If you’ve been following our social media, you might have noticed that we’ve been busy! Along with releasing a number of brand new products, such as the Orion Mini Bean Doser, we’ve also been attending a lot of events across the world.
In September, we attended the SCAJ event held in Tokyo, Barista Camp EU held south of Athens, Greece, and Barista Guild’s Access event in San Deigo. Read ahead for a summary of all events.
SCAJ
We were delighted to be back at this year’s Specialty Coffee Association Japan Expo with our distributor FBC International. The event ran from September 9-11. Within Japan, we officially launched the Pearl Model S, Orion Mini, and the original Orion in a new Matte White finish. Take Ishitani won the Japanese Barista Championship for the second time using our espresso-focused Lunar scales.
During the course of the event, we did an exclusive collaboration with our friend and manga artist Wako. We previously worked with Wako to create the Coffee Manga Book: Kinoshita & Kuro the Cat. The book proved to be a huge success on Kickstarter with both our Japanese and international customers. Acaia hosted a book signing event, which is now also available in English.
Barista Camp EU
This year’s Barista Camp Europe was held in Annivissos, just south of Athens, Greece. The camp was held on September 10-13, attracting a range of coffee professionals from across the continent. The four-day event consisted of a mix of both intermediate and professional SCA skills courses, along with networking events and workshops. Acaia was happy to once again return as sponsors of the camp, where accurate scales were essential for both theory and practicals within the classes.
The Barista Guild also introduced a new learning track consisting of contemporary and educational workshops. The workshops include classes on natural wine, the terroir of coffee, and the effect of water on coffee.
Access
We returned for another year of both attending and sponsoring the Barista Guild’s Access program. This year’s event was held on September 16-17 in the city of San Diego. We had our own booth, saw a number of unique lectures over the two days, and also visited some local specialty coffee shops. We found a lot of value in the lectures we saw, including the presentation “Balance in Coffee: A Panel on Work/Life Boundaries” by Kelly Hill.
On Tuesday evening, we teamed up with local business Copa Vida for a special latte art throwdown and Brewguide launch party. We saw a huge number of people attend the event and also enter our competition raffle on the side. Congratulations to Frank from Copa Vida for winning the throwdown!
Keep an eye on our social media for more updates about upcoming events and recaps.