A few weeks ago, we attended two major global coffee events: SCAJ Conference (Japan) and HOST Milano (Italy).
If you’re wondering what the point of attending expos and fairs in 2025 is, when most information is hyper-accessible online, we do it for inspiration and direct knowledge: industry intel, cultural insights, and upcoming trends. We do it to escape our own little bubble and see what others are loving and doing out there.
Here are some notes about what stuck with us during this trip:
SCAJ Conference
September 2025, Tokyo, Japan
It was our first time in this retail-focused expo. We were hoping to see a bit more manufacturing machinery (i.e. drip bag machines), but there wasn’t any—more like green coffee importers, coffee machines, and lots of small stands with independent roasters selling their beans.
Aside from the abundance of cartoons and illustrations in marketing materials, one thing that stood out was the dominance of small-format (~100g) bean bags. It makes sense: this allows brewers to afford and try different coffees without committing to a ‘whole’ 250g bag—what for us has been our minimum default size.
This is something we’re going to bring on board, as it’s a great idea: it makes our coffee accessible to people on a limited budget, and it lets roaster-hoppers try a little bit of our offering. You’ll see this option very soon on our online retail shop.
Outside of the expo, but still within the coffee world, we were in awe of our specialty coffee shop experiences: minimalist aesthetics, attentive customer service, quiet and peaceful vibes, and quite a lot of expensive and premium origins on the menu. The scene seems very different to here back home—more of a one-off elevated ritual, only accessible every day to just a few.
Also, most cafes don’t open till 10 am! Crazy.
During one of these cafe-hopping visits, in Leaves Coffee Roasters, we tried “milk brew” for the first time: a type of cold brew in which the coffee is steeped directly in milk. It’s rich, flavourful, and refreshing. So tasty, we’ve developed a recipe inspired by it and tailored to our roasting style and taste—check it out on our brew guides or find it in our Pro Shop as part of our summer VS menu on Saturdays for a limited time.
Cute cartoons everywhere
This multi-roaster online subscription was killing it, with the most popular stand of the whole precinct
Checking out ‘our’ locals: Artificer, plus Mark from Caravela
HOST Milano
October 2025, Milan, Italy
This fair was the opposite of SCAJ: highly focused on business, production, and service professionals.
Our mate Sean from Ciccone & Sons warned us to wear comfortable shoes, and we’re so glad we followed their advice. This biannual expo is enormous, with multiple pavilions and levels showing everything hospitality-related, from coffee to pizza, bakery, gelato, furniture, decoration, technology…
We only went for the very last day and barely saw most of the coffee area (well, and the gelato as well, to take advantage of the packdown giveaways).
We saw drip bag machines, pod machines (hugely popular in Europe), electric and hydrogen coffee roasters (promising progress!), new materials and formats, water filters, robotics and automation (really the future, allowing hires to require less technical skills and focus on excellent customer service).
And, while we were there nerding out on tech, the Aussie Jack Simpson took the title of World Barista Champion 2025. Congratulations, and sorry for the miss!
We’d love to come back and spend at least 2-3 days to see and absorb all the latest in this hospitality sphere.
Vintage espresso machine #1
Vintage espresso machine #2
The biggest coffee roaster we’ve ever seen (not sold to us!)
An electric Probat, looking pretty schmick!
It’s 2025, and puns are still very much in
This poor gelato had to be eaten away for free so they could pack down for the year… we were happy to help
OOO
Out of office, on the go between conferences
Of course, we enjoyed brewing our drip bags during long-haul flights, airport stopovers, and hotel breakfasts. Yes, most hotel coffee won’t satisfy our taste buds and emotional needs; we’ve become that picky/comfortable with our choices.
Sample Coffee now on Quantas (if you BYO)
Decent coffee in the airport for half the price—just find your nearest hot water dispenser
V60-ing with a view
Also, something unexpected: we brewed V60 using microwave-heated water. One of the hostels we stayed at was so basic it didn’t have a stovetop or water boiler. It felt a bit strange, but Redditors seemed OK with it, so off we went. And can confirm that it works OK for warming up water—it’s definitely better than no coffee—but beware, some precautions must be taken.
