Coffee Shop Archives - Page 29 of 73 - The Curb Kaimuki

In a first look four years in the making, today we’re taking you inside The Crown, the stunning new coffee experience complex from Oakland green coffee importers Royal Coffee.

In a world of cookie cutter coffee architecture and same-same interior design, this is the rarest thing: a new coffee project that dares to look and feel singular. Awe inspiring, grandly scaled, and utterly bespoke, The Crown sprawls across thousands of square feet in a reimagined 1920s auto showroom in the heart of Oakland’s Broadway Auto Row. The size and scope of the project brings to mind other big new coffee endeavors of the last decade, from La Marzocco’s KEXP cafe to the very first Starbucks Reserve store in Seattle. It opens to public on March 4th.

A combination public tasting room, interconnected network of multimedia equipped training spaces, a multi-unit roasting HQ, and second floor offices, the space’s stats stagger the mind. Two separate architecture firms served on the project: Norman Sanchez Architecture (Architect of Record) and Studio Terpeluk (Design Architect). There are more than 15 coffee grinders alone at The Crown, plus seven espresso machines and counting, all by La Marzocco and Modbar. There are Perlick fridges, Curtis water towers, custom glassware from local Oakland all-Japan-everything experts Umamimart, custom ceramics by Created Co., demitasse spoons by Loveramics, custom white oak service boards designed by Tom Connelly (in collaboration with Sandra Loofbourow, The Crown’s Tasting Room Director), and custom white American oak drip trays built-ins from Saint Anthony Industries protecting a fleet of Acaia scales.

The front tasting room is anchored by an enormous custom Chambers Art & Design multi-unit modular coffee bar that can be positioned in various forms: a wave, a straight line, or a Nike swoosh. Beneath the bar there are a bank of custom floor boxes containing electronics and water lines for the espresso machines. The tasting room will be open to the public, offering a range of flights and unique experiences—”stuff that’s not regularly offered to the public,” according to Richard Sandlin of Royal Coffee, who serves as The Crown’s general manager and has helped oversee the project over its four year incubation.

Public guests can walk in and experience an ever-changing battery of farmer-focused coffee flights and tasting experiences, or pick up a quick cup for $2, with a $.25 surcharge on to-go orders (proceeds benefitting Phat Beets). Behind the bar, a pixelated green tile wall designed by Studio Terpeluk “references the color palette and texture of unroasted coffee beans,” as per Sandlin, studded with wall-mounted coffee storage jars.

Past the tasting room, a unique Nana Wall System (imported from Germany and armed with tornado proof glass) provides a unique movable wall infrastructure, allowing The Crown to break their space up into a modular series of units: one large space, four contained spaces, or any combination in-between. A bank of six mobile cupping carts provide cupping space for up to 60 slurpers, all of it built custom in West Oakland by Shada Designs.

The presentation Room has an 133” projector screen. The adjoining brew lab has a 92” projector screen.

The roasting area of the space is fitted out with no fewer than four coffee roasting units, by Proaster, Diedrich, Probat, and Loring, respectively, with custom ventwork spiring up to the top of the space’s 27-foot-high ceiling. Across the bank of spaces, The Crown will offer Q grader certification and SCA courses, as well as tech training, equipment training, and roasting training.

There is no toll roasting. No comfy couches. No public WiFi, no food, and no whole bean sales at The Crown.

If, like me, you are gobsmacked by all of this, have no fear—we’ve been checking in on this project since it was announced in late 2015, and I’m still trying to process what this space means, what it’s supposed to be, and what an independent project of this scale and scope means right now for coffee. For their part, Royal envisions The Crown as nothing less than world-building—an attempt to shrink down the global footprint of coffee into something more accessable, collaborative, public, and open source. “We want to be a bridge to where coffees come from,” says Royal CEO Max Nicholas-Fulmer.

The company sees it as a fight against proprietary knowledge; that by creating a space where the coffee industry is invited to collaborate, they can appeal to a new generation of coffee professionals, especially roasters. They also see it as offering a resource for customers who can’t travel to origin, or even to a coffee competition. The presentation and events space is a major hub for that. “This is for producers to come present here and connect with customers who can’t go,” Nicholas-Fulmer told me during an advance tour of the space. Sometimes those producer presentations will happen digitally, and other times for in-person sessions and events between California coffee pros and coffee producers around the world. “We think this space can increase the knowledge flow between the two.”

“We’re building something that doesn’t fit into an easy category,” says Sandlin. “Is it a roaster? An education and events space? A cafe? Yes.”

“We want this to be a community space for all different kinds of communities,” Tasting Room Director Sandra Loofbourow adds. “Cheese, meat, marijuana, wine. A home for all things delicious.”

