Cupping Controversial Coffees

Presented at Coffee Fest, Seattle, WA

Saturday 1 Oct, 2022 

By Adam S. Carpenter

Founder & Lead AST

ROCC Coffee Co.

Greeting & Invitation

Thank you for attending this session!

I’m excited to work on this topic together with you today. We are all learning and growing to develop better coffee cupping and sensory skills.  This is one of three sessions prepared for Coffee Fest PNW, 2022. 

1. Developing and Maintaining a Coffee Training Program.

2. How to Get the Best from Your Beans: from Sample, to Profile to Production Roasting.

3. Cupping Controversial Coffees.

If you are interested in these other sessions or would like to connect, I would be happy to share and dialogue.

This session has an accompanying PDF available by blog and email. There may also be discount codes available if you wish to join one of our certified Specialty Coffee Association courses always available online.

We also have great training kits available at www.sca.training with tools and equipment at www.rocc.coffee.

Introduction

I approach our time together with humility. I know in the crowd we have coffee experts with experiences beyond my own. I am always learning and looking forward to be challenged, so I appreciate your grace as I too extend grace to you on the path of study and practice you are currently walking.

My name is Adam and I love helping people and businesses grow. Our vision at ROCC is to use training and tools to build a Global Community and Provide a Playground that Makes Life Better.

I grew up on a small farm in Michigan drinking Folgers instant coffee with my dad and grandpa.  They worked hard and I wanted to be like them. In university I had the chance to stay at a Costa Rican coffee farm. Picking coffee cherries by day and playing futbol at night changed my life.

My wife and I married, went to China as English teachers and then in 2012, I opened Central China’s first artisan coffee roastery - ROCC. We roasted wholesale coffees and had two retail outlets. One coffee window and one full Coffee Discovery Bar. In 2015 I started training as a fully certified AST with the SCAE running courses in both English and Mandarin Chinese all over China. Today I lead certified SCA courses online and offline in the Coffee Skills Program while supplying training tools and coaching for clients - especially roasters & labs.

I would be honored to work with you or your team to grow your business.

---

I LOVE to cup coffees, but honestly I was afraid of the SCA cupping form for quite a while. It felt cumbersome and I always had a creeping thought in the back of my mind, “you’re liking missing something or doing this wrong.” I want you to know that we all start somewhere and have similar fears or doubts. Doubt is inherent to sensory work and cupping because no-one of us has the complete picture. That’s why we cup coffees together and calibrate with one another to get closer to a group and global norm.

I LOVE cupping coffees and am proud to cup alongside you today!

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Cupping Controversial Coffees

It’s time to introduce our six coffees. These coffees were selected to push the boundaries of the SCA cupping form and to stretch many of us outside of the normal coffees we are exposed to in our cafes, roasteries and sales catalog. 

First, the SCA cupping form was designed for washed Arabica coffees. However many roasters use various processing methods such as: dry/natural, honey, semi-washed, and new experimental anaerobic processing methods. We have many of these today in addition to Robusta coffees (which have a different cupping form).

The SCA cupping form was designed for washed arabicas only.

After we smell and taste our coffees we will gather back together to share insights, ask questions and discuss any “Wow!” moments. We will also take a quick look at basic concepts with coffee species, grades, processing and roast impacts. If time permits or if it happens naturally we can calibrate our cupping results together.

Our Coffees

• Our Robusta Table (3)

  • A high quality, Organic India bean from the Araku Valley, dry/natural processed. 

  • A fine, Vietnam Lam Dong Central Highlands bean “winey” dry/natural processed.

  • A standard, Uganda Screen 15 dry/natural processed bean.

• Our Arabica Table (3)

  • A commercial grade India Kent/Timor Blend, from Araku Valley dry/natural processed.

  • A specialty anaerobic honey process bean from Honduras.

  • A specialty anaerobic wet hulled Sumatra coffee.

Cupping and Sensory Rules

Regardless of the audience, I want to ensure that we are on the same page with our cupping protocols. We want to adhere to SCA cupping standards as instructed by the SCA Cupping Protocol (available PDF) practiced around the world. If you are unclear about roast, ratio, grind, water, etc. variables, we can discuss these at the end of our session. However, I’d also like to remind us of cupping etiquette.

My house rules (established from cupping cross-culturally for over a decade) is that there are many bad habits or personalized preferences that can interfere with others proper cupping experiences. Together out of etiquette let’s focus on creating an optimal atmosphere and environment for others by collectively:

• Affirming this is a judgment free zone, where we are collaborating - not competing.

• Not whistling, creating drama or drawing attention to ourselves through our slurping habits. We should be attuned to the coffees and seek to not disturb others.

• Restraining from moving cups, shaking grounds and otherwise disturbing the cupping setup.

• Not moving too slowly (give everyone a chance) and not pushing up near or pressuring the person in front of us. We should move at a steady pace and at times, we may not be able to catch our cupping results, but should move for the next person to have a chance.

• Using a dispensing cup or 2 spoons with one designated to slurp and the other designated to transfer coffee without transferring germs.

• Keeping thoughts and reflections to ourselves so as to not influence others.

• Attempting to use the SCA cupping form.

Have fun, let’s cup these controversial coffees.

