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The 12 Host Cities For The US Coffee Champs Preliminaries Have Been Announced

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We’re still in the afterglow of the 2019 coffee competition season and it’s already time to turn our attention to 2020 with today’s announcement of the host locations for the US Coffee Champs preliminary rounds. 12 in total, the prelims take place all across the country between late July and early October, and for the first time all five coffee competitions are represented, each at no less than four host locations.

Organized and hosted by local communities, each of the host events offer coffee professionals a chance to take part in competition while keeping a relatively low barrier to entry. For each event, competition necessities are being provided by the hosts, including coffee, equipment, wares, the required alcohol (for Coffee in Good Sprits), green coffee (for Roasters), and even a small selection of brewing devices. Competitors are allowed to bring their own grinders and serving ware if they so please, but it is not required.

The dates, host cities, and competitions are:

July 26: Honolulu, HI — Barista Championship, Brewers Cup
August 2: Huntersville, NC — Coffee in Good Spirits, Roasters Championship
August 9: Seattle, WA — Barista Championship, Brewers Cup
August 16: Atlanta, GA — Barista Championship, Brewers Cup
August 23: S. Plainfield, NJ — Barista Championship, Brewers Cup, Cup Tasters
August 23: Denver, CO — Cup Tasters, Roasters Championship
September 6: Richmond, VA — Barista Championship, Brewers Cup, Coffee in Good Spirits
September 6: Portland, OR — Cup Tasters, Roasters Championship
September 27: Austin, TX — Barista Championship, Brewers Cup
September 27: Houston, TX — Cup Tasters
October 4: Rancho Cucamonga, CA — Barista Championship, Brewers Cup, Coffee in Good Spirits, Cup Tasters, Roasters Championship
October 11: Rogers, AR — Barista Championship, Brewers Cup, Coffee in Good Spirits, Cup Tasters

Competitor registration opens on July 1st. An online training session for each event will take place on the following dates:

June 27, 12:00pm PST: Roasters Championship
June 28, 12:00pm PST: Coffee in Good Spirits
July 1, 11:00am PST: Barista Championship
July 1, 1:00pm PST: Cup Tasters
July 2, 11:00am PST: Brewers Cup

For more information on the preliminary events, the host cities, the rules, or just anything else competition-related, visit the US Coffee Champs official website.

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

Top image via the US Coffee Champs

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Source: Coffee News

Iggy Goes Stumptown: A New Coffee Collab With The Godfather Of Punk

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Punk is in the bones of Portland’s Stumptown Coffee. They are, after all, the only coffee brand we are aware of that has their own skateboarding team, a team that is more Thrasher than Tony Hawk Pro Skater. So when Stumptown decides to collaborate with a musician, it should come as no surprise when they seek out a legend of the American punk world. And that’s exactly what they did their newest special addition coffee, the Indonesia Bies Penantan, created in cooperation with none other than King Stooge himself Iggy Pop.

For those unfamiliar with the musical stylings of Iggy Pop—a man who never met a shirt he couldn’t not put on—you may know him for his rather prolific acting career, including a vignette alongside Tom Waits in Jim Jarsuch’s aptly-named Coffee and Cigarettes, or what’s more likely, you recognize him as Curve from The Crow: City of Angels, one of the greatest movies of our age and I’ll hear nothing to the contrary. He’s been nominated for multiple Grammy’s (and a Razzie), he influenced generations of musicians, and even served as the basis for Ewan McGregor’s character in Velvet Goldmine. And now he’s lending his influence to coffee.

Officially released today, the wet-hulled collaboration coffee comes from the province of Aceh, Sumatra by the woman-led Ketiara Cooperative. According to the website, the coffee has “notes of dates, nutmeg, and a long, chocolatey finish,” and the 12-ounce bags were designed by Iggy himself. The coffee pairs best with “Iggy Pop Drinks Espresso,” a Spotify playlist of some of Stumptown’s favorite songs by the artist.

Per the press release, “a portion of proceeds from the sale of this bag will go to the Girls Rock Camp Alliance… an international network of organizations which work towards empowering youth who experience gender-based oppression through the radical prism of music.”

The limited release Indonesia Bies Penantan retails for $19 an 12-ounce bag and can be purchased at any Stumptown cafe as well as through their website.

So if you’ve got a Lust For Light Roast or want a little Gimme! Danger, pick up a bag of the new Indonesia Bies Penantan.

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 Stumptown

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

The post Iggy Goes Stumptown: A New Coffee Collab With The Godfather Of Punk appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Nicole Battefeld: The Sprudge Twenty Interview

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Nicole Battefeld — Röststätte of Berlin, Germany

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

Nominated by Melanie Boehme

Nicole Battefeld is the head roaster and barista team leader at Berlin’s Röststätte. A former professional chef, Battefeld is the 2018 German Barista Champion and the founder of the Female Barista Society, “a project to encourage women by sharing knowledge and passion for coffee.” The Society is currently raising funds to offer free education, technical training, and other opportunities to womxn and female-identified coffee professionals in Germany and beyond.

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

It’s hard to name one… but if I would have to choose I’d say education. It’s the most boring thing in the world to just read books about processing and farming and roasting, origins and techniques, but I think it is the most important part BEFORE you start working as a barista. People can then understand the whole complexion of this trade much better.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

Becoming better at what I do. Obviously competing is a different side of the normal barista work and very far away from reality, but it just really pushes me to always become better and to get a stage where I can share passion and hopefully inspire one or two other people to learn more about what coffee actually is and why it means so much to me.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

Besides the fact that women are still underrepresented in leading positions in the big coffee industry, I think there should be an open discussion if the “barista profession” should be more like an official educational apprenticeship. Being a chef took me three years of training, but becoming a barista in a paid barista position takes just three days of a paid seminar? And people do believe that they are actually baristas after three days of learning how to use an espresso machine and paying way too much money.

I also think that’s our biggest problem. It’s so easy to work in a coffee shop. So many students do it and it just loses its value. If people realize how much know-how you actually need to be a professional, they would respect us more and we would at the same time probably get paid much better.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

It connects people. Every day. And at the same time, it’s the perfect companion when you want to be alone. I can not name one just one quality, I am too obsessed with the topic and due to all the competitions, I have changed the way I look at coffee completely. It’s like I am in a relationship with it. Sometimes I just don’t understand it. It makes me frustrated. And also a lot of the times it makes me calm, happy, it helps me be the person that I want to be. The biggest benefit of coffee is: it always surprises me. It opens doors and opportunities and never gets boring.

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

I think I’m not one of the “big wow moment” people. When I was 18 it just started and never left.

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

I have two ideas.

Number one: I meet international coffee people and can connect, be nerdy, have fun with people I would have probably never met in my entire life and every time there are events that evolve around coffee I feel truly like I am meeting a bunch of old friends, which makes me very very happy.

Number two: sitting in my kitchen next to the window drinking a filter coffee and just watching the people on the street.

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

If I could choose I would like to work as a barista for two days, as a roaster for one day, as a marketing assistant for one day, and one day I would just give trainings. I am pretty happy that I can kind of like do that at my current job, but I would just like to do all these things for one day so I could focus on them more whilst I am doing them.

Who are your coffee heroes?