For Nicholas-Fulmer, an Oakland native stepping into a CEO roll at a company founded decades ago by his father and uncle, there is clearly a local point of pride invested deep into the project. “We’ve been conceptualizing The Crown for years and our priority was to execute the vision properly, which meant a high level of customization and allocating the time and resources to do so,” he tells Sprudge. “We look at The Crown fundamentally as an investment in our customers and producing partners. Having a venue for producers to showcase their coffees and an educational program which supports the growth and success of our customers is the foundation of Royal’s next 40 years in business.”

Members of the general public can get their first glimpse of The Crown on Monday, March 4th, and the Tasting Room will be open Monday thru Friday from 9am-6pm. A series of cupping events are scheduled following opening day, including a Costa Rica event on March 19th and standing weekly events on Tuesday and Thursdays. A complete listing of upcoming events is available via The Crown’s official website.

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

Photos by Evan Gilman for Sprudge Media Network.

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

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Source: Coffee News

I have long championed the notion that Charlotte, North Carolina is the best coffee scene in America that rarely gets mentioned in the conversation about best coffee scenes in America. For a five-hour distillate of proof, look no further than the POUR Coffee Festival, taking place Sunday, March 10^th at Lenny Boy Brewing. After a wildly successful inaugural event last year, POUR is back and bigger than ever. And this year, they are focusing on their three main pillars: sustainability, education, and diversity.

Created by Diana Mnatsakanyan-Sapp (Undercurrent Coffee) and Matt Dudley (Marco Beverage Systems), POUR celebrates the Southeastern coffee community with a day chockfull of coffee and espresso sipping, educational events, and tasty bites.

“The coffee industry—both nationally and internationally—is growing at such a rapid pace,” says Mnatsakanyan-Sapp, “and we wanted to make sure that all of the ground-breaking, interesting and downright delicious stuff happening in our backyards wasn’t getting lost. This festival is a celebration of the creativity and passion that we see being poured out by our Southeastern coffee community.”

Vendors this year include Counter Culture Coffee, Black and White Coffee Roasters, Methodical Coffee, Summit Coffee, Pure Intentions Coffee, Nightflyer Roastworks, Enderly Coffee Co., HEX Coffee, 4th Dimension Roasters, 1000 Faces Coffee, Slingshot Coffee, Junto Coffee, Cafe Femenino Coffee, Spirit Tea, Haerfest Coffee, Joe van Gogh, Arabica Soda, Verdant Bread, Fūd on the Mūv, Golden and Grey, VP Coffee, and Ally Coffee.

Event topics will range from green coffee buying to water chemistry to coffee tech. But perhaps the biggest change to this year’s festival comes not from the coffee being served, but from the imperative placed on issues like sustainability and diversity. With sponsorship from Oatly, POUR is providing every guest a ceramic mug to be used throughout the day as a way of cutting down waste, moving the festival significantly closer to their goal of being zero-waste. “Last year we only had four 50-gallon trash bags of non-recyclable, non-compostable garbage at the end of our 400+ attendee festival, says Dudley. “This year, we’re taking what we’ve learned and are working to reduce that number even more.”

To help foster diversity within the coffee industry, POUR is donating a portion of all proceeds to Glitter Cat Barista Bootcamp to help get a more diverse set of faces on the US Barista Championship stage to better represent the entire coffee community.

Bad news for everyone just finding out about POUR, though (and maybe a small sliver of good news), even with the event increasing in size this year, it has already sold out. BUT! You should head over to Instagram where, thanks to Mnatsakanyan-Sapp and Dudley, Sprudge is giving away two tickets at this very moment!

There is also a waiting list would-be attendees can sign up for, and should any tickets come available (which they will, speaking from experience putting on local coffee festivals here, they most certainly will), names will be pulled from the list. And if you don’t want to leave your tickets up to chance, you can sign up for POUR’s newsletter via their website. That way, you’ll be the first to know when tickets go on sale and you can stay up to date on other events they are putting on.

The coffee industry needs more events like POUR: local, grassroots, with the entire community in mind. Not just coffee professionals and geeks and not just whatever you picture whenever you think of a coffee person. POUR is for everyone. And as much as I love coffee competitions—covering them is a perennial highlight for me—their benefit is often internal, coffee people recognizing the hard work of other coffee people. Which is great, too, but local, community-facing events like POUR, they can make seismic shifts in their coffee culture far beyond that of even a national or world coffee competition.

POUR is the blueprint. Now you just have to figure out a way to access it.

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 POUR Coffee Festival

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Source: Coffee News

Originally built in 1909, the iconic Meier & Frank building was once home to some of Portland’s busiest department stores. Now in 2019, with the wrap-up of a multi-million dollar landmark renovation project, the building is now home to the second outpost of Portland’s very own Upper Left Roasters.

