Specialty Coffee Archives - Page 15 of 40 - The Curb Kaimuki

Umeko Motoyoshi (Photo by Evan Gilman)

Welcome to The Sprudge Twenty Interviews presented by Pacific Barista Series. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be featuring our 2019 featured class of Sprudge Twenty honorees, each one changing the coffee game worldwide. For a complete list of 2019 Sprudge Twenty honorees please visit sprudge.com/twenty.

Umeko Motoyoshi is an entrepreneur, coffee professional, technologist, social media provocateur, whistleblower, and advocate for the marginalized. They are the founder of Umeshiso.com, the VP of Technology at Sudden Coffee, and the creator of @wastingcoffee on Instagram, among other ventures. They are the Sprudgie Award winner for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence for 2018, and the founder of CHANGING STRUCTURES in collaboration with the #CoffeeToo Project. In 2018 Motoyoshi was a named whistleblower in the Four Barrel Coffee sexual harassment scandal and subsequent legal action.

TBCH that’s roughly half of what we could have listed here for accomplishments related to Umeko Motoyoshi, who exemplifies the spirit and intentionality of the Sprudge Twenty through their multi-faceted work across the specialty coffee industry. Read more in Sprudge co-founder Zachary Carlsen’s recent interview with them here.

Nominated by Kat Melheim.

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

Balancing distribution of resources (especially financial resources) throughout the value chain, improving worker conditions throughout the value chain, and modeling positive change for other industries throughout the value chain.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

Space for growth, because I believe that the specialty coffee industry has the potential to radicalize into a social and political movement to end colonial norms within supply chains across the world.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

The imbalanced power between different genders compounding with imbalanced power between customer and hospitality worker, and how that compounded imbalance is both constructed and supported by current hospitality standards. It’s been written about brilliantly and still is not taken into account in any well-established hospitality ethos.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

I love there are a million new things that I can learn about it every day. It moves through such a broad range of systems at micro and macro scale and can be examined through infinite lenses.

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

My interest in coffee began during childhood as an appreciation for ritual, while I watched my father perform Japanese tea ceremonies.

The sensory component came later. I’d worked in coffee for about six years before I experienced a coffee that really amazed me—it was a Colombian superblend from the Andino association.

That coffee, the first coffee I ever felt dazzled by, was roasted and brewed by Four Barrel Coffee, and I’d just started work there as a barista. About five years later, I co-organized a multi-complainant lawsuit against that company for sexual harassment and assault.

This is just one example of the ways that my experiences within specialty coffee as a taster and learner hold tension with my experience as a femme person within structures of shockingly enabled misogyny.

And because both realms have deeply impacted me, I work to reconcile them—both externally and internally.

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

A rewarding value chain that is accessible and positive for everyone from pickers to consumers.

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

I think I have the job I want. I’m a writer, consultant and inventor, and I sell gay spoons.

Who are your coffee heroes?

Everyone who uses their knowledge and skill set to connect with and support others in their learning.

Every barista who has never competed but works floor shifts every day, shows up for their co-workers, looks out for their customers, knows how every coffee is tasting, and lowkey covered every item on the shift change checklist so everyone could leave on time.

The people who don’t necessarily get a spotlight on them but they’re doing the damn thing and they’re doing it with incredible skill.

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

My dad, who passed away in 2012, because I miss him. I never got to make him a pour-over. I never got to make coffee for him when I actually knew what I was doing. I wish I could source and roast a really nice coffee just for him, based on the flavor profiles he enjoyed, and serve it to him in a small, handle-less cup with a ceramic carafe, paired with Japanese pastry.

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

I’d be an herbalist and performance artist.

Do you have any coffee mentors?

These are people who I look up to a lot, that I continue to learn from all the time: Jenn Chen, Michelle Johnson, Kim Elena Ionescu, Jen Apodaca, Candace Madison Zachary, Laura Perry, and Mayra Orellana Powell.

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

TRUST YOUR GUT.

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

Ok, so I’m going to assume I’m inside a space station for this question. First, probably an AeroPress (I’m counting filters as part of the AeroPress). On Earth, I don’t normally use an AeroPress that often, but in zero gravity a pour-over system wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t commit to drinking a French press every day. Other brewing systems that might work in zero gravity involve too much user complexity or power draw to be my daily go-to on a space station.

