Best Coffee in Honolulu – The Curb Kaimuki

Kuala Lumpur, or more simply referred to by locals as KL, is a vibrant city with an eclectic mix of cultures. The city’s diversity is magnified quickly after the sun sets, when the pasar malams, or night markets, emerge and showcase a convergence of Malay, Chinese, and Indian cuisines. At the end of the day, you can feel as if you’ve visited multiple countries within the city.

And in a city where the new, old, modern, and traditional blend into a cohesive colorful mosaic, you can expect a coffee experience well worth exploring. The coffee movement in KL is thriving, emerging beyond the traditional kopitiam mornings consisting of the usual mug of dark-roasted jet black coffee (still a treat while in the city!) into a stage run by folks eager to create and perfect the coffee experience. From a cafe that takes you back in time to cozy quirky nooks, Kuala Lumpur is sure to overdose you with caffeine.

Piu Piu Piu

Just the name is enough to evoke nostalgia of childhood—of the summer days when the battle with heat came in the form of colorful plastic water pistols. Piu Piu Piu is probably one of KL’s most hidden coffee shops, tucked away on the second level of a newly renovated arts center not too far from the heart of Chinatown. If you find yourself at the end of a street with plenty of obscure shophouses, don’t be alarmed. You’ve come to the right place.

Piu Piu Piu is cozy, playful, and full of quirky knick knacks. Unagi, the barista-owner, runs a one-man show behind the counter, offering a limited but carefully crafted espresso-based menu with beans sourced from local Malaysian roasters such as Aim Coffee. Choose a latte with coconut oil for a unique taste and wash it down with his house-made signature lemon sour, a refreshing blend of preserved lemons steeped in homemade soda. Pair your drink with a homemade pastry—the burnt cheesecake is a must. Seating is limited but you’ll want to hang by the counter, where Unagi is sure to chat you up on KL’s coffee scene.

Artelier Coffee x Kitchen

Kuala Lumpur is full of malls. While I don’t consider myself much of a shopping fanatic, I inevitably found myself at Pavilion KL, one of the biggest in the city. Little did I know that tucked inside the array of high-end boutiques was a place with a big heart for coffee. Located on the 2nd floor is Artelier Coffee x Kitchen.

Masahiro Aoki, or Masa-san, is a master barista trainer who brings Japanese influences to this open cafe and coffee bar. He sources single-origin beans from local roasters such as The Hub and highlights occasional guest roasters, with a focus on Japanese roasters such as Tokyo-based Glitch Coffee and Unlimited Coffee. On the black countertop is a sleek silver Victoria Arduino Black Eagle, almost dull in comparison to the two trophies displayed proudly by its side. Staffed with a knowledgeable and friendly crew of baristas including dynamic sibling duo, Rain and Alan Lee, two finalists at the 2017 Malaysia Barista Championships, Artelier is set to impress with precise pour-overs and beautifully poured latte art. An ample selection of cakes include options such as kuro goma, tofu yogurt, matcha, and sweet potato—consider it a challenge to choose just one.

PULP by Papa Palheta

Located in Bangsar, PULP by Papa Palheta is the Malaysian flagship store of Singaporean specialty coffee roaster Papa Palheta. The shop resides in the repurposed Art Printing Works (APW) factory complex and its name PULP is a tribute to the origins of its former paper-cutting space.

Inside is a coffee playground and exploratorium. The mostly-glass walls provide beautiful natural light and highlight the industrial dark wooden panels that cover the interior. Upon approaching the counter, you pass by a modular bar where you can see baristas in action preparing coffee with a variety of brew methods, from V60 to Chemex to French press. A rotating selection of beans is available to choose from with seasonal specials ranging between 18-55 MR. The hand brews come with a card of coffee facts detailing origin, process, and expected tasting notes. While there is certainly a focus on single-origin beans, drinks such as a nitro-infused coffee named “Black Matter” and bottled cold brew are also available.

The space comes equipped with a cupping room and workshop and with a variety of whole bean bags ready to be brought home, PULP covers all bases for your coffee needs.

Jao Tim

Just a hop and skip away from Chinatown’s iconic lively Petaling Street is Jao Tim. I’ll be honest—finding Jao Tim was more difficult than I had expected. After all, this cafe is nestled on a busy road jam-packed with businesses and no obvious sign. If you find yourself lost looking down on your phone, you’ll likely miss it. You’ll need to look up, because this cafe is housed on the top floor.

