News

What is it about the lure of the tour? Gassing up the van, hitting the road for a long haul, counting down the miles, making good time. It’s about the journey and the destination. We love a good tour here at Sprudge, and when there’s delicious coffee involved? Even better.

Throughout the spring 2018 season, our longtime partners at Cafe Imports have been out on the road, crisscrossing the United States for a series of events dedicated to coffee. And not just any coffee: the 2018 Legendary Coffee Tour featured “greatest hits, brand-new releases, and even a few deep cuts” from the Cafe Imports coffee library, paired with a presentation on the history and significance of coffee varieties. Sprudge was an official partner for this event series, along with La Marzocco and Mill City Roasters.

Events took place in cities large and small across the USA, including Kansas City (at Messenger Coffee), Springfiled, MO (at Classic Rock Coffee), Chicago (at Metropolis Coffee), Coeur d’Alene (Evans Brothers Coffee), Tempe (Tempe Public Market Cafe), Austin (Wild Gift), Dallas (Communion Cafe), Boston (Pavement Coffee), Philadelphia (Rival Bros. Coffee), and of course Minneapolis, for a tour kick-off at Cafe Imports HQ.

Presentations were hosted by members of the Cafe Imports staff at each event, including Director of Education Joe Marrocco and Meister, the company’s managing editor. “In some part I feel like I’ve been doing the research and writing for this project (or something kind of like it) for my entire coffee career,” Meister tells Sprudge. Meister cites the ongoing coffee variety research work being done by folks like Tim Hill and Getu Bekele, Kew Gardens, and World Coffee Research as huge influences on the Cultivar Caravan. “I would love for there to be more open source access to the deep cuts out there,” Meister says, “because I think more information can only be better for everyone.”

Meister in Minneapolis.

For Marrocco, whose daily work with Cafe Imports includes near-constant consultation with the company’s roaster clients, events like this provide a precious chance to interface with different communities across the country face-to-face instead of on FaceTime. “The roaster community of today is insatiably hungry for knowledge,” Marrocco tell us. “We have a unique opportunity, and we feel, responsibility, to share the knowledge we have with that community.”

By offering insight into the variations that exist between different coffee varieties, events like Cultivar Caravan are another step on coffee’s long path to culinary acceptance. By providing not just a presentation, but also “a forum for conversation and clarification,” as per Marrocco, “we did not merely focus on how to approach different cultivars from a roaster’s perspective, but more on deeper knowledge about this subject overall. We had lots of incredible questions and conversations. As an educator, it was a blast.”

Joe Marrocco in Dallas.

Following previous tours across Europe and the United States, this year’s was the best attended yet, with 700+ attendees nationwide and many more following along via social media. It’s the third round of touring we’ve been partnered with here at Sprudge, along for the ride as the programming gets better and the crowds get bigger. “Every year we try and look and concepts that both really interest us and seem to be on the mind of a lot of our customers,” says Cafe Imports Partner & S.V.P. of Sales Noah Namowicz. “This year we have learned so much new about varieties through organizations like WCR and just more scientific research in general that we felt like this was very topical and relevant. We are already dreaming up some big concepts to take on tour for 2019, but I think you may have to stay tuned to see what’s bubbling up.”

Gas up the van. Pack some snacks. Did you remember not to forget your guitar cables? We’re trying to make Missoula by sundown. There’s nothing like being on tour!

Jordan Michelman is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Jordan Michelman on Sprudge. 

The post Scenes From The 2018 Cafe Imports Cultivar Caravan appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

As the city of Denver continues to grow and every bit of real estate seems to be reserved for more apartment buildings or breweries, an old space in the Sunnyside neighborhood has become home to one of the more innovative concepts around town: a specialty coffee shop operated by local middle- and high-school students.

Pinwheel Coffee is a cafe that employs Compass and Denver Montessori School students, along with a team of full-time baristas. In partnership with the Montessori junior high and high schools, along with help from Colorado-based nonprofit organization Great Work Inc., students learn the ropes of specialty coffee while also gaining experience in customer service and human interaction, small-business operations, money-handling and accounting, and exposure to one of Denver’s most popular industries.

For more than a century, Montessori schools have prioritized real-world experience and freedom of choice over more traditional middle- and high-school environments. Coupled with Denver’s natural inclination toward appreciating craft beverages, coffee is a natural, easy fit.

