In our October + November 2025 issue, we feature award-winning barista and roaster Delia Avram of Romania! Also included: we explore creative options for raising capital, potential baking programs, ’One on One’ with Uganda’s Ibrahim Kiganda, and much, much more!
BY SARAH ALLEN
BARISTA MAGAZINE
Welcome to the October + November 2025 issue of Barista Magazine! We’ve got some terrific content to share from a field report to the remote Faroe Islands to a quartet of Halloween-themed drink recipes in another issue packed with fantastic features, informative articles, in-depth interviews, and much more. Our team of writers, designers, illustrators, and photographers contributed to creating this issue with the incredible work you’ve come to expect. We couldn’t do it without them, and we wouldn’t do it without you, our readers. Thank you for reading and supporting Barista Magazine!
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Cover Feature: Delia Avram
Specialty coffee is relatively new in Romania compared to other parts of the world. It was only a few decades ago when Romanians living under communist rule faced widespread shortages of resources and bans on imports. Perhaps the fact that Delia’s father prioritized bringing quality coffee home from his business trips to Germany was a harbinger for Delia’s future profession. After working as a barista and roaster in Bucharest and Cluj, and going on to win the national barista championship title as well as the coveted Roast Masters title in Milan in 2023, Delia went on to open her own cafe, ROX, and roastery, Arusha, in her hometown of Baia Mare, Romania, which has not only been a tremendous success, but has helped to secure Romania’s reputation as a hub for specialty coffee.
‘Get Baked: Determining How Best to Offer Baked Goods at Your Shop’
No matter how much some cafe owners want to succeed based solely on the sales of specialty coffee, pastries are a tried-and-true avenue for adding more streams of revenue to a business. Not only that, customers expect it. In this article by veteran cafe retailer Maxwell Mooney of Threadbare Coffee Consulting, you’ll learn what your options are for implementing a stellar baked good program in your shop, from baking all of your own pastries, buying wholesale, or creating a hybrid of both.
‘Cultivating Capital: Sourcing Money Creatively to Expand Your Business’
Laila Ghambari, who owns three cafes and a roastery in Portland, Ore., and also writes the coffee-retail focused column, “The Knockbox” for Barista Magazine, takes on the substantial topic of how to raise capital for your business. There are numerous avenues for doing so, and Laila reviews each one in this information-packed article.
‘One on One: Ibrahim Kiganda’
When we profiled Jenna Gotthelf for the feature, “One on One,” in the June + July 2025 issue of Barista Magazine, we asked her who she thought would be an inspiring subject for a future “One on One” column. She was quick to respond with Ibrahim Kiganda, a coffee professional in Uganda, with whom she had struck up an online rapport several years ago. The two have shared ideas and strategies for their work in coffee—her, the director of education for Counter Culture Coffee, and him, a quality control manager for Mountain Harvest Coffee Company and also Uganda’s reigning national barista champion. Ibrahim shares the story of his coffee journey, the state of specialty in Uganda, and much more in this fascinating interview with Jenna.
And Much More Inside
Also in the October + November 2025 issue: travel north of the North Sea to the remote and rustic Faroe Islands for a Field Report of the archipelago’s growing specialty coffee scene; this issue’s “Tech Talk“ is written by Josh Taves and tackles the topic of filtration; additionally, we talk with members of the Ukrainian specialty coffee community about life during wartime and the role coffee plays in their lives, all of this and much, much more is in the new issue.
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