Russia’s largest international exhibition showcasing all facets of coffee, tea, and café products, equipment, and services ”The Moscow Coffee and Tea Expo is drawing so close we can almost smell the scent of coffee.
Running for 16 years as a part of a large-scale PIR Expo project for HoReCa industry, MCTE has been gaining momentum and recently grew into a separate exhibition. This year Moscow Coffee and Tea Expo will be returning to IEC Crocus Expo Centre on September 23 “26. In 2013, MCTE hosted over 100 events on 6 stages: workshops and seminars from internationally recognized experts, business lectures, and endless networking events to meet the world’s top coffee personalities. The figures speak for themselves: MCTE 2013 offered 4,200 square meters of exhibition space for 7,200 visitors and 55 exhibitors presenting 92 brands from Russia, Europe, and CIS countries. Apart from that, MCTE proudly hosted five championships: Moscow National Round of World Barista Championship, Russian Coffee Roasting Championship, Russian Alternative Cup Tasting Championship, Grind and Brew, and Profile Challenge Championship. Striving to make these competitions objective and fair, the Expo team invited Sonja Björk Grant, who previously lent her expertise to the World Barista Championship and honored the Expo with her presence as a judge.
With some of the biggest industry players lined up to exhibit on more than 4000 square meters of floorspace, Moscow Coffee and Tea Expo 2014 is certainly a crucial date for your calendar. Visitors will be introduced to the entire spectrum of coffee machines and grinders, roasters and equipment for a range of alternative brew methods, packaging accessories, other allied products, and much much more. MCTE has a truly international reach, with companies sourcing coffee and tea varieties from Brazil, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Italy. The Expo will also welcome representatives of different farmer associations from around the globe, including Uganda Coffee and Tea Farmers Trade Union and Ministry of Agriculture of The Republic of Indonesia.
In the heart of the action, MCTE presents a most comprehensive seminar program curated by the internationally acclaimed speakers and educators in the specialty coffee segment. The Expo will host two unique professional development areas: Main Business Stage and The Lab. Experts from the United States, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and other countries will bring a breadth of knowledge to the audience. MCTE has already revealed some of the keynote speakers: among them are Robert Stephen (USA) – Past President of the SCAA, a certified Q-Grader and a Q-Grader Instructor with 20+ years of experience at all levels of the coffee industry, Robert William (Norway) – pioneer of the Scandinavian Specialty Coffee field since 1996 and International Coffee Entrepreneur at Collaborative Coffee Source, Gloria Pedroza (Switzerland) “ the World Cup-Tasting Champion and Quality Control Manager of NKG Quality Service Department of Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, Erik Rosendahl “ founder of an award winning roastery Drop Coffee Roasters (Sweden) and Lars Pilengrim (also Sweden) “ a regional manager at most innovative and tasteful Stockholm-based coffee project Johan&Nystrom. These renowned experts will provide attendees with information on all aspects of a coffee bean at The Lab. Open Space, including latest insights on coffee growing, beans quality, roasting and roasting equipment, grinding and other stages of coffee production.
The Lab will also feature a Certification Zone, offering attendees the opportunity to get certified in Specialty Coffee internationally recognized programs. Certified SCAE Trainer, head of green coffee quality for Mare Terra and a Q Araica Grader Timur Dudkin, will be giving certification courses for baristas, cuppers and roasters including Barista Skills Foundation, Barista Skills Intermediate, Sensory Skills Foundation and Sensory Skills Intermediate. All participants who will successfully pass the theoretical and practical assignments will receive SCAE CDS certificates on relevant modules.
The second educational area – Main Business Stage – will focus on all topics related to launching and developing a successful business in the coffee and tea industry. The seminar program is divided in thematic sections, covering all the hot topics: coffee and tea sourcing, quality control, staff motivation, PR, promotion and many other burning issues. Any savvy entrepreneur won’t want to miss the presentations from the most eminent businessmen of the coffee and tea world. Some of them have truly inspiring professional backgrounds, for example, the attendees will have a chance to hear from Christopher Tara-Browne, who is an American expat responsible for a specialty coffee revolution in Siberia and Russia on the whole. He moved to Russia almost 20 years ago and, after not enjoying a what he refers to as a œtruly disgusting cappuccino in one of Siberian bars, he decided that locals deserved a perfect cup of coffee. Now his company has grown into an empire of 65+ shops in six countries. An expert well-worth listening to!
For those coffee connoisseurs who are in constant search for new varieties and exclusive offers MCTE proudly presents the first Micro-lot Exchange to be hosted in Russia. Here the best limited coffee grades from all over the world will be brought together at one place for the first time in history of the Russian coffee industry. The farmers and retailers from Brazil, Vietnam, Ethiopia and other countries will elaborate on the features of the countries where their beans are grown and unique flavor characteristics of their product. Apart from that, the visitors will be offered to cup the coffee made of the micro-lot beans. For café owners and roasters, Micro-lot Exchange provides a great opportunity to meet coffee farmers and their representatives and also to purchase the top-quality micro-lots for a reasonable price.
Competitions, which proved to be one of the most popular elements of the Expo, will take place at the Coffee Box stage. Here the Moscow National Round of the World Barista Championship will gather the best barista of Russia’s capital battling for a chance to represent their city in the next rounds. The second competition will be the Russian Roasting Championship 2014, a challenging battle made possible through the collaborative efforts of MCTE and Coffee Owl “ one of the best Moscow roasters. In this event, contestants are evaluated according to their performance in coffee grading, developing a roasting profile that brings forward the desirable characteristics of coffee and reaching the ultimate cup quality of coffees roasted. The winner will represent Russia at the World Coffee Roasting Championship 2015.
The third championship, titled Russian Coffee Cup, is undoubtedly worth elaborating on, since it is a much-awaited event aiming to cause a great stir in the Russian specialty coffee industry. During this contest the barista teams of coffee houses from all over the country and from CIS countries also will have to not only demonstrate their barista skills, but also to act as a close-knit team and recreate the very specific atmosphere of their coffee bar. It seems that the idea of such a contest was right in the air and MCTE team managed to get hold of it. It was formed as a logical development of specialty coffee revolution that recently took place in a cold country of Russia which desperately needed that passionate barista battle. With almost 30 coffee bars from Russia and CIS countries which applied for participation in the preliminaries, Russian Coffee Cup promises to be a smashing hit.
The MCTE team even has two night events in stock: Barista Party and a city coffee festival. Held at the most trendy places in Moscow, these two fetes will bring together all the specialty coffee stars engaged in the Expo and most successful businessmen of the Russian coffee industry.
With so many coffee events and activities taking place between September 23 and 26, Moscow is sure to become an epicenter of the coffee world this fall! See you soon!
