On April 20th 2018, our team members, Giovanni Montanelli and Aaron Marcum-Noftsger, had the privilege of attending the 2018 Specialty Coffee Expo in Seattle alongside our friends Premium Quality Consulting (PQC). We went to the expo excited to see what new innovations and trends are developing in the third wave coffee industry.

Dan McCloskey and Jan Anderson from PQC are Giovanni’s former colleagues, and they are veterans in the coffee industry. Their consulting company focuses on helping coffee businesses with market expansion and brand development.

We also got to see someone we know from his previous work at Water + Leaves, Michael Montante, who is the CEO of Cupper. His company's mission is to mold the industry's reputation by discovering and experiencing the absolute best that craft coffee has to offer across North America.

We stopped at Our Coffees, a family owned coffee farm, where we tried their new method of mixing coffee beans. They experiment with a unique fermentation process to zero in on the perfect balance of clarity and complexity in their pulped natural coffees. It was delicious!

Next, we met with Bellwether and Stronghold to understand their unique technology and application. We’ve had our eyes on these two companies since the beginning of the year and have been intrigued by their new concept of roasting machines, which are very compact and able to roast a batch of coffee in less than 15 minutes! The impacts of these efficiencies are a smaller investment and a smaller workspace, which in turn, will accelerate the ROI. 

Moving forward, our team at VentiQuattro will continue to stay in touch with these companies and explore the depths of how we can further bring innovation to this industry. Specialty Coffee Expo… We’ll see you next year!