Cupping Feedback

This will not be a perfect calibration, and I failed to fill out my SCA Cupping form with you. Many apologies as I was too busy enjoying conversations and instructing on cupping and curiosity. However, the quick feedback and insights below will help launch us into our next section discussing species, processing, grades, roasts, etc.

Robusta

• Organic India Araku Valley

  • Earthy, Corn Nuts, Smoke, Roasty, Phenol, Green Grass, Metallic, Nutty

• Vietnam Lam Dong “Winey”

  • Dried Fruit, Fig, Peanuts, Hazelnut, Dark Chocolate, More mellow than India

• Uganda Screen 15

  • Metallic, Bitter, Oil, Petrol, Rubber

Arabica

• Commercial India Kent/Timor Blend

  • Earthy, Woody, Tamarind, Spice, Orange, Bell Pepper, Cherry

• Specialty anaerobic honey Honduras

  • Fruity, Bright, High Lemon Citrus Acidity, Sweet

• Specialty anaerobic wet hulled Sumatra

  • High Complex Acidity, Tabasco, Cheese, Herbal Tea, Sweet

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Coffee Species

In general Arabica Coffees will have much more sweetness and acidity than equivalent Robusta Canephora Coffees. Though both are a part of the same family: Rubiaceae, they are unique species, growing in different climates as different trees with differing fruit and seeds (coffee).

The Cafe Imports Coffee Family Tree is a fantastic resource to visually see how the coffee species are related but distinct from one another. Our understanding of Arabica is that it naturally evolved first in the region of Ethiopia while Robusta Canephora evolved further southwest on the borders of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

As different trees growing in different regions the coffee flavor profiles can be generalized with the following distinctions. As the name suggests “Robusta” is more “Robust” as a tree and flavor profile than Arabica.

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Roasting, Processing and Other Impacts

Coffee is such a dynamic and complex fruit that we should never create hard and fast rules. While it is tempting to generalize in a manner as we did above saying “Robusta Canephora is juxtaposed with Arabica… or it is this and not this…” such generalizations are only starting points. 

As we saw from our cupping experiences there can be an array of cup qualities in a Robusta Canephora when it is more carefully screened and processed as the Vietnamese coffee was. Likewise we can see a great discrepancy between the Indian Commercial Kent/Timor blend as compared to the neighboring Sumatra wet hulled anaerobic. Many people have an idea in their mind that Sumatra (and wet hulled) coffees are lower in acid with chocolatey notes… a description that in no way fits our anaerobic wet hulled Sumatra.

We might understand processing and discuss it in “waves” as we do with first, second or third wave coffee. First wave processing was very much driven by climate and natural resources available to coffee growers. The challenge of drying and the abundance of water led Indonesia’s islands to pioneer wet hull processing while the abundant sun and drying conditions led many nations (such as the horn of Africa) to traditionally dry their coffees. These traditional processing methods have created strong expectations and stereotypes in our coffee buying, roasting and cupping work.

Today we are in a new and exciting wave of great experimental processing. Regions that traditionally dried coffee are washing. Regions that traditionally washed coffees or used water for processing are using more natural and mechanical drying methods. Even further experimental yeasts and anaerobic conditions are breaking down the walls of our sensory expectations.

We are in a great “new wave” of coffee processing

We need not speak much about roasting, except that the roasters job is to protect and accentuate the qualities inherent in the green coffee and through the skill of processing. The roaster may preserve and highlight or the roaster may destroy or cover over those aspects. In respect to our SCA cupping form (to come full circle) we should roast the coffees accurately and consistently to complete first crack at or near a whole bean color of 58 with a ground color of 63 on the Agtron Gourmet Color scale.

Coffee roasters should protect and accentuate the qualities of the green.

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Closing Thoughts, Questions & Answers

In this presentation, I have shared many things which could be construed as “rules”, especially in regard to Arabica vs. Robusa Canephora. However, the world of coffee is dynamic and ever changing, so instead we will continue to be humble and open in our exploration together. 

It’s question and answer time. I’d love to hear your thoughts, curiosities and struggles. We can dialogue in the chat here or elsewhere when you find this online. 

Thank you for your time on this topic!

• I have other presentations available at the www.sca.training blog.

• Tools and equipment can also be found at the www.rocc.coffee lab.

If you would like to connect on this topic or with Specialty Coffee Training programs please reach out. My  email list provides coupons and course information with link: http://eepurl.com/cZU5R1 

Instagram @HowToCoffeePro 

Make Life Better my friends!

How to Get the Best from Your Beans - From Sample to Profile to Production Roast

Presented at Coffee Fest, Seattle, WA

Friday 30 Sep, 2022 

By Adam S. Carpenter

Founder & Lead AST

ROCC Coffee Co.

---

Thank you for attending this session!

How to Get the Best from Your Beans.

I’m excited to work on this topic together with you today. I intentionally use that phrase, “work on this topic” because we are all learning and growing to develop better coffee training programs and methods to maintain them well. Thank you.

This is one of three sessions prepared for Coffee Fest PNW, 2022. 

1. Developing and Maintaining a Coffee Training Program.

2. How to Get the Best from Your Beans: from Sample, to Profile to Production Roasting.

3. Cupping Controversial Coffees.

If you are interested in these other sessions or would like to connect, I would be happy to share and dialogue.

This session has an accompanying PDF available by blog and email. There may also be discount codes available if you wish to join one of our certified Specialty Coffee Association courses always available online.

