I hesitated in writing this guide. The world of teaware is vast and intimidating, and can be a money pit of fakes and forgeries. It is also where so much of the joy in loving tea can be derived. Ultimately our team felt Tea Week would be incomplete without some sort of feature on teaware. My very best attempt at this here in 2019 is what follows.

For coffee lovers, you might think of teaware as like the espresso machine of the tea world. To casual drinkers or the untrained eye, it just looks like a nice object that makes the thing you drink—and nothing more. But for those who obsess it can become an endless quest of sourcing and seeking, of pride and cost. A life’s pursuit, even. There is no small amount of money to be spent at the top end of teaware buying—may I call your attention to the infamous Chengua-era “chicken cup,” which sold for $35 million at Sotheby’s in 2014. For our purposes this guide caps objects at the $500 range, with prices average considerably less for most of the offerings.

Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Note that this guide only barely touches on the world of Yixing, the traditional tea pottery of Jiangsu, made using porous clay in a style dating back to the 10th century. This is its own whole world, a vast guide I don’t feel prepared to lead at this time—perhaps in a few more years.

For now, these wholesalers and makers are more than enough to get you started and find new favorites. The guide below is hopelessly biased towards my own personal taste but hey—teaware is supposed to be personal. That’s part of the fun, and it’s something I hope you are inspired to explore further with support from this guide

A Solid Foundation

Photo courtesy of Rishi Tea.

Rishi Tea

Rishi is a truly solid place to get started with home teawares, offering for example this workhorse starter gaiwan for $12, and this cute little basic tea tray for $25. They’ve also got a lovely collection of flex items, like this stunning blue studio-made celadon “fairness pitcher” from Taiwan, or this rustic clay and mineral cup. Rishi ships free domestic at $25, which is plenty to get started making gong fu cha—pair that $12 gaiwan with, say, a couple of oolong samples (we like Rishi’s Iron Goddess of Mercy and Phoenix Dancong) and you are off to the races.

Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Breville

Breville is the presenting sponsor of Tea Week on Sprudge—for which we thank them!—but they also produce a range of tea-focused hot water boilers and teamakers we have no lie legit been happily using in Sprudge Studios for the last few years, long before this content package was a twinkle in the editorial eye. The Breville Tea Maker Compact‘s tech allows you to set up brew parameters for whatever kind of tea you’re into; the machine’s automated basket then plunges your brew into water heated to your temp of choice. When the cycle is done, the basket lifts out of the water, ensuring you won’t oversteep. I’d liken this machine to something like a nice home batch brewer, a simplifier that’s perfect for tea making on a busy morning or for large groups (for which the classic Tea Maker is a bigger, better fit).

Another option is the Breville Smart Tea Infuser, which we especially dig these Tea Makers for their handiness with single-steep tisanes, like those from Smith Tea, Song Tea, and Tea Dealers featured in our tisane spotlight. We also really like their IQ Kettle Pure (pictured above) for heating water consistently and at scale—you can transfer from there into a ceramic kettle for service, or pour directly from the Breville IQ.

If you are looking for a fusion of tea, taste and tech, this is the gear for you.

Photo courtesy of Manual.

Manual Tea Maker No1

Chicago tinkerer Creighton Barman puts out new stuff each year, typically pre-funded on Kickstarter, but we’re still in love with this 2016 release, the Tea Maker No1, a modernist reinterpretation of the gaiwan built for ease of brewing. Double-walled glass is the hook here, which keeps the Tea Maker cool to the touch throughout the brewing process, and also gives you peek-a-boo viewing at all that beautiful steeping action. I think these gaiwans offer a rare degree of utility no matter where you are in terms of tea knowledge and experience—they are rad and very forgiving for beginners who are still mastering the whole gaiwan thing, but also fun for experts who want to incorporate western and modern influences into their teaware collection.

Let’s Geek Out

Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Bitterleaf 

With full respect to Bitterleaf’s collection of teas for drinking (featured in our buying guide), the site’s assortment of teawares, tea tools, tea pets, and assorted Chinese tea ephemera is truly deep and excellent.