There are so many! There are people that inspire me now, every day and I will never forget how I watched Erna Tosberg in 2015 on the screen during her German barista competition. I guess she was when it all started. Otherwise, my bosses at Röststätte are pretty intense. They literally dedicated their whole life to their company and running it so successful since many many years. Their stubbornness and hard work is definitely inspiring me every day.

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

Jordan Montgomery. Because there is no one else in the world I would rather drink coffee with and luckily he’s pretty alive.

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

I’d probably still work as a chef in a star restaurant. Would I be happy is the question.

Do you have any coffee mentors?

Hmm… I have a lot of people that are my mentors in different situations. What has been very consistent are my supporters and I guess that’s what helps me the most. It feels good when you know there are people that have your back.

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

To learn more and to educate myself more. I mean I have done it but it took a long time until I found out about specialty coffee and what’s behind it. I feel like I’ve lost all those years when I meet baristas that are much younger than me and know so much and have already done many many degrees.

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

Ok, let’s be honest. If I would go to space I would swap the water that was meant to be for the coffee with champagne, I would probably swap the coffee that I was meant to be brewing with illegal substances and I would swap the coffee equipment with a turntable. I mean, when in space…

Best song to brew coffee to:

Crazy by Aerosmith. It just came into my head so guess that’s my answer.

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

I see myself with my pig Rolfi (obviously I will adopt a pig one day) in my own crazy little coffee shop, hopefully working the positions from question number 7.

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

A cheese croissant, still warm, so buttery that the paper bag could never disguise the evil deed I am doing to my cholesterol levels.

When did you last drink coffee?

Today at 4pm when I finished training for this year’s World Coffee In Good Spirits competition.

What was it?

That is so evil! Well obviously it was in one of my cocktails so now I don’t know if it counts… but it was a Panama Caturra and incredible!

Thank you. 

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

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

The post Nicole Battefeld: The Sprudge Twenty Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

The @wastingcoffee Guide To Not Wasting Coffee, A New Book By Umeko Motoyoshi

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If you have a social media and follow coffee brands, you’ve no doubt by now seen hi-res action photography depicting dramatic arcs of coffee being flung high into the air from a Chemex or once-mighty latte art cascading towards the ground and not its actual home: someone’s mouth. If you dig a little deeper into coffee Instagram, you’d find @wastingcoffee, a satirical account by Umeko Motoyoshi, a Sprudge Twenty inductee and Sprudgie Award winner. Gathering literal far flung coffee images, @wastingcoffee uses dry, tongue-in-cheek humor to highlight one of coffee’s most confounding marketing practices.

And now, the Instagram account is going analog with Motoyoshi’s brand new book The @wastingcoffee Guide To Not Wasting Coffee. Building off the popularity of the Instagram, the book will use wasted-coffee-as-marketing to expand upon conversations about waste taking place in the digital space as well as present ideas on more mindful sustainability practices.

Sponsored by Faema, The @wastingcoffee Guide To Not Wasting Coffee is a complete labor of love by Motoyoshi, who is solely responsible for every step in the publishing process. In the book, Motoyoshi discusses the “value of coffee,” an idea seemingly at odds with throwing the end result of many people’s hard work up in the air just for a cool snap (and one that everyone already has anyway). From there the book dives into strategies for reducing waste at the cafe. According to the press release, it also “introduces a holistic operational approach to reducing waste and lowering costs, while increasing quality, customer experience, and team morale,” including exploring the green coffees that roasteries choose to purchase and from there moves into roasting, brewing, the math behind extraction yield, barista training, latte art throwdowns, and more.”

Corresponding with the June 15th release of The @wastingcoffee Guide To Not Wasting Coffee, Faema will be hosting Motoyoshi at 198 Allen Street in New York City as part of their month-long Pop-Up Coffee Shop. Taking place at 6pm on the release date, Motoyoshi will “lead an in-depth class exploring sustainable alternatives to the coffee industry’s more wasteful practices.” Tickets for the event are $20 and can be purchased on Eventbrite. Included in the cost of admission is a copy of The @wastingcoffee Guide To Not Wasting Coffee.

For those unable to attend the NYC event, The @wastingcoffee Guide To Not Wasting Coffee will be available for purchase via Motoyoshi’s website Umeshiso.com, your one-stop shop for “gay spoons,” zines, buttons, and wildflower seeds.

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 Umeko Motoyoshi

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Source: Coffee News

Kiona Malinka Of Kiona Malinka Tea: The Sprudge Interview

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kiona malinka tea

Photo courtesy of Kiona Malkina.

When the Benelux’s food and beverage industry first got acquainted with Kiona Malinka, she was a coffee professional, both self-taught and SCA-certified. However, it was the establishment of Crusio Thee in 2014 that got everyone hooked—on her teas. Five years later, Crusio Thee and its iconic black cans appear in specialty cafes across the Netherlands, Michelin-starred restaurants around Europe, and various venue types in between. Today, Malinka calls herself a Dutch tea importer, supplier, and sommelier. In 2018 she unveiled the Kiona Malinka Tea line, now being served by a coterie of brand ambassadors whom Malinka selected and personally trained.

I had long wanted to interview Malinka, until finally I got the chance. We first talked at Lebkov Rotterdam, a branch of the sandwich shop chain outside the city’s main train station, where I was instructed to let the Crusio Chinese oolong I ordered there steep for two minutes if I wanted flowery notes (any longer and it would go vegetabley, though never become bitter). Later I watched Malinka give demos at the World of Coffee Amsterdam’s Brita stand, to which she drew steady huddles of sippers and spectators.

The 34-year-old conveys an impetuous need for knowledge and easily recalls the details of her origin trips and the personalities she meets along the way. She speaks in a warm alto voice, with nicklessly manicured hands helping communicate what’s on her mind or what’s in her brew. In one light, her bun—by now, her metonym—invokes a prima ballerina. Yet, the more I get to know her, the more it conjures a samurai’s topknot, fixed for a battle-ready helmet. Dauntless as she is darling, Malinka shares in this conversation stories about herself, her teas, and what keeps her athirst.

kiona malinka tea

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Tell us about the early days. How did your career in the Netherlands’ beverage industry begin?

I grew up in Bergen op Zoom, a small city, actually more like a village, and I was determined not to live there because I wanted to live everywhere. My father is from Papua New Guinea, my mom is Dutch—really Dutch—so it’s a nice combination. Traveling was pretty logical because, on one side, we’re not from here and on the other side, we are; traveling was something that we did.

Since I was 10, I was determined to become a hotel manager. I started in the industry by going to hotel school, which was followed by getting a degree in international hotel management, both in Breda. My first training abroad was in Cyprus—where they do ibrik coffee. I was maybe 17 then, and I had it in my head that I had already been studying hotel management for four years and that I should have been a manager already. But I wasn’t; in Cyprus, I was the coffee brewer. The first day I called my mom and said, “I have to brew the coffee everyday for the rest of the traineeship!” And she said, “Ah, suck it up because this is what you have to do.” But that first day I realized how fun it was that everyone who ordered a coffee had their own recipe. Greek coffee is not the most delicate or complex, but it was really interesting how all the people who entered the bar had an opinion—they wanted to boil it once, or stir it twice, or have some sugar in it. So after a week, I was impressed, and I realized that I really liked brewing coffee. Yet, I was studying to become a hotel manager and after completing my education, I got a job as a manager. I was really bad at it because I like to zoom in on one product, to be an expert, not to be an all-rounder responsible for sales and employees. If one person ordered a cappuccino, I was intent on making the best cappuccino I could, but I was the manager, so that was pretty weird. After one year, I quit my job, and I became determined to be a barista. But at that time in Holland that was not a common job.