We also have great training kits available at www.sca.training with tools and equipment at www.rocc.coffee.

---

Introduction and a Caveat

Every speaker has the desire to be well received and feels a desire to “impress the crowd”... so I really want to lay that aside and approach our time with humility.

This talk is an attempt to put to words my regular work in coffee roasting since 2012 while applying a more concrete approach that I created in 2019.

1. The regular work was roasting for ROCC in Central China where we had to take low cost and often poorly transported coffees and do our best to roast them in such a way that “every bean would shine”.

2. The concrete example we will explore together moves us from sample to profile and production with a Monte Cristo Guatemalan coffee aged in a single malt, Oregon rye whiskey barrel. 

I realize that this is by no means a “cookie cutter” approach to coffee roasting, but it shall be our springboard for dialogue and tasting today. 

---

My name is Adam and I love helping people and businesses grow. Our vision at ROCC is to use training and tools to build a Global Community and Provide a Playground that Makes Life Better.

I grew up on a small farm in Michigan drinking Folgers instant coffee with my dad and grandpa. They worked hard and I wanted to be like them. In university I had the chance to stay at a Costa Rican coffee farm. Picking coffee cherries by day and playing futbol at night changed my life. My wife and I married, went to China as English teachers and then in 2012, I opened Central China’s first artisan coffee roastery - ROCC. We roasted wholesale coffees and had two retail outlets. One coffee window and one full Coffee Discovery Bar. In 2015 I started training as a fully certified AST with the SCAE running courses in both English and Mandarin Chinese all over China. Today I lead certified SCA courses online and offline in the Coffee Skills Program while supplying training tools and coaching for clients - especially roasters & labs.

I would be honored to work with you or your team to grow your business.

---

How to Get the Best from Your Beans

Today we are working with a Colombia Excelso EP. EP stands for European Preparation which is sorted to ensure the screen size is above 15. Let’s assume that I have already looked at a few different Colombian samples with standard green grading and SCA cupping protocols… this is step 2. How to make this bean shine inside my roastery, blends and coffee offerings.

This Colombian Excelso EP is the kind of coffee that I might have multiple uses for. Perhaps it could be used as both a single origin and as a really solid blender. I may want to omni-roast it for various extraction methods. To understand this coffee better I would roast and prepare 5-6 different cup profiles.

You may wish to use this coffee in more than one brew application.

If you want to go about roasting at various levels for multiple uses, then the roast levels exploit a range of incremental changes. My goals was about 5 degrees Centigrade (that’s 9°F) for a pretty broad survey. I will hold charge temp, roast method, etc. all in control with the only variable of change being target drop temperature. As a result of higher drop temperatures the total roast time and other secondary variables will naturally move.

I roasted these coffees, which are on the table today, from a very light middle of first crack dropped at 200°C all the way up to a middle of 2nd crack dropped at 224°C. 

Roasted to drop temperature: 200° - 206° - 209° - 215° - 220° - 224° Centigrade

This provides me a very full range of possibilities inside this bean. It may help me see what is possible for filter brewing and even espresso use. Lets taste and comment on these roasts to see what this bean is capable of. 

Here we proceeded to cup the 6 coffees as they were laid out in sequential roast order on the tables.

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Cupping Feedback

Here we cannot replicate the cupping which occurred at Coffee Fest, but I’ll summarize and describe what happened. General feedback follows from each of our 6 roast levels:

ROAST LEVEL:

1. Fast Light 200°C Very bright, high acid, juicy, unbalanced like lemon

2. Sample Level 206°C Clean bright lemon acidity, high sweetness, full body

3. Med-Light 209°C Caramel, nuts, sugarcane, balanced acid and body

4. Medium 215°C Cinnamon, spices, dark chocolate, bitterness and body rising

5. Start of 2nd 220°C Roasty with wood and cacao notes, dry bitter finish

6. Mid2nd Crack 224°C Roasty with wood and cacao notes, dry bitter finish

Warning! 

You can only use my drop temperatures and profiles as a guide.

Every roaster and bean probe will behave differently. Explore and define yours.

As you can see this coffee has a wide range of qualities and potential use cases. Many clients and roasters seek dark, “bold” and rich flavor profiles like we experienced from 215° - 224° C. drop temperatures. The heavy body and chocolate spices would lend to a very good espresso blend or dark roast blend.

In my personal experience and preference I blend my dark or French roasts to ensure that there is no one defining characteristic. Very few coffees stand alone and age well in the bag as dark roast single origins. I might consider blending this dark Colombian with some other nice dark roasts like Peru, Mexico, Kenya, Sumatra or India. 

Considering the light roasts between 200°-209° C. drop temperatures I was very surprised how high the acidity and sweetness levels were. I was very pleased with the Sample Roast level at 206°. I call this “sample roast” because it had just completed its first crack and would typically fit that SCA cupping protocol of 63 ground Agtron Gourmet color.

The 200° C. was too light with some grassy and astringent notes. The 209° C. was in fact really nice, but just was not what I needed for my clients and portfolio presently. The hopeful note I have in each range displaying quality is that as this coffee ages 3-6-9 months in storage I know that various roast levels or qualities may be displayed. 

Your coffee is alive and will change with age.

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Roast Profiling and Scaling for Production

These coffees were roasted on a small drum convection air roaster made by ROEST. The sample sizes were only 100 gram batches and the roasting is both efficient and fast. How then shall we consider scaling up our ideal profiles for a traditional large production roaster. For our example, lets consider a 12kg / 25lb gas powered drum roaster.

