Issue 137: September | October 2026
From the Publisher
The founder and publisher of Roast magazine, Connie Blumhardt has spent over 25 years in magazine publishing and has worked in the coffee industry for the last 20 years. Connie brings the same passion and commitment to this industry journal that is present within the roasting community.
With each issue, Connie brings insight and inspiration to the pages of Roast with this column.
After almost 30 years in the coffee industry, I think I can safely say that much of this industry is built on relationships. It’s a given that you connect with your green coffee vendors, packaging vendors, and equipment vendors. But going one step deeper, it’s natural for some of us to form relationships beyond vendors, creating lasting friendships with our peers. People we meet online, at events, in our neighborhood. And for me, this isn’t surface-level friendship. I have built lifelong friendships with people in coffee. We vacation together, they know my husband and my kids, and they’ve shared meals at my dining room table. Without a doubt, the people are my absolute favorite part of this industry—they are deeply passionate, genuinely caring, and all-around wonderful humans.
Fortunately, we have ambitious individuals constantly working to create new opportunities for us to meet and create new friendships. In addition to Roast Summit Portland, this fall brings exciting events like Barista League Atlanta, Camp Coffee Shop, Coffee Fest, Level Up, and the Pacific Coast Coffee Association Convention, to name a few. Yet, beyond these in-person gatherings, there is still an opening for a larger, more accessible community just waiting to be built.
The coffee industry has undergone a remarkable transformation since the beginning of my career. In the early days, industry events were small, intimate gatherings where you recognized every face. And we only had a few events to choose from to attend and meet our peers. The industry’s rapid growth is exciting and it has made coffee more interconnected in so many ways—we have more information, more opportunities, and more ways to learn from one another than ever before—but it can be harder to find the meaningful connections that help us make sense of it all.
With all this growth in mind, Roast will be sharing some exciting news next month about a brand-new community-building platform. We want to help keep the industry connected and make sure that we are still forming those lasting and meaningful relationships. We are finalizing the details, but I know you’re going to be excited. If we haven’t crossed paths yet, I look forward to meeting you and starting a new lifelong friendship. After all, you can never have too many friends.
Warm regards,
Connie
Advertisement