“Growing up here, I visited this building to come to Macy’s. Now I own a coffee shop here and it’s very surreal,” says Upper Left co-owner and CEO Katherine Harris. The multi-year remodel in the heart of downtown Portland includes a sprawling 10,000-square-foot outpost of Japanese homewares and lifestyle brand MUJI, as well as mixed-use retail and commercial offices across 15 floors spanning an entire city block.

Upper Left has made a name for itself over the past three years at their original location in SE Portland, anchoring a sun-drenched corner of Ladd’s Addition, the leafy planned neighborhood of parks and stately homes designed in a “wagon wheel” shape inspired by Washington D.C. From the in-house roaster to the sunlit interior, Upper Left has set down roots in Portland and has become a staple in the coffee community—the cafe still feels quite like nothing else in the city. For this new project downtown, going from their own brick and mortar shop to fitting in as a piece of a 40,000-square-foot project came with a host of new challenges. Harris and her team embraced the process as they worked to integrate their coffee company into this brand new space.

“This opportunity to work on this project with Meier & Frank has been fulfilling because of how the team came together,” Harris said. “This project takes a whole team, and we’re getting better every day as a team.”

The teamwork does not begin and end with Upper Left solely; in addition to MUJI, the building is also home to The Nines hotel and its nationally regarded restaurant, Departure, helmed by two-time James Beard Award semifinalist (and Top Chef finalist) Gregory Gourdet. This district of Portland is packed with retail options, restaurants, and coffee bars; with other popular brands in the vicinity, it took a pointed effort from Upper Left, the adjoining businesses, and the design team to make sure each individual brand identities would cut through, rather than blending in.

Katherine Harris.

“Our brand translating was important. We wanted to preserve our minimalism, clean lines, and thoughtful construction,” Harris said.

Although they achieved in bringing their aesthetic to life in the lobby, this part of Portland is very fast-paced. From people going to work or shopping at local retail stores, it’s a toss-up whether customers will get the coffee shop vibe when shortly visiting. With Upper Left, Harris ensured they get the full shop experience in a short period of time.

“No matter where you are, everyone wants great customer service. We want to create a visually appealing place to enjoy your coffee,” explained Harris. “What your coffee tastes like and the experience you have is extremely important.”

One of the highlights of this new location is their menu, and how it caters to the space. Harris felt that they needed to be very intentional when selecting the options. The team checked all boxes when curating their menu, from customers schedules, the size of the space, and even how the food smelled in the lobby.

Speaking of food, Upper Left’s original location is well-regarded for its cafe menu, and at the downtown shop there are some new menu items to check out. Definitely get the new bagel sandwich, featuring ponzu cream cheese, avocado, and Asian chili salt. They also offer avocado toast with nut butter; both are solid food options for people to enjoy in-house or on the go. Whether ordering a cortado or picking up a bag of Guatemala Chapina, the coffee portion of the menu strikes a similar tone to the brand’s original location, focusing on roast quality and sourcing. However, one stark contrast between the two locations is the exclusion of pour-over service downtown, in an effort to minimize wait times. Perhaps to help speed things up and with summer just around the corner, Upper Left are kegging their original cold brew as well as a single-origin cacao nib nitro cold brew, and offering an array of tea options courtesy of Steven Smith and Tea Bar.

Behind the coffee bar, they have a La Marzocco Linea Classic two-group, paired with Mahlkönig EK43 and Mazzer Major espresso grinders. Batch brew happens via a trusty Curtis Brewer.

Since their opening on December 20, the shop has been creating a buzz in downtown Portland. Although the holiday months and start of the New Year can often be slow for downtown—which really comes alive during the summer international tourist season—Upper Left has seen a steady stream of traffic, even with only weekday hours. For Harris, this shop opening in this building isn’t simply a plot in a popular area, it’s nostalgic.

“It’s an honor to have a coffee shop in this historic building. I’m excited to be downtown and encounter new types of customers.” And downtown seems pretty pumped to have them, too.

Giovanni Fillari is a social media manager at Nike and the publisher of @coffeefeedpdx. Read more Giovanni Fillari for Sprudge.

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Source: Coffee News

Mergers and acquisitions are the seasonal latte of the month in the specialty coffee world right now. Taking inspiration from the tech and telecom industries, where this sort of thing is the norm, conglomerates and holding companies are collecting coffee brands like baseball cards. And it’s not only happening in the US—as JAB and Nestlé battle it out for the right to take on Starbucks, in the United Kingdom a growing specialty coffee chain just quietly added another business to its ranks.