When was that?

Like 10 years ago. When I told my friends that I quit my job as a manager to become a coffee brewer, they all asked me, “What is your plan?” I thought, “Well, now I have to do it.” So I went to Guatemala to see coffee farms, and I also went to London to do some coffee internships because I thought, “if I only follow what certain books say or just one person, I will never form my own opinion.” I collected all these books and read them. Yet, I was so insecure that I felt I had to do this really big investigation into coffee before I could put “barista” on my nametag. I was pretty thorough, so that’s the good part; the bad part is that it took me half a year to have the courage to say that I’m a barista. But some time after that, I took over a company, Crusio.

Besides being the name of your tea company, Crusio is also the name of the ice cream salon you run with Coen Crusio. What’s the connection?

Coen is my partner in business and life. We are now both owners of three companies: Ijssalon Crusio, Crusio Thee, and a new line called Kiona Malinka Tea. First we took over Coen’s family-owned ice cream shop. When we did, I was determined to improve coffee and tea specifically in that shop because in the wintertime business was really slow. The shop is over 100 years old, founded in 1915; it’s pretty romantic. Coen is the fourth-generation owner, and even though nowadays he spends less time making ice cream, he still creates the recipes and spends a few hours in the kitchen weekly.

So when we took Crusio over, I would stand there in my own coffee corner, with everyone ordering coffee. I was so enthusiastic. We had 500 kinds of beans a year, switching beans every day. It was fun, but there were two problems. The first thing was that I was expecting people to ask me all these different questions and, in so doing, to give me feedback that would help me develop my skills in coffee and tea. But that wasn’t the case at all because everyone loved everything. They were satisfied, so they didn’t ask questions. The second problem was that sometimes they ordered tea. And I knew everything about coffee—I was able to tell stories about coffee, how to brew it—but tea I didn’t know anything about. If someone ordered tea, I served them the water with leaves, and they had to brew it themself.

But you did serve loose leaves?

Of course, but I didn’t have knowledge about which type of tea was from which country. So I Googled the brands we carried, contacted them, and told them that I have a small ice cream shop and want to know more about who picked the leaves, in what season, from which mountain, what the tea’s flavor profile is, and what recipe they recommended.

Would you say your coffee knowledge was guiding you to think that way?

Yeah and also my wine knowledge because, in my studies, I first got a basic chef’s education, then wine, then coffee. I thought it was really logical to know the basics about a product because, if it’s an ingredient, you have to know what it’s about and where it’s from. At that time, there was still a lot of “magic” surrounding tea, leading to responses like “it’s from Asia”—Asia is really big [laughs]; that’s not an answer. Or the response “it’s a special blend”—well, I don’t like blends that much because you cannot taste what you like about the tea and you cannot form an opinion on it. And I thought, “why should the guests brew their own tea because in coffee that would be really bad.” Imagine saying, “Brew your own Chemex—it’s over there. Uh, the grinder is over there. You can tweak it however you like.” That would be horrible. For tea, most of the time you have to brew it yourself—and everyone can be a tea brewer—but I just had to imagine someone on a first date being like [makes awkward teabag-handling gestures].

I realized it was the start of new adventure when all the brands I called didn’t have any answers. So I started an investigation again, but this one took a little longer than my investigation into coffee because I took a plane to China. I didn’t do research for the trip in advance because everything on Google has already been discovered. If you take one particular person’s advice, the danger is that you will adapt their thinking. It was quite complicated for me, especially in the beginning when I was more vulnerable; if I met someone who knew a lot, I might have believed everything that person said. That’s why then, and to this day, I would rather do research myself, just go to the source—this is my style.

So in China, I found myself going up a hill in a jeep. It was just the logical thing to do: I had to visit a farmer and see what would happen. So I knocked on his door, he opened it, and I told him, “I’m Kiona from Holland, and I want to drink tea with you.” He said, “You may enter.” My Chinese is not good, so I had this student with me, interpreting everything. Then the farmer gave me this small cup and with the first sip I thought, “am I so lucky that I just go up a hill in China and I find this amazing complexity, or is something here different than in Europe?” The latter was the case—it was the freshness; the tea was picked the day before and dried, and then you could drink it. With big brands, sometimes the tea sits around for two years, so they have to flavor it, but then it gets stored and becomes really flat. But that day with the Chinese farmer, I got all these flowery scents. I was really, really confused after just one sip. So I called Coen, my partner, and said, “I’m sorry, but this is the beginning of one big question and I have to get answers. My spot behind the espresso machine, we have to make sure that we find someone to fill it.” We found a replacement for me at the ice cream shop and then my traveling started. I visited 14 countries and found over 150 tea farmers. I buy from 65 of them now. Every trip goes the same. We don’t Google. I just book a plane, a driver—in some places it’s really hard to drive, like in Taiwan, or it’s really dangerous, so to make sure that my mom feels OK, I hire a driver [chuckles]—and an interpreter. It’s not an official one because official interpreters all bring me to places they think I want to visit: big tea farms, factories, or corporations. We don’t work with corporations; we just work with farmers.

kiona malinka tea

Photo courtesy of Kiona Malkina.

If you’re not Googling, are you relying on word-of-mouth recommendations?

No, I just look at where tea is from. In a tea country, you have mountains where the tea grows. I just go there, and I knock on a door. There’s always someone who knows someone who knows a farmer. And if I enter a country and see a perfect tea field, but it’s black tea and I’m looking for oolong, I’ll ask that farmer if he knows where I can find oolong. It’s creating a network from inside out. But you have to be patient, and I’m not patient at all because I’m in a hurry to learn and to develop. But once I’m there, I sit back and see what happens. I sleep in the shed—it’s really not luxury—and my alarm goes off at 4 o’clock if the farmer is waking up then as well.

On my first few trips, I would sometimes stay a month at one location because I couldn’t understand the essence of what they were doing. I couldn’t sell their story or tell their story if I was not getting the point. So I did a lot of tea-picking and working in the factory, but also a lot of eating with them and talking with them. Funny things would come up. Like once, when I had been staying with a Taiwanese farmer for a month, it was the last Friday of my trip. I was done with traveling, tired from being surrounded by people I could not understand and papers I could not read. On the last Friday, I drove up the mountain to go home, but on my way, saw this farm with perfect tea leaves. So we stopped the car, I knocked on the door, and spoke to the farmer. He said that I may enter, but we could not taste tea because it was Friday afternoon and that meant it was karaoke afternoon. I said, “OK,” and he said, “Yeah, you can join?” I sang for two hours in Taiwanese. I cannot speak Taiwanese. He was so happy, and we buy his tea now.

Which tea is that?