From beautiful little studio tea cups (starting around $8) to Chaozhou teapots in a range of classic styles (more like $80) to really cute hand-painted animal vessels ($35) to all manner of entry-level trays and supports (prices vary) and much more, there are hundreds of pieces of tea kit to shop from and swoon over at Bitterleaf. I especially like their selection of “tea pets,” little clay figurines typically depicting children or animals, incorporated into tea service as a symbol of good luck. You “feed” the tea pet with excess water or tea throughout the teamaking process, with the clay left to develop a lovely luster over repeat feedings. (It’s fun. Don’t @ me.)

Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Song Tea

Song Tea are also featured in our tea buying guide for their literally life-changing (as in it changed my life) compendium of meticulously curated tea offerings. But the ceramics offered by Song are on another level. Founder Peter Luong has an eye for relatively young and emerging artists, making commissions across his travels to Taiwan. Works by artists like Zhang Yun Chen (Nantou), Qiu Qing Yun (Meinong), and Hu Tie Ha (Jiefen) evoke what’s possible at the blurred edge of collectible art and practical working pottery. I cannot realistically see myself being someone who collects art to hang on the wall, but the idea of owning this Husk #2 tea bowl by Zhang Yun Chen gives me heart palpitations. If you are, say, truly enjoying tea week and would like to, you know, say thank you as a grateful reader or whatever, please buy this for me. DMs are open.

Photo courtesy of Pu.Erh.Sk

Pu-Erh.Sk

Based in Slovakia, Pu-Erh.sk is an online webshop shipping worldwide, focused on sheng and shou Pu’er teas from Yunnan. Their tea sourcing is concise and well-considered—the gushu heads love ‘em—but for me the site’s focus on Eastern European ceramicists and teaware artisans has been a revelation. Czech artists like Jiří Duchek and Jura Lang are building truly compelling, one-of-a-kind teawares that fuse traditional regional clays with far-flung design influences from the east and west. Pieces like this gorgeous Jura Lang shiboridashi (a kind of Japanese easy gaiwan) are handmade, wood-fired, visually stunning, and sure to grow in beauty over repeated use. For beginning collectors and enthusiasts to be able to get in the door with an artist-specific work like this at just €65 is really special. Elsewhere on the site, Swedish artist Stefan Andersson makes a range of gorgeous wares, while Norwegian brand Ad.Infinitum offers bespoke and vintage tea ceremony linens. All of these makers are brands with followings in their own right, collected by Pu-Erh.sk for easy ordering and global shipping.

Everybody’s taste is different, and a lot of tea ceramics collections start and end in Asia, with no deviation. But I really grok the vibe of this stuff coming out of Eastern Europe. To get in at the cutting edge of small maker European ceramics artistry, go here.

Ceramicists To Watch—And Collect 

*A note: While I am personally passionate about ceramics and hopelessly biased towards its validity and urgency as an art form, I also think you—whomever you are reading this—might really dig works from the artists below. The idea of placing a commission with an individual artist might seem intimidating or overly expensive, but we’re not talking George Ohr here; works from these artists don’t typically cost more than $100 for a single piece of teaware, and more like $30-$50 for a handmade cup or set of cups. For less cost than a single dinner at a fancy restaurant you can own and put into daily use your own personal work from a talented artist. It will make your tea taste better, your kitchen look cuter, and who knows—in 50 years you might get a segment on the Antiques Roadshow.

Here are a few talented and emerging ceramicists to follow.

Photo via Song Tea.

Lilith Rockett

Portland ceramicist Lilith Rockett works across a range of expressions for home pottery, including plates, lighting, vases, and abstract decorative objects. Her style—lustrous soft milky white porcelain, entirely handmade—translates well into tea, especially the stunning wheel-thrown porcelain gaiwan. A significant amount of tea consumed for the purposes of Tea Week on Sprudge was steeped in just such a piece. Rockett has a webshop, and also accepts limited commissions. You can find her work at some of the best restaurants in the United States, including The French Laundry (Napa), Smyth (Chicago), Saison (San Francisco), and Nodoguro (Portland).

Follow Lilith Rockett on Instagram.

Photo via Carole Neilson.

Carole Neilson

Buzzy San Francisco-based artist Carole Neilson fuses the rural pottery traditions of her native Alsace with an irresistible contemporary immediacy. Her eye-catching signature glazes evoke smoke fumes and clouds of dust, making for pottery with an earth-dappled glow. Neilson’s range of works include original sculpture pieces and stunning bowl and plate sets, but for tea (and coffee!) drinkers her small cups and pitchers make a lively addition to any collection. Neilson’s work is blowing up, with a growing list of stockists, gallery exhibitions at spaces like Hugomento, pop-up dinners around the country (including a recent dinner at Omaha’s Archetype Coffee), and a successful recent series of artist grants. She is truly an artist to watch. Neilson has a webshop and accepts limited commissions.