Since it began in London way back in 2010, Department of Coffee & Social Affairs has grown to encompass 20 of its own cafes alongside a ream of other businesses across the country, and even expanded to the US in 2017. Per The Independent, their latest acquisition is Baker & Spice, an upscale bakery and deli with five locations in London, purchased from the bankrupt cake chain Patisserie Valerie for £2.5 million.

(From our 2015 feature “London: At The New Department Of Coffee & Social Affairs In Spitalfields Market” by Audrey Fiodorenko)

With Baker & Spice, Department of Coffee is adding to its roster of independent brands around England—in December, it completed the purchase of the London-based tea and cake shop Bea’s of Bloomsbury, and earlier in the year acquired two Bristol coffee shops, The Crazy Fox and Tradewind Espresso. Rather than bring these companies underneath its own brand, Department of Coffee has allowed each to remain individual, at least in name, while it focuses its attention on expanding its own cafes across the country and into the US.

DCSA sandwich board. Photo by Audrey Fiodorenko

The main difference between the spate of glitzy takeovers in the US and Department of Coffee’s smaller-scale expansion is that the latter has happened, for the most part, under the radar. It might point to a future where, instead of coffee companies expanding fast in hopes of being snapped up by a venture capital firm, smaller regional brands combine for long-term stability.

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

Illustration by Zac Cadwalader.

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Source: Coffee News

After three days of hyper-caffeination at the first-ever Milan Coffee Festival, it was a relief to escape the crowds for a quick trip out to the quiet and often foggy rural town of Binasco. I was traveling in the opposite direction of traffic—to take a private tour of Gruppo Cimbali’s historic espresso machine factory and MUMAC Cultural Center.

MUMAC stands for Museo della Macchina per Caffe and is home to a collaborative collection of over 200 professional coffee machines that span more than 100 years of innovation. Attached to the Cimbali factory, it’s the largest espresso machine museum in the world.

This converted spare-parts warehouse wasn’t solely intended for the means of meandering through history. As part of their ongoing push into the specialty coffee market, Cimbali opened MUMAC in 2012 with the idea of building a space to host certified coffee education programs, events, and coffee competitions. With third wave coffee still somewhat nascent in Italy, every espresso machine manufacturer seems eager to open their own academy and museum, and I was eager to see the Cimbali facilities, which are among the first.

The town center of Binasco is about a 20 minute drive southwest of Milan towards Pavia, and is ornamented with all of the classic Italian landmarks you come to expect no matter how tiny the town: a macelleria (butcher shop), a pasticceria (pastry shop), a tabaccheria (tobbaconist) with an espresso bar and of course, a photogenic medieval castle near the square illuminated by overarching Christmas lights sprawling down the main street.

MUMAC. Photo courtesy of Gruppo Cimbali

Gruppo Cimbali SpA relocated its headquarters from within the center of Milan to Binasco in the 60s and has since been the largest employer of its residents. An employee base of around 450 people is distributed between the logistical hub in Binasco and their three production facilities in nearby cities Bergamo and Cremona.

The 200 employees that work in their facilities can produce up to a stunning 200 mechanical appliances a day (not just espresso machines). While we were suiting up with steel toes and hard hats for the factory tour, Cimbali’s Production Manager Paolo Molteni explained that this level of efficiency is attributed to his implementation of the “Lean Manufacturing” system.

Paolo Molteni

Lean Manufacturing is a philosophical and methodological system that comes from the automotive industry that when it works as intended, produces perfect products on time through minimization of actions that don’t add value to the process. This type of development doesn’t just happen overnight, Molteni explains. “The involvement of our original factory operators was fundamental when we started this journey a few years ago.”

The facility was empty, dark, and silent while the operators were on lunch break. As we passed through the assembly rows, I noticed that the lights automatically illuminated only the stations we were standing in, prompting the many questions I had for Molteni about how Cimbali was combating production waste and energy consumption.

Molteni attributes the “Lean” system as a key factor in energy reduction in all of the facilities. The factories are partially powered by solar energy, and with recent renovations like a geothermal floor heating system, conversion to all LED lighting, and new cooling systems, Cimbali has brought overall energy consumption from production down 10% in the past year. 12% of that overall consumption is powered by renewable energy sources, and hazardous materials from production have been reduced to less than 1% of the company’s overall waste.

As the factory started to fill back in with employees, I slipped out of my safety gear and took off towards the undulating facade of the imperial red MUMAC Academy building. We were greeted by technology specialist Filippo Mazzoni near the gift shop and reception before making our way over to the lobby cafe for some mid-morning macchiatos.

In addition to his quirky and talkative manner, Mazzoni’s years of experience as a trainer and technician for Cimbali makes him an engaging tour guide. He popped open antique machines left and right throughout the museum to explain the evolution of coffee tech and made sure to squeeze in plenty of juicy details on historic patent drama between rivaling machine manufacturers (some of which are now owned by the same parent companies).

