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Daniel Brown, Gilly Brew Bar of Stone Mountain, GA

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

Nominated by Justin Brostek and Juanita Brown.

Daniel Brown is the founder of Gilly Brew Bar, a successful and important new coffee company based in the Stone Mountain suburb of Atlanta. Housed inside a historic 19th century home known as “The Mayor’s House,” purchased in 2015 by Brown and his wife, Shellane Brown, Gilly pushes quality and innovation across an ever-changing range of premium coffee “elixirs” featuring dried herbs, bitters, and aromatics. Brown was nominated by multiple people for The Sprudge Twenty, and in one nomination essay is described as “one of the most innovative, creative, savvy interpreters of the coffee experience I have ever encountered.”

This interview has been edited and condensed.

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

There are so many, but I deeply care about advancing the education of coffee production to coffee consumers.

By the time our coffee reaches the hopper or drip station, it has traveled miles and has passed through many hands. I want all of my customers to not only have a great cup of coffee but also a better understanding of the process and effort that it took to adeptly prepare their beverage. In turn, I believe customers would appreciate the nuances of a pure, well-grown, cultivated, harvested, roasted, and brewed beverage.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

Mixing & pairing coffee with other flavors is intriguing to me. Taking risks and challenging myself creatively through innovation, experimentation & revivals of alternative brewing methods & technology are a few causes and elements that drive me.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

Just to name a few:

• Sadly coffee shops have become participants and identifiers of gentrification, as opposed to genuinely helping to revitalize and/or reinvest into communities.
• Much of Western culture is saturated with excess. The monitoring of caffeine intake per day is not really implemented, I believe it should.
• Lack of positive awareness and exposure for amazing black- and brown-owned businesses around the world! But Big Ups to Sprudge for championing and acknowledging talented working baristas, cafe owners, and career professionals of all shades across the globe; especially for the ones who wouldn’t have received this recognition in the past.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

I see coffee as an artisanal food and my vision is to use it to enhance the culinary experience.

The quality I like best about coffee is its many notes; every crop from every origin tells a different story. But my interest doesn’t end at how coffee tastes. What interests me most is why coffee tastes the way it does. Knowing the why gives me a foundation and a story that I get to share and interpret in my own unique way.

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

I experienced a life-changing moment of coffee when I was a child.

The doctor diagnosed me with asthma and recommended I use an inhaler. But anyone who grew up in and around some sort of Caribbean culture knows about how home remedies are often favored over prescribed medication any day. And so at night when I would wheeze, mum would give me a hot cuppa black coffee. It would open up my airways in the lungs and therefore relieve my symptoms.

Coffee for me then was used for medicinal purposes and I still see it that way. It kept me alive (and awake) multiple times.

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

My idea of coffee happiness is being able to serve anyone that steps foot into my bar. A customer may visit that one time and never come again or they may decide to come back. Either way, I know both customers will leave, feeling Gilly.

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

Farming or the advancement of technology for the industry. Maybe inventing a new roasting machine or brewing method.

Who are your coffee heroes?

My coffee heroes are all of the men and women who labor day in and out in the farming lands. They cultivate the land that grows this wonderful creation of a tree that produces these juicy peaberries we call coffee.

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

Too easy. I’d drink coffee with my grandfather, Gilbert. I named my company after him and I’m blessed to still have him around. Sipping on some coffee on our family land in Jamaica, no words exchanged would be just enough.

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

I’d definitely still be pursuing another one of my business ideas. A studio, maybe? Music (singing/songwriting) has always been a huge part of my life. Perhaps I could sing behind my bar for now, become the first bonafide singing barista.

Yeah, I’ll start there… Look out for my first EP with my band of baristas, aka The Gilly Gang.

Do you have any coffee mentors?

Unfortunately, I do not. I’ve subscribed to a couple of vets on YouTube who have been in the game for some time now. OG’s like James Hoffmann or cats like Chris Baca are always dropping knowledge. In a lot of ways, I’ve become a mentor to others. But I have no in-person coffee mentors in my life. That would be awesome though—hit me up if you’d like to teach me some things.

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

I wish someone would have told me how difficult it was to reach people in your own community. I get so much support from people outside of Stone Mountain Village but I have many neighbors, just walking distance away, who never come over for a cup.

You know what? I’ll bring them a cup someday.

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

A nursery (consisting of a raised bed, filled with organic fertilizer) to guarantee healthy seedlings
Wet mill
Dry mill

A drip irrigation system with valves (to avoid water waste) will already be installed in my rocket of course. If you haven’t figured it out already, my goal is to grow the first coffee farm in space! Crazy huh?

What’s the best song to brew coffee to?

That’s a hard one. My go to’s would have to be a worship song or an instrumental by an artist like Snarky Puppy, Towser, or a classic beat by James Dewitt Yancey aka J.Dilla.

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

No need for the crystal ball, 20 years from now I will have a sustainable business that has grown to bear much fruit.

My wife and I will have a free weekend to do whatever we please. We’d have children by then and we’d be in a position to help them focus on their dreams (college, travel abroad, or continue in their parent’s footsteps).

I’ll be financially in a place where I’d also be able to pour into the lives of others (family and friends…) most of all, I’d do all that I can to advance the Kingdom, for the glory of the Lord.

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

Porridge. My mum’s recipe, made by my wife Shellane. Cheap and easy to make but very filling.

When did you last drink coffee?

Does right now count???

What was it?