Through the golden doors and up a flight of stairs, you’ll find yourself taken back in time. The first thing you see is a walnut concierge desk with brass accents, indicative of its previous existence as a hotel in the early 19th century (Jao Tim in Cantonese means “hotel”). The exposed brick walls and art deco furniture add to its pre-war era charm. Jao Tim offers your standard beverage menu alongside more creative drinks such as “Joe Roots,” a double-shot espresso drink mixed with root beer. Though the combination sounds odd, you’ll have to take my word. No drink could have been more refreshing to unwind during a humid afternoon away from the hustle and bustle of Chinatown. Tea, beer, and food options are also available.

Bean Brothers

As one of KL’s most uniquely designed coffee shops, Bean Brothers is worth the drive from the city center. Originating in Korea, Bean Brothers brings the trendy industrialized look to a secluded street in the Sunway Damansara neighborhood in the outskirts of the city. With cement floors, high ceilings, hanging lights, and a spacious second floor seating area that overlooks the coffee station, this former warehouse space is indeed turned into a visual stunner. Bean Brothers offers a wide selection of single origin coffee roasted at their Seoul locations as well as the classics. With offerings such as salted egg pasta and avocado croissant, be prepared to unknowingly let the hours pass by inside the cafe.

Jessica Hernandez is a freelance journalist. This is Jessica Hernandez’s first feature for Sprudge.

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

Source: Coffee News

Chelsey Walker Watson of Atlas Coffee Importers (Photo by Elizabeth Chai)

We’re back in Nashville for part two of our special Coffee Sprudgecast series. We take you live on the event floor at the 2019 US Coffee Champs Qualifying Event in Nashville, Tennesee. There we join multimedia director Elizabeth Chai, who—in addition to helming our must-follow Instagram coverage of the event—taped a series of original interviews for this week’s episode of the podcast.

Check out The Coffee Sprudgecast on iTunes or download the episode here. The Coffee Sprudgecast is sponsored by  Oxo, Urnex Brands, Hario, IKAWA Sample Roasters and Swiss Water Decaf. 

In this episode, Chai talks to barista competitor Anthony Ragler of Counter Culture Coffee. Ragler placed 10th in the competition and will advance to the national stage in Kansas City. Ragler is one of six coffee competitors in Nashville that trained at the Glitter Cat Barista Bootcamp.

Chai interviews Chelsea Walker Watson of Atlas Coffee Importers in Seattle, Washington. Watson competed in the Brewers Cup, placing ninth and will advance to the national competition in March.

Sign up now as a subscriber to the Coffee Sprudgecast and never miss an episode. 

Listen, subscribe and review The Coffee Sprudgecast on iTunes.

Download the episode here.

Sprudge Media Network’s coverage of the 2019 US Coffee Champs is made possible by Joe Glo and Mahlkönig. All of SprudgeLive’s 2019 competition coverage is made possible by Acaia, Baratza, Faema, Cafe Imports, and Wilbur Curtis.

Sprudge is an official media partner of US Coffee Championships.

Follow @SprudgeLive on Twitter and never miss a moment from the shows, and cruise over to SprudgeLive.com to read routine recaps, enjoy dynamic full-color photos, and check in on all the advancing competitors from Nashville.

2019 Sprudge Live coverage is produced by Zac Cadwalader. Our lead photographer is Charlie Burt. Multimedia direction by Elizabeth Chai.

See y’all in Kansas City!

The post Coffee Sprudgecast Episode 66: Live From US Coffee Champs Nashville Part Two appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

The spectacle known as the Super Bowl will soon find its way onto every working television set in the United States. This year’s clash of the titans boldly pits the team with the worst fans against a team with no fans. It is the event around which all other TV viewing during that three-to-four hour time slot revolves: you’re either watching the game—some for the sport and some for the $5 million-a-pop 30-second ads taking place in between the times when there are sport—or you’re watching the Puppy/Kitten Bowl as a not-so-quiet protestation to the game.

As it has done in the past, coffee is getting in on the football action. Only this time, it’s bringing its good friend CBD along for the ride. According to Forbes, the brand Baristas Coffee Company will place ads inside the stadium at Super Bowl LII for EnrichaRoast CBD Coffee.

