from left: Adam from LA Coffee Club gets
ready to present; Pour over demo with Kunji
coffee from Chromatic Coffee; A visitor displays
a Chemex Coffeemaker button.
to focus on local roasters,” he
says. “I’m convinced that that’s
the key to it.”
He likens it to a wine
tasting: “You expect to get the
flavor profile of each one and
really get the personality.” It’s
normally hard to compare one
roaster’s cup of joe to another’s, but at the tasting, they’re
mere feet from each other. It’s
a unique opportunity for the
coffee lover—a tasting experience almost unimaginable
in most other contexts.
The event reflects Sinnott’s
deep passion for everything
coffee, which includes his
respect for how difficult it is
to make a good cup of the
stuff. “It’s a cooking art,” he
says, comparing roasters to
bartenders. If someone loves
martinis and knows a bartender who can mix a perfect
drink, they understand the expertise required.
“Coffee is like that, and
coffee’s more like that,” he
says. For Sinnott, the touch of
a talented roaster is what elevates a cup of coffee above
more standard fare.
Between the numerous
classes and the various roasters, CoffeeCon hopes to
You can't come to our event and walk away
and say coffee's not a complex beverage.
interview: kevin sinnott
encapsulate much of what
makes coffee so great. “You
can’t come to our event and
walk away and say coffee’s not
a complex beverage,” Sinnott
says.
CoffeeCon isn’t aimed only
at those who have already developed a passionate appreciation for coffee, either. Sinnott
loves to see attendees who
haven’t previously explored
the full spectrum of coffee
possibilities.
Browsing the roaster exhibitions, for instance, often