Eighty Hours of Coffee Education, Most of It Included With the Badge

The most valuable square footage at Coffee Fest Los Angeles is not on the exhibit floor. It is upstairs in the 300-series meeting rooms of the convention center’s South Building, where an independent café owner can spend a Friday morning learning what their labor line should look like, what their menu should cost, and why their espresso machine is fighting their bar layout.

Coffee Fest Los Angeles runs August 21–22, 2026 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, with paid hands-on training beginning Thursday, August 20. Coffee Fest advertises more than 80 hours of education, and more than 50 seminars and panel discussions are included with any badge on a first-come, first-served basis.

Three tracks, built around who is walking in

The program organizes around three tracks: Business Operations, Roasting and Green Coffee, and Skills Training. The split is practical rather than academic - it maps to whether you are running the P&L, running the roaster, or running the bar.

Business Operations is the deepest bench in Los Angeles. Mark Calhoun and Jim Starcev of PerfectCube run a sequence that functions as a short course in café finance: “Coffee By The Numbers” at 8:00 a.m. Friday, “Pricing and Menu Strategies” at 10:00, “Operating by the Numbers: Sales, COGS, Inventory and Waste” at 1:45 p.m., “Labor Cost Management” at 4:00, and “Trends in the Business of Coffee” on Saturday morning.

Chris Deferio of Keys to the Shop brings a parallel operator track - “Cafe Design: Principles for Success,” “Lead Your Baristas! How to Effectively Manage Gen Z,” a 90-minute session on “Scaling with Integrity: How to Responsibly Grow Your Operations While Maintaining Your Culture,” and “How to Immediately Improve Your Cafe” on Saturday.

Jeremy Lyman of Birch Coffee handles the demand side with 90-minute sessions on practical café marketing and “Social Media That Sells: Building a Local Following That Grows Your Business,” plus a Saturday seminar on customer service fundamentals.

There is even a session on tax exposure - Nicole Green of Robert Hall & Associates presenting “Stop Overpaying the IRS: What Coffee Shop Owners Miss Every Year” - and Jason DeVelvis of Boost Back Office on “Dialing Your Business In: Hype, Menu, Hiring, and More Before Opening Day,” which is aimed squarely at pre-opening operators.

The Coffee Skills Series

The Coffee Skills Series is the hands-on tier: small-group sessions in latte art, brewing, sensory work and technical maintenance, taught by Coffee Fest’s training team and industry partners. Classes run $59–$299, with select sessions included in the Gold Pass upgrade; interactive workshops sit at $59–$99.

The Los Angeles roster is unusually specific. Antoine Franklin of Same Brain and Terika Raak of Caffe Umbria teach “Espresso & Milk Foundations” - 150 minutes on Thursday and again Saturday morning - plus “Latte Art Foundations” on Friday. Anita Tam of Slow Pour Supply teaches “Pour-Over Essentials.” Joshua Chipley of Houston Coffee Collective and Seidy Selivanow of Kafiex Roasters teach espresso extraction foundations and a workflow-and-efficiency session in the Latte Art Venue.

Tim Heinze of TH Sourcing Solutions effectively runs the Cupping Corner in Room 304B: “Cupping 101” on Thursday, a coffee blending workshop, an Asia origin session, “Flavor Alchemy: Coffee’s New Processing Revolution,” a sensory skills class, and Africa and Americas origin sessions across Friday and Saturday.

Mill City Roasters, the show’s official roasting education sponsor, teaches “Foundational Coffee Roasting Skills” and a “Roast Profiling Masterclass” in the Roasting Hub. Synesso, part of Middleby Coffee Solutions Group, staffs the Tech Lab with 30-minute technical clinics - pressure profiling, troubleshooting grinders, and “Gaskets, Baskets, Springs, & Screens” - plus a 90-minute “Grinder 101” and “The Essentials of Espresso Machine Installation and Maintenance.”