CBD coffee is pretty much everywhere these days (mostly in my inbox with every PR blurb about someone “disrupting” the industry by combining the two), and though Baristas Coffee Company’s big activation is not actually a TV commerical, the adverts will be visible to attendees at the big game. It should be noted that while some CBD is cannabis-adjacent, it is a perfectly legal substance that lacks the psychoactive THC found in marijuana, and can be made from a wide variety of plants, including tree bark etc. Neither the coffee nor the ads will get you feeling all wavy gravy.

But what the ads will do is allow you to send any message you want to Maroon 5, so long as it fits within the 120 character limit. That’s a weird sentence, I know. As per Forbes, each ad “includes a special offer to send a 120-character message to Maroon 5, the halftime show headliner, via a digital platform attendees can access on their phones.”

ANY MESSAGE YOU WANT. If you’d like to tell them to give James Blunt his sound back, you can. If you want to let them know that there may be five maroons, there is only one James Blunt, that’s also totally fine. If you want to ask the band why this CBD coffee schtick is the only coffee ad we’re seeing at the Super Bowl, that too would be a legitimate question. Literally any comment—be it coffee or James Blunt-based—is allowed and indeed encouraged, so long as they are only 120 characters in length.

So keep an eye out for those Baristas’ EnrichaRoast CBD Coffee ads floating around and behind the 300+ lb men colliding into one another at 20 miles per hour. Maroon 5 depends on it. They’ll be bored and lonely without your messages.

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 YouTube

The post There Will Be An Ad At The Super Bowl For CBD Coffee appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Many interesting and important things have been put into boxes over the years. Textiles, other boxes, and even children’s candy. Perhaps the most important thing that has gone into boxes is coffee. But how do you make a box really pop? Maybe start with a box that has an Epic Black Classic Crest Eggshell Finish and add a flourish of glossy embossed flames (on the interior and exterior). You can finish it with a customizable letterpress printed, foil stamped label that can be customized in-house. That’s what our friends at Sweetleaf Coffee Roasters did, anyway, and we think it looks fabulous. We spoke with them electronically to learn more.

Tell us a bit about your company

I began Sweetleaf back in 2008 with our first location in Long Island City, Queens. Being born and raised in Queens myself, I’ve always seen Sweetleaf as a Queens-based company, even though we’re now roasting just across the Pulaski Bridge in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I named Sweetleaf after the Black Sabbath song—that should tell you all you need to know about me.

It wasn’t until 2014 that we began roasting with other like-minded people in Brooklyn and shortly after, opened the doors on our own roastery.

Now we’ve come one step further and updated the look and feel of our boxes to coincide with the launch of our new website and online store.

When did the coffee package design debut?

Our new packaging started making its appearance in our cafes in Greenpoint and Long Island City (and to a few beloved wholesale customers) in September last year but now it’s available to anyone with an Internet connection.

Who designed the package?

We worked with the crew at Topos Designs, in collaboration with Studio on Fire. Studio on Fire had the job of bringing to life the vision of the crew at Topos Designs.

It was great to be able to work with Topos because they do such amazing work for so many New York institutions, including MoMA PS1, which is right down the road from our original location in Long Island City, Queens. Keeping ties with our roots is always important to us.

Studio on Fire also do incredible work that I’ve always admired so having both teams contribute so much to us was a dream come true.

What coffee information do you share on the package?

We share the location, varietal, altitude, and tasting notes.

What’s the motivation behind that?

We wanted to keep it simple as there is already so much going on with the packaging.

Why are aesthetics in coffee packaging so important?

For us, it was important to have an aesthetic that tells the story of where we’ve come from and where we’re going. When we began in 2008, Queens was a very different place, even then. When I look at the box design, I can feel the grittiness of that time but also feel some maturity in how far we’ve come since then. Hopefully, our long-time regulars will feel the same way.

Where is the packaging manufactured?

It’s printed at Studio on Fire in Minneapolis and then lovingly assembled at our roastery.

Is the package recyclable/compostable?

The box is 100% recyclable and compostable. It’s FSC certified, which means it meets the mark of responsible forestry.

It’s also manufactured using 100% renewable electricity and is Carbon Neutral Plus, meaning the manufacturer has made a commitment to reduce carbon emissions and conserve natural resource and wildlife habitats.

On top of all this, it’s Green Seal Certified, meaning the stock is manufactured with a minimum of 30% post-consumer fiber (which is fancy-talk for “it’s made from 30% other peoples’ garbage”—it’s clean, we swear!) and meets federal procurement guidelines.

Where is it currently available?

