The Real Value of SCA Expo: Connections & Coffee

In this episode, I share my firsthand experience attending the SCA Expo 2025 in Houston, Texas. As a Houston local and self-described introvert, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and attend this major coffee industry event solo. I break down the logistics of Expo attendance, from the various ticket options to what you can expect to see on the show floor - including industrial equipment, coffee gear, and plenty of free samples and swag from vendors.

I dive into my personal journey of navigating the Expo as an introvert, the connections I made, and the incredible coffees I tasted, including some remarkable Cup of Excellence selections. I offer insights into the surrounding events that happen before, during, and after the main Expo, and why these gatherings might actually be more valuable than the show floor itself. Whether you're a coffee professional or enthusiast, you'll learn why attending an event like this can be worth it, how to approach it strategically, and what you might gain from stepping outside your comfort zone in the coffee community.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:15 Expo Ticket Options and Logistics
• 3:30 What to Expect at the Expo
• 6:20 Going Solo as an Introvert
• 8:45 Tasting Coffee at the Expo
• 12:10 The Cup of Excellence Event
• 16:30 Surrounding Events and Gatherings
• 19:00 Making Connections and Sharing Coffee
• 21:45 Final Thoughts and Recommendations

Transcript

[0:00] Hope I was well. I'm doing pretty good. We're gonna talk about SCA Expo 2025 Houston. Let's get into it, okay?

[0:18] I am very fortunate to the point to where Expo was in Houston this weekend. This time, whatever, all right? And it's pretty cool because I live in Houston. And I was able to go...

[0:35] Okay, let me back up. We're gonna take things out the bag, see what the swag is, and see what I learned from this whole experience. Expo starts Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

[0:55] It's about 400 bucks if you want all three days. If you just wanna pay for the day pass, it's 200 bucks for Friday, 200 bucks for Saturday, and then like 100 bucks for Sunday.

[1:10] I'm actually gonna go tomorrow, which is Sunday. It's probably gonna be empty. That's what I've heard a lot. A lot of times, especially towards the end of these conferences and trade shows, it's pretty much it.

[1:25] But I went yesterday, Friday. I didn't go today because why would I pay another $200 to kinda see the same things? I could've probably gone to class, of course, but I didn't want to.

[1:45] The Expo is really all about gear, especially coffee gear. It can be actual equipment, industrial size equipment, like roasters and de-stoners and water filtration systems, if you're gonna be using that stuff, especially if you have a cafe.

[2:05] So, this is one of the bags I got. This is a Chinese roaster that has various roasters. And it's pretty cool that they're there. And they gave me a bag.

[2:20] And the Expo is all about seeing old friends, if you have old friends in a coffee industry, seeing new friends, and just really trying to enjoy yourself.

[2:35] We'll talk about this later, this Cup of Excellence bag, because that kinda plays into the second part, which is probably more critical than the actual Expo.

[2:45] So, you'll get an Expo bag like this, and you just walk around. I have plenty of cups in here. I got a TDS meter, a cheap one, but whatever, it works. Just got it for free.

[3:05] I got some free coffee, some matron stillness. And they have so many different people in there. It's pretty cool to kinda just go in there, see what it's all about.

[3:20] This is some more material. You get cards, like this is where you put a cup in, like a pour over on a go type of thing. Some matcha, some coffee accessory stuff that's in the bag, which is pretty cool.

[3:45] I went there by myself. This is my pass to get in. Some more stuff, like I got looked into the tea bags for coffee. Got some coffee, some sample coffee that I can roast. Some chocolate, Hollinger chocolate, which is cool.

[4:15] That's essentially it. There's some more stuff in here, but for the most part, all this stuff, it's stuff that they were giving away. Some of it came in the bag and everything. And it was a really good experience.

[4:30] I went by myself and that's very key here. I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about who I am and why that kinda matters and how you can still have a good time.

[4:45] I am an introvert. I've said that many times. I keep to myself, I like to do a lot of things on my own. And it gets to the point to where it's very hard for me to like get out of my shell.

[5:00] So this whole experience was to get out of my shell. And I did that. I had a really good time. I went by myself, like I said. And it's one of those things to where I think we need to start doing things like that. We need to get out of our comfort zone.

[5:20] And yes, I was lucky enough that it was close by for me to go ahead and do this thing. But it was a good experience. I didn't know really what to expect with the whole thing.

[5:35] And once I'm out there and get going, I talk quite a bit or people come to me and I talk to them. So it was a really good experience that way. I went about 12 o'clock. I stayed to about four, 4:30.

[5:55] And then I had another event. I'll talk about all that other stuff soon. But really the biggest thing to take away is that if you were to go to one of these events, I would say totally go. If you are a coffee enthusiast and you wanna see what everything's all about, go, experience it.

[6:20] Do it for one day, the actual expo. Because you'll see a lot of different things, things that you already seen a lot of, either here on YouTube or on Amazon, or things that you probably already have. Even new gear that's coming out that they probably announced a couple of days beforehand.