It was a shot of spro: Gilly Blend (Brazil + Colombia), bright, buttery, brown sugar, roasted by my partners at Firelight Coffee Roasters.

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 Daniel Brown: The Sprudge Twenty Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

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

Nominated by Kara Herman and Ben Lytle

Haley Lytle is a co-founder at Cryptozoology, a quality-focused multi-roaster coffee bar located in Denton, Texas. Lytle is one of several nominees featured for their exemplary expression of service and hospitality in a specialty coffee environment. A working barista and entrepreneur, Lytle’s work in coffee helps advance the culture in ways large and small. Here’s more from a nominating essay by Kara Herman:

“Haley specifically thrives on efficiency and makes it an art. She is able to communicate with customers while knocking out an order before the customer even walks away from the bar. (Almost every time!)… She has been incredibly encouraging and inspiring to me. I am only a few months into joining the coffee community so I am very glad to be learning from her… She makes sure that our team is efficient, happy, learning, and exhibiting the best customer experience possible. She has a gentle way of teaching and showing me how to do certain tasks better and explaining why it will make an overall difference in what we are doing. High-quality drinks and exceptional customer service are our goals and she makes sure it happens while having a lot of fun… She goes above and beyond but has no idea.”

This interview has been edited and condensed.

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

I care about hospitality being restored because I feel like it became the norm for baristas to have a mean edge. What seemed to manifest from that was a lack of making customers feel welcome and being given the opportunity to fall in love with coffee, whether your thing is vanilla iced lattes or pour-overs. I would also love to see more racial diversity in the coffee industry because the market still seems to be directed toward a certain kind of person who looks one way, knows certain things, and is well-spoken in English.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

I love getting to serve people and make them feel known. We love to memorize people’s names to further dignify them as real people. I definitely love coffee itself and the nuances there, but it’s amazing to see how customers can feel your warmth and love translated even when you’re standing on one side of the bar. The fact that we can change the atmosphere is magical to me.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

Again, I would say that service can be overlooked a lot. A lot of baristas don’t know how to simultaneously be personal, efficient, and knowledgeable about their profession. This includes being passionate or mindful about coffee beverages of all types, making every kind of drink the best drink it can be, including flavored lattes that have been criticized as uncool. It also includes being hospitable to people that are new to coffee, speak a totally different language, are disabled in some way or who don’t care to be passionate about coffee the way you are (and this includes your own baristas who don’t want to make coffee their career). I think we have a secret set of things we expect customers and baristas to know without actually being patient and kind in helping them learn things they’re probably too afraid to ask about for fear of feeling dumb.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

I enjoy that coffee can make your eyes pop because the flavor can be so impressive. I like that even my dad could taste a good, light roast coffee and say, “I can drink this black! I don’t even have to put cream or sugar in this!” I once had this coffee that tasted so strongly of tangerine (like its bag said), and I really tasted that. I had drank a lot of good coffee before then, but I never experienced such a strong note that I both saw on the bag and experienced for myself. It’s amazing how coffee comes from a fruit, and that means constant change. What a world!

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

I still don’t get the concept of a “god shot,” but I did fall in love with coffee over time. I started drinking all kinds of great black coffee, and I just never stopped. But like I’ve already mentioned in the previous question, the pour-over I made of this one coffee blew my mind when I tasted that clear tangerine note. Wow! That made me think that baristas really weren’t lying when they said they like the taste of coffee!

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

Oh boy. Happiness is contentment and gratefulness. Things can always be worse. I’ve experienced enough anxiety to last me a lifetime, and it’s amazing what being grateful can do. My mom once told me in 7th grade, “You just never know what people are going through.” And boy is that true! Every person you see is having a hard time in some way—even if that person is really mean. That’s what’s so awesome about coffee, even though the service industry is challenging. I can love people just by fixing up and serving them a drink. And that’s something to be grateful for. I get to do something I love and simultaneously make others feel loved.

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

I think I like exactly what I’m doing now. Owning a coffee shop with my husband in Denton, TX is a big ole check mark on the list of things I would say are a list of dreams. I can’t be happier nor do I feel like any other position would satisfy me more. I get to own a shop but also be behind bar a lot (pretty much all the time). And it’s hard but so great.

Who are your coffee heroes?

My husband, Ben Lytle. He teaches me something new everyday and is a huge example of leadership in the coffee community.

Also, Elle Jensen. My husband and I went to Denver, CO for our honeymoon about four years ago. We sat down at Amethyst for the first time and had no idea how big a deal that shop was/would be. Elle served us our coffees that day, and she was probably around 26 at the time. We discovered she owns Amethyst, and it’s her shop that influenced our shop’s menu of “any coffee any way” where you can order the same coffee as either an espresso or pour-over.

Last, Tim Wendelboe. Who doesn’t love the godfather of coffee and a man who will shoot you straight?

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

I would drink coffee with Mister Rogers because he loved people so well, and I’d love to soak in his wisdom over a cup of coffee and good conversation. I used to watch his show when I was little, and he would be so fun to chat with.

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

I’d love to be a personal trainer, a funeral director, or a sculptor. (I can’t sculpt.)

Do you have any coffee mentors?

My husband has been a great coffee mentor. He is such an exceptional encourager. He’s one of the most talented people you could ever meet. He has been a barista, a roaster, a brewer’s cup competitor, he’s an artist, he has an amazing singing voice, and I recently rediscovered that he can make balloon animals! Ben has always been willing to teach me things, help me, and always celebrate when I’m learning and growing.