I just don’t know how I would get the coffee and water into the AeroPress in zero gravity. So I might try to rig some kind of seal with valves so that I can force coffee and water into the brewing chamber, then place the AeroPress plunger on top, and then slide the seal out. So that might be the second apparatus. I might try agitating and ensuring even saturation by gently shaking the sealed AeroPress.

Also, I’m assuming I’d be in a space station where the internal atmospheric pressure is regulated so I could boil water at a high enough temperature to brew coffee. But I don’t know enough about that.

I would store my coffee outside in the cold vacuum of space for ultimate freshness. So I guess I’d take a string to tie my bag of coffee to the outside of the space station. The string would be my third apparatus.

Obviously, if this were the Star Trek universe I could just get a raktajino from any replicator.

Best song to brew coffee to:

“Pour It Up” by Rihanna

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

Probably on the space station with my string and my AeroPress.

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

Water, vitamins, more water.

When did you last drink coffee?

Around 11am today.

What was it?

An espresso flight.

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 Umeko Motoyoshi: The Sprudge Twenty Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

There’s a lot going on at your typical SCA Expo weekend. The sights, the sounds, the slurps, the soirees, the partays, the shindigs, the meet n’ greets, the gab n’ gulps, the delicate dance of pretending to remember someone’s name when you in fact have no clue, the booths, the pop-ups, the Symposium zaddies and ReCo freak-os, the security guards, the backstage breakdowns, the tech, the dreck, the cheeky sips in violation of trade show floor rules, the smell of convention center carpet, the $500 a night marathon price gouging hotel rooms and the dream of a lobster roll, deferred.

We covered all this and much more over the last few days on Sprudge and Sprudge Live, and will be rolling out a bevy of content related to said in the hours to come. But one curious curio stood out at the 2019 SCA Expo, a digital delight quite unlike anything we’ve encountered in our decade of covering coffee festivals around the world.

That would be Chemex: The Game.

In Chemex: The Game, one plays the tuxedoed role of Dr. Peter Schlumbohm, inventor of the titular brewing device and longtime subject of adoration at this website. It appeared apropos of nothing over SCA Expo weekend, and has been lightly shared around #CoffeeTwitter—that’s where it first came to our attention, before promptly derailing our Slack channel.

The game’s action is reminiscent of Burger Time, Diner Dash, and other video games about comestibles. An unyielding onslaught of coffee elements—water, flavor notes, beans (drupe seeds, technically)—are hurled at the good Dr. alongside “distasteful elements” like acid, sediment, and fat. Only by catching the good stuff whilst avoiding the bad can one advance through the game’s many levels. A succesful performance yields helpful elements like a filter top, or a funnel, which are capable of protecting from impurities.

The gameplay is unexpectedly addictive, and after each successful level completed Dr. Schluhmbohm complements your brew. Imagine! The inventor of the Chemex himself, declaring your coffee efforts “divine ambrosia” and “pure heaven.” You simply must try it; the game is extraordinary. Never before has video game content left me feeling so content.

Play Chemex: The Game yourself via PlayGood.Games. 

Jordan Michleman is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. 

The post We Are Obsessed With Chemex: The Game appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Jooyeon Jeon of South Korea is the 2019 World Barista Champion. This is Jeon’s first win in two appearances at the World level of competition, placing 14th in the 2018 World Barista Championship in Amsterdam.

In the world of sports journalism—and by extension coffee sports journalism—you don’t root for a team. There’s no cheering in the press box. With the exception of the occasional Lem Butler run to the Finals, it’s a rule we generally abide; we love all these baristas the same and want to see them all succeed. But rules were made to be broken, and with Jooyeon Jeon of Momos Coffee in Busan, they were completely shattered.

From the moment Jeon took the stage she captured the attention of the crowd, press included. Who is this competitor sitting on the table addressing the judges? What is happening here? There was something magnetic not just about her script but with the genuine excitement with which she delivered it, and it gave all the coffee competition-viewing public a moment of pause.

At this level of Barista competition, routines generally fall into one of two categories: academic or emotional. The hallmark of the academic routine is very technical information about some facet of coffee growing, processing, or brewing delivered in a precise (if not downright stoic) manner. On the other end of the spectrum, the emotional routine appeals to something less scientific in the coffee supply chain but does so with energy and heart. Jeon had both.

