mrhugodriscoll - Tumblr blog

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Sam Keck: The Sprudge Twenty Interview

Sam Keck (Photo by 3000 Thieves)

Welcome to The Sprudge Twenty Interviews presented by Pacific Barista Series. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be featuring our 2019 featured class of Sprudge Twenty honorees, each one changing the coffee game worldwide. For a complete list of 2019 Sprudge Twenty honorees please visit sprudge.com/twenty.

Sam Keck is an entrepreneur and founder of Commonfolk Coffee, located in the town of Mornington, on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne. Keck has spun a successful roaster/retailer into a series of social enterprise efforts, including Zukuka Bora, a farmers initiative benefitting coffee growers in Uganda; and Home Ground, which is focused on providing training and job options in hospitality to unemployed youth on the Mornington Peninsula. By fusing the high demand for quality coffee with organized social enterprise, Keck’s work shows us how coffee can do more than just taste good—it can also do very serious good for communities at home and around the world.

Nominated by David Bishop

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

Overall the sustainability of coffee as an industry. In particular the seemingly widening disconnect between producer and consumer. Too many “industry professionals” assume far too much and don’t actually bother to understand what a producer’s priorities are.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

What started out as a cheap way to fuel my caffeine addiction has transformed into an insatiable desire to bridge the gap between my customers and my producers. I want to understand more about how coffee as an industry can continue to serve both our customers and provide meaningful and sustainable work for our producers.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

The fact that many people on both ends of coffee production are suffering. Many producers/farmers are among the lowest paid people in the entire world. On the flip side, many cafe owners—especially in small business—are going out of business at a rate you wouldn’t believe. If the two ends of the chain can’t make a fair income our industry has serious issues. A lot of people talk about the issues producers and farmers have (not that much is done about it), but there isn’t too much conversation about the struggles of the cafe/coffee bar owner. In fact, you could argue that the responsibility and burden of equalizing our industry, making it fairer for farmers, is too often thrust upon the final part of the chain: the small business owner, many of whom are broke and not really in a position to make a big difference. We should be looking at adding value in other areas and ultimately placing the responsibility on the consumer who has had it too good for too long, at least here in Australia.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

There is no greater sensory experience than the aroma of freshly ground coffee!

Did you experience a “god shot” or life-changing moment of coffee revelation early in your career?

I was working as a barista in 2006 but I’d never really had “specialty” coffee and I visited St Ali, back when it was still owned by Mark Dundon, of later Seven Seeds and Paramount Coffee Project fame. I was lucky enough to order a natural Yirg as a filter coffee. I never believed that coffee could taste so extraordinary. Delicate aroma of bergamot and orange blossom, bright citrus acidity and a rich booziness—damn I was hooked. I haven’t looked back since!

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

Recreating some kind of rubbish Starbucks cocktail but with super high-quality ingredients, organic maple syrup, unpasteurized local dairy, and real vanilla beans. I love watching wanky baristas have meltdowns.

If you could have any job in the coffee industry, what would it be and why?

Probably the job I currently have.

Who are your coffee heroes?

James Hoffmann. In the early days he was one of the few people creating content online, so I felt like I wasn’t the only coffee crazy guy in the world. Also Alan Adler, the dude who invented the AeroPress. I bought my first AP in 2005 but I was so sketchy on it—any product that has to say “the best coffee maker in the world” on the box seems kind of suspicious—but I guess on this occasion they weren’t lying.

If you could drink coffee with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Tough question, but probably Sir David Attenborough. He’s a real hero of mine and I would love the chance to talk about his life and experiences, but also to pick his brain on the future of our planet and how he thinks we can turn things around.

If you didn’t get bit by the coffee bug, what do you think you’d be doing instead?

Following on from the previous question—I actually have a degree in Zoology and I was planning on traveling the globe filming nature documentaries, a la Sir David.

Do you have any coffee mentors?

There’s always been a real coffee culture in Melbourne but the movement towards “specialty” really only kicked off in the early 2000s. I was lucky enough to befriend ex-head roaster of Five Senses and Ceremony Coffee, Caleb Podhaczky, and he was instrumental in my coffee journey early on. I was actually lucky enough to employ him for about a year when he returned to Australia and it was really fun to work with one of the people who inspired you to start in the industry. Another key figure that was instrumental in my coffee journey early days was Shannon Roche, a barista on the Mornington Peninsula where Commonfolk is located. They’re one of the first baristas I met who focused on preparing quality coffee and really opened my eyes to coffee’s potential.

Otherwise, I try and look outside the industry for inspiration because I find that coffee sometimes insulates itself from the outside world and really limits our opportunities to grow as an industry. I take a lot of inspiration from the craft beer and lofi wine industries. I have some great friends who are really pushing the boundaries on what is acceptable in those industries, from brands like Mr Banks, Chevre Wines, Mornington Brewery, and Jetty Road Brewery, and a lot of their ideas/philosophies can be transferred to coffee—especially at the producing end.

What do you wish someone would’ve told you when you were first starting out in coffee?

No one has a fucking clue what they’re doing. Don’t take anyone seriously.

Name three coffee apparatuses you’d take into space with you.

AeroPress, Ikawa sample roaster, and a stubby holder (to keep my coffee warm).

Best song to brew coffee to:

Shout out to the Commonfolk bar—definitely “September” by Earth Wind & Fire.

Look into the crystal ball—where do you see yourself in 20 years?

Retired or at least with enough time to study coffee science and agronomy.

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

Black coffee. I’m trying to intermittently fast because dad bod.

When did you last drink coffee?

At lunchtime.

What was it?

A cheeky batch brew of a washed Yirg from the Gedeo region of Ethiopia.

Thank you.

The Sprudge Twenty is presented by Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2019 Sprudge Twenty honorees please visit sprudge.com/twenty

Zachary Carlsen is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Zachary Carlsen on Sprudge.

The post Sam Keck: The Sprudge Twenty Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2UBHzBV

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

If You Love Coffee, You’ll Love These Award Winning Products

Crowds clamor at the Slayer Pop-Up at the 2019 Boston SCA Expo. (Photo courtesy Slayer)

The Specialty Coffee Association‘s annual Expo is one of the largest coffee tradeshows in the world. With seven Sprudge folks on the floor, we covered a sampling of fine pop-ups, tech drops, and show floor surprises. All the while, our team covered World Barista Championship and Brewers Cup over on our sister site Sprudge Live. There’s just so much to cover—we’d need a team of 50 to really do it justice! While we were wrapping up Facebooking, Instagramming, Tweeting, and live-blogging, the SCA honored exhibitors of the festival with a set of gleaming awards.

15 awards were handed out for Best New Product in several categories and their Design Lab. The Best New Product Competition and Display are judged on their quality and value.

The 2019 Best New Product winners are:

Kruve Inc. EQ: Coffee Accessories Bellwether Coffee: Commercial Coffee or Tea Preparation & Serving Equipment Breville Barista Pro Model BES 878: Consumer Coffee or Tea Preparation & Serving Equipment – Electrical Cafélat Robot Espresso Maker: Consumer Coffee or Tea Preparation & Serving Equipment – Non-Electrical Cometeer Coffee Capsule: Open Class Steeped Coffee S-101: Packaging 1883 Maison Routin elixirs d’ exception ~ truffle: Specialty Beverage Flavor Additive Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Powder: Specialty Beverage Flavor Additive (Honorable Mention) Dona Chai Spiced Soda Pink Peppercorn Lemon: Specialty Beverage Stand Alone iFinca Coffee Chain: Technology Tierra Nueva Nudge Coffee Butter: Food

The award-winning Kruve EQ Glassware Line. (Photo courtesy SCA)

Four awards were handed to winners of the Design Lab. “Great coffee is often given dissection via great design, and increasingly serves an important function in distinguishing specialty coffee,” explains the SCA. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves!