My old coworker, Ramon Muzquiz, was always willing to dive into coffee knowledge with me. He was always very passionate, detail-oriented, and inquisitive. He wasn’t above being wrong, and his palate was always pretty sharp. He helped me develop my palate when I was learning coffee.

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

I wish someone would have told me that most baristas are kind of bull**** along the way. There can be a lot of arrogance and pride in the coffee world (which is weird to me), but everyone is simply just trying. We’re all trying to learn and develop our palates and have fun.

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

Grinder, Kalita (I’m assuming we can take filters too), and a kettle. If I can’t take a scale, I’ll just eyeball it all.

Best song to brew coffee to:

Next Time/Humble Pie—The Internet

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

I have kids with Ben, we still love coffee and have a shop, we still live in Denton, TX, and my parents will have been able to move up to Denton from southeast Texas (which is six hours away ).

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

I didn’t eat breakfast. I’m a coffee shop owner but also full-time barista. So I don’t have time to do that. Can I get an amen from all you baristas?

When did you last drink coffee?

I’m drinking some right now.

What is it?

It’s an Ecuador coffee from Sweet Bloom (Rosa Encarnacion), and it is straight fire.

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 Haley Lytle: The Sprudge Twenty Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Photo by Daniel Smith

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

Nominated by Priscilla Fisher 

Chris Tellez is a coffee professional and entrepreneur based in Ontario, where he serves as a regional sales representative for Phil & Sebastian Coffee and owns and operates Show & Tell Coffee. A career professional, Tellez has been competing in the Canadian barista competition circuit for more than a decade. His work came to international attention in 2019 for a protest routine on the Canadian Barista Championship stage, calling out an official World Coffee Events rule disallowing the use of alternative milk. Tellez’ routine was timed to the launch of a petition formally requesting WCE reconsider the rule.

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

I’ve spent the last several years focusing on personal wellness and its role in the coffee industry. We are largely a customer-facing, service-oriented business, and being in that position requires creating an emotionally, physically, and spiritually stable foundation. I think there is a serious problem of burnout in our industry, which leads many, many people to end up leaving the customer-facing positions, or the industry altogether. I see very little being done to cultivate all-around health within organizations and I think this is a huge area where we can improve.

I should also mention that currently I am putting a lot of effort behind trying to change rule 2.2.2 in the World Baristas Championships, which indicates that competitors must use cow’s milk for the espresso and milk course. As a vegan, and someone with sustainability in mind, I really feel like this is a regressive rule and it is definitely time that we work towards updating it to reflect the current culture in the industry, where more and more plants milks are being enjoyed, at a fraction of the ecological footprint of dairy milks.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

I think the driving force for myself in coffee is creating accessible spaces to learn about coffee. At the cafe level, we work really hard in our spaces to create an environment where everyone can ask questions and learn at their own pace without feeling alienated. But on a broader level, I really love to work with new coffee professionals, to get them thinking about coffee in new and unique ways, and to try and learn from their experiences so that I can better understand where people are coming from when they start to pursue coffee. It makes it a lot more exciting for me and it allows me to connect with people on a more honest level, which is the most motivating thing I can think of.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

Lately, my mind has been on green coffee quality and the issues we are facing in getting quality roasted coffee, due to green issues. We get sent tons of samples, and so, so often the coffee tastes past crop. When I taste age on a coffee, it no longer feels like specialty coffee to me. When we get into the end of the winter months, and everyone’s coffee is starting to taste its age, there are only a few roasters really doing anything to combat this. It’s something that has inspired us to create a pretty hard-line on the coffees we will be bringing in, and that in the future we simply cannot accept old coffees. I really look forward to more roasteries addressing this in a sustainable way.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

Coffee gives us the opportunity to connect with a plant every time we drink it. I have a great respect for the power of plants and the medicine they hold. Coffee has been known for a very, very long time to be a powerful and potent medicine, and I think our ritual of roasting and brewing the seed builds a very direct relationship with the plant, something most of us lack in our day to day lives. In addition to having a career in coffee, I am also in the final stages of finishing school to become an herbalist, and I like to see coffee making as a daily practice in connecting to the plant world.

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

Probably not dissimilar to a lot of people, but I remember in 2007 going to a coffee shop and being served an “Aricha” Ethiopian Clover coffee. You probably could have assumed it was 2007 because I said Aricha and Clover. Anyways, it was the first cup of coffee I paid a lot of money for, and it was the first time I tasted something that was entirely outside of my preconceptions of coffee. It was a blueberry bomb, no subtlety, no nuance, no elegance, just big, loud, and full of blueberries… and roast. Definitely opened my eyes up to the idea that there was something else going on, and led me to pursue working with a roaster, which helped me explore these things.

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

I don’t know if I’m interpreting this question properly but I think “coffee happiness” to me is just being served a really well-made, fresh coffee from a barista who genuinely cares about providing a good experience. I get to travel a fair bit for my work and I go to a lot of cafes. When I meet a barista who clearly has the intention of making something special out of the experience, I get really stoked. That’s what I try and do as much as possible in my cafes and what I really try to encourage staff to think about. It also really helps when the coffee tastes amazing. I’m a sucker for a really well made batch brew.

