We have the honour to publish that the Director of our Institute of Coffee - INSTITUTO ESPAÑOL DE CAFE - Mr. Jon Willassen - has been nominated for the Lifetime Achievement Award of SCAE (Specialty Coffee Association of Europe) for a whole life dedicated to coffee world. It is one of the award SCAE will hand over under it's section called "The Awards for Coffee Excellence 2009". Under his nomination the mention they say the following about him:


"I haven't known Jon very long, but I had the chance to talk a lot with him about coffee, life in coffee and life itself. He has been a long time in coffee, worked in different countries, always in the world of coffee and also with SCAE.
He has now started his own school, IECAFE, in Barcelona, Spain.

He is not only a fantastic cupper, he is famous for his sensory training sessions -- he has his own style. When you just talk with him about different tastes in coffee, you can smell and taste it, just by talking and listening to him. Besides that, he is a very high skilled judge for different disciplines.

Starting his own coffee school is a big project and dream for him. He is a great teacher and trainer, because he is always there to help and to listen to people -- trying to make it simple and easy to understand. The love he puts into the coffee, he also puts this amount of attention for people, taking his time to listen and make it work -- like you should do to make a "speciality coffee"!