For her winning routine, Jeon chose to focus on how carbohydrates, specifically mono- and polysaccharides, affect the flavor balance experienced when drinking coffee. This was going to be a heady, facts-heavy 15 minutes. And it was, but Jeon’s disarming effervescence brought life to what could otherwise be dry subject matter. There was an intentional informality in Jeon’s performance, from beginning her routine sitting on the table to instructing the judges to do the same to then having the judges relocate for the signature beverage course where they stood around a table, the way you would if you and three friends went out for a coffee together. And it was this informality that paired so beautifully with information-laden routine executed flawlessly thrice over the entirety of the weekend. It was a routine that would bounce effortlessly between explaining how the clashing warm and cool climates at La Palma y El Tucan—the esteemed coffee farm in Colombia that produced Jeon’s Sidra variety coffee—led to more carbohydrates in the cherries to perfect little moments like Jeon stating to the judges, “I want all of use to enjoy my coffee as friends, so say hello to each other.”

Yet even as a uniquely singular routine, Jeon’s performance was still very much on trend for 2019 coffee competition. Anaerobic fermentation (of a non-Gesha variety coffee no less), freeze-distilled milk, La Palma: these were phrases we heard time and again at the World Barista Championship, especially in the Finals, and they were present in Jeon’s routine. But instead of making them the centerpiece—as was the case in a handful of other performances this year—these were just some of the many facts Jeon had at her disposal to arrive at her script’s grand thesis, predicated on the effects of carbohydrates on coffee.

For her signature beverage, Jeon went full science experiment. She began by extracting polysaccharides from her Sidra coffee, a flavorless compound—just ask the judges that got to “taste” the substance—that she would go on to break down into disaccharides with the introduction of malt, producing more glucose and therefore more sweetness. To this Jeon added an oligosaccharide in the form of starch and a monosaccharide via a blackberry reduction. These all get combined with chilled Sidra espresso, thereby “reincorporat[ing] the carbohydrates that disappear during roasting.” In true Jeon fashion, the signature beverage course was precise and technical, and ended with a beaming grin and a “cheers!” of the long-stemmed tulip glasses in the judges’ hands.

Anyone who caught even a small part of Jeon’s routine would be hard pressed to not have found a new rooting interest. It was a 15 minutes chock full of moments (many of which found their way to our Twitter and Instagram walls, perhaps outing us as #TeamJeon from the jump). It was a routine that after Round One had many of us in the media box vocalizing our hopes to see her in the Semi-Finals, which as the last name called in the Semis announcements, hope of such seemed all but lost. These supplications weren’t based soley in well-wishing success onto another, they were rooted in selfishness: we wanted to see this routine again.

Jooyeon Jeon during Round One of the WBC

We got our wish. And again in the Finals.

And then, as if by sheer force of collective will, Jooyeon Jeon was standing next to Greece’s Michalis Dimitrakopoulos as the final two names left waiting to find their spot in the rankings. (Can I also say there was no shortage of fans for the 2016 World Coffee In Good Spirits Champion from Greece, who stood poised to take home a remarkable second World Championship on his way to an WCCGOT). With just the two Barista Champions remaining, it felt inevitable that Jeon would come up just ever so short. The people’s champion never wins. Rarely do the things we as laypeople love in a routine carry much water on the scoresheets; it’s flavor calls and tech points that make champions. These two things aren’t mutually exclusive, mind you, their combination is just exceptionally rare. So it was with resignation that we preemptively assumed our lucky stars had run out of magic dust. 

But here’s the thing that makes the ending to this story a little different: this wasn’t luck nor was it magic. This was 100% Jooyeon Jeon executing one of the most memorable routines to ever grace the World Barista Championship stage. The people’s champion was now the World Champion.

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

In 2019 SprudgeLive is home to the Digital Roasters Village, because it takes a village to cover a barista competition. The Digital Roasters Village features Camber Coffee, Verve Coffee, Partners Coffee, Intelligentsia Coffee, Rishi Tea, Kickapoo Coffee, Blue Bottle Coffee, Onyx Coffee Lab, Creation Coffee, Amavida, and Equator Coffees without whom this work would not be possible.

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

Photos by Charlie Burt

The post Jooyeon Jeon Of South Korea Is The 2019 World Barista Champion appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

In episode 73 of the Coffee Sprudgecast, we interview Baratza founders Kyle Anderson and Kyra Kennedy. Baratza is known the world over for their home coffee grinders and they celebrate their 20th anniversary this year. They are currently in Boston at the SCA Expo where they are debuting the Virtuoso+ grinder, an upgraded version of their popular Virtuoso model (pictured above).