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

This is such an awesome question, and I think my answer actually has a few caveats. Firstly, I kind of have exactly the job I want now; I run a couple cafes (along with my business partners) and I do wholesale management for Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters. It’s a really cool blend of work that gives me a lot of opportunity to build personal connections, which is what I care most about. But if I wasn’t doing this, I think I would really like to create a role within a large coffee company that focuses on blending elements of HR and community engagement. Acting as a voice for both the baristas and/or roasting staff to help maintain a healthy internal community, while bridging the gap between what the company is trying to achieve and the outside community’s role. I would also foresee some kind of overall “Wellness” attribute to it.

Who are your coffee heroes?

Oh man, I have a pretty long list of the people who have inspired me. As a competitor I was always so, so inspired by Colin Harmon. Watching his sets just made me so excited, because I could see a little bit of how I liked to perform in him, just on a whole other level. I would also put Ben Put into that category. No one in my competitive life has set a better example than him. Outside of competition, I have to say Phil Robertson and Sebastian Sztabzyb. Every day I see the phenomenal amount of dedication they put into what they do and I am so deeply humbled and inspired. The things they do at origin, the way they approach problems like green quality, and their excitement surrounding roasting is just such a good reminder of why I care about coffee.

On a more personal level, every one of my staff members inspires me, though we have worked hard to try and promote female coffee professionals within our organization, which was something that my very first coffee job was really good about recognizing and set the tone for me. Having strong female voices in the mix just feels so natural and so so important, and gives me a much better understanding of the industry as a whole, so they are definitely my heroes.

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

So, he’s more of a tea drinker, but it would have to be Ram Dass, my spiritual teacher. He is the person who taught me how to live in my heart, helped bring me out of the depths of my depression, eating disorder and self-harming thoughts, and really just opened my eyes to so much of the beauty in the world. Without him I couldn’t be the person in coffee I am now, so a coffee date would be a pretty big experience. We did have a Skype date once, but I don’t think I had a coffee with me.

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

I might be working on a vegetable farm in some strange corner of the world, living in a van near a climbing crag, or likely working in the health industry. I studied nutrition, and am finishing up my schooling in herbalism, so I suppose that would probably be somewhere in there too!

Do you have any coffee mentors?

The Phil & Sebastian team for sure, I think the Cat & Cloud team really has helped me better understand my own vision for managing a team, and I wouldn’t be anywhere without my bosses at my first cafe, Mark and Christene at Espresso Post in my home town.

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

I was 16 so, there was a whole lot of lessons I needed to learn, but I think the biggest one would be to just stay quiet and curious. I had a lot of self-esteem issues and I really only knew how to play those off by faking confidence. I think this got in the way of some of my learning early on, especially when I took my first serious coffee job after high school. It led to certain assumptions about me that I don’t think were very accurate and I probably could have avoided some of that. Regardless, it helped me grow into who I am now, so I’m thankful for that.

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

I guess a scale wouldn’t be much good, hey? So maybe like, a cup with a lid, some freeze-dried coffee, and a straw?

Best song to brew coffee to:

At the risk of sounding way too Canadian: “Big League” by Tom Cochrane. I used it in my comp playlist this year and I was pretty happy with it.

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

I have a kind of grandiose plan. I would like to create a network to provide people within the coffee industry access to health services that are normally outside of their financial means. Things like nutrition, personal training, meditation, talk therapy, etc. We work in an industry that really doesn’t do a great job of promoting a healthy lifestyle, and I think we need to start changing that. In 20 years I would love to be operating a space which acts as an almost wellness centre to provide that to our industry. And of course, there would be a cafe involved too.

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

A ton of berries and some almonds. Pretty standard!

When did you last drink coffee?

Literally right now… it’s happening.

What is it?

La Magdalena #1 from Colonna Coffee. It’s a Colombian coffee comprised of a bunch of microlots from Tarqui, Huila. It’s a total slugger, insanely delicious and a very perfect morning coffee.

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 Chris Tellez: The Sprudge Twenty Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

We as consumers have in recent years put a premium on all things organic and pesticide-free; we’ve even developed opinions on monoculture systems (we don’t like them). And while all these sustainability-focused practices are decidedly good things, it’s often easy to say what folks worlds away should be doing when we have no real stake in the game. Many producers are just trying to eke out a living, so switching entire farming practices to follow a trend—for better or worse—is untenable. Ants, crickets, and beetles still exist; they are the “pest” the sprayed chemicals are trying to “icide” away. One Brazilian coffee farmer decided to make the switch to organic farming, and right on cue, the ants showed up and began carrying off his coffee cherries.

But then, an interesting thing happened: the farmer started to notice discarded coffee seeds cleaned of the pulp, so he began to pick them up. Turns out, they tasted pretty good.

As reported in Atlas Obscura by frequent Sprudge contributor Rafael Tonon, João Neto of Fazenda Santo Antônio in the interior state of São Paulo opted to move away from monoculture coffee production and chemical pesticides, practices the farm has used for decades. Neto did so for ecological reasons, to allow for the “natural rebalancing that the monoculture of coffees had extinguished” at his farm. “Nature is in charge. If these plants have to stay here, they will resist,” Neto told Atlas Obscura.

And nature was hungry. The re-emergent ants began climbing up the coffee trees to knock off coffee cherries to take back to their mounds. After feasting on the pulp, the ants would leave the seeds outside the mounds, which Neto began to collect. After collecting enough seeds to “fill a large coffee grinder,” Neto reached out to friend and owner of Tokyo’s Café Paulista, Katsuhiko Hasegawa, who wanted to see how they tasted.