Scaling a roast from 100g to 10kg.

Transferring profiles from convective air roaster to a gas drum roaster.

We should ask, what variables can we hold on to and which ones should act as targets or controls? By identifying our targets and controls we can allow the others to move and adapt as they would naturally with scale. The root of our logic is that this is physics, math, thermodynamics at work (scaling) while we seek to preserve and replicate the chemical and sensory properties of the roast.

We use the cupping table and sensory observations as our target outcomes.

We hold drop temperature and general development as our leading indicators.

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Time for Math!

Let’s look at a few different roast profiles and examine how we might scale, stretch and adapt them to move from a 100g sample air convection on ROEST to a 10-20kg roast on a traditional gas drum.

This was the daily work and regular mental math we would employ on our old Diedrich IR-12 while roasting in Central China. Our samples were prepared on a Quest M3 (300g) electric drum roasters while the Diedrich IR-12 burned propane LPG from tanks.

We kept paper records and recorded simple T-Charts to watch Rate of Rise (ROR) as it moved. Mentally calculating and predicting ROR is a very important skill for roasters to feel, predict and guide their roasts.

Today roasting software performs this work and multiple calculations for us. We get real time ROR feedback with colors and percentages to guide our drying, development and roast percentages. 

We will reverse engineer those percentages so that we can understand how we want to scale or stretch from our sample roast up to a production roast plan - with the goal of preserving cup qualities and attributes.

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Roast #1 - The Super Light 200° Drop

Let’s use roast #1 as a control and example. If we can reproduce this roast on a production roaster, the others should easily follow. The challenge we face on lighter roasts is that our small convective sample roaster is capable of fast and efficient roasting. When we move from 100g to 10kg we have multiplied the bean mass 100 times!

FROM ROEST SCREENSHOT - LINES REPRESENT:

• Blue Air Environmental Temperature °C (ET)

• Red Bean Probe Temperature °C (BT)

• Light GreenRate of Rise °C / Minute (RoR)

• Dark Green Fan Speed as %

• Purple Drum Chamber Speed as %

• Black Power (Heat) Setting as %

I held charge temperature consistent at 165°C (ET) on all roasts for the x6 profiles. Fan speed followed the same path for each while drum speed never changed at 55%. Power was changed slightly on each to accommodate for end of roast variances - indicated by “manual” control markers.

Remember that RoR and probes are tools.

Sensory perception and the cupping table are the rules.

Opening the cafe went poorly, “it’s my fault for not ensuring we had the supplies ordered last week.” But you may say, “it’s my manager's fault for not ordering.” Then we come back to ask, “why is it my fault that the manager did not order last week?” Admit, “it’s my fault that I didn’t provide training or checklists or time or accountability or a clear system and process for my manager to ensure that they ordered last week.”

Let’s look more closely at Roast #1

Specifically let’s answer the question how should we plan for this 6:25 roast to move up to a full production roast? How could we plan for a 9 minute roast on the production roaster? What should change? First, what do we know about the 100g roast? And importantly, let’s configure all times into seconds. 

For example take 6minutes 25 seconds and convert: 6 * 60 = 360 + 25 = 385 seconds.

1. Turning Point was at 30 seconds

2. Dryend was at 150° at 2:45 which is 2 * 60 = 120 + 45 = 165sec.

3. First crack at 200° was at 5:40 = 340sec.

4. End at 200° at 6:25 = 385sec.

   1. Use division to find a percentage of time from dryend 150° to end of roast 200° using time.

      1. 385s - 165s = 220s (or 3min40sec) and 220s / 385s = 57%

      2. 57% of our roast time was spent climbing from 150° to 200° or just over half the roast time.

      3. We could predict that more than half of a 9 minute production roast will be used for 50°

   2. What is 57% of a 9 minute roast?

      1. 9min = 540 seconds * 57% = 308 sec or 5min8sec spent from dryend to end.

      2. We also know that 100% - 57% = 43% the amount of time spent from charge to dryend.

      3. 43% of 9 min = 540 sec * 0.43 = 232 seconds

Using these basic calculations and logic, we can start to establish a plan to approach our production roaster. For example, you may know that large roaster needs a higher charge temperature if we are going to reach 150° C in 3 minutes and 52 seconds. 

An important perspective (if this calculation works for us) is to view the relationship between our 2 roasters at the 57% up-scale. For simplicity we might say as a rule that 1.5x works. But we have not tested everything yet.

Perhaps you will find a general 1.5x scale relationship between your roasters.

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Roast #2 - SCA Sample Level 206° Drop

Here is our second sample which was an SCA Sample roast level. We might also call it our target for a really nice bright single origin roast. We’ll use our same scenario of a 12kg production roaster from our 100g sample roast. To roast a little longer and darker we estimate that 10 minutes on our large roaster will be required.

Question: how much time and what percentage of the roast should be spent from the start of 1st crack to the end of the roast (drop time) at the 206° target? 

QUICK NOTES FROM THIS ROAST:

1. Total roast time was 6 minutes 34 seconds. That converts to: 6 * 60 = 360 + 34 = 394 seconds.

2. Turning Point is 30 seconds.

3. First crack 200° at 5:20 = 320 seconds.

4. End first crack and roast at 206° in 6:34 = 394 seconds.

   1. Development calculation is 394 - 320 = 74 seconds.

   2. Development percentage is 74 / 394 = 19%

      1. 19% of our roast was spent from first crack to the end.