Read about the Virtuoso+ here.

Listen to the full episode below:

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

Sign up now as a subscriber to the Coffee Sprudgecast and never miss an episode. Listen, subscribe and review The Coffee Sprudgecast on iTunes. Download all Coffee Sprudgecast episodes here.

Disclosure: Baratza is an advertising partner on Sprudge.

The post Coffee Sprudgecast Episode 73: The One With The Founders of Baratza appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

A longstanding Swiss practice around stockpiling coffee beans may soon come to an end. That’s because the Swiss government is rethinking its long-held position around coffee as an essential foodstuff in times of disaster.

For the decades the Swiss have held a government-funded “emergency stockpile of coffee”, reported by Reuters, the BBC, and others. The program was established all the way back in the interwar years, in the 1930s, as a safeguard against future wartime shortages and in preparation for natural disasters or medical emergencies. Coffee has long been part of the program alongside rice, livestock feed, sugars, and other essential foodstuffs. But that may change in 2022, thanks to a recent government proposal just released for public comment.

As reported by Reuters:

“The Federal Office for National Economic Supply has concluded coffee…is not essential for life,” the government said. “Coffee has almost no calories and subsequently does not contribute, from the physiological perspective, to safeguarding nutrition.”

A final decision on scrapping coffee stockpiles is expected in November.

This story is developing, and Switzerland is clearly wrong w/r/t coffee being an essential human consumable. But in the meantime, are you prepared with enough coffee to survive the apocalypse?

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

The post Swiss Government Delcares Coffee “Not Essential For Life” appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

It’s here! The 2019 World Barista and World Brewers Cup Championships are happening all weekend long in Boston, and Sprudge is there in full ESPN mode, covering every moment of the tournament live across an omnimedia coverage portal we lovingly refer to as Sprudge Live.

These tournaments are huge, with 100+ competitors from around the world vying to take home a coveted championship. Before they do that they’ll have to advance to semi-finals and then to Finals Sunday. We’re here covering it all with unrivaled depth and focus, and all of it’s free for you to follow along throughout the weekend.

Enjoying this coverage is incredibly easy—no paywalls, no log-ins—thanks to the support of our global team of Official Sponsors and our 2019 Digital Roasters Village. Here are your next moves:

1. Go visit SprudgeLive.com and bookmark us in your browser of choice. Here you’ll find easy to access schedules, rolling updates from throughout the tournament, portals for essential Boston happenings and events, and breaking news on leaderboard placements and advancing competitors.

2. Follow us on Twitter @SprudgeLive — we’ll be live-tweeting the competitions all weekend long from Boston. Sprudge pioneered the live-tweet format for covering barista competitions all the way back in 2011 and we’re thrilled to be continuing the tradition this weekend in Boston. Follow, RT, ask us questions and enjoy.

3. Give us a follow on Instagram as well! Here you’ll see original embedded coverage from the competition floor, go behind the scenes with competitors, judges, and volunteers, and learn more about our coverage sponsors without whom this work would not be possible.

4. Subscribe to the Coffee Sprudgecast on iTunes for upcoming episodes spotlighting the very best in World Coffee Champs personalities and culture.

Follow us right from your phone.

Sprudge’s 2019 World Barista and World Brewers Cup Championship coverage is produced by Zac Cadwalader. Charlie Burt is our lead photographer, and Liz Chai helms our Instagram and podcast coverage of the event.

Follow! Share! Dive deep into our coverage and thank you—we’re looking forward to an incredible weekend of coffee sports in Boston, and it all lives at SprudgeLive.com. 

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

In 2019 SprudgeLive is home to the Digital Roasters Village, because it takes a village to cover a barista competition. The Digital Roasters Village features Camber Coffee, Verve Coffee, Partners Coffee, Intelligentsia Coffee, Rishi Tea, Kickapoo Coffee, Blue Bottle Coffee, Onyx Coffee Lab, Creation Coffee, Amavida, and Equator Coffees without whom this work would not be possible.

The post The 2019 World Coffee Championships Live On SprudgeLive appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

This week we take a look at the packaging from Parlor Coffee out of Brooklyn, New York. What caught our attention wasn’t so much the box itself (which is delightful) but the packaging within: a clear, compostable bag with lovely details printed in white. When the bag is full of roasted coffee, the design really pops. We talked to Operations Manager Stephanie Dana to learn more.