Pinwheel holds the potential to be an alternative entry to the specialty coffee world for its student employees. Rather than finding coffee after other careers, Montessori students are learning at a young enough age to either participate in the “coffee lifers”’ school of thought, or use it as a safety net between schooling and finding a place in another preferred job field.

The Pinwheel Coffee bar consists of a Synesso MVP espresso machine, a pour-over setup, Mahlkönig PEAK and Mazzer espresso grinders, and local Upstart Kombucha on tap. The setup is efficient, tasteful and easy to work with, offering students and baristas an opportunity to learn how to consistently make good cups of coffee.

Along with learning school subjects in the form of hands-on training, the Montessori students are learning specialty coffee from Middle State Coffee, one of Denver’s most prominent roasters, and even getting a look at the roasting side in the process.

“I had a round of students in the roastery one day and we actually got them all on the sample roaster,” says Middle State owner Jay DeRose. “We did a spiel like, ‘This is coffee, this is why good coffee is good coffee,’ we did a little bit of education stuff, and then we fired up the sample roaster and each of them got to roast a batch and take it home.”

For high school junior Eli Chung, working at Pinwheel is an opportunity to set himself up for success for college and beyond. His job training can translate to a career in coffee if he chooses, but he can also pursue whatever his dream profession may be while earning a living in a respected, engaging field.

“In my middle school years, we had something called ‘Occupations,’ which was kind of the same idea as Pinwheel, but in a middle-school environment,’ says Chung. “There was a wood shop and a culinary program, and you would choose a new one each semester. There was a coffee shop and I’d taken that for about a year, so this feels like sort of a prolonged out-of-school extension of that experience. It was small-scale, student-run, student client-based, and everything was inside of the school. This feels like more of a larger community reach, but with a similar experience.”

Like any other barista, Chung can dial in espresso, steam milk, inform customers which coffees are available on any given day, and work the shifts his schedule allows. His authentic experience as an employee at a coffee shop has been positive, and could even potentially lead to a continued role in the coffee industry.

“I don’t want to limit myself to not working in coffee [career-wise],” he says. “I like it, and I think the experience will prove to be beneficial down the line, especially when I’m looking for positions during college. I’ll have this experience under my belt when I’m applying for part-time jobs, whatever they may be.”

Instead of working at a convenience store or a local supermarket, Montessori students’ involvement with Pinwheel could be a blueprint for the next wave of coffee professionals. Working at a local coffee shop in college has been fashionable for as long as coffee shops and campuses have been around, but preparing junior high and high schoolers for the professional coffee workplace can prepare students to pursue something else, too.

With college debt stacking up like a pile of tips, coffee could be an incubator that provides more young adults with the essentials: decent pay and job stability, interesting work, and a good cup of coffee each morning.

It’s also a twist on workplace dynamics and a potential teaching space for experienced customer service professionals. Instead of just relaying information about shop etiquette to the new hire, experienced baristas have an opportunity to be involved in formative times for their coworkers.

“Throwing a bunch of students into a restaurant environment would be so saturating that there wouldn’t be room for absorption,” says barista Colleen Reardon. “It’s so fast-paced and there’s so much information. But coffee shops are the perfect atmosphere for learning because you usually have some dry spaces where you don’t have a lot going on, and you can take time to explain what’s going and the students can actually learn.”

Reardon, a veteran of Denver’s coffee scene, feels that Pinwheel is special because of the people involved from top to bottom, and because the students have been receptive to any learning experience that pops up along the way.

It’s an unusual cafe concept and it involves everyone buying into the approach to learning that is being taught. It’s pure Montessori.

Ben Wiese is a freelance journalist based in Denver. Read more Ben Wiese on Sprudge.

The post Teaching The Next Generation Of Baristas At Pinwheel Coffee In Denver appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

I am (and I fear I always will be) a sucker for new coffee gear. Even minor tweaks to functionality or aesthetics are enough for me to empty out my wallet and fill up my coffee cabinet. Add a few extra holes to a Kalita Wave? Gotta have it. An Acaia Pearl but in black? It’s unclear how life could go on without it. A kettle with Bluetooth? I welcome the singularity. And so of course when I stumbled upon the new Cora Coffee Brewer, I couldn’t help myself.