When Hasegawa next visited Fazenda Santo Antônio, he roasted the coffee and found that it had, as Neto described, “a different and pleasant acidity.” Others who tasted the coffee said “the flavor resembled other floral coffees with jasmine notes” and that the ant processing gave the coffee “sweeter notes.”

But even after a successful trial run, don’t expect to find Neto’s unique coffee popping up in your local shop anytime soon. The best harvest of the ant-processed coffee didn’t eclipse the 60-pound mark, and with the switch away from monoculture farming, Neto’s land use for coffee production has decreased from 230 hectares to just 40. Neto is currently only making samples of the coffee, but according to Atlas Obscura, he hopes to someday sell “tiny amounts” of it to interested parties.

Even if Neto’s coffee never sees commercial success, Fazenda Santo Antônio acts as a proof of concept that nature and coffee farming can coexist more or less peacefully. Keep an eye out for ant-processed coffee taking the coffee competition world by storm. Lactic processed Gesha is so 2018.

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 from Marvel’s Ant-Man via IMDB

The post Organic Farming, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Ant-Processed Coffee appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

A walk in the park, Brussels is not. In the Belgian capital, contrasts between the well-off and those in need can be stark. Street names and signs are given in two languages, though neighborhoods and their inhabitants tend to identify as either Francophone or Flemish-speaking, sometimes leading to notoriously nationalist identity politics and social strife. Majestic though they are, many of the monumental buildings look like they are forever in need of a power wash.

Despite these complexities, not to mention the city’s Eurocratic solemnity—it is known as the European Union’s “de facto capital” (the title itself evoking bureaucratic provisos and red tape)—Brussels’ mascot is the Manneken Pis. That this simple little statue of a naked boy urinating into a fountain attracts so much attention and celebration reminds us that humor and joie de vivre also exist here. So do chocolates galore, among many other famous local sweets (waffles, nougat) and treats (mussels, beer). Meanwhile, a contrast to all the traditionalist Belgian gastronomy is the novelty of specialty coffee. The scene is still young and the cafes are still very much countable, but that makes it all the more exciting. Here, then, are a variety of venues worth a visit.

OR Coffee

Its name is a conjunction connecting choices, but visiting OR Coffee should not be a matter of choice when in Brussels. Many would agree that this brand brought specialty coffee to the Belgian capital, over a decade after Katrien Pauwels and Tom Janssen founded their own roastery in 2001. Today the couple has two cafes in Brussels, two in Ghent, and the OR coffee school and roastery in Westrem.

Flanked by a Marriott Hotel and a Bobbi Brown store, the Brussels’ city-center location, which opened in 2012, attracts a cross-section of clients, whose Flemish, French, and English conversations bounce animatedly off the bi-level brick walls. Coffee orders—taken at the counter but delivered to tables—might range from traditional espresso-based milk beverages to the most pronouncedly pampelmousse Kenyan à la Kalita this reporter has ever experienced. And in the Dutch and Flemish tradition, drinks are served with a little sweet on the side: here, a chocolate in OR’s signature forest green and gold packaging.

An estimated 95% of OR’s coffee is “direct fair trade,” says the company’s head of education, Wouter Helsen. This choice is facilitated by the close working relationship with Pauwels’ other business, Cup-A-Lot green coffee sourcers, and she and Janssen’s ability to personally travel to origin countries.

For equally appealing offerings and service, visit OR’s second Brussels branch in the municipality of Etterbeek. This cafe attracts the darker-suited set with business in and among the nearby European Commission and provides, for the coffeecrats among us, the cool sight of a Pentair water filter system with customized copper tubing wall-mounted like an objet d’art.

MOK

Like OR, MOK has its roots, roastery, and first coffee bar in Flanders, but its Brussels outpost has become the company flagship. Though founder and owner Jens Crabbé says he once felt namer’s remorse for the obvious choice—mok means “mug” in Flemish—he acknowledges it was an ode to filter coffee, experiencing a renaissance in the Low Countries when his business began almost eight years ago. And it remains fitting considering the scrutiny with which Crabbé develops his roasting profiles and brew recipes; unsurprisingly, he is Belgium’s reigning Cup Tasters Champion.

“It started off maybe quite small and cute and then, as I grew as a person,” says Crabbé, now just shy of 30, “my style started to change, and the brand kind of followed.”

With high ceilings, a communal table, a custom-designed shelving-cum-blackboard unit, and an open kitchenette producing vegetarian-friendly cold and hot breakfast and lunch, MOK is progressive in its aesthetics and taste. Being situated on the fashionable Rue Antoine Dansaert—from A.P.C. to Kartell, stylistas can shop in a straight line—is fitting, though MOK deftly balances chic and geek.

Jens Crabbé

Riffing about MOK’s reverse-osmosis system and the different hardnesses for espresso and filter, Crabbé notes: “When people buy coffee we even encourage them [by saying], ‘Hey, take half a liter of water home from the tap, try it at home with our water. Water is really important, and we really try to like tick all the boxes to give you a good coffee experience.’”

Inasmuch as Crabbé enjoys living and working in his hometown of Leuven, he is seeking a new roasting space for MOK in the Belgian capital. “There’s a lot of work to be done still in Brussels in coffee, and we really want to be a part of that,” he says. 

