Keep It Kaimuki Archives - Page 14 of 23 - The Curb Kaimuki

It’s summertime and the living is easy for those on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada. That’s the home of the brand new location for Beachcomber Coffee, a coffee company who does all their roasting on the mainland in Vancouver before shipping it over via ferry to the chiller side of things.

Beachcomber touts themselves as much of a lifestyle brand as a coffee company, and it is easy to see why. Being out on Gibsons—so close to the big city but still so very far away—is by its very nature a lifestyle. Any company that can successfully embody that vibe has the lifestyle part down; all it needs is the brand. And does Beachcomber ever have that. Let’s mosey on in, shall we, and check out the brand new Beachcomber Coffee in Gibsons, British Columbia.

As told to Sprudge by Martin DesRosiers.

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

Founded in 2015, Beachcomber Coffee is an award-winning craft coffee company based on the Sunshine Coast, BC! Roasted in Vancouver but based in Gibsons, Beachcomber Coffee represents the Sunshine Coast lifestyle and produces a proprietary blend of Certified Organic, Certified Fairtrade, Certified Kosher, and Certified Halal coffee. Beachcomber is unique in that it doesn’t offer different blends and roasts but instead focuses on its unique blend appealing to the daily Canadian coffee drinker.

Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

Having lived/worked in Gastown (Vancouver, BC), we wanted to take a slice of it and drop it into Gibsons Landing. Our space is located a stone’s throw from the ocean, situated at the epicenter of historic seaside village called Gibsons Landing. The location has been a coffee shop since 1979 and we purchased it late last year to convert it into our home base. Our model is coffee-first with complementary food options including exclusive baked goods from a local baker (two doors down) as well as grilled wraps and sandwiches. We sell our beans as well as merchandise as we consider ourselves a lifestyle brand.

What’s your approach to coffee?

Our approach from day one has been to create a coffee company rooted within the area we grew up tailored to the average Canadian coffee drinker. Our coffees have always been “medium” on the roast spectrum with notes of chocolate, caramel, and nuts. We set out to create a lifestyle brand leveraging the power of marketing and social media and spent months analyzing the Canadian coffee market. We’ve won numerous awards for our coffees and late last year we pivoted and completely redesigned our packaging and our signature blend. We are now Certified Organic, Certified Fairtrade, Certified Kosher, and Certified Halal. Our brand represents the Sunshine Coast lifestyle, a community nestled so close (40-minute ferry ride), yet so far away from downtown Vancouver, BC. The juxtaposition between concrete jungle and small town seaside community is what we’re all about and our approach to coffee has always been more than just a bag of beans, it’s about making people feel good and tap into that feeling of West Coast living. Our slogan is it’s not just a coffee, it’s a lifestyle…

Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

We’re using a FETCO Batch Brewer, custom Victoria Arduino White Eagle, as well as Victoria Arduino espresso grinders. We are the first coffee shop in British Columbia Canada to be working with the purpose-built chocolate waffle cone called “coffee in a cone.” We are also about to launch a cold brew in a bottle (355ml beer bottle) within the next couple of weeks. We’ve decided to focus on efficiency and encourage a take a go model (as we are in a desirable tourist area) and is why you won’t find pour-overs and other methods.

What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?

Grand Opening June 16th, 2018 (currently in soft-open phase)

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

Definitely would like to shoutout a few people: John Lieffers from Blenheim Construction who was our contractor on the project, Ethan Luc Goosen who was our architect/designer on the project, and Ben Tour (local artist) for the murals within the space.

Thank you!

No, THANK YOU 😀

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

Photos by Dolf Vermeulen.

The post Build-Outs Of Summer: Beachcomber Coffee In Gibsons, BC appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Coffee Masters has gone from a scrappy upstart coffee competition to one of the premier events on both sides of the Atlantic. This popularity has seen the interest in competing skyrocket even while available spots holds fast at 24. It’s a tough ticket to get, especially when vying against multiple national Barista and Brewers Cup champions. That’s why Allegra Events—the team behind Coffee Masters—have created their first regional-style event. Taking place at the Milan Coffee Festival in Italy between November 30th and December 2nd, CMx is a national level event with the winner earning a guaranteed spot at next year’s London Coffee Masters.