Now seeking funding on IndieGoGo, the Cora Coffee Brewer isn’t so much a revolutionary new piece of coffee tech so much as it is a combination of two much-loved pieces of gear with the elegance and refinement ratcheted up to 11. It is essentially a ceramic Chemex sitting atop a Bluetooth-enabled, app-driven smart scale (sound familiar), but in gorgeous cherry wood.

Two-plus years in the making, the Cora was created by San Jose-based industrial designer Aaron Freyer. Smaller in volume than most manual coffee devices, the single-cup brewer can hold up to 400ml of coffee, and looks real good doing it. The brewer uses magnets to attach to the smart scale and keep it in place, and while meant to be used together, both the brewer and the smart scale will be sold separately and are compatible with other devices.

With 25 days left in the campaign, the Cora Coffee Brewer sits just under the 50% mark of its $10,000 goal (and about a third of the way to its $15,000 stretch goal that unlocks the Apple Watch app and you know you want that too or am I just projecting?). With a retail price of $199, the IndieGoGo campaign is offering early bird backers the complete package—brewer and scale—for $149 (14 left as of publication) or $169. And for those who just want the scale, it is available through IndieGoGo for $96. Delivery of all orders is expected for September of this year.

For more information on the Cora Coffee Brewer, visit their IndieGoGo site. And go ahead and pick up one while you are there. You know you want to. Or if you’re me, you have to.

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

*all media via Cora Coffee Brewer

The post The Cora Coffee Brewer: A Good Brewer That Looks Good Brewing It appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Oakland-based coffee equipment-maker Voga Coffee has been making strides lately, expanding their presence in specialty coffee shops around the country, and snagging an award at the recent 2018 SCA expo. The company has been gaining attention for its commercial batch brewing machine, the Ground Control, which recently made its North-Atlantic debut at Bogotá-and-New-York-City based company Devoción’s new Downtown Brooklyn cafe.

The machine, according to Voga co-founder Eli Salomon, uses a “patented, totally new brewing science that allows us to selectively extract the flavors we want through a series of carefully controlled mini-brews,” producing a “noticeably sweeter, less bitter, more consistent, and more nuanced coffee than even a well-executed pour-over.”

I visited the new Devoción on a spring afternoon to chat with Scott Norton, Voga’s director of sales and marketing, and to see the brewer in action. The process looked simple enough: A barista adds fresh coffee grounds into a brew basket at the bottom of the machine, then taps a few buttons on a touchscreen keypad. While she tends to other tasks, the machine quietly gets to work: The grounds are saturated and stirred, and the brewed liquid is pulled up into the glass vacuum chambers. “Once the liquid is fully extracted, essentially leaving the coffee grounds dry, the process is repeated, with the grounds undergoing multiple immersions and extractions,” Norton explains. “Each extraction reveals new layers of flavor and nuances of the coffee, then the extractions are blended together, resulting in a highly complex and balanced batch of coffee.” The closed-system process eliminates any “odd” flavors that can arise from oxidation, and the aeration releases aromatics that can only be achieved with a vacuum system.

The brewer was invented in the kitchen of Salomon’s San Francisco apartment, where he experimented with chemist and Voga co-founder Dr. Josh Avins. Salomon had the idea of using a vacuum pump to create a large siphon, and Avins pointed out that “in chemistry labs, they never do a single extraction—the theory of extractions shows that three mini-extractions, using fresh solvent, is typically ideal.” They eventually came up with the idea of brewing the coffee multiple times while substantially drying the grounds, and the Ground Control was born. “The idea was initially received with skepticism amongst industry experts, but it’s become more widely accepted,” Salomon says. “For example, drying and re-extracting a bed of grounds was an integral part of 2016 Brewer’s Cup World Champion Tetsu Kasuya’s winning ‘Four Six’ recipe.”

Voga’s team showcased the machine at an SCA Expo, where they met Steven Sutton, founder of the Colombian coffee roasting company Devoción. “I loved the concept and wanted to learn more, so I asked for a demo,” Sutton says. “We trialed the brewer at our Williamsburg cafe, and the amount of control the machine allowed over our coffees immediately blew our minds.” Sutton promptly ordered one for their new downtown Brooklyn location.