Fika

From light roasts in specialty coffee to clean lines in interior design, Scandinavia has contributed much to contemporary cafe culture around the world. In Brussels, however, Scandic style has yet to become big. And when Joana Soulard opened her homage to the Swedish coffee break in fall 2016, it was simply a commonsensical melding of two of her interests: specialty coffee and Scandinavian culture.

For filter preparations, Fika uses coffee roasted by April (founded by, indeed, a Swede), and is known to include Swedish favorites among its on-premise-baked pastries. “We have some Swedish [customers], but they come for the semla,” admits Soulard.

Of Fika’s city-central neighborhood, “it’s very mixed,” she says. The Matongé, as it is commonly known, is named after a district in Kinshasa, DR Congo, recognizing the many Congolese immigrants who have settled in the area over the last half-century; these days they are joined by other African communities and European Union-employed expats.

Fika does a lot of weekday morning takeaway, though during the day provides a peaceful spot to sit and sip. The venue, like its owner, is relaxed yet engaging; characteristically light wood and soft lines create a sense of holding space and hygge. That said, a non-Nordic nod goes to Café Capitale, the Brussels brand that supplies Fika’s espresso beans and a company whom Soulard credits with teaching her “everything about coffee” during her four-year employment there.

“For me, it’s important to use and to have some local products,” she adds.

Café Capitale

Café Capitale is a crowd pleaser. Perhaps this is because founder François Lafontaine established his company in 2001 with ambience very much in mind, aiming for “cool places to drink coffee,” as he put it in a Coffee with April podcast. But fast-forward a dozen years, after inspiring visits to Sydney and Melbourne—having discovered “places where you sell only classic basic milk drink and filter coffee, with no whipped cream, no syrup and no topping and a huge line of customers”—Lafontaine rebranded and renamed his business. His focus turned to specialty coffee and he plunged into SCA courses, eventually becoming a certified roaster and Q grader.

Nowadays, Lafontaine owns and runs an atelier and bakery in nearby Uccle, the Brussels-based Belgian Coffee Academy, which has a roastery and a training center, and two cafes in Brussels.

The Café Capitale on Rue du Midi, which dates back to 2001, occupies a busy corner near the city’s iconic square, the Grand-Place. Vinyl spins on a turntable behind the bar and illustrations of coffee apparatuses act simultaneously as wall art and a visual education.

Alongside espresso-based drinks and filter coffees—V60 is the default, though AeroPress and Chemex are also available—the menu lists “three aromatic coffees from the past,” as Lafontaine terms them: “the mochaccino, the caramel macchiato, and the cappuccinut.” This reporter found the last—a syrup-sweetened hazelnut crunch-topped cappuccino—a perfect pre-prandial pick-me-up. And for those who prefer not to nibble from a drink, but rather, a dish, there is breakfast, lunch, and snack fare, with many of the carbohydrates produced by Café Capitale’s own bakery.

Less spacious but no less enticing, the branch on Rue Ernest Allard is in Sablon, just a 10-minute walk south.

Aksum Coffee House

At Aksum Coffee House, do not expect an array of filter choices—in fact, on a recent visit, there was none on the menu, though a barista happily obliged when asked for one—nor conversations about water hardness and fruit-forward roast profiles. Be prepared, however, for a fine selection of espresso beans exclusively from Ethiopia, teas, chocolate, and baked goods, as well as a cost-free feast for the eyes in the form of rotating wall art by local street artists.

The Aksum brand has been around for a decade, but investor Vinod Gautam took it over about five years ago and, with the avid help of manager Fatima Boulben, began focusing on what Gautam calls organic, mainly small-cooperative-sourced Harar, Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, and Limu coffees roasted by Aksum’s own roastery. Though neither is Ethiopian—he is from India; her parents are from Morocco—the duo is intent on sharing Ethiopian coffee with the masses, and have ambitions to one day host Ethiopian dance and coffee ceremonies in Brussels.

Aksum Coffee House currently has three Brussels locations, though the most spectacular is in the renowned Saint-Hubert Royal Galleries, a 19^th-century European shopping arcade (read: proto-mall). The Embassy of Ethiopia’s quarterly magazine called this branch, which opened in July 2017, “the temple of Ethiopian coffee in the city.”

Amidst the arcade’s Old World boutiques and high-end chocolatiers, it radically offers a hangout spot, with friendly staff and room enough for small groups to share a table or solitary laptop workers to concentrate.

As Boulben describes her vision of Aksum: “It has to be a place where everybody should feel comfortable. From the high social level to the normal social level, they should all feel comfortable, because you know when you say ‘specialty coffee’ people straightaway feel afraid this is expensive.”

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

The post Where To Drink Coffee In Brussels appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

It’s that time again! It’s time for the 2019 edition of the Build-Outs of Summer, Sprudge Media Network’s annual planet-spanning survey of cafes under construction across the global coffee scene. Submissions are now open!

Submit your cafe now for the 2019 Build-Outs of Summer feature series. 

Now in its incredible seventh season, Sprudge spends each summer delving deep into the global world of new cafes, documenting them far and wide, featuring dozens, no hundreds of the hottest cafes around the world in an ongoing narrative of coffee cultural growth and expansion. We yearn for the thrill of the build! And we’re ready to kick the dang thing off again, this time bigger and better than ever.