Unlike previous Coffee Masters events where anyone can apply to compete, CMx Milan is only open to Italian competitors. (side note: how many times will you have to hear CMx before you starting sing the Ruff Ryders Anthem? It was two for me). The competition itself remains similar to that of other Coffee Masters; competitors will be tested in seven different disciplines: cupping, brewing, latte art, the order challenge, signature drink, espresso blend, and origin. A total of 16 baristas will face off on a Faema E71, using coffees from HMC, Gardelli, and Ditta Artigianale. The last barista standing will win the €1,000 cash prize and the coveted spot at the 2019 London Coffee Masters.

Like with all Coffee Masters events, potential candidates for CMx Milan are required to submit a one to two minute video that showcases a coffee-based signature beverage, this time “inspired by Milan,” as well as fill out an application form on the Coffee Masters website. And be Italian (read: currently living or working in Italy). Applications are currently open and due by October 19th.

For more information about CMx Milan or to apply, visit the Coffee Masters official website.

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

Top image via Coffee Masters

The post CMx: A National Level Coffee Masters Event At The Milan Coffee Festival appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Curitiba, the capital of Paraná state, is well known in Brazil for its intense coffee culture. The newest addition to the already effervescent coffee scene is the Supernova Hub: a collective roastery—where coffee lovers/cafe owners can rent out the equipment to roast their own green coffee, a cafe, a business incubator for coffee-related startups, and a soon-to-be certified Specialty Coffee Association campus. 

Luiz Eduardo Melo, Supernova founder, is a lawyer by training and an entrepreneur by trade. In 2014 he started learning about roasting and opened the first Supernova location in 2015, together with his partner Bruno Regalo. Since then, Melo has opened two other cafes, led the production of a coffee documentary film (“Coffee Isn’t Just Coffee”—watch the trailer here), finished his SCA instructor certification in the US, and now opened the Supernova Hub.

Luiz Eduardo Melo

Melo’s three prior Supernova cafes are focused on the “coffee to go” concept—to the extreme. “I needed to stand apart from the other already established roasteries from Curitiba and offer something new to our customers,” explains Melo. They eschew WiFi and table service, and only serve in to-go cups, focusing solely on coffee quality and customer experience, which Melo today recognizes was really risky. Thankfully, it has worked out so far.

The Supernova Hub came about for many reasons, Melo tells me. The roastery space in the flagship store was overcrowded with green coffee storage. The stock space for cafe supplies and green coffee was divided among the stores, which made it logistically challenging to distribute supplies. Melo began to conceive of a space where he could centralize the roastery operations and the stock together, and at the same time, he got a nudge from the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association to become an authorized SCA trainer. And he found an amazing, spacious location in downtown Curitiba, then somewhat of a desert for specialty coffee. That was it: the Supernova Coffee Hub would host his SCA training lab, roastery, green and roasted coffee storage center, and also a cafe.

The Hub cafe initially opened in October 2017, and Melo and his team of baristas quickly learned that customers in this part of Curitiba were different than those they’d served elsewhere. Low-income downtown workers were not used to specialty coffee, the beverages offered, let alone the pricing. They took the opportunity to rethink the Hub’s cafe operation when they had to briefly close to build out the roastery and the training lab upstairs.

Much of the Hub format today came from this rethinking period, says Melo. One of the important decisions—that was suggested by baristas Amandha Locathelli and Daniel Munari—was to leave it up to the customer to decide how much the beverage they order is worth. Inspired by other initiatives such as Curto Café, this allowed them to make specialty coffee more affordable for their clientele. Focused on making the space an accessible space for people of all backgrounds and income levels to experience specialty coffee, The Hub will also host free cuppings and events, as well as allocate one vacancy in every coffee course for low-income coffee professionals. 

The structure of their collaborative roasting space, too, came from this period of renovation and reflection. The Supernova Hub offers members usage plans that include roasting training as well as roastery hours, so that students can practice what they learn during classes.

To tie this all together, Melo realized he needed a tool that could facilitate the access to specialty green coffee by the roasters who would rent out the roastery equipment. His newest startup initiative is a web platform for the specialty coffee trade: Baerter. The idea is to provide a link between roasters and specialty coffee producers, where they can buy green coffee online with guaranteed delivery, and also post reviews of the coffee quality and so forth. All parties are held accountable—both producers and buyers have the opportunity to review the transaction and thus a reputation is slowly built within the platform. All samples are submitted by producers to the Supernova Hub, where they evaluate green quality and grade the coffee, attesting to its quality, before it can be posted online for sale.