Early Espresso History Room at MUMAC

The majority of pieces on display are restored and owned by espresso machine collector Enrico Maltoni. Maltoni discussed a shared vision of a museum likes this with Maurizio Cimbali when they met in the early 90s, and the two have worked together towards realizing this dream ever since.

Each of the six chronological galleries in the museum represents a different era of technology, all adorned with Maltoni’s collector coffee cups, magazines, and other signs of the times. Although the museum is without question a Gruppo Cimbali venture, there are machines on display by virtually every company from La Marzocco and Kees van der Westen to Elektra and Vibiemme.

The final exhibit of the museum was a personal highlight, and featured the only machine on exhibit that Mazzoni couldn’t open up for a photo; the exploded view of a La Cimbali M100, seen at the top of this story.

We then made our way to the MUMAC Coffee Machine Academy. The two-story SCA Premier Campus features a barista and technician training center and water lab on the first floor, and a sensory lab on the top floor that regularly hosts CQI certification courses. (Thankfully there were only a few minutes to breeze through the museum library, because I would have been fixated for hours on its collection of over 15,000 patents and coffee reference points dating back to the 16th century.)

In a town of about seven thousand people, only a quick drive from one of the largest metropolitan cities in the world, the MUMAC Academy protects and valorizes the history and culture of coffee machines with a dedicated focus on technology and the future of the industry.

From humble roots in a Milanese copper shop in 1912 to becoming one of the world leaders in the production of high-quality espresso machines, I was impressed by their ability to stand firmly by their integrity, humility, and glocal modus operandi.

“When the challenge to improve is missing, that is the end,” Maurizio Cimbali explained to me. “There is always room for us to improve.”

Alexander Gable (@mrgable) is a freelance journalist based in Milan. Read more Alexander Gable for Sprudge.

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Source: Coffee News

It’s been nearly a decade since Intelligentsia opened a coffee bar in Los Angeles. Since the 2010 opening of the Pasadena location, Intelli has expanded into New York and Boston, they’ve put a training lab in Atlanta, and they have currently building out a new cafe in Austin. But the Chicago-born coffee company is returning to their first home-away-from-home with their now open cafe on Hollywood Blvd.

Opened Thursday, February 21^st, the new Intelligentsia outpost is right on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where thousands of people come each year to step on some of their favorite famous names encased in five-sided polygon. Designed by Standard Architecture, the 38-seat cafe feature 30-foot long coffee bar equipped with a Poursteady pour-over system and custom-painted La Marzocco Linea. The vaulted mosaic ceiling and outdoor wall painting are inspired by the works of Paul De Longpré as an homage to the artist who used to reside where the cafe currently stands.

Along with a rotating selection of sparkling teas on tap—sourced through sister company Kilogram Tea—Intelligentsia has tapped Mr. Holmes Bakehouse to provide their wildly inventive pastries for the Hollywood coffee bar; according to the press release, the new cafe will be” the first outside of [Mr. Holmes] namesake bakeries to offer their brand new savory sandwiches.”

Intelligentsia’s Hollywood cafe is open 6:30am to 7:00pm daily. For more information, visit their 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.

All media via Intelligentsia

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

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Source: Coffee News

You can tell a lot about someone by how they react when you suggest going to get a cup of coffee in Tijuana. There are the old “painted donkey and piñata” stereotypers, the “isn’t it dangerous?” types, and the “that sounds like so much fun, when can we go?” people who you want to hang out with. Baja California’s gateway has been welcoming strangers for decades, and just as the USA’s relationship with its neighbor has waxed and waned, so has the attitude of San Diegans to the city which is at once part of home and yet very different. However, Tijuana doesn’t need to be viewed through the lens of San Diego or the United States. It stands alone as a cultural, culinary, and coffee destination. And when you view Tijuana from a chair on a plaza with a delicious cortado, it seems anything but intimidating.

Entering from the US means negotiating the world’s busiest land border at San Ysidro, which—unlike Tijuana—is not showing any signs of becoming more welcoming or interesting. But once you cross into Mexico, the town is easy to negotiate by foot, bike, or ride share. English or Spanish and dollars or pesos are equally accepted at most shops and prices for an espresso drink are in the $2 range.

The Baja wine and food scene has been booming for years, with fine dining at Mision 19 and more affordable (but no less delicious) spots like the Telefonica Gastro Park serving the city’s young, growing, and unsurprisingly not-that-different-from-the US middle class. Unlike much of the wine and food, which requires a drive south, the majority of the speciality coffee shops are focused in the downtown area and serve locals as well as the tourist crowd. Recently, Mexican coffees have been more prominent on the speciality market and most Tijuana roasters tend to source from their home country, which means that a short trip around town can acquaint you with some delicious origins which might not yet have made it to your local roaster.

