Kyle Freund of Fairtrade International’s Communications Office is posting to Fairtrade on the Road from the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe’s (SCAE) annual conference in Maastricht, Netherlands. For more information on the SCAE Event, click here. Fairtrade staff are meeting with producers, traders, roasters and others at the event.

Being positioned next to the stands erected to hold fans at the Cup Tasting Competition, traffic at the Fairtrade booth ebbed and flowed all day. As each round of the competition ended, people streamed out and stopped by.

It’s often a guessing game to figure out what language you should begin with when you work at a show with people from all over europe.

This year, Benjamin from Max Havelaar France helped organize the Fairtrade presence at the SCAE Expo and a group of nine people from Fairtrade labelling organizations in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, the United Kingdom and Fairtrade International.

We’re fortunate to have a team from all of these countries that can help visitors learn how to sell Fairtrade coffee, how to find adequate supply and build from there.

Kyle Freund of Fairtrade International’s Communications Office is posting to Fairtrade on the Road from the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe’s (SCAE) annual conference in Maastricht, Netherlands. For more information on the SCAE Event, click here. Fairtrade staff are meeting with producers, traders, roasters and others at the event.

5,4,3,2,1…. Taste!

Slurp, suck, spit. Repeat. A line-up of four competitors worked their way through eight sets of three cups tasting coffees and picking the odd one out. A camera-man zooms in close as the lights bear down.

This year’s World Cup Taster’s Championship is being held at the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe’s (SCAE) annual conference in Maastricht, Netherlands. Competitors, who reached the top in their country, match speed with coffee knowledge and a superb palette to discern subtle hints of tobacco and flowery highlights.

It was good to see Morgane Daeschner, a recent addition to the Max Havelaar France team, representing her country in the competition. She made a respectable showing at the international level, but didn’t make the semifinals that will be held tomorrow.

Two Fairtrade coffees were also included in the stable of coffees selected for this year’s competition: an Ethiopian from the Sidamo Coffee Farmers Cooperative Unionh and a Nicaraguan from the 15th of September Cooperative. Special thanks to InterAmerican Coffee for donating the coffee for the competition.