This is an open call to be featured in the 2019 Build-Outs of Summer series on Sprudge. This year we’re looking for:

• New cafes under construction between May and September of 2019
• Cafe remodels that will be completed by September 2019
• Tiny new cafes built on zero budget
• Expansive new cafes that push coffee design concepts forward
• Coffee bars considering sustainability and environmental impact
• Cafes from North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica (especially Antarctica)

The Build-Outs of Summer 2019 season will kick off on June 21st and close on September 23rd. To help keep this annual compendium of coffee construction free and open for all to enter, in 2019 Sprudge has partnered with a select group of presenting sponsors for Build-Outs of Summer. This summer’s series is brought to you in partnership with…

• Pacific Barista Series — purveyors of fine artisan alternative milks, a must-have for today’s modern and inclusive coffee bar.
• KeepCup — trendsetting creators of stunning, stylish reusable takeaway cups, and leaders for sustainability in the coffee bar and festival space.
• notNeutral — pioneers helping lead the fusion of coffee and contemporary vessel design, one “for here” order at a time.
• Mill City Roasters — makers of handcrafted artisan coffee roasting machines, for aspiring and established coffee roasters alike.

Throughout the summer we’ll learn a bit more about how our presenting partners are working with brands large and small to help make coffee dreams come true. These Build-Outs features are more than just cafe previews—they are a snapshot of where the global coffee culture, and where it’s headed next.

This year’s season will kick off shortly, so bring to us your tired entrepreneurs, working day and night to get the darn thing open (permits permitting); your project managers, your construction liaisons, your architects bedecked in blueprint blues; bring to us your thirsty PR reps, huddled masses yearning to breathe free (and bill fees); show us your carts, your bikes, your trikes, your rippin’ #vanlife conversion vans, your grand new cafe schemes and humble 200-square-foot espresso ventures, your palaces of brekkie, your porticos of ‘spro. Bring us your builds, and upon them we ourselves will build anon, and on, towards another annual edition of the Build-Outs of Summer!

Submit your cafe now for the 2019 Build-Outs of Summer feature series. 

The 2019 Build-Outs of Summer series on Sprudge Media Network is presented by Mill City Roasters, Pacific Barista Series, notNeutral and KeepCup. 

Contact us today and submit your cafe for the 2019 Build-Outs of Summer feature series. 

Explore every last Build-Out over the last half decade in our archives.

The post 2019 Build-Outs Of Summer—Submissions Are Now Open! appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

By now most of the specialty coffee consuming public knows that there are such things as washed and natural processed coffees—and to a lesser extent honeyed—and the majority would probably be able to give you some sort of description of the difference between the two in terms of flavor. (And if you don’t, don’t worry. Consider joining our newsletter to be part of the Sprudge Coffee Club, where you will receive discounts on all manner of coffee from some of the best roasters around.) But if you were to ask most folks to describe what exactly goes into these processes, you’d probably end up with a lot of blank stares.

Cafe Imports is looking to change that. Ever the purveyor of educational coffee videos, over the course of the next week, June 3rd through 6th, Cafe Imports will be releasing a new series called “Coffee Processing” that explains the four major processing methods found in specialty coffee, and a preview has been released today.

Averaging a little under six minutes a video (a 23 minute total run time), the video series explains the processing methods by following them each step by step as they happen at origin. The videos cover: the washed process at Finca Ecológica in Agua Colorada, Cajamarca, Peru; the natural process at Halo Fafate Washing Station at the Worka Cooperative in Gedeb, Ethiopia; honey processing at Las Lajas micromill in Sabanilla de Alajuela, Costa Rica; and semi-washed (or wet hulled) processing at the Bergandal Mill in the Gayo Highlands of Sumatra.

Starting on Monday, Cafe Imports will release a new video every day at 2:00pm CT on their YouTube channel and via their website. They will be released in the other of: Washed, Semi-Washed, Natural, and Honeyed. For now, a preview of the entire Coffee Processing series will have to hold you over.

 

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A post shared by Cafe Imports (@cafeimports) on May 31, 2019 at 11:37am PDT

You don’t need to be a coffee roaster—or a coffee professional at all for that matter—just coffee curious in order to find these videos useful. Coffee beans just don’t fall off the tree ready to be roasted; a lot of work goes into getting them into a usable state, and the Coffee Processing series gives a better idea of exactly what that work is.

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 Cafe Imports

Disclosure: Cafe Imports is an advertising partner with the Sprudge Media Network

The post Dive Into Cafe Imports’ New “Coffee Processing” Video Series appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Annapolis, Maryland-based roasters Ceremony Coffee just launched brand new packaging for 2019. With it they’ve incorporated their “Taste By Color” palate palette in the design “meant to simplify finding a favorite coffee and convey a sense of familiarity” with their seasonal offerings, explains Roaster and Green Coordinator Jared Voorhees. We reached out to Voorhees via email to learn more.

When did the design debut?

The new bags started trickling out Monday, May 13th.

What’s different about the package?

We’ve pursued an approachable minimalism and incorporated what we’ve been calling Taste by Color into the redesign. The colors on our website, our cold brew cans, and now our bags, are all meant to simplify finding a favorite coffee and convey a sense of familiarity within our seasonal offering. Take a peek at tastebycolor.com to see what’s up.

Who designed it?

The rebrand was a team effort between Drexler Design Studio in Baltimore and several very relieved people at Ceremony.

How long did this redesign take to develop?

This package redesign was roughly two years in the talking-about phase and took about a year in heavy collaboration.

Why are aesthetics important for coffee packaging?

Coffee packaging is often nice to look at, but if it’s honest, it can also be an elegant heuristic that works as a guide to what’s inside.

Where is it available?