“I remember all the difficulties I had to go through when trying to open my coffee business,” recalls Melo, “and I am thus trying to solve all of them for the newcomers to the industry: access to roasting and barista courses, access to roastery equipment, access to high quality green coffee from all over the country—without necessarily having to travel all the way to the farm in order to buy directly from the farmer.”

And how will he measure Supernova’s success? Melo will know—when specialty coffee in Brazil gets even more competitive.

Juliana Ganan is a Brazilian coffee professional and journalist. Read more Juliana Ganan on Sprudge.

Photos by Bruno Regert.

The post Supernova Hub In Curitiba, Brazil Is Coffee For Everyone appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

It has been three weeks since Volcán de Fuego erupted just outside Antigua, Guatemala, killing over 110 people with some 200+ still unaccounted for. In total, the devastation wrought by Volcán de Fuego is expected to affect 1.7 million people, many of whom are coffee farmers. In an effort to assist those in this time of need, New York’s Joe Coffee Company has teamed up with Counter Culture to host a throwdown this Thursday, June 28th, with all the proceeds going to relief efforts.

Taking place at Counter Culture’s NYC Training Lab, all funds raised at the TNT will be given to Funcafé, the Foundation of Coffee for Rural Development. According to their website, Funcafé will use these funds to buy “unprocessed food, water, toilet paper, diapers, clothes and shoes, blankets, personal hygiene products, medicine and more” to distribute to those impacted by the eruption.

For those looking to throw down, the entry fee to compete is $10, and Joe Coffee and Counter Culture are asking a $10 suggested donation for those who just want to come hang (but you may as well compete and see if you can win some of the prizes the two coffee companies have in store). And for anyone not in the NYC area that would still like to help relief efforts, Funcafé is taking direct donations via credit card or Paypal.

The Joe Coffee Company and Counter Culture throwdown gets going at 6:30pm for sign-ups, with the competition beginning promptly at 7:00pm. For more information, visit the Throwdown for Guatemala Facebook event page.

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

All images via Joe Coffee Company.

SaveSave

The post New York: Raise Funds For Volcano Relief At Throwdown For Guatemala appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

In Brazil, the largest coffee-producing country in the world, it is not always easy to find a good cup of coffee at the end of a meal. Restaurants do not always take into account the quality of the coffee they serve—forgetting that the cup of coffee is the last taste that the customer will take from that experience.

But fortunately, this scenario is beginning to change: more and more restaurants are looking to partner with good roasters to serve fresher, better beans. And there are also those who prefer to buy and roast their own, controlling the whole process. And there are those doing all of those things in a converted parking garage.

When it opened its doors last January, Futuro Refeitório (Future Cafeteria, in a literal English translation), an all-day restaurant located in the Pinheiros neighborhood in São Paulo, already had an Atilla 5 Gold Plus roaster in the middle of the room, along with all the kitchen equipment. Usually relegated to the backstage, here the roaster is the center of the show, for the public to see—and smell, and look, and be part of the preparation. When talking about coffee, this is an important move, as it brings customers closer to its entire culture.

That’s what Natalia Braga, head barista at Futuro, wanted from the beginning, when she was invited to join the team. Besides the two owners, the sisters Gabriela and Karina Barretto, the restaurant also has a head baker, Hanny Guimarães, who is responsible for all batches of bread. “I’ve always wanted to bring people closer to the coffee world,” says Braga, who first started working in coffee at Starbucks. She went on to work for many coffee shops in São Paulo until she moved to Minas Gerais in order to learn more about coffee and its agricultural processes. “Since we started, I always wanted to add value and shorten the path from product to consumer,” says Braga.

Natalia Braga

The invitation to join the team came from Karina Baretto, an HR manager who is passionate about coffee. Her family was always involved in coffee production and she wanted to bring that relationship to Futuro. “I always knew that I didn’t want to only buy coffee from a good roaster. I wanted our relationship with coffee to go deeper. So, like a miracle, Natalia showed up, and we decided to get into the whole process,” she explains.