If you’re in New York, come by to our locations and pick up a box. Or if you’re too far away (or in New York but too lazy) you can order online here.

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

The post Coffee Design: Sweetleaf Coffee Roasters In Brooklyn, NY appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Who’s ready for some raucous coffee good times? After a successful run in The States, the Barista League is heading back home to Scandinavia for the 2019 season, with the inaugural event taking place Satuday, January 26^th at Koppi in Helsingborg, Sweden. For this season, the Barista League has turned an eye toward social and environmental accountability, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be any less of a wild coffee party.

Like with previous events, Barista League Helsingborg will feature teams of two being put through the veritable coffee ringer, duking it out across three events: “a drink menu challenge on the brand new Rancilio Specialty machine using Oatly’s iKaffe, a sensory round of matching coffees, and a mystery round that is so secret the only thing we can say is that it features Baratza grinders.” The twelve duos will be scrutinized under the watchful eyes of judges 2016 World Brewers Cup runner-up Mikaela Gervard (The Coffee Collective), Icelandic Latte Art and Coffee in Good Spirits champion Vala Stefansdottir (Kaffi Kvörn), and Kore Directive founder Sierra Burgess-Yeo (featured here on Sprudge). The winning team at all of this year’s events will take home a yet-unnamed grand prize that the Barista League promises to be pretty wild. This is from the event series that sent the US winners to origin last year, so when they say the prize is going to be something special, I’m inclined to believe them.

Newish for this year—it was demoed in Oslo last year—is the Barista League brew bar, where the expected “200+ partying coffee professionals” in attendance will have the chance to hop behind the counter to test drive all the competition machines and test their skills at the gauntlet of challenges awaiting the competitors.

In an effort to have a positive impact on the coffee community globally as well as hold themselves accountable, the Barista League has implemented a few key functional changes for 2019. According to the press release, all ticket proceeds from the Helsingborg even will go to Grounds for Health, a non-profit organization working to reduce incidents of cervical cancer in coffee producing countries. Additionally, the Barista League is taking the rather unheard of step (at least as far as coffee events go) of publishing environmental impact reports from all the 2019 events “in an effort to focus more attention on how we consume materials at events.”

Tickets for the Barista League Helsingborg event are 80.00 KR ($8.80 USD) and are available for purchase here. It all gets started at 5:30pm at Koppi. For more information, visit the Barista League’s official website. Coffee party GO!

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 the Barista League

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Source: Coffee News

Being a barista is cool, sure, but it’s also an incredibly physical profession that takes a toll on your body. Being on your feet all day can lead to back problems, the potential for a slip and fall from wet floors is ever-present, and there are any number of machines (and their many surfaces) pumping out boiling-to-near-boiling water to leave all manner of fun shaped burn marks on your hands and arms. It’s dangerous on the that side of the counter.

And a new report from AmTrust confirms just how dangerous the barista profession is. According to the report, coffee shops and cafes have the most time lost due to injury out of all restaurant types, and the leading cause of café-based injury? Barista Wrist.

In their first ever Restaurant Risk Report, AmTrust Financial Services—a US-based workers compensation insurer—surveyed over 84,000 restaurant claims made being 2013 and 2017 that resulted in loss payments. They found that in terms of time lost, cafes are the most dangerous places to work in the restaurant industry, with 45% more time lost than other areas.

The leading cause of this time lost is Barista Wrist (or Bawrister, as I presume the Australians call it). A repetitive motion injury, Barista Wrist is the result of tamping—the thing baristas do hundreds of times a day—using an unnatural, not ergonomic wrist position. And according to the Restaurant Risk Report, Barista Wrist injuries are associated with an “average of 366 days to return to work,” almost three times that of the next largest class of injury, “struck or injured by” with 130.7.

To help reduce incidents of Barista Wrist, the report make the following suggestions: work in a neutral posture, reduce excessive force, keep everything within easy reach, work at a proper counter height, reduce excessive motions, minimize pressure points, move, exercise, and stretch, and maintain an all-around comfortable environment.

So while you may romanticize pouring pretty pictures with milk for the handsome artist or connecting with a regular by poring over every nuance both in the taste and production of a single origin brew, being a coffee professional isn’t always the bohemian dream job. It’s also labor, and it can take its toll.

