SCA Chicago 2024: The Drive. Pt. 1
A Specialty Coffee Association Expo diary experience.
Editor’s note: Check out our other SCA Diary posts.
MONDAY 4/10/2024: Carlsbad, CA to Albuquerque, NM
It is dark when I leave Carlsbad, California. I’m traveling from the ocean to the greatest of Great Lakes in Chicago for the SCA expo. This is my second go-round after Portland last year. I think I’m more prepared, more ready, more better equipped for this year’s event. I think I am.
It is a 12-hour drive to my first destination. The car is loaded with coffee samples from a number of R!WC supporters, including Crossings Coffee, Coffee Cycle Roasting, Acento Coffee Roasters, Marea Coffee, Cape Horn Green Coffee Importers, Ascend Roasting, and Me and My Uncle Coffee (All linked below).
I also have two travel mugs of Zumbar Coffee’s Hummingbird blend in the cupholders, plus Tip Your Barista pins, R!WC hats, and beanies. The car will probably be a lot lighter on the way home. Good for gas mileage.
Heading east means the sunrise over the San Gabriel Mountains and signs tempting me towards Joshua Tree and the White Tank Mountains, but I push forth. It is an easy cruise. The sky is blue. The wind is sleight. I listen to my first-ever audiobook. I’m more of a paper-in-hand reader.
I hit Albuquerque just after dark. Remember that old dad joke? I just flew in from….and boy, are my arms tired? That’s a bit of how I feel. I’ve been sitting all day, and somehow, I’m exhausted. So exhausted that I check-into my hotel and fall asleep watching UConn cut down the nets.
TUESDAY 4/9/2024: Albuquerque, NM to Yukon, OK
It is day one, really, at least for doing coffee things. Today’s drive is shorter, only eight hours to Central Oklahoma, but first coffee.
Stop 1: Slow Burn Roasters. It has a SouthWest vibe an the smell of chai permeates into my clothes, my beard, my coffee loving soul. I’m not complaining.
The design is excellent and the staff is kind. They offer suggestions for other cafes, and fiddle with the vases housing real flowers on each of the tables. I order a black drip coffee. I wish I remember which roast it was.
Stop 2: Sunday Service Motor Co. It isn’t far from downtown, but the neighborhood has changed drastically. It is more industrial and colder, and this space is clearly a destination. SSMC serves roasted coffee, and beer brewed in-house. An art studio is housed in an adjacent section of the building, and an enclosed patio space is tucked on the back end. Enclosed is important. The wind has picked up, and clouds are accumulating on the horizon.
The vibe is art, motorcycles, and vintage cigarette pack-inspired design, but, you know, new and cool. The barista and Co-Owner is Kevin. He and I chat while I wait for a fresh brew, and I leave knowing that if I spent more time in the ABQ, I’d probably spend a fair bit of it at Sunday Service Motor Co.
Stop 3: Trifecta Coffee Roasters. The clouds have become more ominous. Sheets of rain over the hills inspire me to make a break for the highway in hopes of getting ahead of the storm. I’ll have to hit Trifecta on the next pass.
Unfortunately, my early breakout is for naught. The storm haunts me out of New Mexico. The rains pummel me right through Texas and almost all the way to Central Oklahoma, where I’m offered a reprieve in the final 45 miles to Yukon.
WEDNESDAY 4/10/2024: Yukon, OK to Chicago, IL
It is 12 more hours to Chicago, and I’d like to make it today. I’d like to make it today, but the ballooning circle of rain on the radar grows exponentially every time I refresh my browser. I could head north towards Wichita, KS, and wrap over the top, but that would add almost two hours to my drive, all but ensuring I’d be spending the night in a hotel somewhere only a few hours from Chicago.
I’d like to get a cup of coffee somewhere, but it is still dark and early. Thankfully, I have a can of Dark Moon cold brew in the cooler to rev me up. I decide to go for it—straight through the rain. At least then, I’ll have a shot of making it before dark.* For an hour, it feels like a mistake, and then the downpour lets up, leaving a grey pillow-esque cloud that stretches on and on and on but doesn’t do more than spit a few drops here and there for the next eleven hours.
The sun comes out for the first time all day as I pull into Chicago. It shows its magnificence by illuminating the skyline in the fiery red rays that only exist around the Joliet, IL power plant. The last of the lights disappear by the time I turn onto Lakeshore Drive and come to a stop at the lights in front of the Field Museum.
I’m back, Chicago.** Tomorrow, coffee.
*I don’t like to drive at night.
**I lived here (briefly) while my wife was in graduate school and spent plenty of time here visiting family over the years.
ROAST! INDUSTRY PARTNERS
Hey Everyone, I’m currently in Chicago at SCA. If you see me (or hear me) say hello! Ask for a coffee sample from some of our great partners, including: Me & My Uncle Coffee, Acento Coffee, Marea Coffee, Coffee Cycle Roasting, Crossings Coffee, and Cape Horn Green Coffee Importers.
A huge, on-going thank you to all of this show’s industry partners.
Click these links!
Roastar • Zumbar Coffee & Tea • Steady State Roasting • Mostra Coffee • Coffee Cycle • Camp Coffee Company • Ignite Coffee Company • Ascend Coffee Roasters • Marea Coffee • Cape Horn Green Coffee • Hacea Coffee Source • Crossings Coffee • Acento Coffee Roasters • Sivitz Roasting Machines • Craft 42 Roasters • Me and My Uncle Coffee Roasters • Cozy Canine Coffee
Do you want to support the show without subscribing? Help keep us caffeinated by buying us a cup of coffee. Thanks for all your support.