The 2019 Design Lab Winners are:

Rishi Tea. Design by Studio MPLS: Branding Category Greater Goods Coffee Roasters. Design by Michael Hsu Office of Architecture: Spaces Blue Bottle Coffee Can. Design by Elaine Fong and Neil Day: Packaging KRUVE EQ Glassware Line by KRUVE Inc. Design by Michael Vecchiarelli: Vessels

Blue Bottle’s award-winning coffee cans. (Photo courtesy SCA)

Last, but certainly not least, three very special awards were given to the Best Booths and the Best Pop-up at the show. For the 10 years we’ve been covering the SCA tradeshow here in America, it feels as if the bar gets raised higher and higher each year when it comes to quality booth design. The SCA gave the awards for all-out best to these deserving three:

Bellwether Coffee: Inline Category Anacafé/Guatemala: Island Category Slayer Espresso: Pop-up Category

The award-winning Slayer pop-up cafe. (Photo courtesy Slayer)

It was indeed a year of innovation, high-stakes design, and thoughtful execution. The beauty of the curved Kruve EQ glassware. The simplicity of the Blue Bottle coffee can. The ultra-modern yet understated Slayer pop-up. The question on everyone’s lips is: who will it be next year? When the ribbon is cut at the Portland Convention Center, who will truly bring it? Only time will tell.

Congratulations to all of the winners of the 2019 SCA Expo Awards!

The post If You Love Coffee, You’ll Love These Award Winning Products appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2IWFAWZ

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Tickets Are Now Available For The Bloom Event Series By The Barista Guild

April showers bring May flowers, and what do May flowers bring? Why Blooms (plural) of course. Back for the fourth event in as many years, Bloom is an event series from the Barista Guild that “brings together some of the best minds in coffee, creating a unique opportunity for deeper discussion and engagement for attendees.” And this time, they are doing things a little differently. Instead of hosting a single event over the course of a three-day weekend, Bloom is hitting the road throughout June, making four stops along the east and west coasts.

Like with previous iterations, Bloom looks both within and outside the coffee industry to put together thought-provoking discussions and panel talks to provide “the opportunity for meaningful dialogue” amongst coffee professionals. Each of the four stops will revolve around three primary talks. The first, A Participant in the Evolution of Specialty Coffee, will be led by 2106 USBC Champion and 4th place finisher at the 2016 World Barista Championship, Black & White Coffee Roasters’ Lem Butler. The second talk looks outside the industry (sort of). Innovation Culture in Food and Coffee is a “crash course one innovation culture” led by Coffee Manufactory’s Chris Jordan and Chad Robertson, the founder of Tartine who exists amongst the breadmaking pantheon (ask one of your baking coffee friends, there are a ton of them (us)). The final discussion is more community-focused. Creating Coffee Communities of the Future is a panel discussion featuring local coffee professionals who will be talking about what it takes to create a thriving, inclusive coffee community (it ain’t just throwdowns).

The June 2019 Bloom events stops are:

June 17: Atlanta, GA — Counter Culture June 19: Washington, DC — Small Planes Coffee June 24: Salt Lake City, UT — Campos Coffee June 26: Los Angeles, CA — Coffee Manufactory

In the past, Bloom has taken a little heat for the cost of attending the event, but thanks in part to sponsors DaVinci Gourmet and Pacific Barista Series, the price for all four events has been cut in half. And tickets purchased before May 30th are even cheaper. Early bird rates run $50 and $65 for SCA members and non-members, respectively. On May 31st, prices increase to $60 and $75, with group discounts available at $40 per person (minimum of five required).

For more information on the event or to register, visit Bloom’s official website.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via Bloom

The post Tickets Are Now Available For The Bloom Event Series By The Barista Guild appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2GCkdZm

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

The Hottest Tech Drops At SCA Expo 2019

For the biggest coffee weekend of the year—the 2019 Speciality Coffee Association Expo in Boston—we sent intrepid journalist and Chocolate Barista founder Michelle Johnson onto the showfloor to put her finger on the pulse of what’s new and exciting in the coffee industry today. Last week she told us what was lit; today she’s reporting on the show’s hottest new tech.

Wootz 7 Grinder

From South Korean company, Global CMS, the Wootz 7 Grinder (named after wootz steel) is the new kid on the block officially making its US debut. Ambassador Nick Cho of Wrecking Ball Coffee demoed the grinder, highlighting the simplicity of the plug-and-play machinery inside (a technician’s dream), the digital auto-calibration feature of the burrs to its previous setting, and the rotating wire that evenly distributed the coffee as it entered the portafilter. I’ve been a part of a distribution tool debate and had the opportunity to mess around with this manually. It’s cool to see it automated so seamlessly—especially with a portafilter lock that lets the barista go hands-free. The Wootz 7 Grinder is currently available in Korea and will hopefully begin distributing in the US by the end of the year pending UL and NSF certifications. It will be listed at $2,000 USD.

Mahlkönig E65S

The sleek, slim profile of the Mahlkönig E65S debuted this weekend in Boston, and we’re sure it’ll be an attractive addition to the bar tops of our favorite coffee shops soon. The E65S boasts several new features that promote cleaner and more efficient espresso grinding. One of those features is the digital display with a turn and push selection knob allowing for swift dial-in—six recipes can be programmed as well as any on-the-fly adjustments for those midday rushes. Say goodbye to espresso waste as the adjustable spout is designed to chute four to seven grams of espresso per second (on average) directly into the portafilter. The bean hopper is more durable than Mahlkönig grinders of the past and the whole thing grinds quieter too. The Mahlkönig E65S is listed at $2,200 USD and will begin shipping in May.

Coffunity

Transparency is increasingly a watchword for the coffee industry, up and down the value chain. With increased access to information comes an informed consumer base, better, sustainable pricing for farmers, and increased traceability. Coffunity aims to push this mission further through their app made for consumers, roasters, and producers. Consumers can take a photo of a coffee label and the app will identify and display ratings, reviews, and tasting notes from the coffee community. They can learn more about the coffee’s origin from who produced it to how it was processed (and what that means). Roasters are able to see what others are saying about the coffee. Soon, coffee producers will also be able to see what others are saying about their coffee and how much it sells for, opening up access to information that’s been closed to many for too long. This 2018 SCA Best New Product winning app is available to download on the App Store and Google Play now.

Acaia Pearl Model S

Acaia is back at it again with cutting edge technology to help coffee professionals and home brewers alike up their coffee game. As the Acaia Pearl Model S turns on, it welcomes you with a personalized message you can customize on the accompanying app. This app itself is extremely interactive, allowing for brewers to share their recorded brew recipes to anyone and download them from their friends or the database of recipes uploaded by coffee companies themselves. What’s even more fascinating is that when a recipe is downloaded, it won’t only display on your phone or table but the scale will display each step of the brew process in real-time for brewers to follow along.

The cherry on top is possibly the flow-rate meter that can display by itself or alongside the timer and water weight to indicate the consistency of the pour. On top of all of that, the Pearl Model S still looks so damn good. I don’t know about you but I think I just received the key to being the next World Brewers Cup Champion. The Acaia Pearl Model S is available now online for $185 USD.

MAVAM Mach 2

A disruptor in the undercounter espresso machine game since 2015, Seattle-based MAVAM has officially launched its oncounter espresso machine, the Mach 2. It has the same inner components and temperature stability of its undercounter sibling, and still has a low profile on bar (12.5 in./32 cm. tall) in true MAVAM fashion. The nicest feature of the Mach 2 is the tap button—both on the side for the cool touch steam wand power and on the grouphead. Seeing the machine in action, the tap feature really does promote efficiency for any barista running it, and shows how the espressso machine industry is taking ergonomics and workflow concerns seriously for the next generation of baristas. MAVAM’s Mach 2 is available to order now at $16,000 USD (two-group) and $19,000 USD (three-group).

Michelle Johnson is a news contributor at Sprudge Media Network, and the founder and publisher of The Chocolate Barista. Read more Michelle Johnson on Sprudge.

