Last week, we hosted members of Sweet Renaissance Coffee Academy for an afternoon of roaster training, sensory skill building, and discussion on developing a career in the coffee industry.
We're happy to join Sweet Renaissance Coffee Academy as their roasting education partner. Sweet Renaissance is an independent Minneapolis-based nonprofit providing job training to individuals who are passionate about coffee. Their program offers barista skills and coffee knowledge to people from a variety of cultural backgrounds, making them more desirable candidates for openings at coffee businesses.
In our training session last week, which we plan to host for every new Sweet Renaissance cohort, we led participants in a sensory calibration exercise using a comparative brewed coffee tasting. Sharing our tasting notes on two different coffees, we were able to connect roast profile information to specific flavors in the cup.
Students then got to work on roasters, working in small teams to roast a single-origin coffee from Mexico to a few different profile targets. We learned how to identify key roasting landmarks, use RoastPATH, and select a finish time and temperature for a specific roast level.
Before leaving, the group joined us for a tour of our facility to see our in-house roastery and fabrication facility. This was a passionate and engaged group of individuals with big plans for their future careers in coffee. We're honored to be a part of their education journey.
