Coffee Curious Workshops Enters the SCA 2023 Coffee Design Awards
Read on below to view Toni’s submission to the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) 2023 Coffee Design Awards & learn all about Coffee Curious Workshops, what we do, what we offer, how we started, and more!
“Coffee Curious Workshops, a coffee learning lab nestled in beautiful Asheville, NC, combines the comfort of a home kitchen with the playfulness of a science laboratory.
I created the concept by imagining the classroom I was looking for, but couldn’t find when I started my coffee journey. I pictured something bright, fun and playful. I wanted a pleasant place where I could ask coffee expert all kinds of questions, use different devices and try a variety of coffees. I wanted to be invited to explore coffee culture on a deeper level without having to invest too much. Even though I did not find this kind of class, I did find Specialty Coffee Association trainers. I enjoyed the rigor and professionalism I found in my SCA education and it made me the coffee professional I am today.
I wanted to find a way to make sure folks of all backgrounds have an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the intricacies of coffee in a joyful and comfortable environment. The three main design inspirations for Coffee Curious Workshops are Greater Goods Roasting’s East Austin training center, Counter Culture Coffee’s Asheville training space in the Center for Craft as well as the AirBnb Experiences model. What makes the workshop design unique is our commitment to multi-functionality.
We wanted the main open space to be versatile and chose to use wheeled carts for our training tables as well as wheeled shelves for retail. Everything can be rearranged depending on the nature of any class, event or video production.”
For the judges:
As our small-group classes differ from the typical business needs of a cafe, we are presented with opportunities to use materials unfeasible in a cafe.
Only at Coffee Curious will you, as a customer, be trusted with a brewing device at your table. Speaking of tables, the solution we found to our ever-shifting classroom needs represents a major design accomplishment. All of the counter space designated for student workstations are broken up into several rolling carts, which can be configured for different group sizes, or pushed together for a “kitchen island” effect
For us, this combination of the familiar and the unique speaks to our chief goal. We want to present our customers with something that feels familiar, yet is decidedly new. Which includes the purposeful use of bright colors to promote happiness and joy
Even when we incorporate a common cafe design aesthetic, like minimalism and white space, we do it for our own unique reasons. Other cafes may decorate sparingly to leave room for conversation, but our white space is to leave room for curiosity, questions and learning.
Coffee Curious Workshops is a new concept in the coffee industry. It offers a versatile space to be a welcoming training workshop, but also is my own home base as a certified brewer where I develop coffee recipes and cultivate my business relationships.
Coffee Curious Workshops, a coffee experiences learning lab in a downtown Asheville, NC co-working building, combines the comfort of a home kitchen feel with a fun coffee lab setting for memorable edutainment.
The mix of decor between a kitchen cooking class anchored with an inviting earthy butcher block countertop to the clean lines and white walls accentuating the equipment and education evoke a welcomeness while showing our seriousness in our knowledge.
Because classrooms can be cold and uninviting, bright colors were brought in to communicate a sense of happiness and joy in the classroom element in our Coffee Curious Workshops concept. We employed colors to mitigate how intimidating coffee can be with all its various devices and variables as an important subtle psychological element. Evoking a feeling of being an insider and creating an underlying notion of coffee knowledge being accessible to a novice.
The minimalist decor and open-concept shelving lets the devices, product and posters serve as visual cues to interactive questions and curiosity. People are drawn int and say, "I feel like a kid in a candy shop!" We are proud of how the space makes people feel relaxed, which makes it easy for me to cultivate the necessary relationship as their guide and host whether it is a business to customer, or business to business relationship.
The unity of the elements all come together in the large scale of the rolling glass garage door cuing how open and available Coffee Curious Workshops truly is. People can imagine themselves stepping inside to start their learning adventure. The bar like open counter serves as an invitation to come cozy up and enjoy talking to the host, interact with other workshop participants and relax while watching the demonstration part of the class.
In a world of shifting values and economic realities, Coffee Curious Workshops classes serve as an investment. The class is basically a continuing education offering while still being a fun experiential activity. You get return for your money.
Unfortunately, the grim reality is the working person has less disposable income to spend on their own enjoyment. According to Vanusia Nogueira, executive director of the International Coffee Association, “consumers will choose drinking coffee at home over cafes and restaurants due to rising inflation and risks of recession in coming months.” She said that in October of 2022. The coming months approach.