The post The Hottest Tech Drops At SCA Expo 2019 appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2PofJIx

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Logging a Long Time Ago

The other day I chanced to overhear a conversation from the living room. The boss was regaling Jade with tales his mother told him of the logging camps up around Boonville when she was a young lady. She cooked in a diner/restaurant that we think was named the Brown Derby. The loggers would come out of the woods periodically and always stopped in for some of the wonderful meals served there. Peg was the chief pie maker there and I can personally attest to her incredible powers with crust and filling. Her pies were much in demand for church bake sales in later days. I couldn't help but feel privileged to have such a close connection with a time so long ago and so different from today, and to have heard first-hand so many great stories....because although I don't know as many of them as the boss does, I did hear a number of them. The memories begged to be put in the Farm Side, so that is what I am doing this week. Meanwhile, here are some of the research links I am using. Fascinating stuff...do read if you have the time. Life in a log camp Food in a log camp Supper at a modern camp...on the Golden Road! The Blacksmith Shop Some pictures Some really big loads of logs

The Golden Road

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Happy Easter

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

The Coffee In Amsterdam’s “Coffeeshops” Has Never Been Better

You have to admit it’s getting better. So reports Karina Hof, a longtime Sprudge staff writer based in Holland, who has for years been fascinated by the disconnect between Amsterdam’s famed “coffeeshops”—lounges where legal cannabis is sold and consumed freely—and the actual coffee served therein. In a city with one of the world’s great modern coffee cultures, and centuries of history in the coffee trade, why would the famed “coffeeshops” serve high quality cannabis but such low quality brews?

Happily that’s changing, and fast. Karina Hof reports to us today from Amsterdam, just in time for the global 4/20 cannabis holiday.

By 2016, Amsterdam had an astounding 173 coffeeshops—lounges where cannabis can be bought and consumed onsite, much to the delight of tourists, expats and yes, evens some locals. For an article on this site the year before, I went looking for an enjoyable coffee to have at the city’s cannabis purveyors, many of which offer patrons a place to sit and smoke, snack, and sip. There were a couple of OK cups, including one prepared with what could be readily identified as “specialty coffee”, but mostly I encountered over-extracted old-school-Mediterranean dark roasts and staff who were caught off guard by my inquires; sometimes it felt as though I was asking such a trivial or taboo question, like: who provides your toilet paper?

Here in spring 2019, I revisited the assignment, finding that in four years, the number of coffeeshops serving specialty coffee had quadrupled. The figure itself is not extreme, but it shows evolution—perhaps as much of specialty coffee’s democratization as cannabis culture’s mainstreaming. Five places described here use coffee from either Australian-headed, Amsterdam-founded Lot Sixty One or the longer-established Dutch operation Bocca, both of which are among the Netherlands’ larger specialty roasters. These brands appear in cafes, restaurants, and stores around the country, but to experience them in a coffeeshop imbues in that euphemism for these venues a new, true meaning.

Tweede Kamer

The arrival of specialty coffee to Tweede Kamer is just another jewel in the tiara of this coffeeshop, the most elegant around in terms of interior (art deco) and staff (as personable as professional). Now standing alongside the pre-rolled joint cones and plastic storages—many containing a cannabis selection from Amsterdam Genetics—are Tweede Kamer-branded Lot Sixty One coffee packages. The display itself reflects how much changed since Sprudge last visited, back when they were serving, “terrible coffee,” as company social media coordinator and ever-effervescent budtender Babiche Bakker puts it. “It was a lot of different beans mixed.”

Today, Tweede Kamer and its sister business, Coffeeshopamsterdam, send their staff for barista courses at Lot Sixty One, which Bakker points out is a smart move since Tweede Kamer as a training space is “too small probably.” Elbow-to-elbow seating does not deter their loyal, diverse clientele. No wonder that American tourist’s dying wish: to have his ashes preserved at his favorite coffeeshop—worry not, the urn is on a shelf well above the strains and the beans.

Tweede Kamer is located at Heisteeg 6, Amsterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Coffeeshopamsterdam

On what Smokers Guide to Amsterdam calls the High Street owing to its concentration of coffeeshops, one that stands out for its plainly memorable (in the long, not short, term, naturally) is Coffeeshopamsterdam. Formerly known as Dampkring II, this venue, which has the same owner as Tweede Kamer though is about triple the size, also sells a cannabis selection from Amsterdam Genetics and coffee from Lot Sixty One. Both budtenders and baristas here are attentive and easygoing, whether handing over with your cappuccino a free mini stroopwaffel or a 10-euro gram of Girl Scout Cookies.

Fully embracing its polysemous branding, the business prints “Amsterdam Coffee” on its coffee packaging, baggies, and literature; accompanying the words is the image of a white demitasse with, not steam, but ascending smoke rings. Explains company digital media manager Paul James: “Advertising for a coffeeshop is totally illegal as is promoting the sale of drugs. However, promoting Amsterdam Coffee is not. We just let people make their own minds up about the connection between the two.”

Coffeeshopamsterdam is located at Haarlemmerstraat 44, Amsterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Green House United

When, on a springy Wednesday morning, a soft-spoken server brought to the table the menu’s “Healthy Breakfast”—low-fat yoghurt, low-sugar cruseli, fresh fruits, and a sprig of mint all gingerly arranged in a custard goblet—the place suddenly seemed less like an Amsterdam coffeeshop and more like a Le Pain Quotidien. But instead of bottomless hazelnut spread, there was that common coffeeshop fixture: a glass filled with green leaves of rolling-tobacco substitute.

Sure enough, this was Green House United, the largest of the city’s four Green House coffeeshops.

With an actual kitchen, it can cater to meal-size munchies day or night and, turns out, perfectly extract a single-origin Brazilian coffee, Bocca’s Soulmate. The light, fresh fare contrasts with leathery maroon furnishings and dim lighting, though the walls are undeniably brightened by Cannabis Cup trophies, smiling stoner celebrity photos, and clips from VICE/HBO’s Strain Hunter. That show follows Arjan Roskam, founder of Green House Seed Co. and the eponymous coffeeshops, as he searches for cannabis landraces on continent-hopping expeditions that sometimes share remarkable similarities with coffee-origin trips.

Green House United is located at Haarlemmerstraat 64, Amsterdam. Visit their official website.

La Tertulia

Brownie points are in order here because four years ago, when Sprudge sought low and high for decent coffee at coffeeshops, La Tertulia delivered. The same holds true today. “We are still serving Bocca coffee,” replies Aline, the younger of the mother-daughter team who own the business, when recently asked for an update. “Moreover, all our employees are getting a training by Bocca soon!”

Whether or not the baristas will master latte art, which Aline hopes for, La Tertulia is sure to maintain its unique appeal. The coffeeshop is women-owned and women-operated, has more space than most—upstairs, small groups can comfortably work or play a borrowed board game; outside bistro chairs and tables allow for smoking and sipping al fresco and canal-side—and a respectable snack menu. The toasties come in about a dozen variations (who would have known tomato-chili chutney, zucchini, and pineapple work together?). And the pot brownie is of American-standard dimensions, homemade by a baker to whom Aline delivers her regularly collected shake.

La Tertulia is located at Prinsengracht 312, Amsterdam. Visit their official website.

Hempstory

You cannot smoke or vape here, but this hemp-heralding lifestyle store deserves an honorable mention. At its core is a bar with a La Marzocco Linea Classic, which Bocca-trained baristas use to prepare Bocca coffee drinks. Hemp milk repeats on the menu, and hot beverages come with a complimentary heart-shaped Hanf & Natur hemp biscuit.