[6:45] One of the cool things that I also picked up was this new dripper. This dripper, I'll talk about it more as I unbox it and play around with it. But it's kinda wacky, it's funky. It's like a plastic type of silicon thingy. And it's a fast brewer. Everybody loves fast brewers.

[7:10] So I'm gonna play around with it. I can put like a Kleda Wave filter on it. Then we're gonna go from there. This is gonna be a cool little experiment that I play around with.

[7:25] But I would say go to it. You don't have to go through the whole weekend. You can pick a day, pick two days. But go there, experience it, enjoy it, have an open eye. Just talk to people.

[7:40] I think that's one of the biggest things that I took away from this whole experience is just talking to random people. I will say this though, at times coffee people are weird or interesting at the same time, meaning that sometimes they'll talk to you, sometimes they won't, even though we have the exact same interests.

[8:05] So if you can just strike up a conversation with somebody, do it. You don't know where it's gonna go. It may not go anywhere. And that's the whole point. It's just an opportunity, a chance to actually see what it's all about.

[8:25] I'm gonna end up paying 30 bucks for this dripper, which I have too many drippers, I really do. We'll talk about drippers and why you only really just need one later on. But right now, I just wanna give you the scoop of the whole event, the whole day, if you're ever curious about doing something like this.

[8:50] One of the things or reasons why I wanted to go to the event is to really taste the coffee. Espresso shots, little drip coffees, and all that good stuff. I wanted to see what was different about these coffees.

[9:10] Why people will buy these particular coffees. And I saw a lot of different coffees that you know and hear about all the time. That you know that you're probably spending 25, 30 bucks a bag for these coffees for very good reasons.

[9:30] And it was a really good experience of understanding, getting the idea of what people think or actually interpret what they're tasting in a cup of coffee.

[9:45] I would just say this, this is probably another conversation for another day, is that if I'm in a good spot when it comes to roasting, I think I am just by what I've tasted and it gives you more of that confidence to be like, "Oh, okay, I see what they're doing here."

[10:10] And at times it could be just more so like a marketing type of thing of getting things out there. Don't get me wrong, I did taste some cool, interesting coffees, but it gave me more of a understanding of what is special about coffee.

[10:30] And at times it could be very subtle, something that you wouldn't really notice at all. A lot of times when we're doing, you're drinking our coffee, we get into this rabbit hole of just tasting our own stuff, but it's cool to like experience things in a different way from other people.

[10:55] And I think that's one of the biggest takeaways too, about the whole expo is that we're just trying to grow and learn together. And as we do that, we're gonna get to a better place of reaching our clients, our customers. Those are the real people who get the benefit of all this different stuff that we're trying to do for them.

[11:25] So the event actually probably started even though it's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday thing. It really kicks off I believe is like on a Thursday, probably when everybody from town, out of town comes in, probably even on Wednesday when they start doing things.

[11:50] That's when the event kind of really starts. They have different events all around town. And I don't know who puts it together. I know SCA does a really good part of that. And then there's different websites and everything kind of showing you what's going on.

[12:15] But regardless of the fact, if you just type in SCA events for the weekend, you're gonna find a lot. You're gonna realize that you cannot do everything. You're gonna have to pick and choose which ones you wanna do.

[12:35] Like for instance, there's a party on Thursday. Crazy amount of people. I was gonna go, but when I saw 800 people, I said, "Forget that." It was just way too many people. It looked like a lot of fun from the Instagram photos and videos and all that stuff. But I said, "No, I'm not gonna do that."

[13:00] So what I ended up doing was, I went to the Cup of Excellence. They're showing their coffee. And they're showcasing it. And thank God they didn't do cupping. I understand it's teaching opportunity, but just give it to people the way that they want to.

[13:25] So I went to this event. This event was like $20. And they talked about the producers. And that's the cool thing. You're gonna see a lot of producers, farmers and everything at these events.

[13:45] The point is, is that you get to see the farmers. You get to see them. You may not understand what they're saying because they're probably speaking a different language. But at the end of the day, you can actually shake their hands. You know, say thank you.

[14:10] So, I got a snack. But first, coffee. Okay, got some chocolate. A couple cups, because I tasted the coffees. And like a medallion and stuff, which is cool for a belt buckle if you have one of those. And a pen.

[14:35] And I talked to people. I talked to more people there. And it was pretty cool to just talk to people, kind of get an idea of why they're there, what they like, what they don't like. And it was a good experience.

[14:50] So, I picked that event because it was right up my alley. I really wanted to taste really spectacular coffee. I wanted to taste something that I normally don't drink. I wanted to experience it for myself.

[15:10] And I'll let you know, even the hand-me-down coffee from Cup of Excellence, amazing. It's more of a subtle type of thing, but the coffees are extremely clean. You can taste the clarity. You can decipher more so what you're actually tasting and no defects whatsoever.

[15:35] Sometimes whenever you drink coffee, it gets to the point, depending on how you roast it or whatever, just in general is that sometimes it may be a stringent here or have a lingering taste there. These coffees didn't have that at all. And the smells were like out of this world, just out of this world. So, that was pretty cool.