It’s No. 092. That’s a Taiwanese oolong, but it’s the “karaoke tea” now. Tea deserves someone to tell its story. The stories are already there—tea is picked by the hands of people. That’s not some marketing narrative; they just do it and then after that, they fire it, steam it, pile it into all these stacks, and at the end you have this product. But we need to know what to do with it. It’s still an ingredient we lack knowledge about; it’s just something that we put in water and we drink, and that’s it. But if I tell you what this farmer really likes to eat or how he dances or whatever, there’s a whole person involved.

I’ve found all these farms and farmers, and yet I still feel insecure because I think tea is pretty complex, more so than coffee. If I ever hear a grinder and I see a bean, I’m pretty confident that I can brew the coffee in a way that would make both the coffee farmer and me proud, and the guest satisfied. But with tea, every time you make it, it’s hard. So after all this traveling, I wanted to buy teas for my own shop.

kiona malinka tea

Photo courtesy of Kiona Malkina.

You mean for the ice cream salon?

Yes, though Crusio was so small at the time. I knew a few chefs through my interest in coffee and involvement in the hospitality industry, and I had told some that I went to Taiwan, that I had this flowery oolong, and that maybe it would be really cool for their restaurants. So I went to their places, took some Taiwanese oolong along, and we sat there for hours, eating and drinking. Then other chefs started calling me, asking things like, “Can you find me something smoky?” Or “Can you find me traditional black tea?” I said, “Yeah, I know all these farmers.” This is how the tea brand started. That was five years ago. I wasn’t confident enough to put my own name on it, so I used the name of our existing company.

Crusio Thee is unblended, unflavored, and directly from the farmer. For us, that’s the logical thing to do. We just create the recipe and give tasting notes, as well as specify where it’s from and what the growth height is, similar to details given for coffee. We tell each farmer’s story—I blog everything. We don’t do acquisitions. If customers want tea, they call us. When we started, I would bring the tea and train every customer myself. I did that for three years. Now we sell in nine countries. We have around 30 staff. In the Netherlands, we hire people who make sure the tea quality is OK, and we test everything.

Do you still travel every year?

Yeah. In the beginning, I was gone for, like, two or three months and then I was home again. But that is not necessary anymore. A month ago, I went to South Africa to find a good red bush [also known as rooibos] because red bush was something that I didn’t love that much. The whole red bush market is all small bags and so really cheap. I found this organic farmer after having searched for four days, and I asked him if I could taste his tea. He began crying and said, “Nobody ever asked me if they could taste it before buying it. They all buy before the harvest—everything is finished off and everything is really cheap.” I said, “I don’t want a cheap tea. I want a good tea, so can we talk about what is good for you and together determine how to ferment and brew according to your philosophy?” He kept crying. He was 73. Nobody ever asked him that, and I thought, “how can you buy something that you haven’t seen or tasted?” That’s a different way of working.

The tea business is quite commercial and quite brand-orientated; of course we have a brand and we are a commercial business, but I don’t want to tell my story. I want to tell their story because it’s more interesting, for sure. So this is the philosophy of Crusio Thee. You often hear that tea is labor-intensive, it’s complex, it’s beautiful. If you know what you’re doing it will turn into a pretty beautiful cup of tea. We have the final step in our hands, and we only need a bit of knowledge because it’s not rocket science to brew tea. I can teach it to everyone.

Nowadays, I travel a week at a time and then I’m back home again. That’s also because I know these farmers already, so most of the time I’m on calls with them or we send postcards. If it’s my birthday, I receive all these Hello Kitty gifts—we are friends. I’ve stayed on their farms for a long time, and they feel that I’m determined to really know their story, that I’m really sincere to see what they are doing. Most buyers are really in a hurry because they have to cover all of China in two weeks. I stay on one mountain for one month, so by the end I know the whole village; the other buyers think I’m strange, but that’s OK.

kiona malinka tea

Photo courtesy of Kiona Malkina.

How many teas are in the Crusio Thee collection?

It depends on the season, sometimes 50, 60, or 20. Sometimes we also do herbs, for example, we might have red bush in different styles, but then the next season, we find something different, be it an herb or a tea. Then we have teas that we can buy year-round. For example, in Sri Lanka, they pick every two weeks throughout the whole year, so we can buy tea from there all year.

Would it always be the same farm in Sri Lanka supplying you?

Yeah, so long as they meet our flavor expectations. And most of the time they do since we have already selected and screened them. Because I visit the farms, they know what I like. This is the goal; if I visit them, I get knowledge, but they also have to get knowledge about me. So the farmer from, for example, Sri Lanka, he will call me and say, “The weather is good today. It’s sunny, the humidity is good. I think I’m gonna pick today for you, OK? How many kilos do you need?” I communicate what I need, what I like, and then he sends me, by plane, a sample between 20 and 50 grams. I taste it—this is one of the 200 samples that I taste every week—and then I call him back and I say if this is it or this is not it. I never ask for a discount because it’s small farms; he tells me his price, and I will decide if I can sell it for that price at that quality. If so, he sends it by air, like all our tea; by sea it would be on a ship for three months and the next season would already be upon us, so this is the reason we fly everything in. Then within two or three weeks, it’s in our storage, we put it in a can, and then we sell it.

If people want to buy, like, 50 kilos at once, I advise them not to; it is better for them to order five kilos ten times a year. We have different harvests every season, so you can always get deliveries of tea from a new crop. Our philosophy is to deliver fresh, like a grocer. It’s different than ordering in coffee because you’re not dealing with green beans, but rather with tea that’s already dried. Ordering tea in bulk is the equivalent of buying roasted coffee to last for the entirety of a year, and that wouldn’t be smart.

Tell us more about those 200 samples you taste weekly.

I taste them over three mornings before breakfast. I think I spend 10 hours a week tasting. Tasting tea is a creative job and although I’m really practical, I acknowledge that the vibe should be right. For a while, each time the company would grow, I would lose my tasting space because it had to be used for storage or something else. At one point, I was do tastings at home, taking samples from my van. But to taste, everything should be perfectly in place. So now I’ve built this wall in the back of the ice cream shop, to create a speakeasy-like section. It’s this perfect tasting place. A few chefs have come by because it’s the perfect escape; you can taste for hours and afterwards you can get as much ice cream as you like. It’s really cool because I started my career in the ice cream shop and I’m still there. I’m still really involved, not in practical aspects of the ice cream business anymore, but I still love the place.

I first started spotting your teas at Amsterdam specialty cafes and later at Michelin-starred restaurants, such as FG in Rotterdam. How did you get picked up by them?

Of my first 50 customers, I think 20 were Michelin-starred restaurants. I didn’t expect that because most Michelin restaurants are sponsored or you have to persuade them with all kinds of things, but they just called me. The thing is: these chefs really think ingredients through. They want to know everything. If I tell them that this is a flowery cup and it isn’t, I’m gone, out the door. But because of all this investigation I had done, I knew my stuff. If people asked me something, I could answer because I was there, on the tea farms, for all these months.

So I had all this knowledge, I think that was the first step, and then someone saw my tea somewhere and they wanted it. Sergio Herman uses it at The Jane Antwerp. Anne-Sophie Pic, at her three-star restaurant in France, is a customer now too. In Gent, we also work with Chambre Séparée, and in Amsterdam, with Taiko restaurant at the Conservatorium Hotel and OCCO, the bar brasserie at The Dylan. Sometimes the chefs invite me to visit. I can be working with the chef for two days, and the whole time I’m in this state of why?-what?-how? because I’m still not satisfied with what we know about tea. I have this need to do it in the perfect way, but this is still something we have not managed, so it’s fun. It’s really not boring.

kiona malinka tea

Photo courtesy of Kiona Malkina.