Venues that do different jobs

The education program is distributed across seven named spaces, and each has a distinct function worth knowing before you plan a day.

The Roasting Hub handles roasting technique and strategy. The Cupping Corner (Room 304B) runs sensory training. Business Building Essentials is a rapid-fire format - 15- and 30-minute sessions delivered by Dillanos Coffee Roasters and Barista 22 covering barista basics, equipment essentials, hiring for culture, customer service, engaging customers and shop management, all in a single Friday sequence. The Tech Lab is equipment triage. The Latte Art Venue is training in the morning and competition in the afternoon. The Conversation Corner hosts panels. The Connections Lounge hosts networking, including a two-hour “Raise the Bar: Coffee Industry Meetup” on Friday afternoon.

The panels are where the room talks back

Coffee Fest’s Conversation Corner programming in Los Angeles leans local and specific. Seidy Selivanow of Kafiex Roasters moderates a Spanish-language panel, “Is Specialty Coffee for Everyone?”, with Dulce Velasquez of Bevel Coffee, Sandra Loofbourow of Loupe Coffee, Anya Schodorf of Cafe de Leche Coffee Roasters and Alejandro Balzaretti of Amigo Coffee Roasters.

Roast Magazine editorial director Lily Kubota moderates a Roasters Forum with Steve Lee of Pocketknife Coffee, Mo Maravilla of Studio Tigre, Stacey Lynden of Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee and Balzaretti. Shanita Nicholas of Quantum Seeds moderates “Beyond ‘Extraction’: Building a Sustainable Coffee Business” with panelists from Gobez Coffee, Groundwork Coffee, Canyon Coffee and AGnimble.

Barista Magazine publisher Kenneth Olson moderates “Specialty Coffee Success No Matter the Size of Your City.” There are also panels on food menu development, seasonal beverage menus and brand building, plus a Saturday session on inclusivity in coffee.

Supplier-taught sessions with real utility

A meaningful share of the free program is taught by brands, and in this format that works to the operator’s benefit - these are the people who know the category data.

Monin presents “2026 Drink Trends.” Toddy runs “Cold Brew 101.” Torani presents “Beyond the Buzz: Consumption Trends, Primary Data, and the Future of Handcrafted Beverages.” Oatly’s Nethra Rajendran teaches a hands-on session on layers, textures and foams in signature drinks, plus “Intentional Indulgence: Merging Taste and Health on Modern Menus.” Two Leaves and a Bud teaches “Mastering Matcha & Tea Lattes.” Lotus Plant Power runs an energy drink workshop framed around margin. Roastar’s Nick Schmitt presents “The Coffee Bag Blueprint: How To Build Packaging That Wins Customers.”

Planning the two days

Show floor hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Friday and 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Saturday, with registration opening at 7:30 a.m. both days. That means the 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. seminar blocks happen before the hall opens - the schedule is deliberately built so education does not compete with exhibitors.

General Admission covers the exhibit hall and all unpaid lectures, panels and floor events. A Team Bundle provides five badges for the price of four. The Gold Pass adds access to select paid workshops. Pre-registration is recommended for workshop seating, and free seminar seating is first-come, first-served - the organizers’ own guidance is to arrive early.

Coffee Fest is a business-to-business event; attendees must be affiliated with a coffee, tea or related business, or be seriously planning to enter it. That gatekeeping is part of the value: the person next to you in the Cupping Corner is running a bar too.

Sources

• Education at Coffee Fest Los Angeles - full schedule
• Education | Coffee Fest Los Angeles
• Education | Coffee Fest
• Attend | Coffee Fest Los Angeles
• Attendee Guide - Coffee Fest Los Angeles 2026
• Coffee Fest FAQs
• Coffee Fest – Mill City Roasters
• Coffee Fest 2026 | Los Angeles Convention Center

Research verified August 8, 2026. Schedules, exhibitors, speakers, prices and access details may change; confirm current information with the organizer before attending.