Meet the 2024 Roasting Championship Winners!

As we wrap up the inaugural Hacea Coffee Roasting Championship, we wanted to take a moment to shine a light on our competition winners and give them a bit of an introduction.  If you missed our competition wrap up blog post, you can find it here.

Meet Max Zelenevich - First Place Winner

Max is an environmental scientist by trade and lives out in Philadelphia, PA. 

Max's journey with coffee started with being a connoisseur of craft beverages.  For the last ten years, Max has been a home brewer and participated as a judge in home brewing events.  In addition to having a passion for craft beer, Max also spent time working at a winery.  It was during this time at the winery that Max found that one of his favorite parts to his job was interacting with customers, learning about what they enjoyed and helping them to find their favorite wines.  His journey into coffee didn't start until a new neighbor moved in next door, one whom he had a bit of a crush on.  She was very interested in specialty coffee and they began exchanging their favorite coffees.  Max thought roasting his own coffee beans would certainly impress her, so he got himself a Fresh Roast SR800 and began his roasting journey.  Fast forward through the coffee journey to find that Max and his partner Em moved in together, and Max has upgraded his roaster to a Kaleido M10 1.2 kilo roaster (pictured).  

When the Hacea Coffee roasting competition was announced, Max considered himself a home roaster.  Over the last month, Max and his partner Em have launched Brainwave Coffee Roasters .  The Hacea competition roasting challenge was Max's first time trying to put together a blend.  He approached this challenge by sample roasting the coffees and cupping for each coffee's cup character.  In this process, Max decided he wanted coffee B to be the dominant flavor in the coffee, with coffees A and C to be supporting in body and acidity.  Max said that the competition opened his eyes to how blends can be developed and has sparked a new interest in this area of coffee roasting. After the competition, Max had the opportunity to connect with some of the other roasters who participated in the competition and exchange coffees for professional feedback.  He said receiving roasting feedback was one of his favorite parts of the competition experience.

Brainwave Coffee Roasters is getting ready to launch a release of their championship blend.  Be sure to follow @brainwaveroasters on instagram to learn about the release launch and snag yourself a bag.

Meet Stacey Lynden - Second Place Winner

If you have been around the coffee industry for a while, the face of our second

place winner may be a familiar one to you.  Stacey Lynden has been in the coffee industry for over twenty years, having started as a barista while she was in high school in British Colombia, Canada.  Her first coffee competition was in 2014 in a barista competition.  Upon returning from the competition, Stacey was looking for her next step in coffee and was introduced to a local coffee person, Doug Graf, who was roasting coffee for a local women's assistance program.  Little did Stacey know that the kind man who had welcomed her into his roasting space was the foremost expert on roaster repair, set up, and restoration.  Stacey continued to join Doug weekly to learn about coffee roasting and help meet the coffee needs of the local non-profit.  At the time, there were only a handful of female coffee roasters in Canada, and those who were there were very geographically spread out.  

Stacey's next step in her coffee career sent her to roasting for a very large roasting company.  The high volume roasting wasn't the best fit for Stacey's passion for high quality specialty coffees.  From there Stacey went to work for a smaller roaster, Pallet Coffee.  During this time Stacey became more involved in the competition scene, which opened up more opportunity to connect with women roasters throughout the U.S. west coast.  Her most recent coffee competition was a win as national champion in the Coffee In Good Spirits (CIGS) competition, which was followed by the opportunity to compete in Copenhagen at World of Coffee this year.

For the last three years, Stacey has been the cupping room manager for Swiss Water.  It was in her lab that she worked on her competition entry for the Hacea

Coffee Roasting Championships.  She began by analyzing the green coffee for moisture, density and water activity.  From her competition experience, Stacey knew that often times mystery coffees may include a "trick coffee", such as one that is aged.  After finding all of the competition coffees within normal ranges, Stacey preformed sample roasts on her 6 barrel Jabez-Burns sample roaster.  Her goal was to use a standard sample roast profile to minimize the variables that may be effecting the evaluation.  In her cupping, she found the Brazil flavor to be very dominant, so she worked with having the goal of toning down those flavors in the blend.  Stacey utilized her peers to help her cup through her coffees and get feedback on her competition roasts.  Stacey did her production roasts on a Deidrich 3kg roaster (pictured).  

After returning to Canada from Coffee Fest, Stacey was quickly off to Europe for international quality calibrations with teams in Zurch and Bordeaux.  She will return from her Europe trip and go directly to the Golden Bean competition in Texas, where she will be judging.  

Meet Keri Elliott - Third Place Winner

Nestled in the west side suburbs outside of Portland, you'll find Keri Elliott of Roasted by Mom Coffee.  Keri started her roasting company, originally under the name Elliott & Murrey Coffee Roasters, 5 years ago in 2019.  Keri started as a home roaster, first with a cast iron skillet and popcorn popper.  Keri started her roasting business sharing a roasting space with two other small roasters, using a vintage Probat.  As the businesses grew for all of the roasters, their production needs grew as well.  Two years ago the coffee roasting space was graced with a lean mean green Primo 20kg roasting machine.  

Keri has continued to grow her roasting business and her roasting knowledge by participating in community events and taking advantage of every training opportunity available to her.  In 2023, Keri attended the Roaster's Guild Retreat in Washington.  She said that her experience working on the team roasting competitions at the Roaster's Guild Retreat provided her with the experience she needed to tackle the mystery coffees in the Hacea competition.

Keri used a small off-brand home roaster that she had purchased on Amazon (as she describes it) to do all of her roasting for the roasting competition.  She typically uses this roaster for sample roasting.  Keri roasted 350g sized batches, making small changes to the roasting, then cupped all of her roasts.  From there, Keri put together her blend with her top roasts.  

Using the same profile she had developed previously, Keri put together another batch of her winning coffee blend to enter in the pour-over competition at the Golden Bean.  The team at Hacea wishes Keri all the best on her upcoming competition!