Tell us about your iconic black cans.

It was really important that it be small packaging. Most people who see it think it’s a consumer-size package since most cafes standardly have those tins that can fit a kilo of tea. In the Netherlands, approximately five coffees are ordered for every tea. It’s really normal to open a one-kilo bag of coffee and just put it in the grinder and then open the next bag when you need it. Our tea cans will fit approximately 25 teas per can, so if you have five cans you have over a hundred teas before you need a new one. Then we have the 200-grams bags that you can use to refill your cans four times.

The image of tea is not really cool or sexy, so I thought our can should be something that everyone should feel OK holding, whether it’s a guy or someone working in a coffee shop or my mom. It should be a nice clean style that makes it about the tea, about the farmers, not the brand. Often the tea names are really complicated for non-Chinese readers, which is why we have assigned them numbers.

What is the most surprising spot your tea has shown up?

A comedian named Jochem Myjer. If you’ve seen him, you know he’s pretty intense, and he never drinks coffee because otherwise he would explode—I don’t think society is ready for him to drink coffee. We got together once and he really loved the tea. Now he’s a private customer.

That reminds me: I’ve been hearing more people say they are cutting out coffee and switching to tea to tame their anxiety levels. As you see it, is that a legitimate approach to lowering caffeine intake?

Tea and coffee, they both have caffeine. The one in tea you call theine, but it’s the same. The only thing is that the molecular structure of tea is different than coffee, so if you drink a coffee you get a rush—a kind of punch in the face—and after a while you need another one and this is how you stumble throughout the day, right? It’s like, “Coffee, I need a coffee, I need a coffee.” I drink coffee a lot myself. But after one tea, for six hours you’re getting a bit of caffeine steadily, and there are ingredients in it that relax you. Every sip keeps you in balance, so it gets you focused but not over-caffeinated. Sometimes with coffee, the world moves faster and slower at the same time; with tea you never experience that.

So what in the world is next for you?

I’ve learned all these things about pairing food and tea, varietals, temperatures, and recipes. If I make a recipe, my customers follow it and that’s it. The next step is teaching them to know what happens when you drop the temperature 20 degrees, to teach them in a different way. This is why I started an invitation-only brand. It is called Kiona Malinka Tea—using my name is still something I have to get used to. There are 30 teas in the current collection, and I invited only 15 customers to use it. Each one of the 15 was happy to do it. The customers are all around the world, and it is not only Michelin-starred restaurants, but also cool coffee shops and people who really have the potential to take the next step.

I really want to show everyone what we can do. I want to blow them away, which is not possible to do with hundreds of customers. So within a year, I want to make sure that everyone who’s working with that brand can make recipes on their own, no longer just following my steps because that’s what they had been doing. In preparation, I held four-hour tastings with the group’s members. We sat back and we tasted together, and we talked about flavor and possibilities. We needed time to develop this. I could not send the group an email with the new pairings. They had to sit. We had to get to know each other on a different level, and then we created. It was really a luxury that I could do this.

And can people already drink the Kiona Malinka brand at those select places?

Yes, as of summer 2018. Kiona Malinka Tea is only sold to those 15 customers, who serve it themselves but do not resell it. Some of those venues are The Jane Antwerp, Pure C, and Zarzo.

Crusio Thee, meanwhile, remains available to all customers, and can be purchased through our webshop and various retailers, such as Lebkov, Caffènation, and Coffeelab.

Is there anything you’d like to share that we haven’t yet covered?

Because I was a barista and came to find out all these things about tea, I was expecting my first customers to all be baristas because they think the same way as I do. Some coffee shops are doing a pretty good job with tea, but most of the time they’re only considering the coffee. The main focus in a coffee shop should not be on tea, but there should be good tea options, at least one. I think that in the future there will be a movement in which more coffee people also become really interested in tea. But I don’t know if it’s gonna happen soon. I think it’s interesting that restaurants are moving in that direction and the customers are moving, but in the coffee scene there is some space to grow.

Conversely, why do you think some high-level establishments are less likely to serve really good coffee than tea?

I don’t know since tea is, just like coffee, an ingredient. You can also use it pretty easily to steam a fish, to make a sauce. But increasing coffee appreciation is also part of the effort that I’m putting into my work because my chef customers and I talk a lot about coffee, too.

In the meantime, is the general public going to start drinking better tea soon?

I hope so. It’s not the same as coffee, so we need some time. But I have time. I have a lot of time.

Visit Crusio Thee’s official website and follow on Facebook and Instagram. Visit Kiona Malinka Tea’s official website and follow on Instagram.

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

All photos by author unless otherwise noted.

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Source: Coffee News

4 New World Coffee Champions Crowned At World Of Coffee Berlin

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The World of Coffee at the Messe Convention Center in Berlin was abuzz over the first weekend of June 2019. That’s when four incredible world coffee champions were crowned for excellence in latte artistry, coffee cocktail mixology, cup tastery, and Ibrik brewability.

Here are the four new coffee champions from the World of Coffee.

All of our 2019 competition coverage is made possible by Acaia, Baratza, Faema, Cafe Imports, Wilbur Curtis, Third Wave Water, Minor Figures, and Mahlkönig.

Manuela Fensore of Italy is your 2019 World Latte Art Champion!

The 2019 World Latte Art Champion is Manuela Fensor of Italy.

Here are the scores and rankings from the top six:

1. Manuela Fensore, Barlady Café Academy, Italy 449
2. Hao-Yuan Chen, Independent, Taiwan 416
3. Liu Guo Qiang, Sanshierli Academy, China 413.5
4. Oneway Dash, Oneway, South Korea 404
5. Hiroki Ito, Sarutahiko Coffee, Japan 397.5
6. Peter Chan, Coco Espresso, Hong Kong 392

*rankings were adjusted after a scoring oopsie described here.

Dan Fellows of the United Kingdom is your 2019 World Coffee In Good Spirits Champion!

The 2019 World Coffee In Good Spirits Champion is Dan Fellows of the UK.

Here are the scores and rankings from the top six:

1. Dan Fellows, Origin Coffee, United Kingdom 355
2. Tim Lam Wing Fat, Cupping Room Coffee Roasters, Hong Kong 339.5
3. Agnieszka Rojewska, Independent, Poland 318
4. Manos Mamakis, The Underdog Roasters, Greece, 277
5. Nicole Battefeld, Röststätte, Germany 274
6. Arnon Thitiprasert, Ristr8to, Thailand 256.5

Your 2019 Cezve/Ibrik Champion is Sergey Blinnikov of Russia!

The 2019 Cezve/Ibrik Champion is Sergey Blinnikov of Russia.

Here is the ranking for the top six:

1. Sergey Blinnikov, Russia
2. Tetiana Tarykina, Ukraine
3. Sinan Muslu, Germany
4. Filip Valentin, Romania
5. Dimitris Karampas, Greece
6. Koray Erdogdu, Turkey

Your 2019 World Cup Tasters Champion is Daniel Horbat of Ireland!

