10 Minutes With Defne Ceyda Okay (Part One)

Defne reflects on her work in barista market development and judging, and on shaping coffee culture in Türkiye and beyond.

BY VASILEIA FANARIOTI
SENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT

Photos courtesy of Defne Ceyda Okay

Defne Ceyda Okay’s journey through coffee has never followed a single path. Starting behind the bar in Türkiye, her career quickly expanded into roasting, training, and eventually onto the global stage of coffee competitions. Over the years, she has moved between roles and geographies, gaining experience across different layers of the industry. 
 
Today, her work sits at the intersection of education, market development, and sensory understanding. Through her role in barista market development with Oatly and her involvement with the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), she contributes not only to how coffee is prepared, but to how it is communicated and understood.  

We spoke with Defne about influence, standards, creativity, and what it means to shape coffee culture today. 

Barista Magazine: You’ve moved across roles—barista, roaster, trainer, judge, and brand developer. How do you define what you do today? 

Defne: I work on shaping how coffee is understood and experienced. My background across barista, roasting, judging, and training gave me different entry points, but today, my focus is on building systems that connect quality, people, and market growth. 
 
A big part of that is my work in barista market development with Oatly, where I support how coffee professionals engage with products in a way that feels both practical and intentional. Alongside that, stepping into the SCA Shadow Coordinator role in Türkiye has added another layer, contributing to how future judges are trained and calibrated. 
 
I don’t see myself as one role anymore. I see my work as building bridges between standards, education, and real-world coffee experiences. 

At what point did coffee stop being just a craft for you and become a platform for influence? 

The shift happened when I realized that taste is not neutral. The way we describe coffee shapes how people experience it. Competitions and judging made that very clear to me.  

You are not just evaluating coffee—you are reinforcing a language and a set of expectations. That comes with influence, whether you intend it or not.That’s when coffee stopped being just something I do, and became something I’m responsible for shaping.

You work between global brands and local coffee communities—how do you navigate that balance without losing authenticity? 

I don’t think authenticity comes from staying local or going global. It comes from relevance. 
 
Global brands bring structure and scale, but they only work if they adapt to the culture they enter. Local communities bring depth and identity, but they also benefit from exposure to broader perspectives. 
 
My role often sits in translation. Especially in my work with Oatly, it’s about making sure global intentions land in a way that feels natural within the local coffee scene, not imposed onto it. 

As a competition judge, you help define standards. Do you ever feel conflicted about shaping what “good” coffee should be? 

Yes, and I think that tension is necessary. Standards give us a common language, but they should never become a fixed definition of taste. Coffee is constantly evolving, and if our standards don’t evolve with it, they become limiting. 
 
As a judge, my responsibility is to stay consistent within the system while remaining open to what sits outside of it. Good coffee is not static, and it shouldn’t be treated that way. 

What separates a technically perfect coffee experience from one that’s genuinely memorable today? 

Precision creates clarity, but it doesn’t guarantee impact. A technically perfect coffee can still feel forgettable. What makes it memorable is the intention. How it’s presented, how it’s communicated, how it makes someone feel in that moment. People don’t remember extraction yields. They remember how something made them feel. 

Coffee culture is becoming increasingly visual and trend-driven. Do you see that as a positive evolution or a distraction? 

It’s a powerful tool, but it depends on how it’s used. Visual culture has made coffee more accessible and brought new audiences in, which is valuable. But when visuals become the main focus, we risk reducing coffee to aesthetics. The opportunity is to use visual storytelling as an entry point, not the final message. 

We will release part two of this interview tomorrow.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vasileia Fanarioti (she/her) is a senior online correspondent for Barista Magazine and a freelance copywriter and editor with a primary focus on the coffee niche. She has also been a volunteer copywriter for the I’M NOT A BARISTA NPO, providing content to help educate people about baristas and their work.

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