      2. Our production roast should take 10 minutes * 60 sec = 600 seconds.

      3. 19% of 600 sec = 600 * 0.19 = 114 seconds or in minutes that is 1:54

The theory at work is scaling up and down. For the sake of simplicity I am assuming that we know (or can predict) that the small sample ROEST works 1.5 times faster than the large roaster. So estimating our 10 minute end of roast should be tested and confirmed on the cupping table.

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Example #3 - The Whiskey Barrel Project

You may read in great detail about my process and approach at the ROEST Coffee blog at the link included here: https://www.roestcoffee.com/roestblog/barrel-aged-coffee-roasting or by searching “ROEST barrel aged roasting.” 

Our goal was to preserve the sweet banana spiced attributes of our Guatemalan Whiskey Barrel Aged Coffee.

At the time of this project I was working at a roastery with 2 San Franciscan SF25 roasters. I knew if I was going to achieve a fast roast that I could only roast at about 50% capacity. So we scaled my 120g sample roast to a 12lb green mass on the SF25. 

I used the roast development weight loss as a target. On my sample roast I had a 14% weight loss from 120g green to 103g. Besides the cupping and sensory characteristics we were hoping to see the 12lbs green have a target weight of 10.32lbs after roast. If this variable remained constant with our profile scaling we expected that a similar chemical process was happening to the beans.

Roasting on a SF-25 required the 5:55 sample roast profile be stretched about 1.5x times. In order to achieve this with a long deliberate soak in the beginning, we had to race up to first crack before ending our production roast at 9minutes 30seconds with a target of 410°F (210°C) to finish. 

We were able to do so with only 50% drum capacity. With 14% moisture loss and cupping results in - we had found a winner!

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Closing Thoughts, Questions & Answers

In this presentation, I have shared many things which could appear to be “rules.” However, I want to be clear that I am showing you the logic and procedures that I have found over the past 10 years to guide me in scaling, profiling and producing roasts on multiple roasters at many sizes. 

I have used these methods on 50-300g sample roasts in convection air roasters, drum electric and drum gas sample roasters. I have scaled to 2kg profiles on electric drums at 120v and 240 voltage. I have profiled and scaled to 10kg Diedrich infrared porcelain burners on propane and equally with 20lbs on a gas SF25 drum. Like a rubber band that stretches to accommodate each situation - the logic and science hold out to the cupping table.

It’s question and answer time. I’d love to hear your thoughts, curiosities and struggles. We can dialogue in the chat here or elsewhere when you find this online.
 

Thank you for your time on this topic!

I have other presentations available at the www.sca.training blog.

Tools and equipment can also be found at the www.rocc.coffee lab.

If you would like to connect on this topic or with Specialty Coffee Training programs please reach out. My  email list provides coupons and course information with link: http://eepurl.com/cZU5R1 

Instagram @HowToCoffeePro 

Make Life Better my friends!

Developing and Maintaining a Coffee Training Program

Developing and Maintaining a Coffee Training Program

Presented at Coffee Fest, Seattle, WA

Friday 30 Sep, 2022 

By Adam S. Carpenter

Founder & Lead AST

ROCC Coffee Co.

Greeting & Invitation

Thank you for attending this session!

I’m excited to work on this topic together with you today. I intentionally use that phrase, “work on this topic” because we are all learning and growing to develop better coffee training programs and methods to maintain them well. Thank you.

This is one of three sessions that I am presenting at Coffee Fest PNW, 2022. 

1. The first is Developing and Maintaining a Coffee Training Program.

2. The second is How to Get the Best from Your Beans: from Sample, to Profile to Production Roasting.

3. The third is Cupping Controversial Coffees.

If you’re able to attend any of the other sessions or connect after the show, I would be happy to dialogue.

This session will be shared with attendees by PDF and email in addition to special discount codes to join my SCA certified courses online and to enjoy savings at www.sca.training and www.rocc.coffee.

With your name and email address, I’ll also be giving away free prizes at the end of this session.

Introduction

First, my caveat.

Every speaker has a desire to be well received and to impress the crowd. Leading up to this show, I certainly felt those emotions, so I admit and lay them aside to approach our time with humility. That’s the best path for us all.

Let’s start with an overview of our time together. We need a few definitions for a baseline of expectations. Bear with me, while we move fast to lay a foundation on several books and theories, so that we have time at the end to get some work done together. We should either:

1. Work out a training plan for you, or specifically how to start developing a training program.

2. Or to work on a specific objective that you are prepared to add into your training program.

First, let’s consider what brought you here today? 

I enjoy interactive learning and sharing, so if I don’t call you out, please feel free to speak up and share your comments. Most often if you are feeling or sensing something, others in the room are on the same page. We all just need a nudge sometimes. How many of you, carried in the room today, a specific training PROBLEM, NEED or PAIN POINT?

We are in pain with training problems that need to be solved

My name is Adam and I love helping people grow to Make Life Better. That’s our vision at ROCC and we use coffee training and tools to build Community and Provide a Playground.

