I just returned from a wonderful weekend in Seattle — it was a great trip on many levels.  

Seattle is the home of Tully's Coffee, and on Friday Matt and Jared performed a stellar training session for about a half dozen of Tully’s key staff. I met up with them after some meetings I had in the morning and watched them in action. The training was made possible by Ghiradelli Chocolate’s Ginger Gearhart. Thank you, Ginger! After the training we toured the facility, which used to be the home of Ranier Beer. The large “R” on the top of the building, which was a well-known landmark upon entering Seattle, is now the home of a very large “T.

Whew... Coffee Fest Seattle 2008 is history. Once again, I had a very long weekend of speaking, working the show floor and best of all, re-connecting with old friends (and meeting some new ones, too) at some great evening events.

Coffee Fest was held a bit earlier this year and the weather gods were kind to us. Seattle seems to have temperatures a bit cooler than Portland, but the entire Northwest is enjoying a beautiful Indian summer. During the tradeshow, the evenings were warm and many parties spilled out onto the sidewalk and into the lovely weather.

One of the highlights of this year’s show was watching Hiroshi Sawada, of Caffe Milkart in Tokyo, Japan, win the 2008 Millrock Latte Art Competition held in conjunction with the tradeshow.

Hiroshi attended the American Barista & Coffee School approximately two years ago for latte art training and since then has traveled to the United States many times to compete in the Millrock competition. At each event his performance improved, and in this year’s fiercely contested competition, he beat out 40 professional latte artists to take the title.

Congratulations Hiroshi — you are a testament to perseverance and to believing in yourself. Hiroshi takes home with him a lot of pride, a beautiful trophy and a $5,000 cash prize. Wait... Matt just told me Hiroshi donated his winnings to Coffee Kids. Amazing!

Labor Day is history and now it's back to work and time to prepare for Coffee Fest Seattle, which is always an interesting show. I’m speaking on four separate occasions and I’m doing some last minute tweaks and changes to my PowerPoints. I also just sent PowerPoints off to Russia to give them time to translate them before the Russian coffee conference on October 1 to 4, at which I will again be speaking four times.

Last Friday and Saturday I was in Eugene. Not only was I able to connect with old friends, but I also saw my Oregon Ducks play their nemesis, the University of Washington Huskies in the season opener. The ducks won 44 to 10 and are now ranked 18th in the nation. As an added bonus, our tailgate party was one of the best —flanked by a Nike motor home on one side and a friend of mine’s lumber company spread on the other. Good times!

This summer our phones have been ringing more frequently than usual with calls from the national media. Last week alone I spoke to the Wall St. Journal twice and to Fortune Magazine and the New York Times. And just the other day, I gave a 90-minute interview to the Associated Press (AP) for a story that will break in a week or two.

In July, the Wall Street Journal did a feature story on Matt and his Web site, Barista Exchange. In the same week, he did a live national feed on Fox Business News, which he handled with the grace of Gandhi. He constantly promoted specialty coffee and the independent retailer — I was very proud of him when I watched it on the Fox Web site.

And just the week before. Barista Exchange was featured in an NPR story alongside the biggest and most popular social networking sites on the Internet: Facebook, MySpace and Linked In. Time and time again, Barista Exchange was mentioned in the same sentence as these giants of social networks. Crazy!

It is always very nice to have news organizations look to us for substantial information on specialty coffee, but it is especially sweet when the calls are from the biggest of the big in media.

I just returned from a long weekend at Canon Beach — it was nice to get away for four days. The Oregon coast is very beautiful this time of year and the weather is cool enough to sit in front of a fireplace in the evening, which is hard to believe considering how hot it is in most other parts of the U.S.

This coming weekend should be fun. I will attend the annual Coffee Fest BBQ at the home of David and Marni Heilbrunn in Seattle. David and Marni own and operate Coffee Fest Trade Shows, and it will be great to see them, Tamara and the rest of their team. I also plan to spend some time with Lon and Karen LaFlamme, who have been the Masters of Ceremonies at Coffee Fest for a number of years. But on Monday, monkey business turns to real business — I have meetings all day in the Emerald city.

I have some other travel scheduled in the near future, but my big trip to Russia with Jose Arreola is coming up at the end of September. Stacie in our office is getting all my travel documents in order and I’m working on some new presentations for the Russian coffee conference we will be attending. More on that later.

ABC’s is in session with a great group of students, and I look forward to spending some quality time with them one night this week.

But by far, the highlight of this week has been Donnie Harrell’s visit. Donnie, who is the Director of Business Development for Monin Gourmet Flavorings, has been here for four days. All of the coffee people in Portland want to spend time with him, but tonight I have him all to myself, which is fortunate because I consider him one of my dearest friends. Last night we went boating on the Columbia River with the staff of Fresh Cup Magazine. It was a beautiful evening to cruise and eat a salmon, one that was caught just that morning.

