If you have been following Torch’s WeChat for at least a few weeks, then I am sure you have seen us advertise certified coffee courses for specialized focus points ranging from farming to business. We offer courses through SCA, SCI, and CQI.

SCI is the newest of the bunch, so I want to take 5 minutes to explain to you the goal of SCI, the role courses can plan, and how you too can become an SCI instructor.

SCI

SCI is comprised of 3 letters.

S: Sustainable

C: Coffee

I: Institute

A few months ago I wrote an article on Sustainability (insert link) and you can check out if you want to know more about the “S.”

The mission of SCI is to “provide education and business tools to coffee professionals, from farmers to cafe owners… Through training and connections, SCI helps develop a dynamic and thriving coffee chain, one person at a time.”

The coffee industry is often referred to as a chain: the coffee chain. This is very true, and just like a chain, if one link is weak, the chain breaks. So SCI helps to develop all of the chains in the link.

This is the role SCI aims to play in the industry: sustainable and equal development. If one link in the chain is weak, the whole chain suffers.

There are potentially many problems a link can face: knowledge, skills, awareness, efficient systems, etc.

Through education with SCI you can learn all of this and are given the chance to meet with other coffee professionals that have gone, or are going through those same struggles.

SCI doesn’t teach all of these principles to amplify narcissism in baristas as they show off at their bar.

But rather, SCI teaches these principles so that students go back and teach others, to strengthen the chain.

The roasters and baristas go back to their shops and share with their co-workers and customers what they have learned.

We hope all of our students share with their customers what they are learning, but we know some want to become instructors themselves: to teach the next batch of students who will go back to their shops and teach customers.

At Torch we run a course called SIP, which stands for SCI Instructor Program. The SIP teaches about education, learning theory, and how to teach.

After you take the SIP course, you are not a certified SCI instructor just yet. You must teach a course, get reviewed, and wait for the reviewers response.

In the SCI program, you can only teach a course that you have taken and passed. So if you want to teach SCI roasting but you haven’t taken any roasting courses, go to www.sci.coffee and find when and where the next course you want to teach is being taught!

If you have taken the SIP course as well as the courses you want to teach, find a time to teach!

The first time you teach you must co-teach with another SCI instructor. When you co-teach you will be responsible for organizing the class and the activities. The other SCI instructor will act as your assistant as well as your reviewer.