But, coffee at home doesn’t need to be inferior to coffee shop quality. Speciality coffees are sold more than ever to consumers and they need to know what to do with those beans when they get them home. Coffee Curious Workshops helps support that to be a successful satisfying transition.
2022 data from a NCAUSA study indicated 54% of Americans over 18 drank a speciality coffee within the last week. A rise from the 2021 statistic. This is especially significant considering the same study indicated out-of-home coffee consumption has not yet recovered from it’s pandemic decline.
With the same ingredients, the difference between at-home coffee and cafe-purchased brew lies in the preparation. Our product is an experience that bridges the knowledge gap in a fun an exciting way.
Additionally, the emerging market of millennials and generation Z prefers to buy experiences to products. A 2019 study by the World Economic Forum stated 78% of millennials choose to spend their money on a desirable experience over something material. The trends indicated in the same study demonstrate that this shift towards experience-oriented purchasing extends beyond just young people to every age bracket and socioeconomic class.
I love surprising and delighting people! I know it’s not the question that’s being asked, but I love being a host and meeting people. Working in this space has been the most positive experience in my adult working life. As a lifelong learner, the joy I get instructing in my little coffee palace radiates to my customers who come to the workshops.
The biggest complaint I get from my experiences is that, “coffee is more expensive” now that they understand the difference between the good stuff and the bad stuff. I take that as a compliment, and I love to hear it in the same way I love to hear a more direct form of appreciation, such as when I read an online review that says, “by the end of the class I learned to appreciate coffee without cream and sugar. We ordered our brewing equipment and can’t wait to put the lessons we learned into practice.”
People are set up to have a positive and creative hands-on brewing and tasting experience in the workshop. It is one of the baked in reasons for Coffee Curious Workshops to be in business. It is experience based.
My customers are learning to ditch the cream and sugar and are tasting black coffees for the first time and surprising themselves by enjoying black coffees! They are awakening their palettes and realizing how little they knew about coffee prior to my workshops. Clients are getting to have an eye opening experience all while learning a brewing technique and considering previously unknown variables that will help them be more creative with their brews at home.
The business to business clients also have a creative experience with participating in developing their own roast blend, choosing their favorite coffee brewing method and getting trained in how to give their customers a memorable coffee experience.
Our sustainability values are infused into our whole business model.
Through elevating our customer's ability and knowledge base to consistently brew a beautiful cup of speciality coffee at home, we hope to offer them personal economic sustainability and reduce carbon footprints.
One of our pillars is we use only locally roasted beans and our local customers get directly exposed and buy local.
We encourage less waste - both in beans and material like the plastic found in k-cups. When we help our customers refine their palettes they make more informed choices and throw away less by knowing exactly what they like and don't like.
We want to help sustain the customer base of the speciality coffee industry by spreading the love and joy that comes with a home coffee ritual, or bespoke coffee programs for small local businesses looking to up their coffee offerings.
I’m Toni Oreck, SCA Intermediate Brewer. I worked with Anthony Brenner, a former Interior & Architectural designer, to help me design, build out and conceptualize Coffee Curious Workshops.
Coffee Curious Workshops was designed with the idea in mind of creating the coffee class I would have liked to take, but couldn’t find. I wanted a friendly coffee play place where I could ask a coffee expert all kinds of questions, use different devices, try a variety of coffees and go deeper without having to invest too much.
Because I wasn’t able to find a class, or place like this, I ended up going to SCA trainers to learn. Which was an absolutely perfect outcome for me and my evolution into becoming a coffee professional.
I became certified in the intro courses with Brady Butler at Trail Blaze Coffee and additionally Intermediate Brewing with Miranda Haney. Because I dove in and decided to take the SCA classes I quickly realized my passion for coffee was true and real.
I was inspired to create a new concept and bring my love of coffee and knowledge to others who might not want to make coffee their profession, but are curious and enthusiastic about learning more about coffee.
I have modeled the classes like an AirBnb Experience. Using their 3 pillars of unique, local and being an expert. I offer and host an hour and a half brew and taste class with only locally roasted coffees under my brand name Coffee Curious Workshops on AirBnb Experiences. I also offer it directly on my website.