Months before Futuro opened, its team literally hit the road to visit farmers who could become their coffee suppliers. First, they visited the region of Chapada Diamantina, in the interior of Bahia State, and met producers such as Michael Alcântara, from Divino Espírito Santo Estate and Renato Rodrigues, from Chácara Vista Alegre. “We thought that Bahia could be a good region to emphasize at Futuro, since it has great coffee and is not much known in São Paulo,” Braga says. Following this line, from Minas Gerais, one of the largest states with coffee production in Brazil, they also serve beans harvested in lesser-known regions, such as Serra da Careta, which has been notable for the production of excellent coffee.

Photo by Gui Galembeck.

From those regions comes the coffee full of personality that they serve in the restaurant, in varieties like Obatã, Pacamara, Piatã, among others. “We came back with 65 samples and the arduous job of analyzing all of them,” she points out. They made a point to explain to the producers that the batches couldn’t be mixed, which is very common in regions where there isn’t a specific request to do otherwise. “In the roasting trials, it was difficult to define the roast profiles of many beans because of this.”

Today, with the restaurant already in operation, it has become easier for them to get the results they seek. “It is a relationship that is built slowly, so it needs patience and a lot of talks, exchanges. But it is something we are willing to do and it has paid off,” she says.

At Futuro, the team of five baristas (including Braga) prepares only two coffee methods, which are served all day long, from morning till night: espresso and V60. “We are not a coffee shop, but we do have a full coffee operation inside the restaurant, so we had to simplify to do a good job. With the crowds we get, it would be difficult to serve many other methods with quality,” Karina says.

In addition to a brewing station (in front of which many clients prefer to drink their cups), they have a La Marzocco Linea to prepare espresso beverages. “Today we have a balance between espresso and brewed coffee sales. Since we receive lots of people for lunch or dinner, Brazilians in general still have a close relationship with espresso to finish their meal. It is something cultural. But we serve many brewed coffees as well,” Braga explains.

At Futuro, brewed coffee is served in a glass—“it is a way to democratize the service, to allow the customer to see more of the coffee, its color, etc.,” as Karina says—while espressos are served in cups. The menu also includes some cocktails and drinks made with in-house roasted coffees, such as cold brew and the Gin Brew—a mixture of gin, tonic, and a punch of cold brew—and Bourbon Milk, made with bourbon, coffee, and almond milk. There is also an affogato in the desserts section, with the perfect amount of espresso spilled over artisanal vanilla ice cream.

Still on the menu, detailed information and many descriptions are avoided. “We have a lot of people who come to eat and are not too worried about the sensorial characteristics of each of the beans,” Braga says. “At first, we wanted to go into more details, but we understood that the most interested customers would ask for them, so we opted for basic information such as region, producer name, variety, and two descriptive words.” “Light and fruity” are used to describe Alcantara’s beans, while “soft and elegant” are used to refer to Rodrigues’.  

For the house blend, Braga preferred to go for a more, let’s say, conceptual description to explain the blend that she roasts at least twice a week—to ensure the freshness of the beans. “We say it is a mixture of Pedro Almodóvar and Talking Heads,” she laughs.

“Maybe it’s a good way to make people think about what I mean when they taste the coffee, right?”

Rafael Tonon is a freelance journalist based in Brazil. Read more Rafael Tonon on Sprudge.

Photos by Fran Parente unless otherwise noted.

The post In São Paulo, Coffee Finds A Home In The Dining Scene At Futuro Refeitório appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Coffee is good for you, a meta-study has already proven as much. But beyond its inherent healthful properties, scientists are now figuring out ways to use coffee to combat medical conditions. Still in its early stages of research, scientists have successfully treated type 2 diabetes in lab mice with coffee.

As explained by a recent Ars Technica article, a team of researchers led by Dr. Martin Fussenegger of ETH Zurich in Basel is using caffeine to trigger responses from synthetic genetic systems. To do this, the researchers needed to find a molecule that would respond to caffeine, and they found one. In camels. Using an antibody generated in camelids—camels and llamas—they now had a means of detecting caffeine molecules that would then trigger the gene response.