The 2019 World Cup Tasters Champion is Daniel Horbat of Ireleand.

Here is the ranking order of the top four:

1. Daniel Horbat, Ireland
2. Dajo Aertssen, France
3. Josh Clarke, UK
4. Dulce Barrera, Guatemala

Photos by Arthur Soares for Sprudge.

Follow all the action from the 2019 World Coffee Championships season over at Sprudge Live, dedicated to coffee sports. 

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Source: Coffee News

Research Finds Topical Healing Properties In Coffee Pulp Compounds

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We report on the health benefits of coffee on what feels like every week. We also report in equal measu the new uses for coffee or coffee byproducts that researchers and scientists continue to find on a seemingly daily basis. Today we get to two-birds-one-stone this piece and talk about both in the same article. As reported by Beverage Daily, a researcher has found that compounds in the pulp of the coffee cherry have topical healing properties.

Tien Huynh is a senior lecturer in biosciences and biotechnology specializing in skin care and wound healing at RMIT University in Melbourne. As a Vietnam native, Dr. Huynh wanted to find alternative uses for coffee—one of the country’s main crops—as a means of helping diversify the income stream for smallholder farmers who often struggle to make ends meet. For her work, she tested a variety of compounds found in different parts of the coffee cherry—the husk, the pulp, the skin, the seed, etc—to find “different applications that can fix specific problems.”

Dr. Huynh found that, in particular, the coffee pulp showed significant efficacy in helping wounds heal more quickly. Extracted compounds from the pulp, including chlorogenic and acetic acids, were shown to increase wound closure to 40% over the first 24 hours, up from 18% for an untreated wound over the same timeframe. After 48 hours, the pulp-treated wound has completely closed whereas the untreated was still healing.

Huynh believes the research could be game changing, not just for “diabetes patients, burn victims, and even women with stretch marks after childbirth” but for the farmers growing the coffee. Finding a use for the pulp—much of which goes unused and finds its way to the trash—will provide a huge windfall for the producers, who Huynh estimates are only making $2 per kilo for “premium coffee.”

The exciting thing is, if we can find a really good application for it, the pulp is going to be worth more than the beans themselves, so that gives the farmer an opportunity to get something back for their work.

But Dr. Huynh’s work doesn’t stop there. She believes the uses for compounds found in coffee to be “limitless”:

If you’re looking at Alzheimer’s, some of the compounds like chlorogenic acid in coffee are meant to bind to an enzyme that’s linked to Alzheimer’s. If we can concentrate that natural compound, we can look at way to reduce Alzheimer’s incidence or severity…

If you’re looking at people with brain dysfunction, when the signals are not traveling easily because there is a lack of energy flowing into the brain, you can concentrate lactic acid from coffee, for instance. If you can refine the different compounds in a higher concentration, they will be much more effective for a whole combination of thing.

We’ve seen quite a few different uses for byproducts of coffee production over the years—cascara tea for the fruit, cups made of the husks, another type of tea from the pruned leaves of the coffee tree after harvest—but we see a lot fewer that fall wholly  outside of the food/beverage industry. Typically coffee people use coffee byproducts to make coffee things, which makes good coffee sense. But thinking outside the coffee box and expanding the potential into different industries, especially big ones like medicine and cosmetics, could have seismic affects for farmers; it could change not only their revenue streams but how they look at production as a whole. Pretty soon, the lowly seed may be the byproduct.

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

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Source: Coffee News

There’s A New Training Program To Prepare Refugees For Jobs In Coffee

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America is a land of immigrants. It always has been, contrary to what this country’s virulent new strain ultra-nationalists and their “shut the door behind you” thinking would have you believe. What makes the USA’s grand experiment worthwhile is the idea that anyone can come here to make a better life for themselves and their families, across generations and decades, no matter where you happen to come from on the planet.

When immigrants arrive in the United States, this fresh crop of new Americans will not only need but want gainful employment. To this end, New York City’s Everyman Espresso is stepping up. Working in collaboration with Counter Culture and Refoodee—a non-profit that helps refugees and asylum seekers find food industry jobs—Everyman has created a program to train asylum grantees for work in the specialty coffee shops, with jobs waiting on the other side.

The program officially kicked off on Saturday, June 6th, with four trainees who “have fled countries around the globe like Nigeria, Russia, and Venezuela not by choice but out of desperation for a safer community,” Everyman Espresso’s Sam Penix tells Sprudge. With the support of Refoodee and Counter Culture—the latter offering up their NYC training lab, coffee, and curriculum—Penix and Everyman’s Sam Lewontin have organized volunteers from the local barista community to teach small group sessions for the inaugural class.

After 20 hours of training, each individual will then find job placement at some of the best coffee shops in NYC, including Little Collins, Rex, Third Rail, and of course Everyman Espresso. Even in its nascence, the program has already gone national, with Los Angeles cafes Tactile and Roo agreeing to hire graduates from the training program.

Penix had this to say:

How can we as retailers, roasters, and baristas effect positive change? This program is a good start, but it should not be limited to New York and LA. I’d like to invite people all over the world to join us in raising money to fund Refoodee’s training program and develop their own training programs.

Want to get involved? In honor of World Refugee Day on June 20th, Everyman Espresso, Counter Culture, and Refoodee have collaborated on a special-release box set featuring coffee from Burundi, Uganda, and Ethiopia. All the cafe partners will be brewing coffees from this box set the week of the 17th through the 23rd as part of their commitment “to raising cash to fund the training program, spreading the word about the growing refugee crisis, and how it effects the coffee supply chain.” The box set will be available for purchase at all above-mentioned cafes.

These actions from Everyman, Counter Culture, Refoodee and their collaborators show us yet again that the coffee community is willing to step up in the name of support and inclusivity. Wherever you come from in the world, you are welcome here.

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 provided by Everyman Espresso

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Source: Coffee News

A Coffee Drinker’s Guide To Connecticut

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connecticut coffee guide

As one of the smallest states in America, Connecticut is often a state traveled through, not to. Connecticut’s quaint towns, beaches, and sights along the Appalachian Trail are often overlooked by the bright lights and appeal of neighboring metropolises New York and Boston.

But something big is brewing, literally, in the Nutmeg state.

Coffee in Connecticut was once reserved for early morning and late night diner visits, along with those with a sworn allegiance to Dunkin’. After all, the quick-service titan still reigns supreme in New England, with Hartford’s minor league baseball team, the Hartford Yard Goats, playing in Dunkin’ Donuts Park.

In recent years, however, specialty coffee shops and roasters have enchanted residents with a steadfast dedication to a well-made cup of coffee, hospitality, and a sense of community. Changing the palate and understanding of strongly formed coffee habits one cup at a time, Connecticut’s coffee community is energized and poised for growth. Several shops and roasters are laying the foundation for Connecticut’s thriving specialty coffee community, prompting new cafes to join the ranks every day. With a heavy concentration in Central Connecticut and along the coastline, it’s easier than ever to access the state’s growing number of coffee shops.