You can snag a bag at ceremonycoffee.com, in any of our four (soon to be six) cafes, or your local Ceremony stockist. DM us if you want to find out who has our coffee near you.

Thanks!

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

Disclosure: Ceremony Coffee is an advertising partner of Sprudge.

The post Coffee Design: Ceremony Coffee In Maryland appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

When I first got into specialty coffee, I saved every retail bag I purchased. My goal back in those halcyon days was to eventually catalog them all, taking down notes about origin, flavor, my general enjoyment of the coffee, etc. I was gonna crack this whole fancy coffee nut through diligent study. Well, I never did catalog them, but that didn’t stop me from continuing to save every bag, which I convinced myself I would turn into an art project. That art project also never happened. What did happen about a year ago, though, is that I finally gave in and threw away over 400 coffee bags.

Even with my admission of lacking the gumption and requisite artistic skill to save those bags from their ultimate fate, it would have been nice if there was a way for SOMEONE to find a use for them. To combat this with their own bags, Wilmington, Vermont’s Brandywine Coffee Roasters has created a brand new rewards program. Called the Brandywine Upcycled Rewards Program (BURP), the coffee company is offering discounts on future orders for returned bags, which will then be given to local artists to use in their work.

The program is simple: the more bags you return, the better the reward you receive. Send in five bags and receive a free six-ounce bag of BURP-exclusive coffee. 10 bags earns you the same coffee plus a BURP sticker and pin. 20 bag earns you the coffee as well as 10% off your next coffee order.

BURP is also available to Brandywine customers outside Delaware. Per the coffee company’s website, to receive your rewards, “send your mailing address, number of bags to upcycle, and past order number to info@brandywinecoffeeroasters.com to get your free return shipping label, and let the upcycling rewards roll in!”

The collected bags will then be given to artists “who used upcycled materials to make magic.” The first two artists selected are Todd Purse—Brandywine’s Creative Director who also designed the company’s bags, featured here—and Clara Logue, who will be making collages on wooden canvases and coffee bag pouches, respectively. Those items will then be sold in Brandywine’s web store, and the artists are taking direct commissions for their upcycled works as well.

In the future, Brandywine states they will be switching to a new version of the Biotre bags from Pacific Bags. In the meantime, Burp provides a creative solution to curbing the number of bags that make it to a landfill. For more information about the Brandywine Upcycle Rewards Program or to buy or commission a custom upcycled work, visit Brandywine’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 Brandywine Coffee Roasters

The post Bring Your Bag, Get Some Swag: Brandywine’s New Upcycle Rewards Program appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Laetitia Mukandahiro (Photo courtesy Laetitia Mukandahiro)

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

Nominated by Chelsea Thoumsin

Laetitia Mukandahiro is an accomplished coffee professional born and raised in Rwanda. Originally from the village of Musasa, located near the famed Dukundekawa cooperative, Mukandahiro distinguished herself early in her career as an accomplished and capable professional cupper. She’s worked for the Rwanda Smallholder Specialty Coffee Company (RWASHOSCCO), for the washing station management firm KZ Noir, and today for the noted Rwandan coffee exporter Bufcoffee, where she serves as Quality Control and Sustainability Manager. Mukandahiro is a certified Q Grader and has served on multiple international Cup of Excellence judging panels. Her continuing work with Bufcoffee includes establishing a training center and affording ongoing opportunities for Rwandan youths interested in a career in coffee.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed. 

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

The issue I care for the most is that in developing countries, the younger generation is not interested in the coffee sector. I am afraid for the next years.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

Coffee is my life and my passion.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

The New York [C Market] price is not equal to the small producers and their efforts. Here in Rwanda, many are considering leaving the coffee sector and investing in other subsistance agriculture crops.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

Coffee makes friends. It is a universe of opportunities.

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

Yes! When I cupped the 2018 Rwanda Cup of Excellence winner, Twumba Coffee—OMG!

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

Coffee happiness to me is seeing that your production is in high demand and your reputation in the sector is bright.

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

My favorite position in the coffee industry would be:

• Quality control, as I am well experienced in this—I’ve been working in this area for 15 years.
• Marketing, because I enjoy discovering new people and I love talking about coffee across the cupping table.

Who are your coffee heroes?

I have many! My parents, who are coffee farmers and have been for many years. Tim Schilling from World Coffee Research, Lindsey Bolger From Green Mountain (my trainer), Geoff Watts from Intelligentsia Coffee (also my trainer), Cup of Excellence head judge Paul Songer, Susie Spindler, and Grant Rattry (RIP).

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

Tim Schilling is my role model. He taught me to work hard until it pains, because poverty hurts much more.

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

If I was not in coffee I would be dreaming to be an actress or a nurse.

Do you have any coffee mentors?

My mentors are my former employer Gilbert Gatali and my partner at my training center, Uzziel Habimana.

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

I would like to hear that I am able and everything will be alright, because in my time everyone told me that coffee is not good for my health and other many discouraging words.

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

French press, coffee cup, and small grinder machine.

Best song to brew coffee to?

The best song is anything Classical.

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

I hope that in 20 years I am a producer and exporter of good micro lot coffees in Rwanda. I hope to have a succesful training center and to be an inspiring woman.

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

My breakfast was juice with some digestive biscuits and a banana.

When did you last drink coffee?

I took a cup of coffee during my break at 9 am.

What was it?

It was a cup of black coffee.

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. 

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Source: Coffee News