To treat the mice—who all had “diet-induced type 2 diabetes”—researchers inserted a permeable capsule filled with insulin-producing stem cells into the mouse’s body cavity. Thanks to the camelid antibodies, these cells were trained to recognize and respond to the presence of caffeine. So whenever the mice were given a sip of coffee, it triggered their bodies to produce insulin. The result was that the diabetic mice “had blood sugar level similar to normal, wild-type mice” and “had much higher levels of insulin in their blood compare to diabetic mice with the [insulin]-producing implant.”

And this is just the beginning. Researchers believe this methodology can be used to treat other medical conditions. It’s still a long way away from being ready for human use, but this new research may be the key to combating a multitude of illnesses. All with your morning cup of coffee.

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

The post Scientists Use Coffee To Trigger Synthetic Genes To Treat Diabetes appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Less than an hour’s drive from San Cristobal de Las Casas, near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, is Los Altos de Chiapas. San Cristobal, a small, romantic town, is beloved by tourists to the greater Chiapas region for its food as much as the colors of its buildings, but Jesus Salazar loves it for a different reason.

Salazar, who runs coffee hotel Casa Cafeòlogo, is here for the weather, altitude, and soil.

Los Altos de Chiapas began producing coffee only 70 years ago, which, relatively speaking, makes the growing region relatively young. Consequentially, the producers here are open to experimentation, and Salazar works with 16 different producers to this end to improve their quality. He teaches picking techniques, processing methods, roasting, and cupping. Some of his projects include cherry picking instruction, process experimentation, roasting, and cupping. In San Cristobal, Salazar owns and operates a roastery and cafe called Carajillo, where he employs the sons and daughters of some of the producers he works with—when they return to their parents’ farms, they’ll be better informed about the extension of the coffee chain, and able to inform larger decisions about production.

As of 2010, Mexico was the world’s largest producer of certified organic coffee by volume in the world, and that doesn’t factor in the large amount of coffee grown by producers who lack certification due to its cost, but adhere to organic production practices nonetheless. All the producers Salazar works with grow organic coffee.

Pedro Vázquez is one such producer, with his whole family involved in the farm. Two of his daughters work with Salazar at Carajillo, one as a roaster and cupper in-training and the other as a barista. His wife oversees the Vázquez farm’s harvest, while their other three daughters live on the farm.

Ann and Pedro Vázquez

The Vázquez farm used to grow sugar cane, but 30 years ago was converted to coffee production. The Vázquez family now grows Bourbon and Typica varieties, and has survived an outbreak of Coffee Leaf Rust, when two-thirds of their crop was destroyed. The Vázquez family hopes to produce Pacamara and Marago coffees in the future, and are now laying the groundwork for increased production quality by taking care of their soil and planting shade trees.

Pedro Vázquez is sometimes more a philosopher than a farmer—he believes producing organic coffees is better not only for the soil but also for the soul. He says every time someone drinks a sip of his family’s coffee, he is sharing a drop of life with them, because well-harvested coffee is life.

Inez Vázquez pulls a shot in Cafeòlogo’s cafe

The use of chemicals, Vázquez thinks, will destroy his soil, which he simply won’t tolerate—he hopes one day to leave the farm to his family. Although the farms Salazar works with are too small to compete in the Cup of Excellence competition, a coffee from Chiapas’s Finca Los Azahares won fourth place in Mexico’s competition, winning a presidential award, and so the quality of the region is not without recognition.

To promote the development in Los Altos de Chiapas, Salazar opened Cafeòlogo in the city center of San Cristóbal explicitly for the purpose of hosting green coffee buyers. Each bedroom is kitted out with a Kalita set and specialty coffee, and guests have access to a cupping and roasting lab, a barista training center, and a beautiful cafe, which itself features a one-group Slayer and the coffees of producers Salazar is partnered with.

Thanks in part to Salazar and the producers he represents, Chiapas may be coming into its golden years as a production region. If his hotel is good enough for Tim Wendelboe, who stayed there while visiting Chiapas on behalf of Noma Mexico, it’s good enough for the coffee lover in all of us—and is all the more reason to schedule a visit.

Ximena Rubio is a coffee professional based in Mexico City. Read more Ximena Rubio on Sprudge. 

