www.specialty-coffee.com • May 2014 | 9
SCR: Why do you think there's a need for the coffee center?
German: Coffee has sort of fallen through the cracks in
academic research, which tends to focus mostly on plants
in the ground. Because coffee isn't grown here in the United
States, there isn't much of a coffee constituency. But we import
and consume a lot of coffee. Economically, this is a trend that
will become more prevalent in the future in other areas. We
need to understand more about the things we eat.
SCR: How do you plan to engage with members of the
coffee industry?
German: We hosted our first one-day conference at UC
Davis in March, which brought researchers and industry
professionals together. We were able to share some of the
research we're doing at the university and also gave industry
leaders an opportunity to discuss their work and the specific
challenges they face in their businesses. e event wasn't really
marketed, but the center received some media attention and
we were shocked that about 100 people showed up. I think that
demonstrates the fact that there is indeed an untapped need
for this sort of thing in the industry.
e conference will become an annual event. We're in the
process of enhancing our website and setting up some social
media channels. We hope to offer bi-monthly industry-
focused seminars. We had one in March that featured Jose
Kawashima from Mi Cafeto in Japan, a luxury coffee roaster
and cafe owner. We hope to do more things like that.
SCR: What are the long-term research goals of the center?
German: Currently, we have several priorities. We want to
launch a coffee geonomics initiative and are also looking into
the basic compositional analysis of coffee. ere's still a great
deal to be learned about what goes into coffee and what's being
thrown away. We'll also be expanding course offerings at UC
Davis because of feedback we've received from the industry.
We need to learn more about what kind of training is needed in
the coffee industry and make sure we can provide that training for
our students so they can go out and get hired aer they graduate.
Our institution has a long history of training students in the art
of wine-making and beer-making, so we're confident that if the
coffee industry has a need for it as well, we can fill that void.
Ultimately there are all sorts of things that can be explored.
It will all depend on how the initiative moves forward. SCR
08-9 coffeebreak SCR0514_new.indd 9 5/14/14 9:39 PM
