roast and understanding why a coffee tastes a certain way. This session will analyze roasting scenarios/curves both in terms of how the curve happened (roasting, environmental, green bean condition, etc.) and expected taste outcomes.

Presenter

Nicki Amouri is a Licensed Arabica Q Grader, Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) Certified Roaster, SCA Certified Barista and an Authorized SCA Trainer (AST). She is currently the Roastmaster, green bean buyer, and roasting instructor at Caffè Amouri in Vienna, VA. Nicki designs and teaches roasting courses at The Caffè Amouri Experience's SCA Certified Premier Training Lab, advises wholesale customers regarding their coffee operations, and supervises the roasting team. Nicki has worked on Caffè Amouri's Diedrich IR-12 since 2014; roasting, developing profiles, creating automated profiles by editing manual roasts, and maintaining, cleaning and troubleshooting problems. She has been a consultant for other roasters on a number of issues including improving roast profiles, utilizing Diedrich automation, training roasting staff, and roaster maintenance. Nicki also regularly roasts on an Ambex YM-10 roaster and a Mill City sample roaster. Nicki has a BS in Religious Studies and American Culture from Randolph-Macon Women's College and a M.Div from Union Theological Seminary.

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Session Description

As an industry professional, knowing how long roasted coffee should rest (post-roast resting time) before being brewed is an important and vital aspect of quality control and evaluation. This session will work through a double-blind study, conducted by Cafe Kreyol, on the sensory impact of post-roast resting time for 21 coffees. It will discuss case studies on circumstances in which this data would be relevant, and provide practical circumstances that can be applied to different aspects of the coffee industry

Presenter

Joey Stazzone is the President (and Chief Coffee Hunter) of Cafe Kreyol. In 2012 Stazzone took his experience with chemistry, cross breeding, and backyard botany, and began working in developing countries with the goal of creating sustainable employment, through specialty coffee. Through a decade of hands-on experience working with producers, he has become an expert in fermentations and post harvest processing. Stazzone has been a licensed Q Grader since 2015, and became a CQI Lecturer on Quality Evaluation in 2022. He has been on the international jury for the Bolivia Quality Cup Presidential Tournament 4 times, and has given dozens of lectures on Direct and Transparent Trading as well as Fermentations and Post Harvest Processing. Through his work at Cafe Kreyol, he provides consulting to hundreds of producers a year, conducting experiments on coffee fermentations, pH testing, and post harvest processing, in order to help them develop their best possible option. Recently his company completed a scientific study on post roast resting times, and the impact on sensory evaluation which can be found here. You can learn more about Stazzone and his backstory before coffee by watching this short documentary.

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