Three days of coffee education in East Java brought together local coffee people, coffees from around the world, and the support of coffee communities across 14 countries and 21 cities.
We did it. After months of planning, fundraising, packing coffee, dealing with international shipping, and bringing coffee communities together through our first Global Charity Cupping, GCAG Indonesia 2026 finally happened. For months, this project existed mostly as spreadsheets, emails, coffee boxes, shipping labels, presentations, fundraising numbers, and endless messages between people in different parts of the world. Then suddenly, we were sitting on the floor in a small village in East Java, surrounded by coffee people we had never met before. After all that preparation, GCAG was finally real.
The classroom wasn’t what we expected
We came to Indonesia with the idea of providing free coffee education for young coffee farmers, but once we arrived, reality looked a little different from what we had imagined. Many young people in the village have already left the farms to find work somewhere else. The people who joined us were different ages, almost all men, and many were pretty quiet and shy on the first morning. But they were there because they were curious about coffee and wanted to learn, and we quickly realized that mattered much more than whether they fit the original picture we had in our heads. So we sat on the floor together and started.
Over the next three days, we walked through the coffee forest, visited a small processing station in the village, practiced sensory skills, roasted coffee, cupped together, learned V60 and AeroPress, and watched coffee competition videos together. On the final day, we divided everyone into four teams and held a small brewing competition. By then, the atmosphere had completely changed. People were discussing recipes, helping their teammates, concentrating very seriously on their brews, laughing, and nervously waiting while the judges tasted their coffee. Three days isn’t a long time, but it was enough to see a room full of strangers become friends.
Their first Gesha
One of the moments we had been waiting for was finally opening the coffees from the GCAG Global Charity Cupping. These were the same coffees that coffee communities around the world had been cupping to raise funds for this course, and now we were sharing them with our students in Indonesia. For many of them, it was their first time tasting imported specialty coffee. Some had never tasted a Gesha before, let alone 90+ point coffees from Colombia or Panama. One of the older students told us, in his own way, that without GCAG he might have gone his whole life without knowing what a Gesha tasted like. It was a funny comment at the time, but it stayed with us. Something that can feel quite normal to people working in specialty coffee in major cities can still be a completely new experience for someone living much closer to where coffee actually grows. That is one of the reasons access to coffee education matters.
26 coffee shops. 18 countries. One purpose.
2026 was also the first year of our GCAG Global Charity Cupping. The idea was simple: coffee communities around the world cup the same coffees and use those events to raise funds to make free coffee education at origin possible. This year, coffee communities across 14 countries and 21 cities joined us. Coffee shops hosted events, people bought tickets, farms and roasters shared their coffees, and our charity partners, founding ambassadors, volunteers, and friends helped us connect all the pieces. Thousands of kilometers away from Indonesia, people were sitting around cupping tables tasting the same coffees for the same purpose. Then we carried those coffees and their support with us to East Java. We had talked about this connection for months, but sitting in that classroom and actually watching it happen felt very different. Coffee traveled from origin to cups around the world, and the value created around those cups came back to origin again.
Of course, the first year wasn’t perfect. We had coffee stuck at customs, parcels returned to us, boxes arriving late, and countries where we simply couldn’t find an affordable way to ship coffee. Some new coffees arrived after international boxes had already left, which meant not every location received exactly the same selection. International coffee shipping became one of the biggest headaches of the whole project. But people kept helping us find solutions. Coffee shops changed their dates, friends helped forward parcels, partners found coffee locally when our boxes couldn’t make it, and whenever something didn’t work, we tried something else. Somehow, the Global Charity Cupping happened, and we learned a huge amount from doing it for the first time.
This is where your support goes
Coffee Wristbands and L1GHT cups were never created just to become more coffee merchandise. They exist because we wanted to make simple products that could help us put resources back into the coffee community. During GCAG Indonesia, that idea became something we could actually see. At the end of the three-day course, every student received a certificate, a Coffee Wristband, and a full set of brewing equipment provided by our GCAG gear partner, TIMEMORE, so they could continue practicing and sharing what they learned after we were gone. Seeing those wristbands on everyone’s wrists was a small moment, but a meaningful one. Coffee people in different parts of the world are wearing those same little wristbands, and now our GCAG students are wearing them too.
If you’ve ever bought a Coffee Wristband or L1GHT cup, joined one of our Global Charity Cuppings, bought a ticket, contributed coffee, volunteered, shared our posts, or simply told another coffee person about this project, you helped make these three days possible. There wasn’t one person or one company behind what happened in Indonesia. A lot of people each did something small, and somehow all those small things traveled across borders and eventually arrived in one little classroom in East Java. For us, that’s probably the most beautiful part of the whole project: you don’t need to be a champion, a famous coffee professional, a Top 100 café, or someone with a huge following to make a difference. Everyone can bring something to the table.
We will be back in 2027
GCAG isn’t a one-year event. We will be back in 2027, and we already have a long list of things we want to do better. We want to start earlier, improve international logistics, give our Global Charity Cupping hosts more support, bring more interesting coffees to the table, and create an even better educational experience at the next origin. But we don’t necessarily want GCAG to become bigger just for the sake of being bigger. We want it to become better, more connected, and more useful to the coffee people it was created for.
For now, we’re taking a moment to appreciate what just happened. We arrived in Indonesia carrying support from coffee people all over the world and spent three very full days roasting, cupping, brewing, walking through farms, competing, talking, learning, and laughing together. We came here thinking we were going to teach, but we left with new friends, new lessons, and a much better understanding of what GCAG can become. Thank you to every student, local partner, coffee partner, charity partner, founding ambassador, volunteer, cupping host, participant, and supporter who helped make GCAG Indonesia 2026 possible.
Together, we made this happen. See you around the cupping table in 2027.
