Make coffee better

The Specialty Coffee Association fosters global coffee communities to support activities to make coffee a more sustainable, equitable, and thriving activity for the whole value chain

The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is a trade association built on foundations of openness, inclusivity, and the power of shared knowledge. As of January 2017, the Specialty Coffee Association of America, established in 1982, and the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe, established in 1998, have officially become SCA. One of the 52 pioneer members of SCAE, who also published the SCAE magazine “Café Europa”, is an external collaborator of ArtOn Café.

SCA’s purpose is to foster global coffee communities to support activities to make coffee a more sustainable, equitable, and thriving activity for the whole value chain. From coffee farmers to baristas and roasters, membership spans the globe, encompassing every element of the coffee value chain. The SCA acts as a unifying force within the specialty coffee industry and works to make coffee better by raising standards worldwide through a collaborative and progressive approach. Dedicated to building an industry that is fair, sustainable, and nurturing for all, the SCA draws on years of insights and inspiration from the specialty coffee community.

Vision and mission:

To create an effective, authentic and dynamic organization to give voice and substance to the possibilities for specialty coffee worldwide.

Engage, inspire, and expand a sustainable global specialty coffee community through leadership in events, education, and research.

SCA’s strategic objectives are:

  • Actively live its values and demonstrate its commitment while providing access to knowledge, community, and influence.
  • Build and expand global communities, strengthening and professionalizing existing regions and SCA Chapters, while identifying areas for growth with a focus on facilitating local access to a globally connected community.
  • Expand the reach of its activities, growing the association through the strategically focused global deployment of existing education and events offerings— refining, adapting, and localizing as needed. 
  • Ensure the association’s financial durability, with a focus on capacity development, human resources, technology, and compliance while maintaining a long-term commitment to research, sustainability, and advocacy as the drivers of future value creation.

Once a community of like-minded individuals has come together in a location, there’s an option to explore the founding of a more formal structure: an SCA Chapter. These are communities led by an elected committee of passionate volunteers that represent SCA activities in a specific country or regional territory. There are 35 SCA Chapters as of December 2020 and they are responsible for engaging the community in their local region by delivering education and events.

Over the next few months, SCA’s staff and volunteers will be launching seminars, open discussions, and other resources—all available online, regardless of membership status, since the global COVID-19 pandemic has caused many of the SCA’s in-person events to be postponed or rescheduled.

You can see here the upcoming virtual meetings organized by the SCA, such as:

  • Barista Guild
  • Coffee Roasters Guild
  • Coffee Technicians Guild
  • and World Coffee Events.

The next online SCA event is the Sensory Summit, which will take place February 18 & 19, 2021, with talks by researchers and academics, paired with experiences in a shipped Sensory Kit*. This edition will be held on Central Europe Time (UTC+01:00), and builds on previous event linkages to the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). Sensory Kits will present both opportunities to reach some countries outside of Europe, and also may present some challenges for some countries within Europe, due to current customs situations.

Attendees at this edition of Sensory Summit will have access to online sessions, each paired with guided experiences using the Sensory Experience box shipped directly to them. Coffee sensory professionals learn by tasting and smelling: every Sensory Summit registrant will receive a complete Sensory Kit—a box packed with coffee samples, coffee preparation tools, sensory references, and other aromatic and tasting experiences. These experiences will demonstrate the concepts being explored in the lecture, allowing attendees to expand their skills and their knowledge wherever they engage with the lectures, and providing opportunities for deeper engagement with the speakers and topics.

World of Coffee – Athens, June 24-26 2021

Traveling to a different European city each June, World of Coffee is the essential event for coffee professionals – drawing a loyal audience from the global specialty coffee community. Brought to you by the SCA, the event has more than tripled in size and stature over the last six years, growing from 3,000 visitors and 45 exhibitors to 10,945 visitors and 240+ exhibitors.

The backbone of World of Coffee is the dynamic 5000 sq.m. exhibition featuring over 250 of the world’s leading coffee and Horeca industry suppliers. Europe’s largest coffee trade show is more than just a trade show – it is a festival of innovation, entertainment, knowledge and learning comprising of:

  • World Coffee Championships
  • The SCA’s cutting-edge lecture series
  • Two busy tasting rooms
  • A week-long social program of parties and networking events
  • The ever-popular Roaster Village
  • The highly-coveted Best New Product Awards & Design Lab
  • The SCA Shop

*In 1981, Jean Lenoir created Le Nez du Vin, a sensory kit for the olfactory appreciation of wines. Lenoir himself transferred the concept to the world of coffee, creating Le Nez du Café. An interesting book explaining the aromas is also included in the kit.

Flores de Ilicínea: specialty with a sustainable heart

Quality, sustainable practices, respecting nature and everyone involved in the production

Recurrent banner - 1200 contactsWe have the pleasure of presenting the new specialty coffee of our friends Lilian Trigolo and Márcia Amaral.
Lilian Trigolo and Márcia Amaral are two small coffee farmers in Brazil in the southern region of Minas Gerais called Ilicínea, who in these complex and challenging times together launched a brand of specialty coffee “Flores de Ilicínea Cafés Especiais“. They wanted to reinvent themselves and encourage other women to also seek their space in coffee production.

Each package takes a little bit of their history from two different farms at high altitude: Lilian’s farm “São José” and Márcia’s “São Judas Tadeu” came together to create a new brand of specialty coffee, bringing quality to coffee lovers through sustainable practices respecting nature and everyone involved in the production.
The name Flores de Ilicínea is a tribute to all the beautiful flowers of our region, and especially to all the warrior and courageous women of the countryside who never give up on their dreams, and it gives everyone strength and determination in every approach to their day to day lives.
At Flores de Ilicínea Cafés Especiais manual harvesting is used to ensure the quality of the coffee: dry, damaged or green beans will not be mixed with the rest of the harvest.