From clothes to cosmetics and chips to cookies, much of the goods sold here are made from or with hemp. The shop also well stocks CBD products from world-renowned seed bank Sensi Seeds, whose founder, Ben Dronkers, owns Hempstory itself, the neighboring Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum, and industrial hemp company Hempflax. Despite being in the middle of the Red Light District, Hempstory is green-leaning—stylistically more Broccoli than Pineapple Express, more GOOP than Snoop—but equally respectful of the aesthetics surrounding coffee and cannabis.

Hempstory is located at Oudezijds Achterburgwal 142, Amsterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge.

The post The Coffee In Amsterdam’s “Coffeeshops” Has Never Been Better appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2GnxCmP

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Low Life Still Life

At Beardsley Reservoir

Just a bad bird shot that turned out kinda cool

Another without the cormorant

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Stumptown To Release CBD Cold Brew Elixir Just In Time For The Holidays

Tomorrow is April 20th, colloquially known as 420, a holiday you’ve all been waiting for. That’s right, tomorrow is National Cold Brew Day, which definitely started by Stumptown as a joke, but is now being treated as a real thing by thirsty cold brew marketers worldwide. To help slake that thirst, Portland’s Stumptown Coffee Roasters has a special release just for you. For one day only, Stumptown will be selling a new CBD Cold Brew Elixir.

CBD cold brew is hardly a new product. Not a week goes by where I don’t feed the trash folder in my inbox news of some start-up disrupting the cold brew market with a disruptive addition of CBD to a disruptive new cold brew nitro can or whatever. But Stumptown’s take on the form is a lot of fun, and will be appearing in an extremely limited drop timed for 4/20.

Available only in their Portland stores (excluding the airport), Stumptown’s CBD Cold Brew Elixir is a collaborative effort with East Fork Cultivars, “one of Oregon’s leading craft hemp and cannabis farms,” per the press release. The three-ounce drink pairs the coffee company’s original Cold Brew concentrate—which is twice the strength of their regular Cold Brew—with 15mg of USDA organic “water soluble CBD extract.”

CBD Cold Brew Elixir is a 420 exclusive product with an extremely limited run; only 1,000 total bottles are being made available for purchase. Each three-ounce bottle will cost the exact price we all expect it to: $4.20 (which makes you wonder why it isn’t a 4.20 ounce bottle).

So tomorrow if you’re looking to dabble with a doobie or get trippy with a tipple, head on over to any non-airport Portland Stumptown location and get you a mellow high.

For more information, visit Stumptown Coffee‘s official website.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via Stumptown Coffee Roasters

Disclosure: Stumptown Coffee is an advertising partner with the Sprudge Media Network.

The post Stumptown To Release CBD Cold Brew Elixir Just In Time For The Holidays appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2IQ3Iun

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

The Lit List: Michelle Johnson’s Favorite Moments From SCA 2019

Coffee POGs Are Most Certainly Now A Thing

Only 90s kids will remember the popularity that surrounded POGS and slammers back in the day, and thanks to Jen Apodaca, they made a HUGE comeback for SCA Boston. George Howell, Umeshiso, and Boss Barista POGS were being traded like Pokemon cards on the EXPO floor, and I couldn’t figure out if we were in 1995 or 2019. If there was a winner for having the most coffee POGS, Alicia Adams absolutely takes the cake (pictured). I didn’t grow up with POGS and quite frankly, didn’t know what they were until this weekend. But after collecting a few of my own, I realize they’re a lovely reminder of the fun, not-so-serious side of the coffee world. I expect this to become a new tradition for SCA.

I Tasted The Best Coffee I Ever Had. Ever.

One of my favorite parts of Expo is getting to taste so many different coffees from nearly every origin around the world. I went hard this year participating in an Ethiopian coffee cupping, indulging in multiple Califia oat milk lattes, and drinking World Brewers Cup competitor coffees in the Activities Hall. At the Sustainable Harvest Relationship Coffee booth, I tried the most delicious coffee I’ve ever had. Period.

Roasted by Colo Coffee in Bogota, Colombia, this Eugenioides species microlot from Colo’s Ancestros series (a series of coffees highlighting rare heirloom varieties native to Colombia) tasted like a berry fruit juice BOMB. Jamil Hallasso Holguin of Café Inmaculada, the producer of this coffee, happily poured me a second cup while we talked about its juicy, sweet characteristics. It was a wonderful example of the duality of countries that are producing and consuming. They know better than anyone how their coffees should taste!

Claw Machines (And Other Lottery-Style Games) Are In

The Fellow Products booth was consistently packed throughout the weekend thanks in part to their claw machine where Expo attendees could try their luck winning Stagg EKG kettles and other swag. Did anyone actually score a Stagg EKG? I’m not sure. I heard more people bragging about the fact they couldn’t grab anything than the opposite. Over at Baratza’s booth, you could try and scratch your way to owning the new Baratza Virtuso+ with a lottery ticket, but I’m not sure anyone won that either. Better luck next year, folks!

Visible Diversity At Expo? You Got It!

Let’s be real: a consistent critique of Expo and many coffee industry events is the lack of diversity on all sides—from those standing at the booth to people in attendance. This year’s event looked different and I mean that in the best way possible. As I walked around the floor, I saw people from different backgrounds talking to people about equipment, apps, and the state of the coffee industry with respect to the C Price (which is currently at $0.90). I heard coffee described in English, Japanese, Spanish, and Swahili. Two Asian women from China and South Korea were crowned as our World Brewers Cup and World Barista Champions, respectively. While there’s always more work to be done, it’s important to take a moment to celebrate how far we’ve come. It’s in these moments we can begin to imagine more possibilities for the coffee industry as we continue to grow.

Many Babies Had Their First Expo Experience And We Loved It

Photo by Paige Hicks

Many coffee professional parents will be adding “Baby’s 1st Coffee Expo” to the baby book as the next generation of coffee lovers were in high attendance this year. We spotted Erica Escalante, owner of The Arrow Coffeehouse in Portland, Oregon with her daughter, Lupe, in tow in the Activities Hall (where the competitions were held), as well as several other coffee children. This portion of the Expo was the only place infants and children under the age of 12 were allowed according to the Specialty Coffee Association’s show policies.

Fortunately, friends and colleagues alike stepped in to help watch Lupe and any other babies so their parents could take some time to see the rest of the show. Coffee parents are starting to sound off about this show policy and how it bars access from people with children who want to remain focused on their careers. We’ll be sure to keep an eye out for how this conversation develops. In the meantime, I’ll be swooning over all the baby photos from the weekend.

Tell Your Grandparents: Frozen Coffee Is The Future

Don’t worry, there will be dedicated round-up of coffee tech from Expo, but I spent a considerable amount of time at the Cometeer Coffee Capsule booth going from hard skeptic to a believer. I’m already an advocate for frozen coffee—frozen beans vacuumed sealed at the optimum point post-roast to be enjoyed months, even years after the fact. But Cometeer took it in a different direction. They extracted the best parts of already brewed coffee, apparently at its peak state, and froze it inside these 100% recyclable capsules for use whenever you see fit. I tasted the Counter Culture capsule brewed via Keurig and was pleasantly surprised by how great it tasted. The coffee had clarity and distinct but subtle fruit notes. It should be no surprise that Cometeer won 2019 Best New Product, and we should expect to see more from them soon!

The EXPO Sneaker Game Was On Point

There was no shortage of heat on the EXPO floor, and we’re not talking about water for coffee brewing. We love a good sneaker here at Sprudge and while in the hometown of Reebok, I made sure to keep an eye out for the latest fire people wore to coffee cuppings on the show floor. I was so far from disappointed. Spotted on foot were Lebron 15’s, Adidas, and every style of Nike in multiple colorways—Huaraches, Air Max 97’s, and bedazzled (!!!) Air Force One’s.

