Lecture Description
Our industry has found different ways to answer the question, ""what is specialty coffee?"" since the term was first introduced in the 1970s by Erna Knutsen. In this lecture, we'll look at three common themes in the answers to this question over time—improving lives, chasing quality, and delivering experience—before sharing the SCA's formal answer to this question, published in 2021. Along the way, we'll also highlight different places to learn more about some of the latest answers here at Expo.
Date: Thursday, June 26, 2025
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Lecture Room V
This lecture is free to attend with a World of Coffee entry badge. Register to attend World of Coffee Geneva here.
Lecturers / Presenters
Kim Elena Ionescu (she/her)
Chief Sustainability and Knowledge Development Officer, Specialty Coffee Association
Kim Elena Ionescu is the Chief Sustainability and Knowledge Development Officer for the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), where she leads a team that turns research and emerging knowledge into event programs, standards, educational curriculum, and publications that serve specialty coffee industry businesses and professionals across the supply chain and around the world. Prior to joining the association in 2015, Kim spent a decade buying coffee and directing sustainability at Counter Culture Coffee in North Carolina, where she resides with her husband and two daughters.