I returned last evening from a quick, but quite wonderful trip, to Guatemala. I was there to speak at the 19th Congreso Nacional del Café put on by Anacafe, the Guatemala National Coffee Association. I made presentations on both Monday and Tuesday, and it was a thrill to go on stage for my first talk shortly after the Vice President of Guatemala, with dual screens above me, cameras recording me, and me, trying to speak slowly enough so the interpreters could translate. I was shocked when I learned there were well over 500 people in attendance.

The first days were filled with trips to the beautiful colonial city of Antigua. On the third day, we traveled to Chichicastenango, the most colorful native market in the Americas, and Panajachel, a beautiful city on the shores of Lake Atitlan. The five-star hotel in Panajachel stood in stark contrast to much of what we saw, but without a doubt it has to be one of the most beautiful five-star resorts in the world.

The final evening I attended the closing ceremonies and a four-hour party in the lower level of the beautiful Anacafe Center — there must have been 2,000 people in attendance. After that, I went to dinner with Hans Marsch, who owns a finca near Antigua, and his beautiful wife.

None of this could have been possible without our Guatemalan tour guide extraordinaire — Miryea Jones. Mireya splits her time between Jones Coffee Roasters in Pasadena and Finca Dos Marias, her farm in northern Guatemala. Miryea, who was born on her finca, knows the country like no other.

Every year I am amazed at just how lucky I am to live in Oregon. I choose, and often am obligated, to travel to other parts of the world in the summer, but I am always eager to return to Portland and its great weather and ambiance.

Yesterday I got back from a pretty amazing weekend in Bend, Oregon. There were numerous highlights, but the most spectacular was kayaking on an almost hidden lake in the Cascade mountain range. In every direction I looked I saw a huge snow-covered mountain... so, to say the views were awe-inspiring would be an understatement.

The weekend before I was in Las Vegas. Luckily, the 100+ degree weather broke the first day I was there, after late afternoon thunderstorms brought temperatures down into the 80s, which made the evenings very pleasant. The contrast between walking the Strip and kayaking on a secluded lake was sharp, but both weekends were memorable in their own way.

This coming weekend will provide yet another contrast — I’m going to Guatemala for a week to address the convention at Anacafe, the Guatemalan National Coffee Association. More on that when I return.

Some great news to report! For some time, I knew I was under consideration to address the annual Anacafe Conference (Guatemala National Coffee Association) in Guatemala City, Guatemala July 28-29, but the official invitation just arrived. My dear friend Tom Palm of Design & Layout Services has also been asked to present, and having him along will make the experience twice as pleasurable.

Over the course of the two-day conference, Tom and I will each speak three times on retail coffee in 2008. Both of us have tacked a few days onto the beginning and end of the trip so we can visit Lake Atitlan as well as Chichicastenango, a town well known for its market, and probably the most colorful spot in the country. Anacafe has set up numerous tours of retail coffee bars in Guatemala City and Antigua, which Tom and I will also attend.

I am sure we will visit my dear friend and roaster/retailer Hans Marsch near Antigua, and while I have been to his farm — Finca Pastores — many times, it will be Tom's first visit to origin, a trip everyone in coffee should take if given the opportunity.

Last week I also confirmed that I will be speaking and traveling in Russia for the better part of a week in October with Jose Arreola, owner of Tropical Moka. More on that trip as it draws closer.

I want to personally congratulate Ireland’s Stephen Morrissey, the 2008 World Barista Champion! Barista champions from 51 countries competed for the title in Copenhagen June 19-22, and this year Stephen will represent the barista community as the world’s number one barista. Stephen visited our offices last year with James Hoffmann (last year’s champ) and spent time at the American Barista & Coffee School; I have fond memories of him.

The runner up was David Makin from Australia, followed by third place Liesbeth Sleijster (Netherlands), fourth place Daniel Remheden (Sweden), 5th place Michael Yung (Canada), and 6th place Soren Stiller Markussen (Denmark).

Jose Arreola from Tropical Moka and Roberto Bresciani from Nuova Simonelli called me from Europe, and part of me wished I was there, but as I said in my last blog, overseas travel sounds less inviting all the time. That said, I have been invited to speak in Moscow in October. I have never been to Russia and I am really looking forward to the trip.

Let’s all raise a Guinness to Stephen. Cheers!

I haven’t blogged in a while due to my insane travel schedule — three back-to-back trips in the last couple of weeks. Matt and I were scheduled to go to Copenhagen for the World Barista Championship (WBC) this week but each of us decided (though we both would love to be there) that it was just too much. I’ve gone to the last two WBC events. Last year we filmed an award-winning documentary at the Tokyo competition (click here for the details) and the year before I went to Bern, Switzerland. A year off will be just fine with me.