Follow Carole Neilson Ceramics on Instagram.

Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Qi Pottery

Kim Whyee Kee of Qi Pottery first learned his art behind bars. After serving time in the Singaporean corrections system for gang-related crimes, Kee graduated from an arts college, helped co-found a variety of initiatives working with at-risk youth, and launched Qi Pottery in 2016. His style echoes ancient tea traditions, but does so through a burst of heart-stopping colors that demand attention. Vivid pinks, deep blues, mesmerizing blacks, coral reds—Easter egg pastels that fuse the practical nature of teaware with the elegance of a home statement piece. But this is no gimmick maker—Qi Pottery’s mastery extends to more simple forms, like these beautiful rusted large format cups.

Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

It’s simply some of the most beautiful ceramics work I’ve ever seen, and for an artist with just a few public showings so far, you can certainly expect these pieces to become more and more sought after and valuable over the years. Qi Pottery has a website, but no webstore. If you’re interested in purchasing an existing piece or making a commission, please contact the artist directly via email or Instagram.

Follow Kim Whye Kee of Qi Pottery on Instagram. 

Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Arturo Alvarez

A full-time artist dedicated to original teawares, Arturo Alvarez is based in Olympia, Washington, and crafts art in a range of styles and expressions. We commissioned Alvarez for our office tea set at Sprudge Studios (we’ll be serving tea there this week as part of the Tea Week fun), and follow his regular updates on Instagram, where his account @your_pencil is part of a thriving Instagram ceramics community. Perhaps his most distinctive pieces involve incorporating found materials, including driftwood handles made from wood found across Puget Sound beaches, but this is an artist growing and advancing his craft before our very eyes, letting it all play out online. Follow him and watch along—it feels like he’s debuting new pieces almost every day.

Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Arturo Alvarez sells a limited number of teawares online via Etsy. Contact the artist directly via Instagram for commissions or to purchase pieces featured on his account.

Follow Arturo Alvarez on Instagram.

Photo by Anthony Jordan III.

Andrzej Bero

A teaware potter out of Warsaw, Andrzej Bero specializes in the shiboridashi—a gaiwan variant that’s easy to use and, in the right hands, a piece of working art. Bero’s shibos are made from clay that feels coarse and tactile to the touch, in a range of dark reds, greens, and blues. This style translates especially well to larger pieces, like his 300ml teapots, which are hotly in demand for tea services around the world. Andrzej Bero has a website but no webstore; a limited number of his works are available for purchase via the aforementioned Pu-Erh.sk. Contact the artist directly for commissions and availability.

Follow Andrzej Bero on Instagram.

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

Editor: Scott Norton.

Top photo by Anthony Jordan III (@ace_lace). 

Sprudge Tea Week is presented by Breville USA.

The post The 2019 Sprudge Guide To Teamakers and Ceramics appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Té Company—Elena Liao’s serene, focused townhouse of Taiwanese teas in the heart of the West Village—isn’t just one of the best tea bars in New York, though it certainly is that. For someone like me, who grew up drinking bags of Lipton, this place feels like a portal to another world. In lost afternoon sessions spent steeping the leaves in quiet contemplation, or tea-stoned giggle fests over pots with friends, I look forward to visiting here whenever I’m lucky enough to find an extra few hours in lower Manhattan.

For Tea Week on Sprudge, Té Company is featured in Scott Norton’s authoritative overview of New York’s best progressive tea houses. But I wanted to dig deeper into this space, in particular, and learn more about the person behind it. There are many lovely places to drink tea in New York but nowhere quite like Elena Liao’s Té Company. I hope you enjoy this interview, which was conducted by phone between New York City and Portland, Oregon.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Hi Elena, and thanks so much for speaking with us! Talk a little bit about what you do at Té Company for folks who are unfamiliar with the space.

We are a Taiwanese tea house in the West Village of New York. We specialize in Taiwanese tea. If you come in to visit our tea room you could do a few things with us. We offer something as simple as brewing a cup of tea to go, even though most people choose to stay because it’s a nice, relaxing space that feels almost hidden, and that’s hard to find in the New York landscape. Most people choose to sit and wait for a table. Once there, you can enjoy up to three steeps of any tea you choose, from around 25 to 30 different kinds of tea on our menu, plus a few blends we do ourselves (including a few that are caffeine free).