Tell us a bit about Parlor Coffee

Parlor was founded in 2012 with a single-group espresso machine in the back of a barbershop and a dream to roast New York’s finest coffee. We supply coffee to cafes, restaurants, and home brewers across North America from our roastery on the edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We continue to pursue the original dream along with others we’ve hatched along the way.

When did the coffee package design debut?

We launched our new and improved retail packaging in January 2018.

Who designed the package?

We collaborated with fellow Brooklyn-based design firm Franklyn. We’ve entrusted many of our design projects to their incredible team, including our recent publication—Parchment—as well as the packaging for Parlor Instant.

We’re especially fond of the details on the clear bag! Tell us about this!

That’s definitely one of my favorite elements as well! The idea for that design began with the type of packaging we knew we wanted to work with (Biotrē 2.0) and how we could make that material as beautiful as the product inside. The coffee floral pattern is a throwback to our original (and very popular) botanical print on our previous bags. The exterior box, which shields the interior Biotrē bag from light, also features the redesigned motif. We love that the clear bags allow consumers to immediately see the coffee upon opening the box. I also just find it to be a bit whimsical.

Why are aesthetics in coffee packaging so important?

We believe that our packaging and branding should always, first and foremost, be a reflection of the coffees we source and roast—of the highest quality, clean and emanating unique character.

The foundation of our business is wholesale, so we wanted our packaging to show Parlor’s personality while telling the story of each coffee to any person interacting with each box. The wraparound label is color-coded by origin and makes for an intuitive presentation which clearly differentiates the coffees on our menu. Navy blue is reserved for our blends (Wallabout and Prospect), vibrant red for our African offerings, forest green for the coffees of Central and South America, and saffron yellow for our Decaf selection. We wanted to highlight the producers we work with and celebrate the diversity of the origins we are sourcing from through these design choices.

As an added bonus, the boxes ship more efficiently and are less prone to being damaged in transit, ultimately making for a better final presentation of our coffees to customers.

Where is the bag manufactured?

The clear bag is manufactured by Pacific Bag in Taiwan and is part of their Biotrē 2.0 line.

What type of package is it?

Paperboard and Biotrē 2.0.

Is the package recyclable/compostable?

The box is recyclable. The bag and its one-way valve are made from plant-based polyethylene. According to the information Pacific Bag has published on Biotrē 2.0, 60% of this material will break down naturally in a home compost environment, ultimately reducing the amount of packaging that ends up in a landfill.

In striving to be better stewards of a good food system, we remain steadfast in seeking to purchase the best and most sustainable coffee packaging available. Our newest retail packaging is a small step forward for Parlor’s commitment to this ideal.

Where is it currently available?

Our retail is always available on our website (parlorcoffee.com) and at our Tasting Room, open to the public on Sundays from 10am to 2pm. And, of course, many of our wonderful wholesale partners stock our retail. Drop us a line at info@parlorcoffee.com if you’d like to find your closest café or outlet offering Parlor!

Thank you!

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

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

Source: Coffee News

Sad news today at the start of WBC weekend. World Coffee Events has issued a statement about the death of 2019 Philippines Brewers Cup Champion John Michael Hermoso. According to news reports, Hermoso was shot and killed inside of Good Cup Coffee Company in Cebu City around midnight, April 11th, local time.

Hermoso, a managing partner, roaster, and head barista of Good Cup Coffee Company was a seasoned competitor, winning three competitions and placing in four in the last five years:

2014 Philippine Krispy Kreme Latteart Champion (Cebu)
2014 Philippine Krispy Kreme Barista Cup – 2nd Place
2016 Cebu and Food Beverage Expo Latteart – 3rd Place
2017 Cebu and Food Beverage Expo Latteart – 3rd Place
2018 Philippine National Brewers Cup – 4th Place
2018 Sanremo Latteart Throwdown Champion
2019 Philippine National Brewers Cup Champion

View this post on Instagram

Coffee in one hand, Confidence in another. #thegoodcupcoffeecompany #specialtycoffee #sourcingtoserving #pbrc2019 #roadtoboston #neverstoplearning

A post shared by John Michael (@blazing_john) on Mar 30, 2019 at 12:36pm PDT

WCE issued the following statement:

“This is a heartbreaking and shocking tragedy, and we want to express our deepest condolences to the friends and family of John Michael Hermoso, as well as those of Katie Ramos, who was also killed in the attack, and Jerome Amada and Sherwin Rivera who were injured.

