World of Coffee Brussels
SCA Education Workshop
Rifqi Maulana & Julian Loayza
6/30/20263 min read
Really proud to see this workshop come to life at World of Coffee Brussels, and even more excited about what the coffees represented within the new SCA Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) framework.
When Julian first reached out, the brief was simple but meaningful. For an SCA Education workshop exploring the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic value, he was looking for coffees with stories worth discussing, coffees from proud and professional producers who don’t need saving, and whose value isn’t built on generational privilege, but through intention, skill, experimentation, and years of work.
We were honoured to contribute coffees from Dame Coffee and JB Coffee in Indonesia.
The idea behind bringing these coffees was not simply to showcase “good Indonesian coffee”, but to create a useful contrast for the CVA exercise: what do we perceive in the cup before we know the story, and how does that story influence the way we understand and value what we taste?
From Dame Coffee, Julian brought Typica Anaerobic Natural and Typica Mossto Natural, single-variety grown at around 1,200 masl on the slopes of Mount Lawu, Central Java. These coffees come from relatively homogeneous coffee plantations surrounded by pine forest. The higher elevation, single coffee varietal, processing methods, growing environment, and agricultural conditions contribute to coffees with a particularly clear, floral and structured character.
From an intrinsic perspective, participants could experience those qualities directly: the florality, clarity, sweetness, and structure, without being told where the coffees came from or how they were produced. But once the extrinsic information was introduced, those sensory experiences could be placed into a much broader context: 1,200 masl, the slopes of Mount Lawu, the surrounding pine forest, the variety, and the producers' approach to post-harvest processing. The story didn't create the qualities in the cup, but it gave participants another way to understand and contextualise them.
The coffees from JB Coffee offered a completely different perspective.
Liberica Flower Blossom and Liberica Purple Honey come from the Kendal region of Central Java, at a considerably lower elevation and within a much more heterogeneous growing environment. This created an interesting counterpoint to the Dame coffees. Rather than simply comparing two coffees based on a score or a list of tasting notes, participants could consider how species, altitude, landscape, agricultural environment, and processing methods can create very different expressions of Indonesian coffee.
And perhaps most importantly, these coffees challenged some of the assumptions we often attach to value. A coffee does not become interesting simply because it comes from a high elevation, a famous region, or a rare variety. Equally, a coffee grown at a lower altitude or from a less familiar species should not automatically be considered less valuable. That is where the CVA framework becomes particularly interesting.
The Affective component allows us to ask: What do I actually experience in the cup? What do I enjoy? What do I find memorable?
The Extrinsic component then asks us to consider the wider context: Who produced it? Where did it come from? How was it grown? What choices were made? What is the story behind the coffee? What does that information mean to me as a taster, buyer, or consumer?
Bringing these two perspectives together creates a much richer conversation around value. The intrinsic experience and the extrinsic story don't necessarily have to agree, and that tension is exactly what makes the conversation interesting.
Participants first approached the coffees through their sensory experience before being introduced to the origin, producers, varieties, and processing. Watching perspectives evolve as more information was revealed made for some genuinely thoughtful discussions about how we perceive quality, where value comes from, and how much context influences the way we experience coffee.
For us, this was also an opportunity to represent Indonesian coffee in a way that goes beyond the usual narrative. These are not coffees that need to be presented through a story of hardship or charity. They are coffees made by capable producers experimenting with varieties, environments and processing techniques to intentionally create something distinctive. And that's perhaps the most exciting part of the new CVA approach: it gives us more room to talk about coffee as something with multiple dimensions of value, not just a number on a score sheet.
Special thanks to Julian for creating the space for this conversation, and to SCA Education for bringing the workshop to World of Coffee Brussels. Proud to see Dame Coffee and JB Coffee, and Indonesian coffee more broadly, contributing to a conversation about what value in coffee can really mean.