By: Richard Foster
Bright Sunshine adorned the early morning crisp freshness in Hamburg as I prepared to spend my 49th birthday at Coteca, the Coffee, Tea and Cocoa Global Industries Expo. As a ‘young 49-year-old’, I was feeling pretty brisk, bright and fresh. Probably the result of my 6.00am start….
So as the newly hired VP of Sales from Kava-Zone Ltd. (a la “The Freshest Coffee on Earth”), I was on a mission to fully update my knowledge on the latest coffee bean roasting technologies and to get guidance for on-line marketing strategies to capture additional market share for the marvellous new products our engineering team is busy bringing to the market.
Business at the show was brisk and upbeat. I started my tour with a visit to the Indonesian Pavilion. Honestly, it just happened that way (my partner is Indonesian!) – they were at the entrance and I was offered a cup of delicious Kopi Luwak coffee. I have to admit that to start my 49th birthday with the most expensive coffee on the planet was a buzz, until I remembered how it is made….. Hmmmm interesting. Heck, it still tastes great though!
Speaking of which, Tom Ruddy, our CEO and Founder, visited the Kintamani plantation in Indonesia a couple of months ago. This is where the Kopi Luwak coffee comes from. For posterity purposes I included a photo of one of the cats and the pooped-out coffee cherry beans that are used to make the coffee. He will be blogging that one up in the coming weeks.
Back to Hamburg…. I then made a tour of all the roasting equipment manufacturers to get an update. It seems the traditional vendors are busy shrinking the conventional machines smaller and smaller. We believe there is a space for people to be different…. And get the freshest foffee on earth from a simplified, well designed high-tech micro-roaster.
Next on the tour it was the guys and girls at Cropster. Interesting people and interesting discussions. At a nearby stall I was offered some very interesting coffee vodka – which I politely declined – at 11am still too early, even for a birthday business mission.
The rest of the day was spent at various cupping events, followed by a whistle-stop tour of the city. I was especially impressed by the Hamburg Philharmonic concert “Elbphilharmonie“ hall which is one of the largest and acoustically advanced halls in the world. Wish I had signed up for a concert there, but anyway as an engineer visiting the building it was still an experience I won’t forget.
The next day kicked off well with a cold brew coffee and a seminar for online marketing. This confirmed many aspects of our own strategy in bringing our brand alive online and was very useful and informative. After another couple of hours of touring the halls to talk about all aspects of what we are doing, I took repose outside in a nearby restaurant to catch up on emails. After all, it not every day in October that you can enjoy violent sunshine like this….
The afternoon was spent attending various other seminar events as well as rounding up and organising all the data gathered from the event.
Overall the trip was a great success. It was not the largest event of its type but it was compact, well organised and many of the presentations were excellent. Well worth the time to visit.
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