“Coffee for Indonesians is like a magical drink. Like, the sun will not rise before we drink a cup of coffee. It’s very important for the Indonesian people,” said Royanto Handaya, director of Panorama Media at a press conference on Wednesday. Speaking to the media, he likened the act of drinking the beverage as cultural, rather than a lifestyle choice.                                                

Panorama Media, in collaboration with the Indonesian Specialty Coffee Association (AKSI-SCAI), officially announced the Indonesia Coffee Festival (ICF), an event dedicated to business players and coffee lovers. This year, the ICF will be combined with the sixth Café & Brasserie Expo Indonesia (CBI) from May 5 to 7. The conference was also attended by the head of AKSI-SCAI, Daryanto and Marcia Tirtawisata as project manager of the CBI & ICF.

The CBI is a B2B exhibition that focuses on bringing together cafe or restaurant businesses with machinery, equipment and integration systems suppliers related to the world of cafes and restaurants. This B2B expo is usually held in conjunction with two well-known exhibitions, namely the Franchise & License Expo Indonesia (FLEI) and also the Retail Solution Expo Indonesia (RSEI).

Roy mentioned that the event aimed to rejuvenate the industry on a bigger scale. By running the CBI as an independent event, it can become an exhibition with a more niche target market and can expand the segments in the exhibition. Moreover, because the cafe business cannot be separated from coffee the ICF plays a role.

Marcia added that they would hold the event to build an ecosystem and to serve as a platform for networking. She further teased out topics that will be brought up on the main stage for the three days of the festival, which are coffee and finance, sustainability in terms of waste management, and the connection between coffee and lifestyle. She revealed that the event will invite investors to help match them with coffee sellers.

"By collaborating with AKSI-SCAI as our partner, we hope that this exhibition can continue to be a forum for entrepreneurs to be able to expand distribution channels to expansion, and also become a forum for networking and strengthening the Indonesian coffee industry," she said.

The ICF will give awards for “Best Packaging Design”, “People’s favorite”, as well as “Best Booth” during the event. There will also be two competitions that will be held during the event, and the two winners will get a chance to represent Indonesia in Greece this upcoming June in a world-class competition.

“So, in this event, we'll be holding the barista competition and the brewers cup -- brewers meaning the manual brew. Two winners will go on to the upcoming World of Coffee event in Greece in June. And I think another one will be the cup taster. So, from AKSI, we'll be sending three competitors to represent Indonesia,” said Daryanto.

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