SCAE Gold Cup Programme

The coffee industry is familiar with the concept of balance. A balanced blend. A balanced cup. Balance. The early years of the SCAE was the stuff of voluntary organisations – fuelled by enthusiastic industry experts who believed in the cause and delivered more than their fair share. Little would those early volunteers have thought the fledgling World Barista Championships would become the powerful vehicle it has become. While undoubtedly an enormously powerful vehicle for the furtherance of quality coffee, that power tipped the balance of the SCAE’s output.

The SCAE was rightly criticised from within and without for its espresso focus. It was clear we had to put some energy into brewed coffee to redress the balance. The first successful move was to introduce brewed coffee into the competition arena with the World Cup Tasters Championships. The second and more pervasive shift was the introduction of the SCAE Gold Cup Programme. The Programme was officially launched in Antwerp at the SCAE Coffee Fiesta event in 2007. It was launched as a whopping three-day course, which was actually more of a coffee course than a brewing course. Everything from coffee origins to processing options to roasting to cupping was covered, along with the more relevant topics of grinding, brewing and extraction measurement.

The standard of filter coffee is getting an overdue shot in the arm with the Gold Cup Programme. The great success of the programme has been the quality of both the education content and the delivery of the key learning points, now mercifully condensed into a concentrated one-day course. Taught by Level 2 qualified Brewmasters, the SCAE Gold Cup Brewmaster course is a hugely beneficial day for any coffee professional, which clinically deconstructs how a great filter brew can be achieved or ruined, with course attendees measuring and computing extraction levels. The next course runs in Dublin on February 25th, details here.

While the balance still leans toward the espresso-based beverage world, and the scales will tip forcefully at the WBC in London, we will continue to keep filter in focus through the SCAE Gold Cup Programme and other brewed coffee initiatives.

Mick