Coffee shops in Tijuana tend to stay open late, often closing at 8:00 or 10:00pm, and are as much of a “third place” coffee culture as you’ll find anywhere in the US. Expect excellent customer service as the speciality coffee scene is still growing in Tijuana and people—customers and staff alike—are excited about it, meaning your barista or fellow customer might love to hear about your other coffee experiences. Oh and Tijuana gets hot, so don’t sniff at grabbing a cold brew to-go. Most coffee houses offer bottled coffee alongside their regular drink menu.

Nativo Coffee Community

Armed border guards can be pretty intimidating, which is why I always like to follow the somewhat unwelcoming and officious border experience with a much friendlier one at Nativo. A cold drink in one of Nativo’s signature cactus-shaped Mason jars provides the perfect antidote to the hustle and bustle of “the line” and their outdoor seating makes a great place to sit, grab some wifi, and plan a day in TJ. The shop is just a block away from the new PedWest border crossing, making it a great first stop for a Tijuana coffee crawl, so long as you don’t get there before their 9:00am opening time. On weekends, you can grab a drink and wander around the farmers’ market that takes place outside.

Nativo’s menu mixes espresso classics with more inventive drinks that combine their own coffee with Dr Pepper and orange juice amongst other ingredients that pair surprisingly well with sunshine and succulents. The shop itself isn’t large, but you’re only a short walk from a beach, garden, or plaza that makes for a great setting to linger over your drink and one of their donuts, or the deliciously international avocado bagel. There’s also rarely not a dog on hand for petting, along with frequent dog meet-ups, making this one of my overall favorite coffee spots to go to when I absolutely don’t want to get work done.

Container Coffee

Situated in an old shipping container in Tijuana’s busy and touristy Avenida Revolución, Container’s architecture might be disposable, but the shop bucks the trend of the area by selling something customers will enjoy and come back for rather than throw away when they realize nobody needs a novelty poncho or sombrero.

Container invites customers to take a moment to enjoy their cup of coffee in a part of town that feels like it stops for nobody. Customers pick from several coffees, all sourced from Mexico, and then select a brewing method in consultation with the knowledgeable and friendly baristas. Then it’s time to take the cup on the shop’s patio and while away half an hour watching the carnival of enthusiastic hawkers engaged in their timeless pursuit of relieving hopelessly clueless tourists of a few dollars as local teenagers strut their stuff and sneer at the whole spectacle. Container has plenty of power outlets, but it isn’t the place to bring your laptop—“Av Rev” provides entertainment enough. If you’re on the go, or a manually brewed coffee isn’t for you, there are delicious single origin espresso and milk drinks from a national level competition barista and bottled cold coffee to keep the post-lunch slump at bay if you’re on your way to, or from, the nearby Telefonica Gastro Park.

Electric Coffee Roasters

A little further from the hustle of the middle of the city is Electric Coffee Roasters, where everything from the clientele to the Instagram account lets you know that you’re in for a curated speciality coffee experience that merits a short Lyft ride or a longer walk. Situated just across from the Estadio Caliente Xoloitzcuintles, the Electric’s Nuova Simonelli machines, scales, Chemexes and bare wood countertops set the scene for the sort of coffee shop anyone would be glad to have in their neighborhood and a great spot to grab a pick-me-up before a game or concert. It’s definitely a local hangout and not a tourist trap, especially in the afternoons when the small shop’s tables can be hard to lock down while local freelancers and students take advantage of the quiet space and curated soundtrack to work. If you find yourself down by the beach in Playas, there’s a branch there as well and the friendly locals are more than happy to offer coffee, dinner or beach tips (or, at least they were to a Spanish-speaking Englishman with a ridiculously large camera).

There’s a full espresso menu as well as several manual brew options for hot and cold drinks. The baristas also craft custom drinks, combining honey, cinnamon, chocolate, and other local ingredients with their espresso, which is roasted right in house. If you’re grabbing something to go, don’t overlook the delicious bottled cold brew, which has fueled many a drive south to Baja’s incredible surf breaks.

Caffe Sospeso

Sospeso isn’t a shop you’re likely to bump into on your way to or from the border; it’s in the part of town where suits are more common than sangria-swilling tourists. The shop is more spacious, and local professionals frequently meet here for a coffee and a chat. Meanwhile, local coffee aficionados stop by to sample the variety of roasts, chat with baristas and take home one of the many coffees on offer.