I grew up on a small farm in Michigan drinking Folgers instant coffee with my dad and grandpa. They worked hard and I wanted to be like them. In university I had the chance to stay at a Costa Rican coffee farm. Picking coffee cherries by day and playing futbol at night changed my life.

My wife and I married, went to China as English teachers and then in 2012, I opened Central China’s first artisan coffee roastery - ROCC. We roasted for wholesale coffees and had two retail outlets. One coffee window and one full Coffee Discovery Bar. In 2015 I started training as a fully certified AST with the SCAE running courses in both English and Mandarin Chinese all over China. Today I lead certified SCA courses online and offline in the Coffee Skills Program while supplying training tools and coaching for clients - especially roasters & labs.

I would be honored to work with you or your team to grow your business.

Part 1 in Leadership Series on YouTube

Developing and Maintaining Training Programs

Our demographic or business position doesn’t really matter for this topic. 

You may be in a Roastery, a Cafe, in Sales and Business Development. 

If you care about training, you are a leader.

• How do we start as leaders?

• How do we complete our training plan or program once we begin?

• How do we ensure we are helping our people to grow so that they can train others in the future?

I am pulling ideas and theories for our training framework from several authors and mentors.

My college chaplain would always advise the student leaders: 

“If you fail to define the moment, the moment will define itself.”

I encourage the concept of The Great Formula by “the coffee boys” for creating your first playbook or for writing the first pages of your first training binders.

Build a page day by day and week by week. Like building a wall you successfully lay one brick at a time. Laid properly it supports the bricks placed on top. 

Use The Great Formula to ask, “does my business have…”

• Low sales

• Failure

• Frustration

• Low Results

• Stress

• Low Profit

The right hand column shows us the problems, emotions or stressors most often hitting us on a “bad day.” From that list, which would you identify as the most urgent one or two items that you need to address?

Would it be people or systems or sales? Either way, we need a model to work with. We need to be able to build on that model. And our goal for today is that each of us can Plan - Do - Check - or Act after considering various theories and applications.

So we will come back to The Great Formula and the PDCA cycle. 

These are tools that we can use for our staff and employees.

But, first we must apply the theories and models to ourselves!

Strategy Maps

Don’t leave (or kick me) when you see that header “Long-Term Shareholder Value” This is from my old MBA textbook and was published by Harvard Business School in 2004. 

Believe it or not, it still works and holds true, but it’s not a complete picture in isolation. A business or a brand is a living creature - it has both a head and a heart. No one would advise that you only follow your head. A good, growing and rich life requires that we also follow our heart. Together we meld our hearts and minds.

We’ll address the head to lead us into the heart: Culture and Leadership.

In our limited time, we will only concern ourselves with the bottom strata; our foundational learning and growth perspective. Specifically we will emphasize Human Capital.

For those who wish to go further with this model, you may do so with Kaplan and Norton’s “Strategy Maps” from the Harvard Business School. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=15760 

Learning and Growth Perspective

Learning and Growth are at the heart of growing our human capital - another word for your team and the value they provide your business. “Capital” is a term for wealth or asset. 

Our people are our greatest asset.

What words would you use to describe your team?

If you don’t have a team, write down 2-3 key words that you wish would describe them.

Culture is when you walk in the door to a business and you feel: “oh… this place is…something…” or “oh… these people are…really…what?”

The importance of culture cannot be overstated. It should be hired when you spot good cultured people. And, it should enfuse the workspace like atmosphere and aroma… or it will linger like stink and decay.

Culture is caught. It is imbued in the atmosphere.

This leads us into “The Advantage” by Patrick Lencioni. Our strategy map models structures, like bones in our bodies, it is the skeleton. But when we layer on culture, it becomes the muscles and nerves to help us move and to keep us safe.

What is your team playing for? 

• Does your team have an actionable Mission?

• Is there a captivating vision that people can really see?

• What authentic values do you and your team feel and believe in collectively?

This is the game that we repeat over and again. We play the same game on and off the field. In and out of the office or roastery or cafe. This is who we are!

Does our team feel like everyone has a part to play?

Do they know how they can contribute in large and small ways to help us win the game?

Leadership and Alignment.

Leadership is the WHO. It’s all about people. Ultimately someone is going to ensure that the job gets done, or that all of the jobs get done. 

Did you ever have an employee (or a friend) who always made sure things got done? You never had to worry about the business, you never had the nagging “what if” in the back of your mind. If so, good for you. If not, it sure sounds amazing! Right? 

I have 2 employees now and they are both like that. It is such a blessing to know that they care and they are on top of things. I don’t have to - and I REALLY DO NOT WANT TO - micromanage either of them.

Using our Great Formula matrix, ask yourself: “Who is ultimately responsible for…

1. Keeping PASSION alive?”

2. Ensuring that TASTE is on point?”

3. Monitoring our POSITION in the market?”

4. Helping get the right PEOPLE on the bus and with the team?”

5. Sharing and creating value through MARKETING?”

6. Building and overseeing our SYSTEMS?”

7. Managing and directing our MONEY?”

Name the people and tasks individually. Can you play a matching game with your team by name and task or do you find that it is YOU for a majority or all. This is most likely a reason that you may feel stress.

Ask yourself WHY IS IT ME and then deal with the answer truthfully.

The popularized concept of “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink might help you (like it did me) come to the point of saying “If I am the boss, then everything is my fault!”

Let’s say it together so that no one feels alone, “It’s my fault.”