The post In Chiapas, Casa Cafeòlogo Is A Coffee Hotel For Green Buyers appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

For anyone who has spent any amount of in an ultra-cold, windowless casino, breathing in pumped in recycled air, you know that the house wants you awake enough to keep putting money on the table. For me, an ex-full-time-ish poker deviant (and now just an occasional deviant dabbler), my go-to was always coffee; alcohol was for suckers looking to have a good time throwing money away. But I wasn’t there for fun, I was there to win, so I needed my wits about me. At least six cups of free casino coffee should do the trick, no?

But according to Extra Crispy, a study shows consuming caffeine will actually make you worse at gambling.

Published in the journal Addictive Behaviors, the study is a joint effort between researchers at Cambridge and the University of Chicago. The researchers followed 60 “problem gamblers” and tracked their caffeine consumption during their gambling sessions and found that those consuming caffeine “exhibited a five percent greater likelihood of placing a bad bet.”

This dip in play may be caused by two things. From the article:

While a five percent dip seems nominal, gambling and poker are all about the numbers and knowing the odds. With even a one percent advantage, over a long enough period of time the house will bleed you dry. So drink coffee sparingly. When it’s 2:15am and half the table are sitting on some big stacks and are trying to bribe the server into one last round of shots, a coffee may not be a bad idea. But remember, jacked on caffeine or not, “but they were suited” is always a bad rationalization for talking yourself into a hand.

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

The post Coffee Makes You Bad At Gambling appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Cowboy coffee. It means different things to different people. For many, it’s the sludge you make while camping over an open fire (often using a sock, worn or otherwise). But for San Diegans, cowboy coffee is coming to embody something entirely different. That’s where Manzanita Roasting Company comes in. Located on a winery, Manzanita is bring cowboy-chic to the coffee shop.

The new roastery is the work of husband and wife duo Weston and Samantha Nawrocki. Both coming from culinary backgrounds—Weston a chef and sommelier and Samantha in local wine—the two have shifted their focus to coffee. The couple has been roasting as Manzanita for three years now, but it wasn’t until earlier this month that they opened their flagship roastery/cafe. So grab your boots and get to scootin’. We’re headed to San Diego to check out the new Manzanita Roasting Company.

As told to Sprudge by Samantha Nawrocki.

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

Well, we’re a husband and wife roasting team in San Diego, roasting for almost three years and sourcing the best microlots we can from small farmers who love what they do. Weston was a WSET 3 Sommelier and classically trained Chef from Vancouver, Samantha a San Diego native wine and marketing chick. We’re growing our wholesale, picking up national awards, and just landed on Thrillist’s top 21 USA roasters list. We’re passionate about people, coffee, keeping it green and environmentally friendly, and roasting sweet, happy beans. Now we’re opening our flagship coffee house, on our family’s winery where our roaster is. That’s about it.

Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

It’s a mixture of hipster coffee meets cowboy western movie, in a really green and airy space, adjacent to the roaster. We wanted to create a space that people are comfortable in, that’s modern and serious about the coffee but lighthearted, a bit funny, and welcoming to anyone and everyone who comes in. Definitely not white walls and succulents. I think we’ve done what we set out for. The space is happy, lighthearted, a bit edgy, and well, there’s the whole cowboy bit. But when you’re located on a 128-year-old California winery, you need to embrace what’s around you also and not be too pretentious and stuffy.

Weston and Samantha Nawrocki.

What’s your approach to coffee?

We like to listen to the coffee. Weston roasts like he’s tasting wine. You need to let the terroir speak for itself and adjust the roast accordingly. Sweet, balanced beans with some complexity from the first sip to the last is what we are always aiming for and that also shows respect to the grower as well as the barista, who are so important in the equation, too. We can source great coffees from some pretty awesome farmers but we have to do them justice in our roasting AND then roast to where baristas are excited about the coffee too. They finish the process and hand you something truly delightful that they can stand behind too. This is what we love. Everyone is part of this.

Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

We have a groovy La Marzocco Linea, a Mahlkönig EK43 for the pour-over bar, a Nuova Simonelli Mythos One for the espresso bar, a Baratza Sette 270 for our decaf espresso, a Wilbur Curtis Twin one gallon brewer, numerous cocktail shakers for our cold brew cocktail bar, and a broken janky oven. There’s more I’m sure.

What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?

Week of June 1st, 2018!

