From the Head Bean
Sean Edwards
We are excited to have visited Columbus, Ohio - the next city to host the Golden Bean Roasting competition. We have been on hold for two years due to COVID and global lockdowns and are super excited to bring back our event August 16-20, 2022. We can’t wait to see our wonderful coffee community and welcome back fun competition and networking.
We recently checked out our new venue which is an Old Union building that hosts a number of businesses and is also used by a local Church on Sundays. We were kindly offered this space through a past Australian Golden Bean winner Ben Gleeson, whose sister Mel Forsyth manages this space and is also a keen coffee lover.
The venue has ample space to host over two hundred people and plenty of power infrastructure to work the engine room to judge over 1000 coffees. The building is also conveniently located next to our long time roaster friends Crimson Cup, who will host roaster specific workshops and education sessions.
We had the pleasure to meet founder Greg Ubert of Crimson Cup at the Innovation Lab, a purpose built training facility and SCA registered training room. Greg was very excited to see Golden Bean being hosted in Columbus and bringing coffee professionals to the city.
We have seen the success of moving the competition around the country and believe moving it to the Midwest, close to many major cities, will make it possible for lots of people to attend this year’s event. We have lots of fun social activities plus some topical speakers who will run open learning sessions for all attendees.
Columbus is the historic state capital of Ohio founded in 1812, and has one of the largest universities in North America – Ohio State University - which hosts students from all over the world. The city is diverse in culture and landscape, and is conveniently located, making it ideal for running a coffee event.
We have secured attendance of many innovative Green Bean businesses to showcase at Golden Bean in our “Green Bean Zone” on Saturday, August 20th. We still have a few positions available for social night function sponsors and ancillary equipment and service providers for the event as well.
This year’s Golden Bean competition rules are now up on the Golden Bean website, and entries are open for submitting your coffee and attendance to be a judge/delegate.