Opening the cafe went poorly, “it’s my fault for not ensuring we had the supplies ordered last week.” But you may say, “it’s my manager's fault for not ordering.” Then we come back to ask, “why is it my fault that the manager did not order last week?” Admit, “it’s my fault that I didn’t provide training or checklists or time or accountability or a clear system and process for my manager to ensure that they ordered last week.”

This SYSTEMS ties back perfectly to ALIGNMENT. 

We must be perfectly clear. This is what we do, and this is why we do it, and this is how it helps us win, grow, succeed together. Our team needs to know (and be reminded daily) THIS IS HOW WE WIN. Emphasis on the “we” because if they lose, you lose. If you lose, they lose. We are a team.

When I (Adam) was a Shift Manager at Starbucks we had a stack of binders with checklists and detailed instructions from warming pastries to reconciling bank deposits to ensuring bathrooms were clean and temperatures in the freezer were on point. Everything could be measured, checked and marked complete.

A personal anecdote.

When I was a boy, people would tell me something or I would hear something and then I would interpret it.

Beware if your team and people are interpreting what you say and do, rather than receiving it with clarity. I would listen to a history lesson at school and contextualize the concept. I would listen to a song or a speech and interpret it into my own words or way of speaking. I thought I was being creative and integrating something into my own personality or learning modality - but in fact I was altering the truth. Details matter. I would call myself a “big picture” person or a “macro-thinker” but in fact, I was lazy and I didn’t appreciate details like I ought.

Details matter!

Seek clarity - always.

Practice what my (Adam’s) children do at home and at school every day. You ask them, “can you tell back what you just heard?” Ask your team, your friend, your staff to repeat back with precision. It’s not demeaning and it’s not offensive. It’s just a test of accuracy. We stop to listen to customer complaints, no matter how we view the situation. We repeat back exactly what they said and acknowledge that we are sorry for the mistake and misunderstanding. We take action. We tell them how we plan to resolve the problem. We encourage them to come back and help us next time with gratitude for bringing the situation to our attention.

“Can you tell back what you just heard?” 

It’s amazing how often our words and training is not received the way we think it is. We say something - they hear something else. If you feel you are going crazy, it’s because you are crazy. You are saying one thing, expecting another while they hear a 3rd and do a 4th… this is the cycle we must break as we put into place our Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle.

Our goal is to Plan - Do - Check - Act.

Let's create, beg, borrow or steal a one page action plan like this beautiful Customer Service Recovery method from Starbucks and Howard Schultz called: LATTE. This page is a copy from our ROCC Coffee Discovery Bar Training manual which had 30 Competencies. One of them was LATTE for problem resolution.

Every ROCC barista would work through our 30 competencies from green coffee to espresso grinders to customer service and safety. Some required skills demonstration or role play. Of course there were more than 30 skills required to be a good barista, but we found that 30 was more than enough to give them (and us) confidence that the rest would be caught through good culture.

You may want to try LATTE role play with your team.

Now, let’s plug in the LATTE framework into our PDCA cycle.

• What would happen if we didn’t have a feedback loop for customer problems?

• What if we never made a plan to fix that faulty drink or product service?

• What would our employees think about our business?

• What would happen to the business as a result of guest experiences?

These are all BRICKS IN THE WALL as we plan, do, check and act.

And thus over time we apply and reapply the PDCA - Plan Do Check Act. The goal is to then help them to become HABITS that take little or no effort to perform. They become culture!

The Employee Review

Let’s look at another one, the Employee Review. Show it to new applicants when they apply for the job. Warn them with advance notice - we will check up on all of these items and work through them together monthly. 

See if that excites or demotivates them. This is a culture test before they ever gain access to the team.

Give applicants aspirations and goals before they evey enter the team and face work challenges. Some forms like this are easy to download, borrow and adopt for your own. Many procedures and forms like this are better JUST TO BE DONE than to WAIT for perfection.

A job done is better than one that never began. 

You can even ask the employee, “would you please write down 5-10 things you want me to follow up on after 30 days?” This is a great place to start building alignment and checking for clarity.

Another essential training (and maintaining) tool is the task list and checklist. 

This is something your team members can easily build and grow. Ask them on a weekly basis (when you review them) “was anything missing?” Ask them to write things down when they are doing it so that next time they have the talking points right in front of them.

IMPORTANT : If you make a list and ask the employees to work it, then you are held accountable for reviewing those lists and documents.

Take Extreme Ownership.

I can’t recommend enough adopting the one page Playbook as Patrick Lencioni promotes in The Advantage. 

He walks us through items to include: who we are, what we do and how we do it. 

Bonus: consider what “we don’t do… we refuse to… etc.”

Sometimes the “we fight against” statement can be confused with “we fight for” statements… take care of the negative effects in a company. It is critical that we monitor what our culture is. Culture's definition is much more clear than the non-culture definition. As humans we have “mirror neurons” which help us to become like our atmosphere and community. 

Where do our mirror neurons point?

• If you want your team to move in a certain direction: you should strive to be that kind of person.

• If they should save money, you should save money and celebrate it with them.

• We adopt things that are celebrated by our community and culture.

• If they should be more detailed with numbers, then we should lead by celebrating numbers.

• If they should be more accountable to timely reporting, then let’s provide them timely reports.

It’s easy to lead a culture when we own it and celebrate the toil and work!

