The sixth annual Specialty Coffee Association of America Symposium is happening right now as we live and breathe in Seattle. Symposium is a professional two-day summit of coffee thinkers/leaders/producers, and it’s our distinct honor to be a part of the Symposium community this year as speakers, salon hosts, and ambassadors.
This year’s Symposium is the second session produced by Director Peter Giuliano, who took the reigns from former Symposium Director and current Symposium speaker Tracy Ging in 2013. We sat down with Mr. Giuliano last week for an in-depth interview on this year’s programming, which you can enjoy here. The event itself has 425 attendees, listening in on 26 individual talks and a series of salon discussion sessions. Mr. Giuliano delivered this morning’s opening address, telling the crowd, “You are the core of who we are. All of us are leaders.”
Talks at Symposium are taking place in a great hall on the third floor of The Conference Center, located directly across the street from the Washington State Convention Center. Symposium guests can listen to talks directly in the main room, or in a series of lounges, including the Wilbur Curtis Company Conversation Lounge, the Swiss Water Decaf Sensory Room, and a third floor lounge hosted by S&D Coffee. A series of brew bars and espresso bars are open to serve fine coffees to Symposium guests, staffed and curated by the Barista Guild of America and featuring a wide variety of brew methods and espresso equipment, including the La Marzocco Linea PB and a Modbar multi-tap system, Chemex coffeemakers, Mahlkonig grinders, and Bunn hot water towers.
Symposium is fascinating and important for so many reasons, including but not limited to the lectures themselves. This event is home to some of the very best coffee networking on earth, and as ambassadors we’re contractually required to have a chat or three with other members of the Symposium community, so allow us to leave you with some images from the Barista Guild of America’s coffee service here at Symposium.
For all the latest at SCAA Symposium, follow #SCAASymposium on Twitter and Instagram. We’ll be covering all the coffee events in Seattle this week on Sprudge.com.