 

Giv Coffee

What began out of a way to help others through roasting coffee grew into a thriving business supplying many of the state’s cafes and consumers. Jeff Brooks began roasting coffee after a trip, where he and his wife returned with 80 pounds of green coffee to experiment with. As a result, Giv Coffee was born with the goal of utilizing coffee for community growth by giving a percentage of proceeds to charities and organizations assisting those in need.

After years of farmers markets and late-night roasting work, the couple purchased and renovated an old home in Canton and opened shop. The warm, welcoming cafe is filled with globally-inspired decor and reclaimed wood, with multiple seating options from a bar to a cozy corner chair. Giv’s in-shop menu ranges from espresso drinks, seasonal specials, and pour-over selections to the food program, featuring raved-about waffles.

Giv’s focus on positive changes in the community is evident throughout all of its business and roasting practices, including fostering lasting relationships with farmers and continuing to educate Connecticut’s baristas through in-depth training opportunities. Due to the company’s high standards and ongoing farmer relationships, Giv Coffee is also a popular wholesale choice for many of Connecticut’s top coffee shops and restaurants.

Giv Coffee is located at 194 Albany Turnpike, Canton. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

connecticut coffee guide

RaonJena Coffee & Dessert

In Glastonbury, just southeast of Hartford, RaonJena Coffee & Dessert is among the newest shops to open in the state. Born from a twin passion for specialty coffee and baking, the husband and wife team Do Kim and Hanna Park—who you’ll regularly see in the cafe itself—are unwavering in their dedication to their respective crafts.

As you enter the shop,  you’ll have a moment to take in the stark white walls lined with finished wood, tastefully placed succulents, and photos of New England’s natural beauty before your eyes are drawn to the case of desserts (including colorful macarons with playful flavors such as cookies and cream, strawberry, and tiramisu.)

The bar houses a La Marzocco Linea Classic churning out a traditional lineup of espresso drinks, a Mahlkönig grinder, and the latest array of offerings from Giv Coffee Roasters available for pour-over and batch brew. To all that inquire, Do explains how his take on coffee is inspired and influenced by Japanese methods, leading to a tea-like cup full of expressive flavor.

RaonJena Coffee & Dessert is located at 39 New London Turnpike, Glastonbury. Follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

 

connecticut coffee guide

Story and Soil Coffee

Story and Soil Coffee serves up a focused menu of espresso beverages and light food in the Frog Hollow neighborhood in Hartford, filling the previous specialty coffee void in Connecticut’s capital city.

The multi-roaster shop is owned by Michael Acosta, Michael McCoy, and Sarah McCoy, who together have created an inviting atmosphere with records always spinning and a cheery greeting from whoever’s working the bar.

Although a small space, the shop instantly makes customers feel at home with the lavender and floral print walls, hanging plants, and artwork. As for the menu, the Spanish latte is a must. For those more interested in the pour-over and drip selection, Story and Soil offers a local and international selection with past and present roasters including Giv Coffee, Passenger Coffee, La Cabra Coffee, and Methodical Coffee.

When Connecticut’s gloomy winter season is finally over, grab a seat at the outdoor picnic table and enjoy the buzz of the busy city streets and a glimpse of Hartford’s Capitol Building.

Story and Soil Coffee is located at 387 Capitol Avenue, Hartford. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

connecticut coffee guide

J.René Coffee Roasters

J.René Coffee Roasters holds a special place in the hearts of Connecticut’s coffee shop community. Many of the state’s coffee shops are owned and operated by former J.René Coffee baristas, a testament to the shop’s dedication to coffee education and leadership.

Located on Park Road in West Hartford, J.René Coffee Roasters provides an “artisanal coffee gathering place” for residents. This sense of place is physically achieved through ample seating and an appealing shop decor featuring exposed brick, wood elements, and a touch of industrial design.

As you make your way to order, you’ll pass the Diedrich roaster and wealth of in-house roasted coffees lining the shop’s retail shelves. The bar prominently displays various brewing methods behind its glass barrier—as a result, siphon pot coffee is a top menu item due to its intriguing brewing process and strategic bar placement.

J.René Coffee’s influence on Connecticut extends far beyond the physical shop. J.René also boasts mobile coffee trailers in the Connecticut Science Center and Clinton Premium Outlets. Each trailer provides everything necessary to replicate the coffee shop experience, including Victoria Arduino ATHENA and White Eagle two-group Leva espresso machines.

J.René Coffee Roasters is located at 320 Park Road, West Hartford. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

 

connecticut coffee guide

Rebel Dog Coffee Company

Rebel Dog Coffee Company began out of a humble food truck in Plainville prior to establishing its flagship location in the same city, about 20 minutes from downtown Hartford. The brainchild of business partners Harrison Poltorak and Peter Lemnotis opened in February 2017 in the former Confetti restaurant space. With much of an emphasis on grab-and-go coffee in the area, the pair sought out to create a local spot for not only an excellent coffee experience but also a meal.

Connected to the JV’s Taproom restaurant, the cozy shop is adorned with a giant latte art logo mural, checkered floors, and stunning pallet artwork by The Pallet People. Their expansive breakfast and lunch menu includes items such as eggs benedict, an assortment of soups and sandwiches, along with potato pancakes and pierogies.

While the bar serves up traditional and seasonal espresso beverages on a La Marzocco GB5 and offers pour-over coffee, the cold brew and nitro coffee are the hot ticket items at Rebel Dog. The custom-made tap system from Tapped in Hudson, NY also houses drinks including Jet Fuel (a cold brew concentrate), kombucha, and cold brew iced tea.

Due to the success of its Plainville shop, Rebel Dog was recently able to expand into the neighboring town of Farmington. The brand new cafe expands upon the atmosphere of the original location with a sprawling mural featuring Rebel Dog’s logo along with characteristic coffee beans and plants, created by local artist Jaime La Jones.

Rebel Dog Coffee has multiple locations in Connecticut. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

 

connecticut coffee guide

Grounded Coffee Company

Grounded Coffee Company in Willimantic keeps the eastern side of the state caffeinated in its historic shop on Main Street. Inspired by their coffee shop experiences in Australia and New Zealand, Steve and Victoria Bachiochi paired their desire to open a welcoming coffee spot with the expertise of Nick Bentley to form Grounded.

As a multi-roaster in Connecticut’s quiet corner, Grounded keeps the coffee flowing thanks to ongoing relationships with roasters in the New England and Tri-State areas such as Sey Coffee in Brooklyn, Little Wolf in Ipswich, MA, and Brandywine Roasters in Wilmington, DE. Connecticut roasters Giv Coffee and NEAT are also regulars on the drip and pour-over coffee menu.

In addition to espresso drinks cranked out on the reliable La Marzocco Linea Classic, Grounded’s tea menu is also a big draw. While there, try the Mate, an Argentinian tea cut with a splash of apple juice.

Grounded Coffee Company is located at 869 Main Street, Willimantic. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

connecticut coffee guide

Silk City Coffee

On the far interior wall of Silk City Coffee, you’ll find a large board with the mantra, “Love Coffee, Love People” noticeably displayed above. On this board are pinned requests, wishes, prayers, and needs from members of the community. Customers can add their requests or help fulfill as many needs as they like. This drive to serve the community is what fuels the team at Silk City to create a space where all are welcomed to enjoy specialty coffee in Manchester.