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 AmTrust

The post Barista Wrist Leads All Restaurant-Related Injuries In Time Lost appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Inside Switch and Signal Skatepark, far from the trendy crowd in up-and-already-came Lawrenceville, is Constellation’s new sister cafe, aptly named Satellite. Opened this past July, Satellite almost didn’t happen. Switch and Signal’s owner, Kerry Weber, was a long-time regular at Pittsburgh cafe, Constellation, but when he first approached owner Amy Weiland about setting up and running the cafe he wanted in his Swissvale skatepark, she said no. Weiland was coming off a serious biking accident and also wasn’t interested in doing the same thing twice. But when she finally said yes, she did anything but repeat Constellation: though both cafes are owned and run by Weiland and use coffee from Ceremony Coffee Roasters, they have a very different feel.

Satellite’s design, like the skatepark it inhabits, incorporates many recycled elements from the bowling alley that originally occupied the building. The bartop used to be a bowling lane, the crown molding a gutter. The tables and benches in the cafe’s seating area are built from the pinboy benches that were behind the pin decks, back before the pin-resetting process became automated. Those pinboys’ nicknames—Red, Box, Bone—are graffitied on the back wall of the skatepark. Weber and his designer, Michael Whartnaby, worked with Construction Junction—a construction reuse nonprofit and longstanding fixture in Pittsburgh—to reuse as many building materials as possible in the cafe and for Switch and Signal’s ramps. Not all repurposed design elements came from the bowling alley, though: Satellite’s walls have a unique tile border running around the top made from recycled skateboard tiles from Art of Board, a Hanover, PA company.

Weiland said she sees Satellite as “Constellation’s punk rock little sister.” Where Constellation’s design is elegantly understated, Satellite’s is more playful, a bit more rough-and-ready. Where Constellation’s menu is a little more “precious,” as Weiland admits, Satellite’s is simpler and more focused on service. This pared-down menu is designed to satisfy coffee enthusiasts while allowing baristas to be able to really engage with the community they’re in. Swissvale is a lower-income, less homogenous part of Pittsburgh. Locating Switch and Signal there was intentional on Weber’s part, who wanted to open his skatepark somewhere where it could really be a positive influence in the community, especially for  youth. He also wanted the cafe to be entirely plant-based, a challenge that intrigued Weiland and played a role in her eventual decision to accept Weber’s proposal.

Other than espresso shots, cappuccinos, and lattes—made on a two-group La Marzocco Linea—Satellite also serves a seasonal beverage, like the coconut iced mocha with coconut whipped cream on the menu this summer. The default milk option is Sunrich Naturals soy milk, but they also serve Califia Farms almond milk, Oatly oat milk, or, on occasion, lesser-known alternatives like Ripple pea milk. Getting to experiment is part of the fun for Weiland. Cappuccinos and espressos are served in beautiful red notNeutral VERO glassware. For filter, Satellite only offers batch brew coffee, made on a FETCO using a BUNN grinder. Not offering pour-over “opens up a focus on service,” said Weiland, in keeping with Satellite’s and Switch and Signal’s goal of engaging with the community. That’s also why Satellite only offers Rishi bagged tea and not the loose leaf Song Tea on Constellation’s menu.

Amy Weiland

Satellite has the addition of a food menu, and it’s all-plant-based, too. Baked goods come from Gluuteny, a local gluten- and dairy-free bakery. Onion Maiden, a Pittsburgh vegan pop-up restaurant that’s finally found its brick-and-mortar home in Allentown, provides the bagels and cashew cream cheese, muffins, and paninis on Satellite’s menu. In keeping with the environmental motivation behind the plant-based menu and the recycled building materials, Satellite is focused on sustainability, and everything except the straws at the cafe is compostable.

Satellite isn’t a soothing-office-away-from-home kind of space. It wasn’t designed to be. It was meant to be the kind of space where the countercultural creativity that can be found in both the specialty coffee and the skateboarding worlds could flourish. It’s a place to try new things, to meet new people, to take off the headphones, to engage. Union Switch and Signal, the railway signaling equipment manufacturer from which the skatepark takes its name, used to be the largest employer in Swissvale. Switch and Signal Skatepark and Satellite hope to play an important and positive role in this community, too, one coffee-drinking, vegan-bagel-eating, skateboarder at a time.

Rachel Grozanick is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Oregon. Grozanick has contributed previously to Bitch Magazine, 90.5 WESA in Pittsburgh, and 90.7 KBOO in Portland. Read more Rachel Grozanick on Sprudge.

