Jen Apodaca, right, leading a session at a recent Coffee Roasters Guild Retreat. The event is expected to resume in 2021. Photo by Lily Kubota/Daily Coffee News
The Coffee Roasters Guild has announced that it has canceled the annual Coffee Roasters Guild Retreat for 2020.
The Retreat, which constitutes the Specialty Coffee Association guild’s largest gathering and biggest instructional event in the United States, is the latest in a series of not surprising but nonetheless saddening coffee event cancelations due to global COVID-19 mitigation response efforts. Typically taking place each August, the CRG Retreat is expected to return in 2021.
In an update yesterday from roaster extraordinaire and CRG Chair Jen Apodaca, the group noted that the 2020 fate of the guild’s largest European gathering, the CRG Camp scheduled for September, has not yet been determined.
2018 file photo, courtesy of the Specialty Coffee Association.
“After deliberate discussions with staff, volunteers, sponsors, and lots of folks like you who make CRG Retreat possible every year, we have decided not to host CRG Retreat this year,” Apodaca wrote. “As you know, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has had a serious impact on coffee roasting professionals and businesses and it remains unclear when we’ll all be able to gather safely again.”
Meanwhile, as the coffee community at large continues to engage and progress through any means possible, the CRG has ramped up its presence online, rolling out a series of virtual events. Taking place Friday, May 15, the next CRG virtual event will involve a conversation with a number of coffee roasting professionals in Taiwan under the title, “We Are #StillRoasting.”
Check out the CRG’s blog for more info and events, or check out DCN’s own weekly calendar for online events happening throughout the coffee world.
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