The Ground Control is currently used at about a dozen coffee shops around the country, and Voga’s new single-group brewer, the Cyclops, won Best New Product (Commercial Equipment) at the 2018 SCA Expo. The machines are 95% made-in-America, 100% hand-assembled in Oakland, and require about three minutes of training time for baristas. “Our staff and clients love it,” Sutton says. “We’re now able to batch-brew any coffee we want, achieving optimal results, and we’re able to offer special-edition coffees in our batch brewer, which is something we rarely offered before.”

Voga is also hard at work on a new home-brewing machine, and are currently in discussions with investors and partners to bring it to life. “There are so many opportunities for bringing new science into coffee brewing,” Salomon says, “and we have a lot of other ideas that we’re extremely excited about.” But for now, coffee drinkers in New York City can order a cup of Ground Control-brewed coffee at Devoción’s new space—while taking an unexpected break from Downtown Brooklyn.

Joanna Han (@joannakarenina) is a Sprudge.com contributor based in New York City. Read more Joanna Han on Sprudge.

The post A Look At Voga Coffee’s Ground Control Brewer At Devocíon In Brooklyn appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Westbourne Grove is a residential neighbourhood and shopping destination in West London, bordering Hyde Park, Notting Hill, and the iconic Portobello Road. It’s an eclectic mix of cultures and architectural styles where elegant townhouses and budget hotels, souvenir shops, and Middle Eastern restaurants, organic food markets, and council estates live alongside each other. The coffee scene consists mostly of chains like Starbucks or Costa and a few independent cafes—none of which would merit a trip out to this part of town solely to drink a flat white. That all changed with the opening of Tab x Tab. Finally, there is a very good reason to stop over in Westbourne Grove.

Tab x Tab was opened in July 2017 by husband and wife Mathew and Charmaine Tabatabai. Alongside speciality coffee from Ozone and Bocca, they serve premium teas from Lalani & Co., fresh pastries from Flour Station, and à la carte breakfast dishes prepared on site. Tab x Tab also has a retail corner with carefully curated homeware and lifestyle items, Linda Bloomfield tea ware and Kana London ceramic coffee mugs.

The Tabatabais embarked on an 18-month coffee tasting journey through London and beyond before launching their shop.

“We started exploring the idea of opening a coffee shop by doing a lot of research and going to a new cafe every single day. After about one year, we had developed a strong idea of what we wanted our coffee shop to look like,” Mathew Tabatabai says. “The majority of cafes in London melted into the same kind of place.”

The decision to offer a new kind of coffee experience, rather than do a carbon copy of other shops, gave the couple enough confidence and motivation to pursue their idea. The approach at the heart of Tab x Tab can be summed up in three words: speciality, execution, and consistency. High quality standards were set for Tab x Tab: from the food and beverage offerings to appliances and in-store tech, from the Front of House service to the interior design.

Charmaine and Mathew Tabatabai. Photo courtesy Zsuzsa Zicho.

Mathew and Charmaine always knew they had to start with the coffee. They looked for the best and found it at Ozone Coffee Roasters in London and Bocca Coffee in Amsterdam. They carefully planned every element of the store, looking for excellence in functionality first and then for beautiful and understated design.

“We worked so hard to ensure the execution of everything was as high quality and consistent as possible,” says Mathew. “Everything is there to give customers a truly unique and tasteful experience and bring some peace to their day when they are with us.”

Their attention to detail can be seen in the large oak table that allows customers to gather around, and share the space as if they were in their own home. It’s also seen in the 5.4-meter-long bar counter, custom built from a single piece of concrete (they had to remove the store doors to install it).

Mathew and Charmaine also made a deliberate choice to install a stainless steel Mavam—a groundbreaking machine that sits beneath the counter—instead of a bulky bar-top espresso machine, to remove barriers between baristas and customers, but also to stand out among the rest of London coffee shops.

“The Mavam represents our entire approach to coffee. It is not a flashy espresso machine: it sits quietly without needing to be seen, but it does its job perfectly,” says Mathew. “It fits perfectly into our aesthetics. At the time, the Mavam machine was only one year old, there was only another one in the UK…so we really took a chance with it,” Mathew explains to me.

Next to the Mavam, there’s a Nuova Simonelli Mythos One and a Mahlkönig EK43 grinder, a FETCO coffee brewer, and a high tech cold press juicer. The milk is by the Estate Dairy (profiled here on Sprudge), a UK dairy brand founded by Shaun Young and loved by professional baristas.

