The coffee trade has made a considerable impression at one of the world’s biggest think-tank conferences.  At the TED conference in Edinburgh in July, the Coffee Common organisation drew together a collection of the UK’s top baristas, using a selection of top coffees and state-of-the-art equipment to promote the coffee trade.

Coffee Common is an international organisation which, very simple, exists to show people how good coffee can be.  It has a mantra, which runs: ‘Discover & Harvest & Roast & Grind & Brew & Sip & Wonder’.  The Ted conference also has a mantra, which runs: ‘Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing.’

TED is a ‘global ideas-fest’, which lasts a week, and in Edinburgh there were 850 delegates from 70 countries listening to the modern world’s ‘ideas worth sharing’.  The theme was ‘The Stuff of Life’, with 50 speakers debating ‘who we are, what we do and how we relate to each other and to other living organisms’. These subjects ranged from biology to algorithms to problem solving, all governed by the speakers’ rules, of which we are reliably told that the first is: “Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick”.

The interest for the coffee trade was that a dozen or so extremely good baristas were collected together to serve the coffee throughout the conference and generally act as evangelists for the beverage.  The Marco Beverages organisation contributed an Uber Brewer, a device which dispenses water for filter coffee at an extremely precise temperature.  Coffee was supplied by Square Mile (among others), and various other organisations contributed products – notably, Coffee Hit let the baristas use their very new black Teflon-coated steaming jugs, which will not be on sale for some weeks yet.

It must have had an effect.  One international newspaper reported being told by a delegate: “It is the first conference I’ve been to with decent coffee”.

Photographs by Brian W Jones of Coffee Common