The coffee industry’s Dad Shoe Dad himself, Nick Cho, took it to another level with Balenciaga Track Sneakers while demoing the new Wootz Grinder. Of course, those were just one of several rarities he brought to show out. I think my favorite shoes this weekend were on Gio Fillari (@CoffeeFeedPDX, Sprudge, Nike), who blessed us with the Air Max 97 Off-White. To round it out, I came to Expo with my own heat that I saved specifically for emceeing the World Brewers and Barista Competition—the millennial pink Aleali May Jordan 6, a recent drop from Jordan Women. Next year when SCA lands in Portland, the collision of sneakers and coffee will be even more apparent and perhaps, intentional.

Michelle Johnson is a news contributor at Sprudge Media Network, and the founder and publisher of The Chocolate Barista. Read more Michelle Johnson on Sprudge.

The post The Lit List: Michelle Johnson’s Favorite Moments From SCA 2019 appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2XrQk3y

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

The Incredible Pop-Up Cafes of SCA Expo 2019

For those convening upon Boston this past weekend, there was no shortage of great coffee at mini-cafes popping up outside, over, around, and through the 2019 Specialty Coffee Expo. But of course, when you get right down to it, there will always be those superstars of the pop, those who pop a little EXTRA with the best coffee or the longest lines or biggest buzz or deepest DJ grooves. Here’s what our team on the ground spotted on the scene of see and be seen coffee pop-ups.

Miir

Seattle-based Miir is an “it” vessel manufacturer these days, whose sustainability mission as a reuseable cup company walks the walk with a giving program that contributes grant money to philosophically aligned projects like providing clean water to the Asian subcontinent, or bicycles to help Zambian students (and teachers) get to school. The B Corp’s Seattle flagship is LEED-certified, and let’s be honest—the cups are also stylish af, which is why all the coffee brands you love already use them.

And which is also why fans of the brand—and free stuff—lined up for times upwards of one hour Friday and Saturday mornings to get some of the most coveted swag of the convention: SCA Expo-exclusive Miir mugs, which of course you could have topped up with Verve coffee brewed in Miir’s ingenious fold-flat pop-out travel drippers, or with the same roaster’s Nitro Flash Brew coffee. Once in hand, the Miir Expo cup proved to be the perfect fashionable accessory to flash while lounging around the modern furnishings of the Miir booth flipping through Verve’s latest Farmlevel journal, or admiring numerous displays of other Miir designs out of which one was not currently drinking. And if you so happened to be sucked out of the calming Miir oasis and back into the vortex of the show floor, that same cup proved perfect for sustainably sampling coffee from all the other great pop-ups out there.

La Marzocco

It’s almost not even news to say that La Marzocco‘s Expo presence drew a bustling crowd, but let’s go ahead and say it: this equipment company is always on the vanguard not only of coffee tech but of roaster/barista relationships. The LM booth at Expo is a perennial nexus of activity for those looking for an excellent espresso drink from a quality roaster (maybe one they’ve never tried before) made on a beautiful machine.

This year the company drew attention for its angular new KB90 machine, built with barista ergonomics in mind, like portafilters that slide straight in. But the La Marzocco booth—or should we say, booths, as the company’s appeal is large enough to have literally spilled across the convention aisle—was also a hotspot for roasters from all over to pop up throughout the event. The list of guests on the La Marzocco booth included, but was certainly not limited to, such names as Tandem Coffee Roasters, George Howell, Linea Caffe, Metric Coffee, Pavement Coffeehouse, Joe Coffee Company, Ruby Coffee Roasters, Variety Coffee, and Onyx Coffee Lab. You were pretty much guaranteed NOT to get a bad coffee if you came through—and that’s the kind of guarantee we can all pop about.

Dark Matter

Chicago-based Dark Matter flipped the show floor script a bit with a corner cafe/booth that pumped out good music and good energy while drawing in a crowd that felt like community—no small task in a building that looks like a slightly upscale airplane hanger. First, the company went big on color: from bringing in a vanload of tropical plants, to hanging a huge, vibrant mural from Chicago artist Dan Grzeca with the artwork for the brand’s new This Caffeine Kills Fascists coffee blend. Guests brewed in color as well, on loud, proud Origami coffee drippers, and Dark Matter’s flamboyant “coffee cold” cans (with names just as trippy as the can art, like Brown Acid and Black Splash) were on sample too.

But beyond all the posi vibes emanating from the actual, you know, marketing, Dark Matter’s was also a booth with a meaning: Hope For the Day, a suicide prevention and awareness group, shared space alongside the coffee crew, offering community outreach and their “it’s ok not to be ok” messaging. It was uplifting to come by this booth again and again during the show (and not just for the caffeine).

Atlas Coffee

If there’s an importer with a stealth reputation for fun it might just be Atlas Coffee, which doubled down on its Expo presence with both a high traffic coffee pop-up on the main show floor as well as a coffee bar in the World Coffee Championships Roaster Village. At either location you were likely to find pro baristas alongside traders alongside coffee producers, sharing both coffee and stories.

On the exhibition floor, Atlas’ bright, sort of picnic-chic cafe stall cranked out guest roasts all through the day surrounded by those who’d brought the same coffees to this (highly!) drinkable point from their origins as green. And while it might be a little easier to impress the masses roaming glassy-eyed up and down aisles of de-gassing valve technologists and water wizards, Atlas held its own in the Roaster Village alongside the likes of full-time, full-on retailers like ST. ALi, Stumptown, locals Broadsheet, and many more. When we visited, Sumatra’s Ketiara Cooperative was the featured origin, the kiosk graciously hosted not just by Atlas’ own staffers but by the co-op’s leader, Ramah, who also offered woven Ketiara wristbands to visitors. You can’t drink a coffee under much more origin-storybook conditions than these, folks.

Chemex

Leave it to Chemex to do something both totally stylish and a little elusive all at the same time. Tucked away on the second floor of the convention center—which of course you’d easily find if you had diligently attended all of the lectures you’d planned to—popped an epic Chemex kiosk, its glassy-Rube-Goldberg-esque towering waterworks providing a stunning spectacle bathed in natural light. These hometown heroes—okay, home state—okay, home commonwealth—lived up to their reputation of timeless good-looks, offering a variety of brews on lovely new glass single-cup Chemex X-5 drippers, spinning dizzying rings around the barista (don’t try this at home) in a handcrafted artisan bar. The drippers were paired with new Chemex “Chettles” (oh yes they did), induction-heated water kettles with gooseneck spouts. (They’re also cool to the touch and dishwasher safe, for those of you teaching your children to brew alongside you.)

From the grand presentation (yes, that’s a Chemex as big as your torso at the top of that crazy display) to the new products on display to the respectful murmur that always accompanies this classic brand, you’d think that might be enough. But no—in a seating area adjacent to the Chemex pour-over bar was the pièce de résistance—a Chemex The Game station, projecting the truly unique game onto a big screen for all around to see your successes (or failures) at reliving the life of Chemex founder Dr. Peter Schlumbohm, filtering out the nastiest bits of coffee brewing in search of that perfect cup. As we sat basking in the late-afternoon glow high above the trade show floor, living out our fantasies as an 8-bit inventor, one couldn’t help but think they’d achieved a glory almost as crowning as having your own gold-plated Chemex hood ornament.

Liz Clayton is the associate editor at Sprudge Media Network and the co-author of Where to Drink Coffee. Read more Liz Clayton on Sprudge.

The post The Incredible Pop-Up Cafes of SCA Expo 2019 appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2Gq54ZR

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Appomattox Courthouse

Who loves having his picture taken? Not this guy. You can see why I always sneak up from behind

Where we encountered the ghost...Becky and I heard footsteps right behind us as we walked down this remote roadway....counting birds and enjoying the beauty We thought it was the boss who had gone farther than we did toward some monuments he wanted to see. We both heard the loud, crunching footsteps in the gravel, but ignored them for quite a distance... Until we turned around to find No One There.

Does anyone know the story of this tree and gravestone?

