The Speciality Coffee Association of Europe SCAE was founded in 1998 in order to create an association composed of coffee quality friends, with a common vision of ‘’a perfect cup of coffee to the consumer.’’ According to SCAE, Speciality coffee is defined as the art of manufacturing a quality cup of coffee, which is judged by the consumer to have a unique quality, characteristic taste and personality, better than the common beverages offered. This beverage should consist of coffee beans which have grown at a designated location and have been processed under the highest quality standards for raw processing, roasting, storing, and finally the preparation to a beverage.
Today SCAE lists more than 1,000 members in 70 countries. Its members come from all professional areas, producers of raw coffee, raw coffee cooperatives, exporters, importers, agencies, media, carriers, shipping companies, warehouses, traders, processing plants and crafts, coffee shops, cafeterias, baristi, roasting machines manufacturers, espresso and filter machine manufacturers and finally autonomous end consumers.
The SCAE collaborates with many organizations, including governments and other trade organizations worldwide. A powerful lobby that is driven by coffee quality. The SCAE is represented permanently in the International Coffee Organization (ICO). ICO in 1994 left controlling the global coffee trade. After this he has focused on increasing global consumption by, improved quality and assisting the producers with green coffee quality, to increase its value. Besides that, the largest project of ICO is the Gourmet project.
Through SCAE members have access to a wide range of educational material, they can attend many educational seminars and speeches and make educational trips to coffee producing countries. The SCAE issues a monthly magazine and organizes exhibitions and tournaments like, World Cup Tasters, World Latte Art, World Coffee and Good Spirits and the World Barista Championship.
All that, optimize the professional, so that the market space of real coffee quality, is constantly growing. Nikos Psomas is among the first team that was certified with the SCAE Authorized Trainer and provides specialized training seminars for all the stages of coffee such as green coffee, roasting, blending, cupping, barista skills, grinding, brewing, coffee equipment maintenance. SCAE diplomas like Basic Barista, Barista level 2 and Gold Cup are given by Mokka Training, every month. Also from 2010 Nikos Psomas is the Greek National coordinator.
Speciality Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) www.scae.com
International Coffee Organization (ICO) www.ico.org
