Tradeshow Season is underway in 2026!
Last week, Drake Seabaugh, the graphic designer who runs our print lab, traveled to San Diego for his first industry trade show. Normally, Drake prints all our labels, signage, and custom branding. At the Specialty Coffee Association’s World of Coffee, he got to meet our customers face to face, and show off our latest creation, the InfiniBrew. I sat down with Drake to hear what it was like for him to move from the lab to the real world, experience the wider world of coffee, and take in all the latest designs and technology in this industry we love.
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Infinibrew takes the stage
Drake prepared by studying the InfiniBrew, as Newco chose to highlight the hot and cold brew versions of this machine for the SCA show. The InfiniBrew is designed to create world-class quality coffee, without work, monitoring, or training. Dosing, grinding, monitoring, brewing, dumping, and cleaning all occur internally and automatically, allowing teams to focus instead on guest service. In other segments, like convenience stores, offices, and hotels, the InfiniBrew is designed to never run out of fresh, high-quality coffee, no monitoring required. We brewed three coffees from Blueprint Coffee, a roaster based in Saint Louis, and Drake absolutely loved their Tekton blend and their single origin Ethiopia (Segera) brewed as cold brew.
Getting out on the floor
At SCA, Drake also had the opportunity to meet engineers from Ditting, who manufacture the InfiniBrew’s burr grinders, discuss how the smart servers detect when coffee is consumed so they can automatically start a small batch replacement, and answer many questions about how our cold InfiniBrew uses agitation to produce cold brew so quickly.
When he wasn’t working at our booth, Drake walked the floor, taking in all the designs, displays, merch, and of course, coffees. Torani’s booth got high marks for design, color palette, and a personalized quiz that recommends tailored drink recipes. He also loved the booths with structural elements and themes as well. Sanremo went beach themed for the San Diego show, going so far as building a lifeguard stand as part of their booth!
Drake loved visiting with Onyx, LaMarzocco, and seeing a wild new espresso machine with cutaways from Duvall Espresso. He returned with a load of stickers, magnets, and other swag for our team to enjoy and analyze, as we work to improve everything we do for you.
My personal highlight of talking to Drake was listening to him describe his first cupping. It filled me with nostalgia and happiness as I remembered my first cupping in the mid 2000’s.
Drake's first coffee cupping
Cuppings are essentially coffee evaluations for coffee professionals. The smells and tastes of freshly ground beans are analyzed and discussed as the coffee is smelled dry, then brewed without filters in bowls, its “crust” broken, then slurped with spoons as its temperature drops. Drake got to taste wild, naturally-processed coffees that tasted like blueberries, others that tasted like watermelon, and discovered his favorite country of origin and coffee – beans from Cofinet, a Colombian producer. Their washed Caturra variety was smooth, a little brown-sugary sweet (without any actual sweetener), and non-acidic; watching Drake smiled as he recalled it made me thrilled that he’d had a chance to leave the print lab, dive into the world of coffee, and expand his horizons in an industry we’ve been part of since 1974.
Values matter more than ever.
It’s amazing how much coffee culture has changed in the past fifty-two years in the United States, and yet how important our core values remain. In an industry facing unpredictable forces like climate change, coffee-rust, and import/export complications, we know that reliability, responsiveness, and personal relationships are more important than ever. Thanks for reading about Drake’s experience in San Diego and we hope to see you at NAMA, or at the NRA show in Chicago this spring! Here are a few more pictures from his trip.
