EP 1068 Part 3 of 5 | What Happened to Coffee Quality Education? ( Ian Fretheim ) Map It Forward
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Episode Description
This is Part 3 of a five-part series with Ian Fretheim, Director of Sensory Analysis at Cafe Imports.
Throughout this series of The Daily Coffee Pro Podcast by Map It Forward, Lee Safar and Ian Fretheim are exploring one of coffee's most important questions: What is quality coffee?
After examining how the industry defines quality and whether "specialty coffee" still means what it once did, this episode turns to another question that has become increasingly important:
What has happened to coffee quality education?
Following the transition from the long-established Q Grader system to the Coffee Value Assessment (CVA), many coffee professionals expected a new era of sensory education. Instead, Lee and Ian discuss why the industry appears more uncertain than ever about how quality should be taught, assessed and applied in commercial environments.
The conversation explores the strengths of the legacy Q system, why a shared baseline still matters, and whether the industry missed an opportunity to create a more practical framework that could be adopted across the global coffee supply chain. Rather than debating politics, they focus on what businesses, educators and coffee professionals actually need from quality education today.
Lee and Ian also discuss whether certificates alone have become overvalued, why employers ultimately look for critical thinking rather than credentials, and what meaningful sensory education should prepare people to do once they enter the workplace.
This is a thoughtful discussion about education, standards, commercial reality and the future of developing coffee professionals.
Connect with Ian Fretheim here: