Our team headed to Athens last month to attend World of Coffee in search of latest innovations and trends from the speciality coffee scene. For those of us that weren’t lucky enough to join them, here is a quick round up the key findings:
Coffee Grinder Innovations
Eureka offered up two new innovations of note. Firstly the Atom Grind by Weight (GBW) that grinds the exact weight required into the portafilter or vessel, improving quality and consistency whilst reducing waste. Secondly, the Prometheus grinder with telemetry, which is able to provide coffee weight consumption, temperature and set dosage time from an app. It can also provide reports on consistency and performance in a set timeframe. Nice!
We also stumbled across an interesting approach to removing coffee grinds from the chamber: The Squeaky. Make of it what you will!
Syrups Reformatted
Suppliers were pushing both hot and cold applications to showcase product diversity. Seeing a wide range of new cold brew and iced tea ideas that integrate syrups was great. Not only operationally easy to execute but delivers on flavour & visuals too.
Alongside this, a key theme was sugar reduction within syrups, a trend we expect will only continue to grow.
Expanding the reach of Cascara
We noted a few brands using cascara within canned drinks or steeped overnight for iced drinks. Whilst it remains a more niche menu selection in the real world, the speciality coffee industry’s appreciation of the otherwise discarded outer layer of the coffee cherry hasn’t waned.
Elevating Chai
The world’s love of Chai continues shows no sign of abating, with many new brands exhibiting their wares this year. We saw suppliers starting to play around with flavour combinations, bringing turmeric, masala, lemon and ginger into the mix.
A great time to remind you of our own great product lineup. Our Hello Goodsip Chai, Turmeric, and Beetroot powders bring an elevated level of quality, flavour and vibrancy to the drinks menu.
Innovating with Chocolate
As a staple on every drinks menu, we saw plenty of representation of hot chocolate. We noted one exhibitor brewing and making chocolate tea through V60’s, and as always, plenty of high cocoa content chocolates.
And that’s a wrap for this year’s World of Coffee – see you next year in Copenhagen!
To find out more about the event, go to www.worldofcoffee.org