Do you ever wonder what professionals do after they quit competing? As an avid tennis fan when I was younger, I always thought that tennis pros retiring in their early thirties was such a weird concept. I would love to have retired at that age but then again, I’m not a professional athlete. The same principle could apply to serious coffee competitors like Craig Simon who participated in a mind-boggling number of regional and national competitions and ended up representing Australia on the world stage at least three times. What do people like him do when they step off the stage for the last time?

Though he’s still very much in his prime, Craig retired from competing in 2018 to focus on the next era in his life, which is largely centered around roasting, coaching and judging. There are probably few people in Australia who have the same level of expertise and knowledge as Craig does and yet, he’s always remained grounded and kind. When I first met Craig in person during a video call last year together with his wife Andrea, I instantly took a liking to him and both Craig and Andrea were super keen to get featured in one of our monthly Global coffee roasters selections.

Craig founded Criteria for his post competition era because he wanted to continue exploring the unique relationships with farmers that he had built during the previous years and because he wanted to offer his extensive knowledge and skills to other up and coming roasters. Criteria is more than just a roastery. Indeed it is also training and co-roasting space where small upstart roasters can use Criteria’s equipment and get coaching from one of Australia’s most skilled coffee professionals.

You might think for him coffee is all consuming but there’s also a musical side to Craig that has played a huge role in his life. As a highly accomplished jazz drummer, Craig has toured the world and you can listen to him on the album Daniel Gassin Sextet if you’re interested.

For me, it was very important to pick a really renowned roaster for the ten-year anniversary edition of The Coffeevine, which marks a huge milestone for us. For ten years, we have been sourcing exceptional coffees from around the world and presented them to our wildly diverse group of customers in over 60 countries. I am thrilled to add the legend that is Craig Simon to our list of partners. For this edition, Craig roasted a somewhat experimental Red Bourbon from The Santuario Project in Costa Rica.

This project is run by Camilo Merizalde who started The Santuario Project in Colombia in 2012 and has since taken it international to places like Costa Rica, Brazil and Mexico. Camilo helps local farmers in these countries to improve the quality of their coffee and consequently increase the cup scores to achieve better prices. In addition, he offers deep knowledge and education on diverse processing methods that can add an extra touch. In our case, we are getting a really exciting anaerobic natural mossto fermented Red Bourbon from Costa Rica that really signs in the cup. It’s juicy and acidic with a really pleasant mouthfeel.

To receive this excellent coffee, order our Global roasters selections from our shop.

Pre-orders close on 15.06.2024 / Ships globally on 20.06.2024