Found by the stark “coffee” sign on Main Street, Silk City Coffee is housed in an old optometrist’s office in a historic downtown building. As the team of co-owners was getting ready to build out the space, they ripped down the existing materials to discover the exposed brick, high-detailed ceilings, and hardwood floors the shop boasts today.

As another multi-roaster shop in the Connecticut coffee community, Silk City rotates Giv Coffee and NEAT Coffee roasters on the batch and pour-over menus. The shop also offers a variety of baked goods made in-house, paired perfectly with the solid coffee menu.

As part of their goal to give back to Manchester, the shop stays open late each Friday for live music performances, several of which donate a portion of proceeds to a local non-profit or organization.

Silk City Coffee is located at 763 Main Street, Manchester. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

connecticut coffee guide

NEAT

Over in Southwest Connecticut, NEAT serves Darien residents and commuters single-origin coffees from their quaint shop on Grove Street. With ample outdoor seating in the summertime and selection of grab-and-go breakfast and lunch items, NEAT Coffee has become a community gathering place for those who live and work nearby. The sparkling clean shop with subtle blue and green pastel walls houses family-style tables, bar seating, and a large world map.

The focused menu lists traditional coffee and espresso drinks along with a variety of teas, hot cider, lemonade, and seasonal beverages. If you’re looking for something new, try the “Not So Neat,” a twist on an iced latte using cold brew coffee instead. NEAT’s bar houses a multitude of equipment, from the La Marzocco Linea PB to the mesmerizing BKON craft brewer used for teas and other beverages. And, for a refresher, pick from a selection of tap and sparkling waters located next to the bar.

Owner Rachel Haughey opened NEAT more than 10 years ago after noticing a great cup of coffee required a train ride to New York City. As one of the first members of the state’s coffee community, the shop began as a multi-roaster but transitioned into a successful roasting operation after a desire to engage in specific roasting and sourcing practices.

NEAT is located at 20 Grove Street, Darien, CT. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Anne Mercer is a freelance journalist based in Connecticut. This is Anne Mercer’s first feature for Sprudge.

RaonJena photo by Do Kim. Story and Soil photo by Sarah McCoy. J. René photo by René Martinez. Silk City photo by Sarah May. All other photos by the author.

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Source: Coffee News

Coffee Design: Motel Beer & Coffee In Berlin

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Motel Beer & Coffee out of Berlin, Germany debuts a new line of canned nitro coffee products this week at the World of Coffee at the Messe Convention Center. The new cans are collabs with Square Mile Coffee Roasters and Coffee Collective and feature coffees from Kenya and Panama. The striking labels were designed by Motel’s own Marie Stadelmann. We spoke with Motel’s Head of Coffee Cory Andreen to find out more.

Hey Cory. Tell us a bit about Motel.

Motel Beer & Coffee is Cory Andreen (Head of Coffee), 
Travis Wilson (Operation Manager), Peter Read (Head of Beer) and Marie Stadelmann (Creative Director). We all met at Markthalle Neun, a refurbished 19th century market hall in Berlin about four years ago.
 At the time, Cory and Travis had a small production space for hot brewed RTD coffee in the basement. Peter was the brewer at Heidenpeters, the craft beer makers at Markthalle Neun and Marie was working at the bar. It was during this time, over a number of after work drinks, that we realized that brewing nitro coffee and beer requires a lot of the same equipment. And so, with a shared dedication to quality ingredients and delicious drinks, presented in a down-to-earth kind of way, we founded Motel Beer & Coffee.

Motel paired up with Coffee Collective and Square Mile for this collaboration—who else has Motel teamed up with in the past?

As a company that essentially started with a coffee beer collaboration, I would say that these kind of creative partnerships is in our DNA. We love working with producers who inspire us from various fields—be it dedicated coffee or hops farmers, biodynamic vintners, coffee roasters, or other beer brewers—to both learn as much as possible in the process and to create unique, tasty beverages. The learning part can’t be emphasized enough—both our coffee and our beer quality were improved through a mutual exchange of knowledge and working with producers from other fields keeps us supplied with a wealth of ideas to apply towards constantly improving this quality even further.

We’ve collaborated previously with The Coffee Collective, brewing and bottling their Kieni for sale at their shops in Copenhagen last year. Over the years we’ve also collaborated on coffees with Climpson & Sons, Koppi, Bonanza Coffee, Kaffe 9, and Ernst Kaffeeröster. This is our first year with the canning line so it’s the first time we can bring the collabs to a broader public. We’ve also made a coffee liqueur with Grey Goose and a bottled coffee cocktail with World Class.

As for beer, we recently collaborated with Berlin-based tortilleria Tlaxcalli and organic farming collective Höfe Gemeinschaft Pommern to brew “Acapulco”, a Mexican Lager. For the past two years, we’ve been making “Melsheimer”, a Riesling IPA using fresh grape must from biodynamic Mosel Riesling guru Thorsten Melsheimer. We’ve also worked with our friends from Big Stuff Smoked BBQ on a couple of smoky beers and have just launched the first of a series of four canned seasonal beer cocktails we’re producing with Christian Gentemann from Big Stuff Smoked BBQ.

Esmeralda Geisha Nitro—this is quite a beverage. What does it taste like?

The flavor is a fascinating blend of chocolate, oranges, rose water, with hints of rosemary and other herbs. The Coffee Collective has a way of wielding their Loring that results in extremely light roasts that are still soluble, creating a texture that is creamy and juicy. Like most tasty beverages with delicate aromas and flavors, we recommend letting get a bit closer to body temperature before enjoying.

How much does it cost?

The Esmeralda Geisha will retail for 10€ a can (including tax and 25c can deposit), or 45 €  for the collaboration mix pack including three cans of Esmeralda Geisha and three or our Muchagara Kenya collaboration with Square Mile Coffee Roasters, which will also launch at World of Coffee.

Who designed the cans?

Marie Stadelmann, our Creative Director, designed the cans. The can design—with its pastel colors and minimalist look—takes its cues from the aesthetic of 1960s Italian espresso bar culture, where quality and fast-paced service go hand in hand. You might already know her for her work on the Sprudgie Award nominated packaging from Fjord.

Marie Stadelmann

How can I get my hands on these precious cans?

We will be presenting Esmeralda Geisha for the first time at our booth at World of Coffee, from June 6-8, and hosting a mixer-cum-launch-party together with TCC and Square Mile at our brewery in Reinickendorf on Friday, June 7th. Esmeralda Geisha will be available online from June 10 at www.motelminibar.com.

What’s next for Motel?

We’re extremely excited about our new producer partner in Kenya, Eddie Kiyaka. He’s young, brash, and this was his first year of production, cranking out a mere 72kg of organic, naturally processed Kenyan varietals at 2200masl. What a madman. The coffee is unlike anything you’ve ever tasted (hit him up on WhatsApp and he’ll tell you it’s “better than Geisha”) and can’t wait to share it.

As for the rest of the portfolio, we look forward to expanding our winemaker series this year and hopefully finally doing something together with our longtime friends from Companion Tea!

We can’t wait!

Company: Motel
Location: Berlin
Country: Germany
Design Debut: June 2019
Designer: Marie Stadelmann

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

The post Coffee Design: Motel Beer & Coffee In Berlin appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News