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

Craftspeople are our awesome winery maintenance staff, Weston, my brother Ross Rizzo (also talented winemaker), Najila the potter, who is making our hand-thrown limited edition mugs for our merch wall, Darlene, who is making our repurposed totes for the merch wall, Dave, Joh, and numerous unpaid laborers and friends who work for wine and coffee.

Thank you!

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

The post Build-Outs Of Summer: Manzanita Roasting Company In San Diego, CA appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

We’re organizing a nationwide fundraiser this weekend—June 22nd-24th 2018—to support the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), working to connect refugee families in America to community support and legal aid. Like so many Americans, we are horrified by the Trump Administration’s attempted “zero tolerance” policy of separating families entering the United States as asylum seekers and refugees. The result—literal concentration camps for children—is offensive to all moral people.

Immigration policy is a huge, multifaceted, complex generational issue, and no previous administration has been perfect on it. At 12pm today current US President Donald Trump—in the face of overwhelming outrage from prominent members of both political parties, all 5 living First Ladies, former top federal prosecutors in the Department of Justice, and countless other Americans of every political, social and cultural background—signed a face-saving emergency decree to temporarily halt family separation at the border. But the human rights catastrophe continues, as thousands of families look for resources and accurate information for the steps post-detention. 

Fortunately there are advocacy groups stepping up to help. We’re calling on coffee companies and coffee drinkers alike nationwide to join us in raising funds for ASAP, a group fighting for refugee rights at the US border and resource distribution at the ground level. We’re calling the effort “Coffee For Families.”

ASAP’s project work includes providing resources and accurate information to detained individuals, working to reunite mothers with their children post-detainment, and filing lawsuits in federal court against ICE on behalf of individual clients. This weekend’s charitable action will go directly towards funding this meaningful work being done by the team at ASAP, just one of several laudable organizations fighting for refugee rights, including RAICES and our bi-annual Night of 1000 Pours partners at the American Civil Liberties Union. 

Coffee For Families Launch Partners:

Bird Rock Coffee Roasters — San Diego, CA (3 locations)

Blacksmith — Houston, TX

Blue Bottle Coffee — Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington DC, Miami, Boston (multiple locations)

Coral Sword — Houston, TX

Cultivar Coffee — Dallas and Denton, TX (3 locations)

Dichotomy Coffee & Spirits — Waco, TX

Either / Or — Portland, OR (2 locations)

Everyman Espresso — Manhattan and Brooklyn, NYC (3 locations)

Evocation Coffee — Amarillo, TX

Four Letter Word — Chicago

Gimme! Coffee — Manhattan, Brooklyn, Upstate New York (7 locations)

Go Get Em Tiger, G&B Coffee — Los Angeles (3 locations)

Greenway Coffee — Houston, TX

Heart Coffee Roasters — Portland, OR (3 locations)

Houndstooth Coffee — Austin and Dallas, TX (6 locations)

La Colombe — Philadelphia, Washington DC, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, San Diego (multiple locations)

Marigold Coffee — Portland, OR

Metric Coffee — Chicago, IL

Morningstar — Houston, TX

Oatly

Parlor Coffee — Brooklyn, NY

Pentacle Coffee — San Francisco, CA

Port of Mokha — Oakland, CA

Ritual Coffee Roasters — San Francisco and Napa, CA (6 locations)

Stumptown Coffee Roasters — Portland, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, NYC (multiple locations)

Sustainable Harvest — Portland, OR

Water Avenue Coffee — Portland, OR (2 locations)

If you’re a cafe owner or work with a coffee company that would like to get involved in this effort, please register your company here. We’d love to add you to the above list of brands raising money for ASAP this weekend.

CLU executive director Anthony D. Romero summed up the moment today eloquently:

“The devil is in the details. This crisis will not abate until each and every single child is reunited with his or her parent. An eleventh-hour executive order doesn’t fix the calamitous harm done to thousands of children and their parents. This executive order would replace one crisis for another. Children don’t belong in jail at all, even with their parents, under any set of circumstances. If the president thinks placing families in jail indefinitely is what people have been asking for, he is grossly mistaken.”  — Anthony D. Romero, ACLU

Can’t make it to a cafe? Donate directly to ASAP online. Your donation is tax deductible. 

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The post Coffee For Families: A Nationwide Fundraiser For ASAP appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News