Barista Magazine

FEB-MAR 2018

Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005

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WOMEN IN COFFEE DRINKING WINE San Francisco Hosted by: Eileen Hassi Rinaldi + Lauren Crabbe An annual San Francisco gathering, Women in Coffee Drinking Wine start- ed as a fully casual wine hang at Ritual's then-new Haight Street location, complete with natural-wine producer extraordinaire Martha Stoumen pour- ing her year's vintages, and Ritual educator and Boss Barista podcast co host Jasper Wilde preaching a gender-inclusive coffee feminist manifesto. Having attended in the past, Andytown Coffee Roasters owner Lau- ren Crabbe decided to host the 2017 event as Andytown's new Taravel roastery-café in San Francisco debuted, building in more content on the parallel wine and chocolate industries. "I love getting large groups of coffee women into one room," Lauren says. "It was great to learn about parallel industries that face a lot of similar problems regarding sexism and gender equality. For me as a business owner, casual events give me time to talk to other women business owners who I can commiserate with, potential vendors who I can buy product from, or baristas looking to work for a women-owned coffee company. I'd love to do more events in the future. More women in coffee! More wine!" Women in Coffee Drinking Wine events are super easy to host; all you need is women and wine—it's literally that easy. MAP IT FORWARD San Diego Hosted by: Lee Safar After speaking on The Coffee Podcast about talent retention as a major challenge to the future of specialty coffee, Elixir Specialty Coffee founder Lee Safar found herself inundated with emails about how to make barista work a sustainable career. Inspired by the challenge, Lee created Map It Forward, an event series on developing different coffee careers down a 10-year time frame. The inaugural event focused on planning and developing barista career strategies, delving into realistic goal setting and career planning to make barista work a sustainable, long-term profession. The workshop included segments on networking, mentorship, and continuing education to cope with burnout. The second event, featuring roasting consultant and writer Scott Rao and roasting entrepreneur of YES PLZ Sumi Ali, concentrated on mapping career paths for roasters, from apprenticeship to community building to combating stress to developing your own brand. "The idea is to provide top-quality affordable career mentoring and coaching from people in the industry who have demonstrated that they built a career from the ground up by learning to navigate their path with integrity, craft mastery, and professionalism," Lee says. In the future, she plans to continue to assemble experts and help more coffee pros think critically about developing their career paths. INTROVERTS GAME NIGHT AT SCA Seattle Hosted by: Jenn Chen + Greg Loring-Albright For many coffee folks, the annual Specialty Coffee Association's Expo event can be intimidating and socially taxing, and the event and party formats—which frequently involve huge spaces, loud music, and danc- ing—aren't necessarily the best way for everyone to make new con- nections. After forcing herself to attend way too many loud, crowded Expo parties, introvert Jenn Chen decided to create an event of her own where people could network and have a good time without being overstimulated and having to shout to be heard. "I imagined my ideal party scenario—board games and pizza—and then recruited Greg Loring-Albright to co-execute the event," Jenn says. "He's way more familiar with board games than I am and was able to get a few on loan from a local store." At the event, introverted coffee people got to meet new people and converse freely, while having some- thing concrete to do with their hands and conversations. "I came away with some new connections," Jenn says. "And I know everyone had fun." TASTE FAIR San Francisco Hosted by: BACC In conjunction with the Specialty Coffee Association's 2017 Bloom event, BACC hosted Taste Fair to open a conversation into how other food and beverage industries taste their products. Featuring natural wines from Inconnu Wines, cheese from Velo Fromage, beer from Laughing Monk, and bread from Andytown and Bread SRSLY, the event gave attendees a chance to talk directly with experts about how they taste their product and assess its quality. For BACC organizer Emily Dobies, the experience shed light on how she thinks about fl avor and quality control in specialty coffee. "By getting a chance to talk one on one with experts in other food indus- tries, we can adapt the tasting and quality standards for the coffee industry," Emily says. "For example, looking at a cheese-tasting wheel and seeing how the tasting notes were derived: Is it based on actual scientifi c compounds created in the cheese? Or more ephemeral WHEN CREATING YOUR PROMO MATERIALS, MAKE SURE YOU LABEL ACCESSIBILITY Every event has a few accessibility details that the majority of your attendees won't ever need to think about, but that make or break attendance for some. When creating event promotional materials, be sure to answer these questions: • Will the space be wheelchair accessible? • Will the space have scents or be scent-free? • Will there be food and beverages at the event, and if so, what allergens do they contain? • Will there be other major allergens at the event, like pets? • Are there codes of conduct, or is any type of behavior tolerat- ed? These factors have a major impact on your attendee base. Be clear and specifi c, and you'll open your events to new people in your community. 73 www.baristamagazine.com

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