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Freda Yuan: The Sprudge Twenty Interview

Freda Yuan (Photo by Gary Handley)

Freda Yuan is an accomplished coffee professional based in London. She is the Head of Coffee at Origin Coffee Roasters; a two-time UK Cup Tasters Champion, placing 3rd in the world at the World Cup Tasters Championship in 2017; a licensed Q Grader and SCA educator in both English and Mandarin; and an MBA from Middlesex University. Yuan has worked many roles throughout her coffee career and has been a vocal champion for recovery and advocacy related to eating disorders.

Nominated by Cat O’Shea

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

Substantiality of the coffee business and coffee supply chain especially from farm and environmental perspectives.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

Sensory and connection with people. I suffered from bulimia and depression before. Through tasting coffee, it increased my self-awareness in not just tasting but also other elements in life. It also helps me to recover from the conditions and now engage with more like-minded people.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

Sugar, milk, and decaf. I personally think people should enjoy whatever coffees they like. The specialty coffee industry is still too small. To be able to expand to broader audience, we should be more approachable to the general public.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

Sweetness. I always look for sweet and balanced coffee when I source. It’s always been my thing.

Did you experience a “god shot” or life-changing moment of coffee revelation early in your career?

I dialed-in one decaf coffee in my early barista life. The espresso was really sweet and juicy. That is when I realized decaf coffee can be good, too.

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

It is when we are not distracted by phones or any other conversation with friends, but just stop for moment and truly focus on the cup of coffee in our hands. The story behind that moment can be one of hardship—hardship of producing, roasting, and brewing—but this is what helps make the coffee truly stand out.

If you could have any job in the coffee industry, what would it be and why?

I am the head of coffee of Origin Coffee Roasters in UK. I am very proud to say that it is my current dream job. Not only that I source quality coffees for Origin, I also set up many internal and external educational events to encourage everyone to pursue their passions.

Who are your coffee heroes?

Anette Moldvaer and Sara Morrocchi. They both are doing some incredible work at origin.

If you could drink coffee with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Eckhart Tolle. His books make me understand and appreciate life more.

If you didn’t get bit by the coffee bug, what do you think you’d be doing instead?

Maybe restaurant management or textile related work. These were my life before coffee.

Do you have any coffee mentors?

I am really lucky that I was supported by many great coffee people. Sam Langdon from Caravan Coffee Roasters was one of the guys who really saw my talent and took me under his wings.

What do you wish someone would’ve told you when you were first starting out in coffee?

Relax, it is just coffee. This universe is bigger than coffee.

Name three coffee apparatuses you’d take into space with you.

Comandante grinder, Kalita Wave 185 and filters, and Brewista Scale. These are my travel essentials.

Best song to brew coffee to?

Actually I’ve never thought about this! I don’t play music when I brew coffee.

Look into the crystal ball—where do you see yourself in 20 years?

My crystal ball is very murky still. I hope I can contribute more work at origin and do more promoting specialty coffee and mental illness awareness to general public.

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

Passionfruit flavored granola with banana and PG Tips tea with Oatly.

When did you last drink coffee?

This morning.

What was it?

Werka Wuri from Caravan.

Thank you.

The Sprudge Twenty is presented by Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2019 Sprudge Twenty honorees please visit sprudge.com/twenty

Zachary Carlsen is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Zachary Carlsen on Sprudge.

The post Freda Yuan: The Sprudge Twenty Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2GsMj97

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Citing Appropriation, Kickapoo Coffee Announce They Will Change Names

Southwest Wisconsin’s Kickapoo Coffee have announced that after 14 years in existence, the specialty coffee roaster will change names. In a statement released yesterday, April 17th, owners TJ Semanchin and Caleb Nicholes cite appropriation as the reason the company has opted for the wholesale change.

According to the press release, Semanchin and Nicholes chose the name Kickapoo when starting their coffee company back in 2005 “with the intention of honoring the place where our business has its roots: the Kickapoo River Valley.” They were at that time unaware that Kickapoo—an Algonquin word meaning “one who goes there, then here”—is also the name of an indigenous people that once inhabited the area. There are currently four tribes in the Native American Kickapoo Nation: the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, and the Mexican-Kickapoos.

“Holding onto the name was not consistent with our values,” Semanchin tells Sprudge. “We really started asking ourselves the hard questions within the last year… one question led to another… and once we allowed ourselves to take the blinders off of some willful ignorance, it just seems like something we had to do.”

Per the company’s statement, “Semanchin and Nicholes have apologized directly to the three US-based Kickapoo Tribes, all of which were unaware of the name use until the company reached out last fall, and have shared their decision to change the company’s name with each Tribe’s leadership.” Semanchin tells Sprudge that the coffee company has a face-to-face meeting with the leadership of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma in the coming weeks as part of an ongoing conversation with the different tribes. The point of these conversations, according to Semanchin, is to own up to their mistake and keep the lines of communication open. Semanchin goes on to make clear that the company isn’t seeking any labor, emotional or physical, from the Kickapoo Nation: “we know this is our problem not [theirs].”

The new name for the coffee company has yet to be decided and is expected to roll out in early 2020. According to the press release, the new name will seek to accomplish Semanchin and Nicholes’ original intention in picking the Kickapoo name: “A pride in the place where we live, roast, and raise our families remains at the heart of what we do. Our new name will better reflect this in an honest, authentic, and respectful manner.” Semanchin tells Sprudge that the announcement of the change doesn’t coincide with the rebrand itself to allow their mistake to be seen in its own light. “We didn’t want a new name and marketing blitz gloss over [this issue].”

In an effort to remain transparent about everything associated with the Kickapoo name, Semanchin and Nicholes will be hosting a Q&A session via Instagram Live at 12:00pm CST today, April 18th. The company will also respond to questions, comments, or concerns sent to [email protected].

To read the full statement, visit Kickapoo Coffee’s official website.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via Milwaukee: Inside Scott Lucey’s New Kickapoo Coffee Cafe

The post Citing Appropriation, Kickapoo Coffee Announce They Will Change Names appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2PgSekE

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Du Jianing Of China Is The 2019 World Brewers Cup Champion

Du Jianing of China is the 2019 World Brewers Cup Champion. This is Jianing’s first win in three World Brewers Cup appearances, finishing 15th in 2016 and 8th in 2018.

Watching Du Jianing’s winning Finals routine on Sunday, one couldn’t help but feel like you were sitting around her kitchen table or at a practice run in her home shop Uni-Uni Roasters and Bakery in Nanjing (part of former Chinese Barista Champion Jeremy Zhang’s M2M Coffee brand), drinking exceptional coffee while Jianing used you as a sensory judge proxy. Part of this is due to the 10-minute routine itself, where Jianing prepared a fourth cup of her Ninety Plus Gesha Estate coffee for herself to drink with the judges.

But what truly made this feel like a dry run was how flawless it was. No one—and I mean no one, not World Barista Champions, not World Brewers Cup champions, absolutely no one—has a Finals routine that is without even the slightest indicator that they are feeling the weight of the moment. Perhaps it’s a shaky hand showing signs of nerves, often it comes as a script bobble, or maybe it is just a pause that is perhaps too pregnant to be intentional. No one makes it out unscathed. Except Du Jianing.

Her performance, which I have since gone back to rewatch multiple times to find any signs that she is in fact mortal like the rest of us (jury is still out), was completely and utterly without blemish. It was a 10 minutes of casual discussion about intentional, well-thought brewing, delivered as though the grandest prize of them all was not on the line.

For her winning brew, Jianing came equipped with a Gesha variety coffee—roasted just a brief four minutes in an Ikawa sample roaster—that she pre-ground off-stage. This was not due to any sort of time constraint; anyone who saw Jianing’s routine knows that she could have calmly fit 15 minutes worth of performance into the tight 10-minute window the Brewers Cup provides. It was due simply to the complexity of her grind. Jianing opted to grind her coffee twice: once as a coarse ground after which the chaff was removed to promote flavor clarity and then ground again to a smaller size. This, according to Jianing, produces particles sizes that are “more evenly distributed.”