Customers have the choice of two coffees for espresso: a seasonal blend by Ozone Coffee called Brothers and a single origin coffee by Bocca, which the Tabatabais discovered on a trip to Amsterdam. They persuaded the Dutch roasters to supply their cafe (Tab x Tab is the only coffee shop in the UK to serve or sell their beans). At the time of my second visit in January, the single origin was a natural Brazilian coffee from Fatima Farm (Yellow Bourbon and Mundo Novo variety) with notes of vanilla, roasted nuts, and a medium body.

Tab x Tab also offers a single origin of choice on batch brew. “The batch brew may not be sexy, but it delivers consistency,” which is what Tab x Tab always strives for. “We let the quality of the coffee speak for itself.”

It was head barista Lucas Gorczyca who sold the idea of batch brew to Mathew. “The batch brew delivers consistency. Our customers expect the coffee to taste exactly the same throughout the time we use a certain single origin. The variables with brewing coffee are crazy, the coffee never tastes the same every time,” Gorczyca explains. “Batch brew is also good for our customers because they know it’s a grab-and-go drink.”

Customers looking for the theatrics of a brewing experience will get it with tea, rather than coffee. Although Britain is considered a country of tea drinkers, the majority of tea consumed in the country comes from tea bags. Tab x Tab champions high quality, loose leaf tea, offering a selection of small batch teas—surprisingly absent of English Breakfast or Earl Grey. Instead, you will find black tea, oolong, and matcha, all prepared with care and precision.

Soon the cafe will expand its food offerings to include a modern take on the classic Afternoon Tea, as well as pop-up dinner events. Until then, I will continue to return to Westbourne Grove and stop by Tab x Tab for a great cup of coffee or tea and for their thoughtful and dedicated service.

Giulia Mule is a Sprudge.com contributor based in London. Read more Giulia Mule on Sprudge. 

The post Tab x Tab: A New Home For Coffee In West London appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Back in April, the judging for the 2018 Nicaraguan Cup of Excellence took place in Matagalpa, with five coffees breaking the 90-point mark. Since then, the country’s unrest has boiled over; protestors killed by authorities, food shortages, road blockages, and political strife have left the country at a standstill. This has given no small amount of uncertainty to the status of these valued COE lots. That’s why the Alliance for Coffee Excellence has taken the unprecedented step to not only ship the coffees to a safer location but to also move up the auction date by six days.

According to a press release, the auction originally set for June 19th has been moved up nearly a week to June 13th as a means of ensuring these coffees are accessible to buyers. In coordination with ACE Nicaragua, RGC Coffee, and Peralta Coffees, ACE has decided to immediately move the COE lots out of Nicaragua. All vacuum-sealed, the lots are currently in Corinto awaiting shipment on June 8th, with a scheduled arrival at the Port of Oakland on June 29th. They will then be stored in RGC Coffee’s warehouse until shipment to each lot’s purchaser.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of ACE, RGC, and Peralta, some of the best coffees produced in Nicaragua—including the highest scoring Nicaraguan coffee to date with an astounding 91.8 points—will not get lost in turmoil, but will make it to buyers around the world and more importantly, will fetch the much-deserved prices and much-needed income the farmers have worked so hard for.

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

Photo by PixieMe/AdobeStock

The post Amid Turmoil, 2018 Nicaraguan Cup Of Excellence Lots Leave Early appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

These days, it’s pretty commonplace to find really good, local coffee inside a grocery store. But have you ever found a grocery store inside a really good, local coffee shop? If you live in Denver, you are about to have the chance to, with the opening of the new Method Coffee Roasters.

Opened in 2013, Method has kept a community focus at the heart of what they do. And with the opportunity to open a cafe in Denver’s Lower Highlands area, a “minor food desert” as Method’s James Lopez explains to us, they seized it. And added a small grocer to it. Along with coffee, patrons can pick up things like eggs and prepared meals from local restaurants. It’s a novel idea, turning the coffee-in-grocery-store concept on its head. So let’s check in Method Coffee Roasters in Denver, Colorado, shall we?

As told to Sprudge by James Lopez.

For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?