Sospeso is a bigger setup than anything else on this list, complete with TV screens, point-of-sale displays explaining the roasting and harvesting process, and a Kickstarter page to fund their aims to expand north of the border. It’s an operation that turns out phenomenal coffee and really deserves a greater recognition outside of the immediate area. Their online sales program means that even if you’re a long way from TJ, you can now sample their national and international roasts.

This was the only cafe we visited that roasts an international selection of beans. Indeed, the shop’s owner, Alberto Song, is a certified Q grader and a judge at the Cup of Excellence. Sospeso offers Kyoto-style cold brew and bottles of concentrate to-go that look more like the Tequila that you’ll see tourists clutching as they nervously transit US customs. There’s also a brew bar and to-go cups with sleeves that describe the processing method of the coffee you’re drinking.

James Stout is a freelance journalist based in San Diego. This is James Stout’s first feature for Sprudge.

The post The Coffee Drinker’s Guide To Tijuana, Mexico appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Welcome to Sprudge Shop Spotlights, a new weekend series in which we highlight our very favorite items currently available in the ever-changing, fast-moving, utterly bespoke Sprudge Shop. Now shipping worldwide, featuring unique artist and brand collaborations from around the planet. Enjoy!

We just dropped a limited-edition mug on the Sprudge Shop—a collaboration with Taylor McManus (@tmcmanusillustration) and Created Co. Taylor McManus is an educator and illustrator from the Washington DC/Northern Virginia area.

This drop coincides with Taylor McManus’ @sprudge Instagram takeover where McManus shared beautiful illustrations, portraits, patterns, and products.

View this post on Instagram

Hey y’all this is @tmcmanusillustration and I am taking over @sprudge IG this week! I am an illustrator and educator from the Washington, D.C./ Northern Virginia area. This week I’ll share some of my artwork which will include patterns, products, portraits, and more so stay tuned! #illustration #digitalillustration #artist #blackartist #igtakeover #sprudge #taylormcmanus #taylormcmanusillustration #products #patterns #design #artistsoninstagram

A post shared by Sprudge (@sprudge) on Feb 19, 2019 at 1:39pm PST

Earlier in 2018, McManus designed both Black Coffee event posters:

Mugs are now available at the Sprudge Shop. The crescent-shaped 12oz mugs are $20 and come in red and yellow. Quantities are very limited! Shop now!

The post Limited Edition Created Co. + Taylor McManus Sprudge Mugs appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

When we think about big name coffee professionals, we often imagine them in the shop setting, tinkering away intently on $20,000 machinery most of us only wish to try out at least once in our lives. Rarely do we ever imagine how these real, actual humans make their own real, actual coffee on a daily basis in their own homes. In a new video series released today, La Marzocco is peeling back that curtain. Titled “Espresso At Home,” the quarterly-ish series by La Marzocco Home talks to coffee professionals about their coffee at home and the ritual surrounding it. And it all kicks off with Blue Bottle founder James Freeman.

Working with Los Angeles-based videographer Anthony Diaz—a Regional Emmy winner for The Migrant Kitchen—La Marzocco Home catches up with Freeman in his hyper-clean, minimalist kitchen, home to a Linea Mini, Mazzer Mini, Baratza Sette, Ikawa roaster, Fellow Stagg kettle, and Acaia Pearl scale. It’s basically exactly like the sort of house you’d imagine the very composed James Freeman to live in—consider this a coffee-focused amplification of the NYT profile his house received in 2018.

Over the course of the three-and-a-half minute video, Freeman discusses the importance not just of being able to make good coffee at home, but how the home coffee making ritual came into his life:

My parents were frugal, and they drank horrible coffee, but they were very conscious of their process and their rituals around the horrible coffee. I have an appliance timer on the back of my espresso machine—it turns on about an hour before everybody wakes up. They had that on theirs, too, so there are these odd threads in common about how important it is to have something, like, ready to go… That ritual of having a warmed-up espresso machine waiting for me, making a quick cappuccino before I do basically anything else, including put on pants—that’s been a feature of my life for many years.

The Espresso At Home series is tentatively planning to release new videos on a quarterly basis and will include coffee professionals from the world over. The company already has a few other big names in the works (including at least one very well known coffee producer) but aren’t yet able to officially announce them.



But for the time being, please enjoy James Freeman making a cappuccino and imagine him making it for you, having a chat in his very calming way of speaking. It sounds like a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

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 La Marzocco

Disclosure: La Marzocco and Blue Bottle Coffee are advertising partners with the Sprudge Media Network. 

The post La Marzocco Releases New Espresso At Home Video Series appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Everyone knows that feeling.

There you are, just a child alone in the world, learning who you really are. You go through the first eight years of your life wearing the same clothes (they’re perfectly nice clothes) and going by your full name, but then.