With coffee in tow, Jianing opted to brew through the Origami Dripper, a new device whose shape draws inspiration from the flatbed Kalita Wave filter, essentially eliminating the air insulation normally created between the circular brewing device and the ridged filters. Along with the Taiwanese Brewers Cup Champion Shih Yuan Hsu, Jianing was one of two Finalists to use this brew method, doing so because the thinner paper and large opening at the bottom of the brewer are such that “water can go through the coffee quickly and achieve clarity of flavor.”

The flavor produced was punctuated by floral and apricot notes throughout, beginning with the floral, apricot, cacao, and whipped cream aroma that presented on the palate as apricot, white grape, cacao, champagne, and delicate florals, and finishing with a lingering aftertaste of white wine and apricot. It was a brew that Jianing describes wonderfully (and the best coffee description I think I’ve ever heard) as “round and elegant like a cello concert.”

Beyond flavor calls, it was the easy precision of Jianing’s routine that impressed both onlookers and judges alike. Not only was she intentionally oscillating pour rates from six grams per second to four and then up to five, but she was providing judges with real time information via iPad to check her work. Counter Culture’s Kathy Altamirano, a sensory judge during Jianing’s Finals performance, explains the high-stakes game the Chines Brewers Cup Champion was playing: “Her presentation was the vision of transparency. She provided us with time, temperature, and flow rate readings in real time for each brew, which is a huge risk if you make a mistake on stage.”

Which, of course, she didn’t.

2018 World Brewers Cup Champion Emi Fukahori presents Jianing with the first place trophy.

But perhaps the most striking thing in Jianing’s exacting performance was not what it included, but what it didn’t: information about the coffee itself. While most scripts will devote a majority of their 10 minutes to discussing the interesting or experimental facets of the coffee they are using, Jianing’s routine was notably light. Yes, we learned it was a Nintey Plus Gesha Estates coffee grown at 1,600 MASL that used local bacteria during fermentation, but that’s it. That’s not a Cliff’s Notes version of the information; that’s all of it. You’d have to have foreknowledge of Ninety Plus or do research on your own even to come up with Ethiopia as the country of origin. And while I can’t with 100% assurance say this wasn’t some sort of misstep—though were it a misstep it would bring the grand total to one, so it’s safe to assume it was intentional—what it did do was place the focus on the coffee she was brewing right then and there. Where it came from, who produced it, what variety it is, what wacky processing method was used during fermentation, these are all important factors for how they helped shape the coffee up to that point.

But this routine wasn’t about the coffee up to that point. It was about the coffee at that very moment, how it tasted on stage at the Finals of the World Brewers Cup Championship in Boston, Massachusetts, thousands of miles away from where it was grown and even further from Jianing’s home in Nanjing. This was a moment not about a coffee’s past, but about its immediate present: being brewed by a world-class coffee professional, to be shared with a panel of expert tasters from around the world, in front of a crowd of hundreds. It was the moment Du Jianing became the 2019 World Brewers Cup Champion.

All of SprudgeLive’s 2019 competition coverage is made possible by Acaia, Baratza, Faema, Cafe Imports, Wilbur Curtis, Third Wave Water, Minor Figures, and Mahlkönig.

In 2019 SprudgeLive is home to the Digital Roasters Village, because it takes a village to cover a barista competition. The Digital Roasters Village features Camber Coffee, Verve Coffee, Partners Coffee, Intelligentsia Coffee, Rishi Tea, Kickapoo Coffee, Blue Bottle Coffee, Onyx Coffee Lab, Creation Coffee, Amavida, and Equator Coffees without whom this work would not be possible.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Photos by Elizabeth Chai

The post Du Jianing Of China Is The 2019 World Brewers Cup Champion appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2IpnUUd

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

Who Will Work In British Cafes After Brexit?

For the past couple of years, March 29, 2019 has been known by some in the UK as “Brexit Day,” the historic moment when the country would unmoor itself from the tiresome burden of Europe and float off into a glorious, sun-dappled, immigration-free future.

However, if you’ve been paying attention to the news, or a calendar, you’ll know that Brexit Day has come and gone, with the shambles that is Brexit limping on from extension to humiliating extension. This uncertainty has real-world consequences, one of which is the lack of skilled workers willing to risk moving to the UK when a no-deal, hard-border exit is still a genuine possibility. We’ve covered the impact of Brexit on the British coffee industry before, but since 2017 the issue hasn’t much changed. If anything, it’s become even more muddled. And it may just mean there aren’t enough workers to run the coffee shops.

According to Sky News, Brexit will make it “more difficult to attract applicants from EU countries and that British workers have not yet made up for the shortfall.” And the disparity between foreign-born and home grown workers is significant; Andrea Wareham, an HR manager at Pret a Manger, estimates that “just one in 50 applicants for jobs at the chain are British.” This is amid a bit of a boom in British coffee culture, where the UK coffee shop market grew 7.9% in the previous year, bringing the total value of the industry to £10.1 billion ($13.27 billion). An estimated 6,500 new coffee shops will open over the next four years and will require an additional 40,000 workers.

But the question remains: if there is a no-deal, hard-border Brexit, who will work in British cafes? Skilled European baristas have dozens of friendly cities around Europe with burgeoning specialty coffee scenes would seem a much safer, more hospitable, bet.

This much is certain: come Brexit Halloween, not many will go dressed as baristas.

Fionn Pooler is a journalist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the publisher of The Pourover. Read more Fionn Pooler on Sprudge.

The post Who Will Work In British Cafes After Brexit? appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2IEoY5Y

0 notes

mrhugodriscoll · 5 years

Text

The Very Best Of The 2019 Re:Co Symposium

Emboldened by my trusty press pass, I was lucky enough to get behind the velvet rope at Boston’s 2019 Re:Co event. Whereas Re:Co—an event put on by the Specialty Coffee Association that has often been likened to the Ted Talks of coffee—usually focuses on a variety of subjects relevant to thought leaders in specialty coffee, this year’s event homed in on just one subject: coffee’s C market price crisis.

Attacking the crisis from a multiplicity of angles, the event started at the macro then moved to the micro, moving from producer to consumer and back to producer. The goal of this year’s content was to move ideas toward action; everyone was asked during Re:Co founder Peter Giuliano’s opening remarks to think about their Re:Co pledge, and for the first time, Re:Co attendees were split into interactive group sessions to find and commit to those pledges. There were way too many amazing speakers for me to be able to cover all of them, so to follow the event blow by blow, check out our coverage on Sprudge Live under Re:Co Boston’s official hashtag #RecoBoston. To learn more about the larger themes engaged at Re:Co, read on!

A Key Highlight to Set the Stage

One highlight I want to lead with is the single exit fallacy. Brought to the Re:Co stage by Yale post-doc Janina Grabs, the single exit fallacy starts with an analogy: picture a crowded theater when a fire breaks out. The theater has an emergency exit and people start exiting; the first person gets out fine, as does the second, and the third, but what about the hundredth? This is Grabs’s analogy for using quality differentiation to help farmers exit the C market.

As more farmers try to produce quality coffee that will allow them to differentiate their way to better prices, they incur increased cost of production that cuts into their quality premiums (if they receive as-promised premiums at all). At the same time, the increasing mainstreaming of specialty also means that the concept becomes watered down, making it harder—not easier—for producers to differentiate by producing quality. Grabs’s talk hurt; it laid out an essential failing of the third wave movement, one which few even acknowledge, much less address. By focusing on quality, we’re trying to move select people out of an emergency exit rather than turning on the sprinkler system that would quench the fire, ensuring that all coffee producers make a living wage regardless of the quality of coffee they produce.

