On December 12, Mr. Dixon Ip, a coffee connoisseur and a certified judge in coffee events around the world, came to our Club to talk about his most passionate topic: coffee. Mr. Ip is a friend of our Club’s honorary member Prof. Tim Tong. While most of us mortals drink coffee for its caffeine, Mr. Ip approaches coffee with the scientific rigor of a world-class lab researcher and the intense passion of a restless teenager. In Mr. Ip’s eyes, coffee is not just a drink; it is an ode to all the hard work that goes into it, from the farmers cultivating the coffee plants to the roasters experimenting with varied roasting temperatures. Mr. Ip is especially passionate about the cultivation process – something that has led him to travel all around the world in search of different agricultural techniques and pre-processing styles. As a coffee judge, he has also traveled around the world for coffee and barista competitions and, in the process, has probably seen more latte art than all of us – combined. Mr. Ip believes that coffee consumption has also changed over the years. Consumers are now paying more attention to package labeling. Whereas just a decade ago consumers would be happy just to find out the bean’s country of origin, consumers today are curious to know more details, including region, elevation, processing techniques, and how the coffee would taste on the palate.