Method Coffee Roasters officially began in early 2013, however its roots were planted long before. The concept of sourcing, roasting, and serving coffee for the community came from the founders’ shared interest in the the economics of impact and… of course coffee. MCR is the adventure that we all embark on to become a better self.

In a garage in 2013 some friends setup a coffee roaster with the idea to start a coffee company. Their goal was to honestly source amazing coffees, prepare it with passion, and serve the community. Since then, MCR has grown to serve the greater Rocky Mountain area and give back to the community through scholarship funds, non-profit partners and direct donations.

Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

The new space is designed with the local community in the Lower Highlands area in mind. We wanted to create a space that could be a community gathering place, allowing people to connect and share in a great coffee experience. Being a wholesale roaster for five years, we were very excited to start offering our coffees to the public as well as pairing it with great pastries and foods from local producers.

We also saw there was a mild food desert in the area, with two grocery stores close but still an inconvenient drive away. We wanted to build a specialty grocer space to allow people to pick up odds and ends when they are heading home or in the neighborhood without having to get in their car. Things like eggs, prepared foods from local restaurants, and other odds and ends will be stocked at the cafe.

What’s your approach to coffee?

We want all of our coffees to be extremely accessible. Dustin, our head roaster, is fantastic at creating great flavor profiles that are developed to balance acidity and sweetness, making each of our coffees great day to day coffees. When we have someone come into the shop, our goal is to create a consistent experience and open up the world of specialty coffee to our customers without overwhelming them. We like to emphasize flavors like honey and caramelized sugar to help customers enjoy without too much background knowledge in coffee varietals.

Method Roasters was also one of the champions of nitro cold brew and we will be featuring our nitro cold brew coffee at the space offering a variety of different seasonal and our regular cold brew recipes.

Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

We will be using a La Marzocco Linea Classic, Mahlkönig K30 Twin, and nitro cold brew setup. We really wanted to limit the amount of equipment we had to focus on our coffees and consistency.

What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?

Early June

Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?

A huge shout out to Raw Creative who did everything to make our space come to life!

Thank you!

No, thank you…

The Build-Outs Of Summer is an annual series on Sprudge. Live the thrill of the build all summer long in our Build-Outs feature hub.

The post Build-Outs Of Summer: Method Coffee Roasters In Denver, CO appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Tragedy has a way of changing the way we see things. By the light of darkness, experiences—even seemingly mundane ones—can be given a certain power. This is certainly true of Flower of Flowers, a new 30-minute documentary from Stumptown and Farm League that follows four people around Antigua, Guatemala, the city some 10 miles from Sunday’s Volcán de Fuego eruption. With the death toll continuing to rise—up to 75 as of this morning—and Anacafé stating the eruption causing a total loss of .9% of the national coffee crop, Flower of Flowers shifts from the documentation of a journey to a reminder vibrant country and the people on the front lines of the devastation.



Filmed earlier this year in February, the mini-documentary follows pro skateboarders Rick McCrank and Ray Barbee, artist Lori Damiano, and Stumptown Quality Assurance Manager Jim Kelso as they “engage with local coffee producers and learn about what’s happening in Central America through the lens of music, art and skateboarding.” But even in the 55-second trailer, the spectre of tragedy a few months in the future looms large; Volcán de Fuego hangs in the background of multiple shots, still in its more placid state.

Having watched the preview before the weekend’s events and then again after it, it is interesting how the focus moves away from the film’s four subjects and into the background, the people and places that surround them. But it is also a reminder of the beauty that once was not so long ago and can be again with our help. That’s why Stumptown is donating all proceeds from today’s (June 6th) cafe sales will be contributed to relief efforts in collaboration with the Guatemala Bella Vista Mill.

Flower of Flowers will premier on June 24th at the Brooklyn Bazaar in New York, with screenings in Los Angeles and Portland taking place on June 27th and July 9th, respectively. For more information on the film, visit Stumptown’s official website. To donate directly to relief efforts, PBS has put together a list of places to do so here.

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

*all media via Stumptown

Disclosure: Stumptown Coffee Roasters is an advertising partner on Sprudge Media Network.

The post A New Stumptown Documentary Is A Snapshot Of Antigua Before Tragedy appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Counter Culture Coffee’s Seattle Training Center is the sort of space you might stumble upon by chance. Located in a narrow storefront on 1st Street in the city’s Pioneer Square, its two-C logo affixed to the building’s facade just looks like it belongs. Has it always been here?