Only ripe cherry beans are removed from the crop, so that by this method the removed beans generally become high quality grains depending on the terroir of each region and the care taken during harvest and post-harvest.
In Flores de Ilicínea coffee dry processing (natural) is used, which involves the drying of ripe cherry beans whole.
Care is taken so that the beans are protected from rain and, in order to dry, exposed on a suspended coffee terrace in sunlight and wind, and rotated at least 10 times a day so that the heat reaches them in the right way, namely as uniformly as possible.
During the coffee drying process, an important characteristic is the moisture content, which must be between 11 and 12% according to the coffee variety.

The coffee beans are then dried in a static dryer at a temperature of 35 degrees for 3 days. Then, the grains are left to rest for 60 days before being processed (peeled). When the coffee is completely dry, it is time to remove the last layers of dry skin and any traces of fruit.
The coffee is then cleaned: impurities such as earth, sticks, leaves and stones are separated, passing through a set of sieves of different sizes and types of holes, before the peel is removed. The two small farms combined produced 180 60kg-bags.
After Lilian and her partner Márcia Amaral have selected by hand the best 100% Arabica beans, the result is 84-point coffee like this first edition of the cultivar (variety) Mundo Novo. In fact, in the Sensory Evaluation Methodology SCA (Specialty Coffee Association), this coffee presented an incredible sensory analysis with notes of dulce de leche and ripe apple resulting in incredible sweetness in the cup.
The differential of their coffee is the transparency in the processes we share through their Instagram @floresdeilicineacafes, connecting directly with producers, roasters and coffee shops, always sharing the quality of the coffee, the surrounding nature and their sustainable practices.

Focus: Singapore Coffee Association

A historical association hosting various events, in a country with a rich coffee heritage

Recurrent banner - 1200 contacts

We have the pleasure of painting a picture of the Singapore Coffee Association.

The Singapore Coffee Association (SCA) was established in the late 1950’s by a group of pioneering coffee traders.

During the ensuing years, coffee trade developed rapidly due to the enterprise and hard work of the traders. Singapore gained recognition as one of the coffee centres of the world.

Today, as a result of the transformation, Singapore Coffee Association’s membership represents all sectors of the coffee industry, from green coffee supply chain providers, international and national roasters to well-known coffee retailers.

The Association aims to:

  • Provide a forum for all sectors of the coffee industry to share information and jointly promote consumption and trade.
  • Create awareness and promote the image of coffee in the community.
  • Represent the coffee industry at national and international forums.

Singapore coffee has had a long-lasting and traditional heritage. Enjoyed by Singaporeans since the early 20th century, Singapore coffee has been the drink of choice for coffee lovers looking for their daily caffeine fix. Found in almost every coffee shop and hawker center, Singapore Coffee accounts for more than 70% of coffee consumed in the country.

The roasting process that creates this coffee is a unique and traditional one. Indonesia EK-1 Coffee Beans are roasted in customized roasting drums at a temperature of just over 180°C for 25 minutes before they are coated in a pot of caramelized raw sugar. Believed to be a variation of the Torrefacto roasting method still common in Argentina, Costa Rica, France, Portugal and Spain, this process is a local practice that gives local coffee its unique taste that many Singaporeans have become so familiar with.

The adaptation of this process by our forefathers in the late 1800s compensates for the weight loss due to moisture displacement during the roasting process and has helped lower the price of coffee to be enjoyed by both ordinary laborers and wealthy merchants alike. The resulting cup is a coffee that is very dark in color and very strong in aftertaste. Over time, it has become part of our national heritage and in recent years, help to spring a host of retail local coffee chains in retail malls that are usually reserved for international coffee chains.

In local terms, White Coffee refers to regular coffee instead of the coffee with cream commonly known to the rest of the world. Black Coffee, or simply Kopi, naturally means the local coffee that is roasted using the Torrefacto method.

The Singapore Coffee Association, in partnership with Food & Hotel Asia (FHA), has staged the first virtual edition of Singapore (Micro-Lot) Specialty Coffee Auction on 1 October 2020 in conjunction with International Coffee Day.

Supported by Enterprise Singapore (ESG), it was the first time the Singapore (Micro-Lot) Specialty Coffee Auction was held in a digital format. The micro-lot coffee auction served as a platform to allow global specialty green bean producers to make strategic ventures into Asia’s growing coffee market by leveraging on Singapore as the key trading hub.

Coffee producing countries from Southeast Asia, South America and Africa took part in this auction to showcase their specialty beans in Asia.

The Association has also partnered with Specialty & Fine Food Asia (SFFA), Southeast Asia’s leading trade show for artisan, gourmet and fine food and drink, launching the new show Speciality Coffee & Tea Asia (SCTA) for its fourth edition that will take place on 28 September – 30 September 2021.

The new show hopes to create a platform for specialty coffee bean and tea leaf growers – together with producers, suppliers, roasters, traders, retailers and café owners – to network and develop the industry.

The partnership between Montgomery Asia and SCA came about after talks of a gap in the market for artisanal coffee and tea producers to showcase their gourmet products to the right trade audience. With this strategic partnership in place, SCTA 2021 will play host to a spectrum of exciting new activities organised by SCA such as the Singapore National Coffee Championship 2021.

The Championship comprises the Big 5 Coffee Competitions, namely:

  • Singapore National Barista
  • Latte Art
  • Brewers’ Cup
  • Cup Tasters
  • Coffee in Good Spirits Championships.

Key participating brands include Acaia, Bero Coffee, Bunn-O-Matic, CAFEC, Faema, F&N Magnolia, Mahlkönig, Mazzer, Monin, Oatly, Starbucks, WatchWater and many more, making it the must-attend specialty coffee event in Singapore.