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Source: Coffee News

Time to ramp up those taste buds because Flight of Fancy is back! Populace Coffee’s game of “guess what coffee this is” is returning for its fifth year, and this go around, the winner earns themselves a plane ticket to Guatemala.

The game is simple… well, the rules are simple; the game itself is incredibly challenging. Each entry will receive four coffee of unidentified origin—represented in this iteration of FoF by different aircraft-shaped cards—and a map of eight coffee-growing countries. All you have to do is put the right plane on the circle representing the right origin. Easy, right? Wrong. Very, very wrong.

Thanks to a sneaky pause on the map shown in Populace’s announcement video, it appears the eight origins for this year Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Kenya, Ethiopia, Burundi, Rwanda, and Sulawesi. Is that a Colombia or a Guatemala? A Peru or a Sulawesi? We know for sure that one’s a Burundi… or is it an Ethiopia… with hints of Rwanda?



Once you’ve talked yourself out of choosing Burundi (because what were you even thinking?! Though it was your first instinct and those are often right), take a photo of your completed map and email it to fancy@populacecoffee.com. Then post that photo to Instagram, making sure to tag @populacecoffee and using the hashtag #FOF2019.

Whoever submits the email with the correct responses first and has the corresponding post to Instagram wins themselves an origin trip to Guatemala along with members of the Populace team and Onyx Green Coffee. Other prizes include a Baratza Sette 270 and Acaia Lunar Scale, Department of Brewology Bloom Series Prints, Fellow Stagg EKG and three Atmos Vacuum Canisters, Kruve Sifter 12, five Ebb Coffee Filters, and a Handground Coffee Grinder.

This year’s number of entrants has been limited to 300. Costing $35 each, Flight of Fancy boxes are available for pre-order now until January 31st, with all deliveries beginning the week of February 4th. For more information, visit Populace Coffee’s official website. And get those spoons ready.

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

All media via Populace Coffee

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Source: Coffee News

Only five people in the world, I’m told, possess the lapel pin: a golden hexagon with block serif letters split over two lines. One is the person whose dark glen-plaid blazer buttonhole I’m inspecting right now under institutional lighting in Amerongen, the Netherlands. His name is Frans van Cooten. His title nowadays is director and owner of Moccamaster Sales EU, one of three independent entities overseeing the majority of sales for the manufacturer known as Technivorm—which is also the word, shining in relief, on Van Cooten’s lapel.

2018 was a momentous year for the factory that created the world’s most enduring, stylish, and reputable home filter coffeemaker: the Moccamaster KBG 741. The year began sadly, with the passing of the machine’s inventor and Technivorm’s founder, Gerard-Clement Smit. In January, the engineer died at age 87. Years ago, he had given Van Cooten, his son-in-law, the Technivorm pin—although the first to receive one was Ina ten Donkelaar. She is not wearing it on the bright morning on which she tells me who is in the circle of pin-possessors, but no one doubts how close the brand is to her heart. She was Smit’s partner. Currently, Ten Donkelaar is Technivorm’s CEO and has been with the company, established in 1964, from early on. She remembers when Smit rented a workspace in the tiny village of Elst, in the province of Utrecht, initially producing stepladders and stacking shelves, followed by his first patented coffee grinder in 1965. She recalls when, in 1967, Technivorm moved to the neighboring village of Amerongen, right into Smit’s backyard, which was convenient, yet rough on his prune trees.

An original 1968 Moccamaster.

The rerelease of Technivorm’s first-ever coffeemaker made 2018 more celebratory. Developed in 1968 but launched a year later, the Moccamaster 69, named for its debut year, is smaller than the 741 (brewing up to eight, rather than 10, cups). With a round-edged hotplate tray and a circular heating tower and water reservoir, it very much appears to be of a curves-embracing era. Called the ’68 Jubileum, the rerelease retains those features, making it an unblinking fit into all the mid-century modern design resurrected of late. The limited-edition model has been available in Europe since March 2018. North America has had to be patient, as it is only scheduled for purchase there starting spring 2019.