It hasn’t, but Counter Culture’s Seattle “TC”, as it’s colloquially referred to, has been in the making since 2016. The independently owned Durham, North Carolina-based company entered the market in the city with one customer—the diminutive Anchored Ship cafe in Ballard—but grew exponentially when hometown favorite Cherry Street Public House picked them up as a supplier that same year. Counter Culture cut the ribbon on its new space in mid-April. Seattle regional manager Amanda Byron explains that the company wanted to have a unique launch event, not just another coffee party.

Amanda Byron

“It wasn’t just an open house,” Byron says of what will surely be the first of many special events at the training space. “The idea was that we would do a book launch for A Reference Guide to Ethiopian Coffee Varieties.”

The book, written by Counter Culture’s Getu Bekele and Timothy Hill, is exactly what it sounds like, and sets out, according to its introduction, “to provide a more complete picture of the unique coffee varieties found in Ethiopia and showcase the work researchers have been doing in the country for over 40 years to make Ethiopian coffee more disease-resistant and better tasting.” Sounds like a lot to bite off? It would be, perhaps, for a roaster with less depth of knowledge in the field. The opening also featured Jeff Koehler, who wrote Where the Wild Coffee Grows, and showcased a limited-release single-farmer-lot coffee from Jose Sebastian Rodriguez in Colombia to commemorate the occasion.

Before opening their own space, Counter Culture’s Seattle operations were run out of the La Marzocco showroom in nearby Ballard. But having a facility fully their own is key to the Counter Culture model, says Byron.

“There are four corners to a complete region—education, sales account management, tech support, and a training center,” she explains. “We could’ve existed at La Marzocco for quite a while, but it never would’ve been our space.”

Operating in lockstep with other TCs, the Pioneer Square space features a Mazzer ZM, La Marzocco Strada and Linea PB machines, and a Marco Mix system.

“With each new training center,” Byron says, “you’ll see slightly different equipment, depending on what’s new at the time of its opening. But what we’re really doing in each is creating spaces that are easy to use, functional, and welcoming.”

That means the company’s popular Tasting at Ten series will continue in Seattle, and Counter Culture’s customers will of course have access to the space for trainings. Current partnerships include all of Cherry Street’s cafes, two General Porpoise locations, the Miir flagship, 5 Stones Coffee Company in Redmond, and James Beard Award-winning Seattle institution Canlis, which serves exclusive off-menu coffees whenever possible.

Tasting at Ten

“I’m interested in how [the new center] impacts our ability to expand in Seattle,” Byron says. “We have a support model like nobody else does, and I think that a lot of places here don’t yet know it exists. My hope is to get people in here to see this.”

Whether they’re invited in or just happen to be walking by, her hope seems a reasonable one.

Michael Light (@MichaelPLight) is a features editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Michael Light on Sprudge.

Some photos courtesy of Counter Culture Coffee.

The post A Visit To Counter Culture’s New Seattle Training Center appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Coffee conventions are great places to meet like-minded coffee professionals, but for the not-so-type-A types, these opportunities are often not as easily accessible. For this week’s Coffee Fest in Denver though, Oatly and Atlas Coffee Importers have teamed up to host Nice To Fika: A Coffee Centric Meetup. Like speed dating but for coffee friendship, Nice To Fika allows even the most reserved participant the chance to interact with many well-known names in the coffee industry.

Taking place this Friday, June 8^th at Zeppelin Station, all ticketed guests will be able to spend five minutes one-on-one with six panelists, and will even receive a list of questions “to help keep each chat flowing.” According the to Facebook event page, the panelists include:

After the conclusion of the speed round, the event will be opened to the public for music, food, and drinks.

Tickets for the one-on-one meet up portion of Nice To Fika cost $10 ($12.31 with the Eventbrite service fee) and include food and beverage. The after-party is free to attend, but Atlas and Oatly ask that you RSVP by “purchasing” a free general admission ticket, also through Eventbrite. All proceeds of the ticket sales will go to the Cafe Femenino Foundation.

So if you’re going to be at Coffee Fest Denver, break out of your shell in an inviting environment and make some new friends.

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

*images via Nice To Fika.

The post Nice To Fika: A Speed Round Coffee Meetup Happens In Denver On Friday appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News