The coffee lab/workshop design was influenced by the Greater Goods Roasting training center in East Austin, TX where I certified as an Intermediate Brewer. Their training room was bright, inviting, chock full of all things coffee equipment, education on the walls, open space and clearly very well thought out.
I wanted my build out to be a bright, well thought out learning experience coffee play place. To have all the fun coffee stuff, but evoke a feeling of being friendly, personal and inviting.
I also wanted it to be my own personal coffee recipe making lab when I am not hosting. It was designed for my needs to develop business relationships as well as the public customer.
Another note we wanted to hit in the design was to have a bit of a casual aspect of sitting down and having a conversation with the coffee expert in a relaxed host like way. This aspect was influenced by Counter Culture Coffee’s Asheville training space in the Center for Craft. They had tall ceilings, great lighting and the counter was set up facing all the beautiful coffee and equipment creating an invitation like saddling up to a cozy bartender to enjoy a special drink and talk shop.
What makes the Coffee Curious Workshop design unique is the multi-functionality we constantly kept in mind when designing. We wanted to make the space anchored with the feeling of an relaxing homey-like kitchen that could not only be functional and display coffee equipment, but be a beautiful clean backdrop for online classes, or creating video content and to simply stand in front of something beautiful for a class.
We purposely didn’t bolt anything else down except for the TV and the Goldleaf coffee posters. All other workshop furniture is modular and on wheels. The teaching carts as well as the retail is on wheels to give us the most adaptability for whatever might come down the pipeline as we grow. Nothing is hanging below 4 feet so we can wheel teaching carts to the outlets along the wall, or even up to the counter.
The exterior space was purposely designed to not have blank dry wall. We chose to incorporate a large rolling glass garage door to open the space up in a big way as well as create the counter space. When it is closed you can still look in and get curious, plus the branding stays visible. Fortunately we have a sun light right in front of the workshop to help my coffee shrub grow, bring extra ambiance and offer a source of illumination in an interior building location.
I am most proud of the energy of the space. Often people will put words to how comfortable they feel in it. They say how friendly it feels with our color choices and the evocation of home kitchen nostagia like they are in a cooking class. The energy also carries over in an unconscious way even if someone does not put words to it. The space energetically invites curiosity about coffee and shows expertise.
A special feature is the versatility of the space to grow with the evolution of what the Coffee Curious Workshops brand can offer over time. More types of classes, team building, trainings, cuppings, tastings and videos.
Coffee Curious Workshops serves the coffee industry in multiple ways. The model uses only locally roasted coffees which helps support the local ecosystem. I can partner with other local products in a pairings offering. I can host coffee tastings for roasters looking to lock in a business contract. I can consult and help local businesses create bespoke coffee programs and train their employees to make it. All that is in addition to the hands-on experiences educating people to become better coffee consumers.
I am exposing the general coffee consumer to global coffee standards, which leads me to believe Coffee Curious Workshops can be an SCA gateway funnel to those who are wondering if they want to go the coffee professional route. With Coffee Curious Workshops they can scratch the surface to consider how deep they may want to go. Once they see how intriguing and not boring coffee is I can introduce more people to Specialty Coffee Association to get certifications.
Coffee Curious Workshops, a coffee experiences learning lab in a downtown Asheville, NC co-working building, combines the comfort of a home kitchen feel with a fun coffee lab setting for memorable edutainment. It was designed with the idea in mind of creating the coffee class I would have liked to take, but couldn’t find. I wanted a friendly coffee play place where I could ask a coffee expert all kinds of questions, use different devices, try a variety of coffees and go deeper without having to invest too much. Because I wasn’t able to find a class or place like this I ended up going to SCA trainers to learn. Which was an absolutely perfect outcome for me and my evolution into a coffee professional. The three main inspirations directing how I wanted to design were Greater Goods Roasting training center, Counter Culture Coffee's Asheville, NC training space as well as the AirBnb Experiences model. What makes the Coffee Curious Workshop design unique is the multi-functionality we constantly kept in mind when designing. We wanted to make the space anchored with the feeling of an relaxing homey-like kitchen that could not only be functional and display coffee equipment, but be a beautiful clean backdrop for online classes, or creating video content and to simply stand in front of something beautiful for a class.