To celebrate the life of John Michael Hermoso, we will be observing a moment of silence at 1:00PM EDT on Friday 4/12 on-site at the World Brewers Cup and World Barista Championship in Boston, and on the livestream at wcc.coffee/boston. Please join us honoring John Michael’s memory and mourning this great loss for the local and global coffee community.

John Michael Hermoso was supposed to be competing at the 2019 World Brewers Cup, but his visa application was rejected by US immigration. John Michael was pursuing Deferred Candidacy to compete in the 2020 World Brewers Cup, and it is enormously sad that he will not have the chance to do so.”

Click here to read the full statement.

This story is developing…

Top photo via World Coffee Events.

The post 2019 Philippines Brewers Cup Champion Dead In Tragic Shooting appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

One of my favorite things about attending Expo every year is the opportunity to meet and learn from people involved in every aspect of coffee value chain. Yes, I love going to every party happening after each day (which by the way, you should come to mine), but there’s no better time to cup coffees with the people who produced them or hear from incredible folks who’ve forged different career paths in the coffee industry. If only I could do all of this and have the added bonus of an incentive for engaging with the coffee world like this.

Enter the Atlas EXPO Passport.

This year in Boston, Atlas Coffee Importers are giving SCA attendees the chance to win either a trip with Atlas staff to a coffee producing country or go to the Atlas office in Seattle, Washington for a full week of training and education. All you have to do is print out the Passport and attend an Atlas event or hosted location ranging from panel discussions to visiting them in the Roaster’s Village to receive a stamp. Complete five of the six pages on the Passport and you’re eligible for the dual grand prize. Complete three of the six and you’ll be eligible to win one of ten runner-up prizes including a ton of Atlas and partner swag.

From Atlas Green Coffee Sales team member, Katherine Hartline:

With the Passport, it was our goal to create a fun way for people to follow along if they’re attending this year, and are trying to make it as inclusive an opportunity as possible. We have a dual grand prize—the winner’s choice of traveling with us either to a coffee producing country, or to our Atlas lab in Seattle for a week of education/career development—so that anyone along the supply chain would find it a valuable and useful opportunity. We also included a translation link on the Passport and did not include any events that would incur a cost outside of an EXPO pass.

Head over to the Atlas website to read the full list of events and complete rules for the contest. Even if just for the learning experiences alone, the Passport will be more than worth a try!

Michelle Johnson is a news contributor at Sprudge Media Network, and the founder and publisher of The Chocolate Barista. Read more Michelle Johnson on Sprudge.

Top image via Atlas Coffee Importers

The post Win A Trip To Origin With Atlas Coffee Importer’s Expo Passport appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

It’s true that 2018 WBC second runner-up Lex Wenneker and his business partner Dylan Sedgwick named their new cafe—FUKU—after the Japanese term for “good fortune.” If you speak with them, Wenneker, a three-time Dutch barista champion, will tell you how as a visitor to Japan he was impressed by all the small spaces where each day a single individual “puts the same attention in every cup.” In the same breath Sedgwick, a New Zealander with much international coffee experience, might cite Japanese craft precision as “inspiration for our workflow.” But if you’re like me, you might have doubts. The explanation’s a touch too cute for these two.

These are, after all, the guys behind Friedhats Coffee Roasters, a name they gleefully admit has led confused consumers to believe the company deals in French fries and attracted email spam targeted at milliners. What’s more, Friedhats’ aesthetic—most obvious in its packaging but now also at FUKU—might be summarized as ska-meets-psychedelica in a Roy Lichtenstein palette. Any way you cut it, their goofiness and subversion are colorful, contradicting any “expectations that we were gonna do something super chic and Berlin-style,” as Sedgwick puts it.

So while the cafe FUKU is pronounced to rhyme with “cuckoo,” it seems its nomenclature arose from the same place it does when the four-letter word is carved into an elementary school bathroom stall: frustration.

“There was a point that I was pissed off at the whole [coffee] thing… I was gonna quit,” Wenneker tells me. “I just got back from the WBC in Dublin and everything was normal again, and I just couldn’t hear one more complaint about the light-roasted coffee. People didn’t get it. I just couldn’t do it anymore, and that’s when I wanted to stop.”

