Light Side - Dark Side Hacea Roasting Competition

Do you strive for the light side of coffee, or lean towards the dark side?  Join us in a roasting competition to test your skills in creating both a light and dark roast.  This competition is for everyone, from Padawan to Jedi, hobby roaster to seasoned professional.  Each competitor will receive one single coffee, which they will roast and submit two samples; a “light” roast and “dark” roast.  Light roast coffees will be evaluated on how they best showcase the characteristics of origin, while dark roast coffees will be evaluated on how they highlight the characteristics of roast.  A custom rubric will be used to score each sample and both light and dark roast scores will be combined to create a total score for each entry.

Winners will be announced on May The Fourth.

Click here to order your entry pack! 

The Rules:

Submitting your entry

• Roasters may purchase their entry pack online through the Hacea Coffee Source website. Entry packs will be available in different sizes to accommodate different roaster sizes/capacities. This light-dark roasting competition will be limited to no more than 100 participants.

• All entry packs will begin shipping out from Hacea on March 17th, 2025.

• Entries are per person, not per company. Multiple individuals from a single company may enter, but each must purchase their own entry pack. One entry per purchased entry pack. Only one entry per company or individual will be accepted.

• Participants must submit 100 grams each of two different roasts of the same coffee for evaluation; one light roast sample and one dark roast sample.

• Each entry must use the coffee provided in the competition pack exclusively, without any additional components or be disqualified. Each roast (light roast and dark roast) must be packaged and labeled separately in the provided bags.

• All entries must fill out the provided identification label that is included on the roasted coffee bags. Circle either “Light” or “Dark” for each corresponding entry.

• A pre-paid return label and shipping envelope for shipping the two 100 gram bags will be emailed to you in April.**

• Entries must be received at the Hacea tasting room by Monday, April 29th for judging and evaluation.

Evaluations and judging

• Each coffee will be brewed for judging and evaluation with an AeroPress using Hacea’s AeroPress recipe. 

• All entries will be brewed for evaluation from April 30th through May 3rd.

• Judging and evaluation will be based on a custom rubric, a breakdown of how coffees will be scored will be included with each entry pack. There will be separate scoring rubric for light roast and dark roast coffees.

• All entrants will receive their complete scores with feedback from judges by email within two weeks after the winners are announced.

• The winners will be announced on May 4th, 2025.

• Prizes will be awarded for the top scores in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.

Additional rules and comments

• Additional coffee can be ordered separately, but the order number included with each entry submitted must match the order number that was used to purchase the competition entry pack.

• **INTERNATIONAL ORDERS  WILL NOT BE SENT A RETURN LABEL. INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPANTS WILL BE RESPONSIBLE TO SHIP EACH ENTRY TO HACEA COFFEE SOURCE

The Prizes:

• Prizes will be awarded to the top 3 scoring coffees based on an average of all the judges scores.  Prizes will be announced online through Instagram on May 4, 2025.  Winners will be notified afterwards via email and prizes will be shipped to the winners.

• 

  1st Place Prize - Fellow Ode Brew Grinder, Fellow Aiden Coffee Brewer, $200 gift certificate to Hacea online ($909 value)

  • • Fellow Ode Grinder

    • Fellow Aiden Brewer

    • $200 Hacea electronic gift card sponsored by Roast! West Coast Podcast

   

• 

  2nd Place Prize - Fellow Ode Brew Grinder, Fellow Electric Kettle, AeroPress, Fellow Prismo, Fellow Shimmy, and $100 gift certificate to Hacea online  ($385 value)

  • • Fellow Stagg EKG Pro Electric Kettle

    • AeroPress Clear

    • Fellow Prismo

    • Fellow Shimmy

    • $100 Hacea electronic gift card

   

• 

  3rd Place Prize - AeroPress, Fellow kettle, Hacea cupping kit ($265 value)

  • • Fellow Stagg EKG Pro Electric Kettle

    • AeroPress Clear

    • Hacea Cupping Kit

   

Click here to order your entry pack!