I remember when travel used to be fun — even when business was involved. Today, however, the crazy airline / airport situation has truly taken all the pleasure out of getting onto an airplane. First class now feels almost like coach used to, and cancelled flights, huge delays and changed aircraft are the order of the day. In the last few weeks I experienced all of these things first hand. For me, travel is a necessity, but I am now taking more time when I make decisions about when and where to travel.

Coffee Fest Hawaii was interesting. It was fun to re-visit the Hilton Waikoloa, though the weather was terrible in Kona, which was experiencing heavy vog (a volcanic smog formed when sulfur dioxide and other pollutants emitted by an erupting volcano mix with oxygen and moisture in the presence of sunlight). David Heilbrunn, the Coffee Fest show manager, did a great job putting the event together, and it certainly wasn’t his fault that turnout was small. After the show closed, I went with David, Tom Palm of Design & Layout Services and a few others deep-sea fishing. But the real highlight for me was playing tennis for two days.

Last Thursday I was happy to support Friends of the Children at their annual gala and fundraiser/ auction. Bellissimo donated a private coffee consumer class for eight at ABC’s, and bids were in the range of a thousand dollars. Overall, the charity raised more than 1.5 million in one evening.

Entrepreneur Duncan Campbell founded Friends of the Children in 1993. Campbell was inspired by his own troubled childhood to start a revolutionary new program to help at-risk children in the same neighborhood where he grew up.

Campbell designed the Friends of the Children model based on the best research available in the field of youth development. Together with a team of respected researchers, Campbell found that the single most important factor that fosters resiliency in high-risk children is a caring and consistent relationship with an adult.

The Friends of the Children model puts this research into practice by allowing high-risk children to develop caring and consistent one-on-one relationships with professional adult mentors, whom they call “Friends.”

I was so impressed by last year’s event that I wanted to become more involved this year. The number of people who turned out for the event last year blew me away, but this year I think attendance was even greater.

I congratulate Friends of the Children on a successful auction/event and extend a heartfelt thanks to all those who gave more than money. Those who signed contracts to mentor a child from their early years all the way through high school are the REAL heroes.

Because of our friendship with our attorney, Robert Stoll, Matt and I were invited to a private luncheon today with Ted Kulongoski, the Governor of Oregon. About 12 people attended and we all participated in about two hours of heart-to-heart political discussion. Given the political animal I have always been, I found it both fascinating and amazing.

Our host, Robert, is not just any attorney — he is world famous for various cases he has tried over the years. We feel very lucky to have him represent us. On the friendship side, Robert stops in for an espresso from time to time, and recently we hosted him and a number of judges at ABC’s for box lunch and a two-hour coffee training.

Even more amazing... Governor Kulongoski asked us if we would give him a tour of our school and a crash course on coffee. He is going to get back to us next week on a date that works for him. This man is amazing: intelligent, personable and real. I could not have been more impressed. I know Matt will blog about the luncheon on Barista Exchange after he finishes teaching at ABC’s this week.

I am off to LA in the morning… just when Oregon is finally starting to experience beautiful summer weather.

Well, we have finally dug out after most of the staff spent almost a week in Minneapolis at the 20th Annual Specialty Coffee Association of America Conference and Exhibition.

The last few SCAA shows have been little other than class reunions. I have to go back quite a few years to remember an SCAA show that was well attended and generated the amount of business necessary to justify the enormous expense involved in participating. Booth prices are currently almost $3,000 dollars for a 10 foot by 10-foot booth. Add to that airfare, hotel, food and time away from work, and the cost is astronomical.

Those in charge of tradeshows sometimes spend an enormous amount of energy securing a lot of booth sales…but if few attend, what’s the point? It would be helpful if more appealing cities were chosen and marketing was spot on and more alluring, making the benefits of attending easier to grasp.  

So, am I glad I attended? Sure. In my opinion, the days when a small company can do numerous tradeshows a year are long past. The return is just not there. This is not just my soapbox — I heard it over and over from other exhibitors all weekend long. No finger pointing here… just facts… or, I should probably say, opinion. I think many companies are looking at benefit vs. cost in the tradeshow arena, and many may decide to attend fewer shows.

Now here is the glass half full. A tradeshow like this (with so few in attendance) allows you to meet with the marketing director of a very big player in the industry and spend a full hour with them, not the three minutes you are likely to get at a very busy show. In addition, the class reunion aspect is huge. Networking with your peers, especially after show hours, is what the SCAA show is entirely about now for many.

The bright spot of SCAA 2008 was the day after the show when Tom Palm of Design and Layout Services hosted a fishing trip that was attended by 24 industry people. What a blast! I spent a full day fishing on Lake Minnetonka with friends and great food. Our green team smoked the other three boats — we caught 52 fish. Our rival boats caught 12, 4 and 2. So, now we have another award for our conference room…this one with a gold fish on top.