We recently spent 3 days at Speciality Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) in Gothenburg where we were demonstrating the IKAWA Professional Sample Roaster to the great and the good of coffee in Europe – and beyond.

It felt like we’ve come such a long way since we last exhibited at SCAE Rimini 2014. This year, instead of people asking “what is this?” about our Pro Sample Roaster, many were saying “I’ve wanted to see this roaster for myself” – as we all know, the proof of the pudding is in the eating – or the tasting in this case, and it was excellent to be able to actually demonstrate the roaster to coffee producers, exporters, traders, roasters and coffee trainers – all of who could see different applications for it.

We travelled light – just two roasters in travel cases and pop-up stands – most of the weight was our green coffee; a washed Burundi coffee from Codemu, and some washed Colombian Arabica from Finca Buena Vista, although one of the great things about the event was the range and quality of other green coffee available from other exhibitors. In fact, we were able to actually put our roaster to good use roasting samples for other exhibitors.

Café Zumbador were also exhibiting in The Village and had unfortunately lost their pre-roasted samples in transit, so we got to roast their demo samples for them – a great thing about the IKAWA Pro Roaster is that you can ‘iterate’ the roasts until you get it how you want – and in Café Zumbador’s case they wanted to be a medium dark roast to the extent the oils just started to show.

I didn’t want to go too dark too fast, but you can see from the three roasts below how we got there in the end (roast profiles to follow).

We also got to roast a rare Geisha sample that were used at the Cupping Room (although exactly what will remain a secret for now!) and another highlight was roasting the only Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee at the show – all 100g of it – using two different roast profiles – a few photos and the roast profile is below.

It’s fair to say we didn’t have much time to explore the delights of Gothenburg itself, but from what we did see we liked – especially the long long days of sunshine until 11pm – and the midsummer festivities on the Friday.

Thanks to everyone who came by and expressed interest in the roaster and our business. We should say a special thank Marco Beverage Systems for hosting the party on Wednesday night!

If you would like to find out more about the IKAWA Pro Sample Roaster, do drop Bradley a line – Bradley@ikawacoffee.com