[16:00] So, I did that on Thursday. I was gonna go to another event on Thursday, like a meet and greet type of at a cafe and all that stuff. Met some people, some people with town and everything. So, it was really cool.

[16:20] And then even outsiders, that was the beauty of it too. So, I went to this event and then after Friday, there's some more events. Again, you have to pick and choose what you wanna do. They always have events after the showing and everything.

[16:45] So, it was pretty cool to figure that out, kinda pick and choose which events you wanted to go to. Get to know more people. And again, I went by myself.

[17:00] So, Saturday I was about to go home and I didn't go home. And I finally got the reservation in for the tour because I'm thinking about selling that coffee. And it was a presentation, talking to the farmers, the family and all that stuff.

[17:20] And they're in San Coffee too. They're there too, talking to them about their coffee. We went ahead and did a cupping, which was fine. I kinda got some of the notes here and there, or I picked which ones I thought that was a little bit more interesting. But again, the cool thing is about the people.

[17:45] I sat there for a while, I kinda looked around and had my phone out, other people did. But it got to the point to where we just started talking. So, I talked to somebody from a cava, talked to her for a minute, talked to some other people who are just trying to learn more about coffee and experience.

[18:10] And we just talked about that crazy wacky party. Some of them actually went to it. And it was pretty cool because I was like, "Hey, did you meet anybody?" Because that's one of the reasons why I didn't go. And I was like, "Did you actually meet people?" So, like, "Mm, no." Yeah, that's what I thought.

[18:35] Because it's kinda hard because there's a lot of people everywhere so loud. You're just saying, "Huh, whatever." But whatever, that's just me personally. That's just kinda the way I look at it because of me being the person that I am.

[18:55] And we just talked. We talked the night away. It got to the point where I think a couple of us, we closed the joint down and then they went off to another party and I went home.

[19:15] I was supposed to go to another thing today, like a walk, and I was looking forward to it, but I got the times messed up and everything, but that didn't work. But again, they have stuff throughout the whole weekend before the thing starts after the thing and everything.

[19:35] The point is, is that there is stuff to do. And I think the beauty of it is, just pick one day, if you're gonna do this, just pick one day to go to the expo, really check it out. If you wanna do a class, go ahead and do a class.

[19:55] You don't have to. I don't think, you can learn, but at the end of the day, you're just there to just soak everything up, talk to people, and have a really good experience. And I really did have a good experience.

[20:15] I was iffy about certain things, kinda like, "Man, I don't know anybody," or "I didn't come here with friends like other people did." But I will say this, to close everything out as we talk about this stuff, cause again, we'll see what happens tomorrow, but I think it's gonna be more so the same at the expo.

[20:45] Is that even though I didn't come with anybody, I still had a good time. And right kinda in the middle of my whole thing of going to different joints or roasters, guilds where they had so many different coffee roasters, displaying their coffees and stuff, that part was really cool.

[21:10] To kinda understand how we're more so the same. I'm tasting similar aspects of the coffee, and a lot of people love their light roasts. But I was sitting there at the Flair booth, for instance, and I wanted to talk to them about another project that I'm thinking about.

[21:35] And we're just talking, getting to understand the product. And one of the guy's friends comes by, and he's like, "Hey, I came by, I just want you to taste this coffee, just taste it." So he gave it to him, he sipped it, he was like, "Wow, what is that? It's anaerobic." It actually worked, this one actually worked.

[22:00] And then that guy passed it off to another guy that was a part of the conversation. And he tasted it, and he's like, "What the hell?" And he was like, "Yeah, I just wanted to make sure you got a little bit left in there."

[22:15] So then he passed it to me, and I tasted it. And it was amazing. We all got a little sip of it. But the sharing, the continuity, the camaraderie, like, the shared interest in something, and we just wanted everybody to experience the whole thing.

[22:40] That was really amazing. Yeah, the coffee was extremely interesting. You can actually taste like green cantaloupe, which is bizarre, kind of just comes in subtly, but then it just excites your mouth even more so. I never tasted it like that before. But I can have it every day. But that was good.

[23:05] But the amount of talking and expressing and understanding people, then I talked to so many different people about their, just starting their whole journey of understanding what coffee is and trying to get into the industry even more so.

[23:25] And I just told them, "Just keep going. Trust yourself. Trust the process." It was really cool to just give them that advice to just talk to them about the situation at hand. And I think that's the beauty of the whole experience. Yes, it's about the coffee. It's about us coming together.

[23:50] So will I recommend the expo? Yes. Is it a little bit out of touch with normal folks? Yes. 200 bucks to just get in. But I always looked at it as, "This is 200 bucks, and the least that I would have done is probably tasted all these different amazing coffees around America."

[24:10] I think that's worth it, and just in that case. But all the stuff that I had done and walked around and experienced and all that stuff, that made the whole thing worth it. And I truly really recommend the whole experience if you were close to the city to go try it out. But really go to the parties, the gatherings, the get-togethers and all that stuff. Because I think that's really where you can really get out your comfort zone and learn from and understand other people.

[24:40] So that's what I got for you. Okay at Everyday Beans. Talk to you later. Bye.