He continues: “Then we decided to look for a cafe again, as a solution—to have something new to do. And as a joke, I wanted to call it ‘the Friedhats’ Fuck You Cafe.’”

His defiance was likely sparked earlier, by the shuttering of Headfirst, a micro-roastery Wenneker co-ran and where he and Sedgwick started working together. Its closure came suddenly after Amsterdam authorities accused the venue of violating rules about what it could sell as a designated retail spot rather than a food and drink vendor. That was in late 2015, when Headfirst, at just two years old, was quite popular among locals and coffee tourists.

In fact, the name Friedhats is no enigma—it is an anagram. Scrambling the letters of “headfirst” has provided at least a linguistically sentimental reincarnation of the old business. As for FUKU’s present-day semantic scrambling—the idea came from much closer than Japan.

“He was in Paris and he saw this place called ‘Fuku,’” recalls Wenneker about Sedgwick. “It kinda says ‘fuck you’ but not really.”

“A sushi place,” his partner specifies.

All that said, guests at FUKU, which opened in September, get no sense of being rebuffed or shooed. Before even going inside the cafe, a sight of delight appears on an entranceway door: a vintage column of feeder trays from legendary Dutch automat chain FEBO. Today, instead of hamburgers or krokets, they dispense coffee beans in Friedhats’ signature plastic jar packaging (nominated for a 2018 Sprudgie Award).

Wenneker and Sedgwick built the bar themselves, leaving a large façade for their illustrator (and part-time barista) Ivo Janss. The most prominent equipment is a rare Kees van der Westen three-group Mistral. There are three grinders: a Mahlkönig EK43, an Anfim Super Caimano Barista, and an ever-so R2D2-esque Lyn Weber EG1. Around the bend is a moss green Slayer Single Group, which patrons can get a courtside view of when seated in the front window.

Asked if his past titles up the pressure to perform in everyday work, Wenneker is candid, mentioning some particularly painful early feedback.

“There was this guy who came in. He was like, ‘Ah, I expected a bit more because he’s the almost-World Barista Champion, and it was just like a nice coffee that I got.’ It hit me quite hard,” he admits, with a good-natured laugh.

“Don’t come with too-high expectations,” Sedgwick half-jokes.

“Nah, that’s not true,” says Wenneker. “We’re doing something new now, I think, in the cafe with the long list of coffees that are available for espresso and filter. I don’t think any cafe in Amsterdam has that.”

Most remarkable is the menu’s “Super Specials” subsection, described by Wenneker as “coffees you just don’t find anywhere because they’re very expensive” and “usually rare or hard to obtain.” Often competition coffees, they are standardly prepared by V60 and cost 7.50 euros. On a recent visit, that list included Brazil Daterra Laurina, Colombia Gesha X.O., Colombia Sudan Rume, and Ethiopia Gesha Village.

Because they have all the necessary licenses, FUKU can serve alcohol—the wines lean towards natural and French—and food; the venue has begun with short hours and easy-to-eat carbohydrates, but eventually plans to stay open well past sunset. The back patio, with an overhang, is ready for warm even if wet days.

Wenneker and Sedgwick have two part-time staff, and Wenneker’s brother is their accounts manager. Still, the pair works six days a week, splitting their time between cafe and roastery. The latter, which they moved into in September, occupies a section of shared space in a hangar-like unit. Compared to the former roastery, it is the boondocks, though has no shortage of storage or parking for the new company car, a secondhand Volvo wagon used for local coffee deliveries. Most international orders are sent within Europe, though the US and Canada are catching on, they report.

Meanwhile, Wenneker maintains he is done competing. Earned in June 2018 at the WBC held only six kilometers south of FUKU, his latest, second place, ranking satisfies in far more ways than I expected to hear.

Lex Wenneker

He explains: “If you get first place, you have all these obligations, you have to go everywhere, people expect you to show up for stuff. We were already talking about the cafe, so we knew we couldn’t really do that. So before the whole competition started I was like, ‘Yeah, second. I’ll go for second.’”

“I was really happy,” says Wenneker of the outcome. “Second place is kind of what I really aimed for.”

The response is quintessentially Dutch: modest, pragmatic, evenhanded. It is also an elegant way of celebrating one’s good fortune while still issuing, to the powers that be, a big FU.

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

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Source: Coffee News