Ten Donkelaar and Van Cooten receive me at Technivorm’s headquarters and factory in Amerongen. No longer occupying the family’s former garden, they have been situated in an industrial section of town since the late 1980s. Still, in the Netherlands, it’s hard to ever really get away from the pastoral; trees surrounding the premises are lush and across the road, I catch a couple of ponies grazing. In traditional Dutch office etiquette, a receptionist promptly offers drinks. White demitasses arrive, filled with a medium-dark roast provided by two-centuries-old Dutch roasters Smit & Dorlas. When I ask, perhaps a bit insipidly, if a Moccamaster was used, Van Cooten answers with an amiable “Jaaaa.” Downstairs, he volunteers, professional-line Moccamasters brew fresh batches for the factory staff. An 11 AM coffee break is another Dutch labor institution, but the punctuality of a koffiepauze is crucial when a production line is at stake, stresses Van Cooten. A bell goes off to let the workers know when it’s time for, as Ten Donkelaar puts it, “drinking coffee, getting a little baked good, and enjoying a smoke.”

Ten Donkelaar and Van Cooten

But upstairs, we are in what seems to be part boardroom—upholstered conference chairs tucked under laminate tables—and part museum. Exhibited in, on, and around glass-cased shelves are decades’ worth of artifacts: various models and iterations of home and commercial coffee machines, blade coffee grinders, hot plates, water boilers, and dispensers. Plus, there are samples of Smit’s pre-Technivorm inventions from when he was, essentially, a freelancer; highlights include a box of hot rollers and a snijbonenmolen (a string bean slicer, once considered a Dutch kitchen staple). The walls are like an open scrapbook, decorated with vintage corporate posters and multi-language ads from the past. On a stand of its own is a quilt: the batik-effect fabric with images of cups and beans features a dozen blocks, each with a uniquely hued 741 machine. It was occasioned by Technivorm’s golden anniversary, and the quilter was Kathleen Bauer, COO of Moccamaster USA, a second of Technivorm’s three related entities. Bauer is another pin-holder, and her craft brings some palpable Americana to the functionalism-driven European environs.

Moccamaster’s internal functions were uncovered by Popular Mechanics in a “disassembly report” detailing all 137 parts that are elegantly engineered into a single 741. The 2017 review praised it as “many coffee snobs’ brewer of choice,” though the machine’s appeal has undeniably broadened. The MoMa Design Store has sold it since 2016, and in June 2018, “new brides and brides-to-be” among Good Morning America’s staff ranked it their #1 wedding gift.

These days, the brand has distributors worldwide. Nevertheless, all Moccamasters continue to be constructed by hand and individually tested in the Netherlands. The manufacturer prides itself in using, whenever possible, recyclable or fully degradable materials sourced from within Europe, if not the Netherlands itself. New machines come with a five-year warranty, though tend to last far longer, being easy to repair or spruce up with replacement parts.

“We get lots of emails from customers asking, ‘Does the jug for the new 68 also fit in the old one?’ And they’re very happy to hear that it does,” says Van Cooten. The rerelease has a few technical updates, but “on functionality there is no difference.”

“This was the first ’68 model, back then called the ‘69,’” Ten Donkelaar specifies of an antique machine being stored behind glass. “We sold 769,473 pieces.”

The Jubileum ’68

In 2010, after selling off a local horse feed business inherited from his father, Van Cooten founded Moccamaster Sales EU. The move was steered by having agreed with Smit to find new markets for Moccamaster upon joining the enterprise of his spouse’s family. Clementine Smit, Van Cooten’s wife, once worked at Technivorm herself, though now is more likely to be found accompanying Van Cooten to coffee shows and festivals, he says, adding, “she know the product very well—she knows everything.”

Van Cooten and his team concentrated on Germany, Central Europe, and the UK. Scandinavia was not part of their remit because Technivorm had, since the early 1970s, been exporting to the region. It has remained the company’s biggest market for the last 30 years. Moccamaster Nordic, a third entity in the trio, handles these operations. Those strong ties are veritably sealed in a seal. Found on all Moccamasters is a sticker reading “approved” along with the name of the European Coffee Brewing Centre. Founded in 1975 in Oslo, the ECBC is an offshoot of the Norwegian Coffee Association, and testing brewers is its raison d’être.

Van Cooten explains: “In the Scandinavian countries, everyone knows about the ECBC, and our whole range passed this certification of brewing the perfect cup. For the ECBC, it’s not about the quality of the machine or the expected lifespan of the machine—they only certify based on achievement of the best brew, to reach the best extraction out of your coffee.”

To illustrate just how omnipresent, if not ho-hum, the Moccamaster is in the Nordics, Van Cooten asks if I’ve been tuning in to Dutch TV’s Detective Month, which airs crime series.