One page to rule them all. 

Not one ring - borrowed from my favorite author J.R.R. Tolkien. 

If our team gets this right, then they will be aligned with culture and mission. Can you name that ONE THING or that ONE PAGE? It is absolutely critical!

You may think, “one page, that’s not enough to lead a team and a business!” Don’t worry, it will come with time. There will be things left unsaid… they can come after. We had 30 competencies which followed the 1 page we called MVV - Mission Vision Values.

It’s a document that is birthed from your soul (or the business soul) so don’t overthink it. This is a time to let the mirror shine on what is within. We cannot copy/paste another company or team. We can borrow their employee review forms and LATTE service recovery steps, but the One-Pager must be birthed from heart and culture. 

Our One-Page Company Culture Must Be Authentic!

This one page document (as outlined by Patrick Lencioni) provides our team a 5-word summary, an elevator pitch and quick sales reply for what we do and why we make the world a better place by existing.

It may even boil down to one word like “Wow!”

Resist the temptation to make 7 plans. That’s my (Adam’s) style. I want to try to do everything at once, rather than sequentially knocking down the dominoes and building momentum. Lay your plans out on your desk and ask yourself honestly, which ONE will I do first?

Share in the comments or with the group if you know the answer to: THIS is my one thing! 

It may be the easiest one. Pick the low hanging fruit to get some wins and feel the momentum of progress.

It may be the most important one. The one you DREAD the most. Get it done for the satisfaction of doing a hard thing.

Let’s Get to Work!

It’s question and answer time. There is no stupid question, except the time when a girl asked me (while driving her to LAX airport) if she should have brought some chopsticks with her on her trip to China for the summer. 

That was the one dumb question! 

Any others? 

It’s an open field now. 

Thank you for your great contribution to our time together!

Be sure to check out my other presentations and here is our drawing for winners of cupping spoons, sample coffees, roasting trays and more fun items on display from www.rocc.coffee and www.sca.training.

I’ll be around the show presenting other sessions and would love to connect with you! 

Join my email list at: http://eepurl.com/cZU5R1 

And connect with me on Instagram @asc.coffee 

I am happy to share this presentation with you by PDF and offer you special discounts on certified SCA courses at www.HowToCoffeePro.com as well as training tools and equipment from The Labs at ROCC and SCA.Training. Have a great day and Make Life Better my friends!

Updated Cohort Calls Model for HowToCoffeePro and SCA Training

Hey Friends!

Adam at ROCC Coffee at SCA.Training and HowToCoffeePro. I have an exciting announcement if you are a new learner on the fence or one of our alumni. So, stay tuned and be sure to pay attention.

First, you want to ensure that you are on our: Email List so that you get every announcement about new course offerings, the cohort calls and the Live social media sessions that we are going to be having.

So here’s the update: all of our courses that had been self-paced and self-directed with one-on-one coaching are now moving to a more dynamic cohort model. 

SCA Training International Cohort!

To provide you with distance learning convenience with a cohort team and class experience. This is something we’ve been working on for a long time to build, and in part we just needed to have a greater number of alumni and students. And now we’re there.

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As of August 1, 2022 we want you, we want new learners to watch for the Open-Enrollment window of time. This is the open enrollment when you can join into a course. The first course, for example, is going to be Sensory Skills Foundation, and it’s going to be open for 10 days. Sensory Skills Foundation, all the new learners should join from August 1st - 10th.

Now, these will be changing and updated by email.
Every student who joins this course will be able to start your study, work on your practicals for the course and you may even have time to complete the entire course. Wait for the announcement for our first Google Meeting and class call. All of our new students, that first cohort are going to be invited.

You need to attend the call, just like you attend your class in order to keep progressing. We also are going to invite in our alumni.

We’ve got dozens… hundreds of students who have taken specific courses over the past years, we want them to come in and to join your course. Not only will you be able to ask me questions and to interact with your classmates in that meeting.

We want the alumni to share with you what it’s like to go through that course and take steps in their career and in their coffee business.

Open Enrollment will close and you’ll have to wait to the next class to get into the next cohort. Yet, once you’re an alumni, if you took this course last year, you’re always a part of that group. So every time a new cohort joins you’ll alway be able to join. 

We’ll be cupping, we’ll be roasting, we’ll be looking at equipment. Once you start this program (as long as you want to stick around) we’re going to keep developing and creating meetings with classes for you to visit.

We’ll be sending those out by social media and sharing those by email so be sure to:

• @HowToCoffeePro on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/howtocoffeepro/

• Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CoffeeTraining 

• Join the Email Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cZU5R1 

Those are going to be the three hot places to be, though more may be coming, and we’ll be sure to share the news. 

If you’ve been thinking about joining an online SCA course and if you’ve been asking, “what’s the online experience going to be like?” This is the time, it’s going to be rich and it’s going to be flexible and it’s going to be dynamic with an international cohort from around the world. 

Once you join, you’re a part of our Community of HowToCoffeePro alumni, so come on back alumni, please join us for these calls, watch for the announcements, join in on the Instagram lives. We would love for you to speak into these topics. Tell us about your company, tell us about your career and the challenges you have faced and overcome.

We need to give hope to the next generation of coffee professionals. That’s what HowToCoffeePro is all about: giving you the how to skills to become a coffee professional and Make Life Better.

I can’t wait to see you in class! 

Come on, let’s go.