But then! Then you meet that really cool kid who helps you pick out some rad new clothes. You start going by a nickname—a shortened version of your full name. You’re all like, “Hell yeah, I’m eight years old, and I’m gonna start wearing these clothes and go by my short name now!” You are figuring your shit out, basically. For the first time in you truly feel alive. 

Sprudge readers are already well familiar with Huckleberry Roasters, an eight-year-old coffee roasting company based in Denver, Colorado. But for the very first time let us introduce you to Huck.

Founder and owner Koan Goedman tells us that the folks at Huck “loved our previous bag, designed by Denver homies Studio Mast, but I wanted a change. I felt like I was seeing very similar bag designs (and, even spreading into non-coffee package design) all over the place —lots of blockiness, lots of hard/sharp lines, lots of white. I felt I wanted a big change, and that our guests and partners would trust us to deliver on something wild and crazy and unique.”

It’s a big change, alright, and with it comes a new design identity and approach to packaging that makes them a perfect fit for our ongoing original feature series on Sprudge. Brand name changes are nothing new, but this one—the intentionality behind it, and that dramatic shortening to a single syllable—well, I just had to learn more. And so I sat down digitally to speak with Goedman about the change, the new look, and what’s next for Huck.

When did the coffee package design debut?

It seems like every time we do the “let’s design a new bag” dance, we start learning the steps too late in the process. This go around was a little better than last when we had to deploy some “pardon the interruption” bags to hold us over, but super well planned out it was not….

Basically, the bags arrived, via an overnight plane trip, on a Monday morning in late November, and we were filling them with coffee beans later that day. Exciting, eh?

Who designed the package?

Fun story! One of the first regulars we had at our 4301 Pecos cafe in 2013, was a delightful person by the name of Ross Evertson. In the magical way that coffee shops work, Ross went from being a stranger to a regular to a friend (to all of us, truly). He’s really an exceptional person with passion for dogs, photography, words, intentional design, typography, and smart-assedness—that last one said with love and admiration, of course.

I asked Ross to design something that reflected our company culture, something that reflected a company willing to push the boundaries a bit and something that would truly stand out from what I was seeing on shelves at other shops, Whole Foods, etc.

Ross was down to tackle that challenge with us, and given that he knew me and Huck as well as he did, it was a natural partnership.

What coffee info do you share on the package? What is the motivation behind that?

All the usual stuff!

It should be noted that the coffee label was designed by Lisa Wright of Obsesso Processo. Ross has a grown-up job (wink), and his time was a little tied up towards the end of this project, so Lisa stepped in and up to the plate to walk the new bag project across the finish line in a way that honored Ross’s work, but also breathed some life into the label! Lisa is also intimately aware of all things Huck, so it was pretty easy for her to come in and do some creative work. She’s the best!

On the information front specifically, we trimmed up some of the information from our previous label that we knew, based on some soft polling/inquiring with customers, wasn’t a point of interaction or useful for them. And, at the end of the day, as much as we might want to talk about elevation and varietal, we decided there are better ways to share that information (i.e baristas at a cafe, webstore on the internet)… and simply leave the label to pass along the essentials. So, we share coffee name and region, tasting notes, producer details, processing particulars, and roasted on date.

Most interestingly, I think, Lisa came up with the brilliant way to tie the flowing nature of the bag concept into the label. There is a color coding system that ties back to the three previous versions of retail bags we’ve had, so there’s some very useful continuity and familiarity there. However, not stopping there, Lisa then moved beyond just the color coding by designing these super fun, sorta-abstract region shaped blobs to catch the eye. So, just within the label there are 3-4 opportunities to engage!

Why are the aesthetics in coffee packaging so important?

I think the answer to this will change for different people, but for Huck… it’s a chance to tell our story and, if we’re lucky, we’ve caught the eye of someone unfamiliar with Huck and given them a reason to dig further, ask questions and order some coffee.

Where is the bag manufactured?

Per usual, we worked with Pacific Bags on this bag.

Is the package recyclable/compostable?

The answer to this question is basically the most confusing, long-winded answer of all time. Honestly, I’m still a little confused. It’s probably wisest to say, “go visit Pacific Bag’s website to read about what Biotre is and isn’t!” In reality, I think the legal answer to the question is “no” and we make no claims to recyclability/compostability, but the real-life answer to this might be a “sort of and sometimes, depending where you live and what local laws are.”

How’s that for unsatisfactory?

All I can say is that I’m excited to see Pacific Bag’s 100% compostable Biotre bag, which, rumor has it, is close to being available!

Where is it currently available?

Our shops and the world wide web!

Thank you!

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

The post Coffee Design: Huckleberry Roasters In Denver, Colorado appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News