“If you watch the Scandinavian shows carefully,” he says, “probably at least once a week, you have a shot in the kitchen, no matter where the crime scene is, and they pour coffee with a Moccamaster.”

The younger of Van Cooten and Clementine Smit’s two children seems on track to wear a pin one day too. Rob van Cooten recently completed his third year of business school and has already done sales and marketing work in his father’s office. The elder Van Cooten says his son is interested in pursuing the family trade after graduating and getting some experience abroad. Daughter Floortje van Cooten keeps busy as an Amsterdam-based fashion blogger, though in a recent Father’s Day gift guide took the opportunity to call a Moccamaster the “best present there possibly is.” Her post spotlights a shiny stone gray KBG 741.

As Ten Donkelaar likes to say, the 741 is “an evergreen.” Developed in 1974, it hit the market two years later and today is the most iconic model. The Moccamaster remains one of several select home brewers certified by the SCA, reflecting its esteemed status among, to quote a Sprudge article on the brand’s Cup-one, “prosumer appliances.” It is true that Technivorm and specialty coffee have been friendly for decades. In 1988, the Dutch company became a founding member of the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe, and fast-forward to World of Coffee 2018, the Moccamaster stand was showing off the 741 in its latest colors: pastel green, pastel yellow, pastel blue, and midnight blue.

Globally, Technivorm and Moccamaster have about 200 employees. Amerongen hosts around 150. In August 2017, the European Coffee Trip published a cheerful video taking viewers inside the factory, profiling workers, and zooming in on the production line.

“We hope to build our 10 millionth this year,” Van Cooten said in that interview.

When, 11 months later, I follow up on the stated projection, he replies: “Yes, we did.”

Turns out, the 10 millionth coffeemaker was handed to Gerard-Clement Smit during a company celebration that coincided with the last birthday he lived to experience, in September 2017. The machine is a black and white Jubileum ’68. It is displayed in a hallway on an encased stand, with mini-spotlights flanking the keepsake. Above is a classic portrait of Smit, raising a cup to his smile. Below is the milestone, its numbers printed larger than all the other text, the Technivorm logo included.

“We just wanted to do the rerelease as an honor to Gerard,” Ten Donkelaar shares.

“But the second 10 million will not take that long,” she continues, returning to the brisker pace of business talk. “We are doing some internal movements to get more space for the production line. Last year, for the first time, we realized more than 500,000 machines—that was a lot of coffeemakers. And this year we will even sell more.”

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

The post The Making Of A Master: Inside The Technivorm Factory appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Felix Felix of Dune Coffee Roasters (Photo by Elizabeth Chai)

In this special edition of the Coffee Sprudgecast, we take you live to the event floor at the 2019 US Coffee Champs Qualifying Event in Nashville, Tennesee! There we join multimedia director Elizabeth Chai, who—in addition to helming our must-follow Instagram coverage of the event—taped a series of original interviews for this week’s episode of the podcast.

Check out The Coffee Sprudgecast on iTunes or download the episode here. The Coffee Sprudgecast is sponsored by  Oxo, Urnex Brands, Hario, IKAWA Sample Roasters and Swiss Water Decaf. 

In this episode, Chai talks to Felix Felix of Dune Coffee Roasters. Felix competed in the 2019 US Brewers Cup Qualifiers using their very own coffee brewer.

Felix Felix custom coffee brewer as it brews coffee from Sprudgie Award winner Juan Peña.

Chai also chats with Robert Rodriguez of George Howell Coffee Roasters. Rodriguez competed in the US Roasters Qualifying Competition.

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Listen, subscribe and review The Coffee Sprudgecast on iTunes.

Download the episode here.

Sprudge Media Network’s coverage of the 2019 US Coffee Champs is made possible by Joe Glo and Mahlkönig. All of SprudgeLive’s 2019 competition coverage is made possible by Acaia, Baratza, Faema, Cafe Imports, and Wilbur Curtis.

Sprudge is an official media partner of US Coffee Championships.

Follow @SprudgeLive on Twitter and never miss a moment from the shows, and cruise over to SprudgeLive.com to read routine recaps, enjoy dynamic full-color photos, and check in on all the advancing competitors from Nashville.

2019 Sprudge Live coverage is produced by Zac Cadwalader. Our lead photographer is Charlie Burt. Multimedia direction by Elizabeth Chai.

See y’all in Kansas City!

The post Coffee Sprudgecast Episode 65: Live From US Coffee Champs Nashville appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News