Roaster Summer School. July 15-18, 2024, Basel
Next July, we're inviting you to join us and Ingo Albrecht from Roast Rebels for the Roaster Summer School. Over four days, we'll be running 16 workshops covering roasting, green coffee, entrepreneurship, communication, and sensory skills. The workshops are for anyone who already roasts, wants to develop further, is looking for exchange, and is considering starting their own roastery.
Background
"Come on, let's do something bigger together," Ingo said when he visited Basel. We had just recorded two videos, one about roasting at home, and another about tips and tricks for roasting with the Aillio Bullet.
We first met in 2018 at the first Swiss Roasting Championship, when Ingo was volunteering and we were hosting as Kaffeemacher at our former location in Münchenstein. Ingo focused early on home roasting, smaller roasting machines, sample roasting, and making roasting accessible to everyone.
Ingo Albrecht and Philipp Schallberger
We began offering roasting courses back then and sharing our practical knowledge. We've stayed in touch since, as we both work with roasting—essentially doing the same thing, but at different scales. And that brings a wonderful tension with it—although it's the same thing, there really are differences when we talk about proportions, air flow, temperatures, green coffees, and so on.
So in this Summer School, we want to bring our two worlds together and pass these experiences on to participants; one topic, different perspectives.
Format
We'll occupy our academy in Basel for four days. We'll set up various roasting machines—Aillio Bullets, a Giesen 1kg roaster, and a sample roaster from Nucleus Link.
Each day focuses on one central topic, which we'll explore through four workshops each. The format will always be a mix of theory, practice, and exchange. Open exchange in a small group helps tremendously to make rapid progress and gain new insights.
So we encourage you to bring your own questions so we can discuss them together.
Monday, July 15, 2024
Monday is all about roasting. We'll cover roast profiles for different markets and beverages, fine interpretations for espresso and filter coffee, as well as coffee for automatic machines.
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Tuesday is about the raw product—green coffee. We'll roast samples, taste various coffees, and discuss which beverages and markets we could reach with them, evaluate different qualities, and create blends that should have a broad sweet spot.
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Wednesday is about entrepreneurship—how a roastery can be set up, which marketing strategies we can recommend, how sourcing and purchasing green coffee can be structured long-term in a way that's profitable for all parties, and how a target audience can be defined through pricing and positioning.
Thursday, July 18, 2024
On Thursday, we'll dive deep into sensory skills. We'll learn how to conduct a professional cupping and a cupping for quality control, we'll evaluate coffees using the SCA scoring sheet, taste and discuss various post-harvest processes and their influence on flavor, before we move into an open session with Ingo and Philipp.
Barbecue on Wednesday evening
On Wednesday evening, we're inviting all participants to a barbecue. Regardless of which days you sign up for, you're invited to eat, drink, and have relaxed conversation.
Who is the Roaster Summer School for?
- for anyone who wants to make great progress in roasting in a short time
- for anyone who enjoys exchanging ideas
- for anyone who wants to develop further in roasting
- for anyone considering starting their own roastery
- for anyone already operating a roastery and wanting to sharpen their concept
- for anyone who roasts and wants to develop further in sensory skills
We focus on shorter units of 90 minutes where we share our experience, exchange ideas, and develop individual solutions for your topics.
Booking
Places are limited to 12 participants. One workshop day costs 350 CHF including lunch and beverages. The Wednesday evening event is open to all participants.