The Macro Level

After kicking off the event, Giuliano welcomed former SCA Executive Director Emeritus Ric Rhinehart to the stage to lay out the coffee price crisis as it stands. Using the analogy of the heart condition that led to the heart attack he survived, Rhinehart described the coffee price crisis in similar terms. While the C price’s drop to around a dollar for an extended period of time is indeed a crisis in the same way a heart attack is, it doesn’t happen in a vacuum: the conditions that allowed this to happen are chronic, even as this episode is acute. “We can see that coffee follows a typical boom-bust cycle,” said Rhinehart, displaying a graph of coffee prices over the last 40 years. “This is typical market behavior, but the average price throughout has never adjusted for inflation over 40 years.” So even if the C price were in a more “normal” place, it still wouldn’t have adjusted for cost increases that producers experience.

On the more esoteric side, trade attorney Jeff Glassie dropped some knowledge about how antitrust laws can sometimes constrain organizing around prices. Some things that are illegal under antitrust laws include price fixing (collectively deciding that you will only accept a certain price) and boycotts.

Pushing back on oft-repeated beliefs that are completely unsubstantiated (eg. “we only use 10% of our brains”), Peter David of Enveritas collected mass data on how many coffee farms there really are (that would be 12.5 million, not the oft-cited 28 million). He admonished us to question everything, to be cynical, and to think about how we know what we know.

Discussing market consolidation and hitting us right in the facts with a slate of necessarily depressing statistics, Andrea Olivar of Solidaridad talked to us about the Coffee Barometer, a major market survey on key market trends in coffee, a resource that alerted many to the severity of the crisis. Some salient stats:

As an industry, our annual investment in sustainability is under 1%.

Only 10% of the value generated by the coffee industry directly reaches producing countries.

55% of global coffee production is certified, but only 20% is actually sold as such.

On Day 2, Peter Roberts of Emory University talked to us about his work on the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide, a guide that collates prices paid for coffee shared anonymously by coffee buyers. In discussions of taking coffee off the C market, he found that one of the main points of resistance was that people wanted a benchmark, and harmful as it is, the C market does offer that—but, as Roberts said, “Almost any benchmark would be better than the C market. My weight would even be a better benchmark for coffee prices than the C market.” So he’s working on the Transaction Guide, hoping it will act like the World Coffee Producers Forum presented to us “on behalf of all the producers of the world, many of whom couldn’t be here.”

Texas A&M doctoral candidate Taya Brown also discussed issues of profitability, specifically for smallholders in Guatemala. ”I’m sure some of you pay really fair prices for coffee that you buy,” she said, pointing out (similarly to Grabs) that producing quality raises costs. “The issue is that the quality has to be there first.” Brown encouraged us to think about profitability in terms of not just money, but also of knowledge, and to always share knowledge.

Utilizing live translation earpieces for the first time, SCA board member Chad Trewick hosted a multi-language panel featuring Rene Leon Gomez, Herbert Peñalosa, Peter Dupont, and Michelle Bhattacharyya. Gomez laid out some painful statistics, including the fact that the US coffee industry received more money last year than all of 25 million coffee producers in the world. Peñalosa focused heavily on the importance of sharing knowledge; farming is skilled labor, and not everyone has the knowledge toolkit that would allow them to achieve profitability. Dupont discussed how pushes for transparency can look in a retail setting, from writing numbers on walls to printing them on cups. Bhattacharyya talked about her work on establishing a living wage project in the banana industry, and how that experience would benefit the coffee industry by both educating consumers and empowering them to make values-based purchases.

Further emphasizing the role of education and sharing knowledge, Enrique Magana of the Salvadoran miller and exporter Magana Coffee talked about how lack of access to knowledge of best practices hinders farmer profitability.

Re:Co attendees talk between sessions.

The Consumer Side

While production is a necessary and fascinating focus of much of Re:Co’s content, I found talks on the consumer side incredibly engaging, featuring stars like Michelle Johnson of The Chocolate Barista, Phyllis Johnson of BD Imports, and Red Bay Coffee founder Keba Konte.

Michelle Johnson started off her talk with an intriguing proposition about a coffee company whose consumer face is recognizable to all of us: “What if I told y’all that there’s someone who’s doing everything specialty is and more? And what if I told you that was McDonald’s.” In 2014, McCafe made a commitment to source all of their coffee sustainably by 2020—and so far, according to Johnson, they’re completely on track. But what does that mean in such a large company? Is it just marketing? According to Johnson, no; McDonald’s actually created their own certification standards that work alongside existing certifications, and goes even further. Michelle Johnson’s session was the talk of Re:Co Boston, showing her range as a speaker and on one of coffee’s biggest stages.

Phyllis Johnson, who hosted the larger session on consumer trends, shared some salient facts about coffee consumption and changing demographics: while white consumers were once the main consumers of coffee (both specialty and commodity), the gap has closed. Now, white gourmet coffee consumption has actually dropped off and ethnic minorities are filling the gap. Black consumers, in particular, are drinking equal amounts of gourmet coffee to white consumers. According to Johnson, these numbers highlight how far specialty coffee has come in terms of diversity—“but we still have a long way to go.” She encouraged us to let go of sameness and rethink the definition of specialty coffee.

Johnson then welcomed Konte onto the stage for a conversation on bringing new groups of people into coffee as workers and consumers. Knowing that an entire workforce and consumer base in Oakland, CA was underserved and underutilized, Red Bay focused on hiring diversely and creating space that truly feels like it’s for everyone. “It’s important to try harder, be more intentional, and get creative,” said Konte, who pulled staff members from a diverse range of industries like chocolate and wine. Discussing the decolonizing work his company seeks to do in coffee, he introduced the nomenclature “value streams” as an alternative to “value chains,” pointing out that “coffee is an industry that, like cotton, is founded on slave labor.” Konte also explained how African Americans can find connection with coffee through its connection to Africa.

Moving us to coffee consumption around the equator, SCA board member Vera Espindola Rafael questioned the term “producing countries” and talked about the thriving cafe and consumer scene in countries that grow coffee, from Brazil to Colombia to Mexico. Not only are consumers there excited about specialty coffee, they’re willing and able to pay for it, and in the case of Mexico, coffee producers make more money and save hassle and energy selling their coffee to local roasting companies. “Specialty coffee is still niche in countries that grow coffee,” said Espindola Rafael. “But coffee retailers are driving new trends and influencing consumers to appreciate the value they add. Can we continue to build on this?”

Re:Co volunteers pour drinks for attendees.

Moving Ideas to Action

At the beginning of Re:Co, we were asked to choose between four labels: influencer, thinker, skeptic, and financial mind. In the middle of day two, we were split into interactive change-making sessions with our chosen cohort (in case you were wondering, I’m a skeptic). In these sessions, we looked through our particular lenses and put down pledges that make sense within our personal spheres of influence. To see the pledges taken by various attendees, follow the hashtag #MyRecoPledge.

As I mentioned earlier, this interactive session was a first for Re:Co, and a necessary one. It’s important that people attending an exclusive event like Re:Co use their privilege to drive action and move the industry forward. I was lucky to attend Re:Co, and as Chad Trewick said, “Most of the people affected by the coffee crisis can’t even dream of being here in this room, and we need to sit with that for a minute.” With Browning of Enveritas’s revelation that one in ten coffee farmers will lose a child to hunger this year, there was a definite dissonance inherent to the luxurious banquet hall in which we enjoyed the event and the plentiful food and coffee we had access to.

“What will the future say about us, the coffee industry,” asked Browning. “I think they will say we didn’t do enough.” We as an industry need to move forward in action, even if we don’t know what a comprehensive solution looks like, and Re:Co aimed to push us in that direction. To increase access, Re:Co is releasing talks in both video and podcast form starting next week, so keep an eye out and experience these talks firsthand.

RJ Joseph (@RJ_Sproseph) is a Sprudge staff writer, publisher of The Knockbox, and coffee professional based in the Bay Area. Read more RJ Joseph on Sprudge Media Network.

Photos by Michelle Johnson for Sprudge.

The post The Very Best Of The 2019 Re:Co Symposium appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2GpJi9H

0 notes