We also have a small food menu, and offer a light lunch between noon and 5:00pm. While you’re in the space, really anything that relates to a tea experience is available to you: you can purchase loose leaf teas to take home, try a flight of teas from our menu, or sit with us to book in advance a private tasting session. In that case, me or one of my staff members will sit with you for an hour or so and try teas together. We’ll drink five different things and talk about them.

What is your professional background? How did the shop get its start?

I don’t have a tea background and neither does my family. I don’t have a hospitality background, either. I worked for an American big box retailer for like a decade, mostly in the merchandise planning world, managing budgets and margin targets for merchants at a huge retailer. That’s my background, and it’s very different from what I do today, although I must say there is something universal about running a store. However, I used to manage a book of business for a fleet of 500 stores, and now I only manage one! It’s different, and the scope is a lot wider, but there’s similarities and there’s a learning curve. Hospitality environments in New York City are different from anywhere else in the world, and when you throw in tea knowledge and sourcing and all of that, it becomes a very different thing.

Honestly, this was a side project I was very curious and interested about, and it just kind of blossomed into what it is today. Actually—I think your readers will appreciate this—I only started to really learn about tea because I was trying to figure out how to make a decent coffee pour-over! This was in like, 2008 maybe, or 2009, and it’s when Blue Bottle was still a young company here in New York, and Intelligentsia was just coming out here too. Coffee felt very new at that time, the idea of a “third wave of coffee” felt so interesting and delicious, and that’s actually how I started learning. I liked the idea of there being so many stories, and so much nuance behind the scenes of it all for this beverage.

But I grew up drinking tea, and that’s part of my family. I’m from Taiwan—everyone drinks tea like it’s water. And after getting into coffee, it made me start to say, “You know, I drink a lot of tea… maybe I should learn about it like how I’m researching coffee, too.” And then I fell into the rabbit hole…

Talk to us more about your connection with Taiwanese tea. Why keep such a tight focus at Té Company? 

You know, when I was learning about tea it was literally just by Googling “what is tea” and oh my goodness—all these different styles come from the same plant? I had no idea! So when I decided to learn about it more, I quickly felt the need to narrow it down with a focus; I felt like for me to deliver something significant in a tea context, I would need to have a lot of focus and intention. In the very beginning, I started by selling teas to restaurants on the side while still working full-time at the time. The more I learned about tea, the more I realized how big it is and how long it would take me to learn even a little bit of everything there was to know. There is no crash course for tea; it is a lifelong learning. But the truth is, if I needed to do something to make me stand out and find a focus, well, I am from Taiwan originally. I still have family there, and they have connections—my grandfather, especially, has a lot of connections to agriculture from in and around the little town he is from, outside Taipei. And so I started there. I said, “You know—I’ll just do Taiwan.”

Most tea companies offer something from every country, and I just felt like there was no way I could do that and say something original, or learn enough to accomplish anything before I was 70! But Taiwan, it just makes sense. I should take advantage of my heritage, you know?

And from there it was just connection after connection. Tea is very much a relationship-based buying process. There are thousands and thousands of small family farmers growing tea in Taiwan alone. That’s more than enough to focus on.

Since opening in 2015, have you noticed a progression in knowledge from your guests? Do you feel like (in New York at least) people are becoming more educated and interested in tea over these last few years?

I definitely think there’s an increased interest, knowledge, and focus being paid to tea right now. In New York, the change has been dramatic. Back in 2009, when I was on Google trying to learn, there wasn’t even really a place to go and find out more, unless you were going to basements in Chinatown or little furniture stores that also happen to broker tea off in the corner. That was what it was like when I was starting. Now people are caring more, there’s more access, and there’s so much more interest being driven through things like third wave coffee bars and the whole matcha trend. We don’t serve matcha at Té Company but I do think it serves as a kind of bridge, connecting coffee drinkers with tea in a very natural way. I think most every coffee shop in New York has matcha now; it’s such an obvious substitute for espresso, and it’s a very easy way for anyone to opt out of coffee while still enjoying a cafe environment.

Matcha makes a bridge, and from there the question comes: “What else is there in tea besides matcha?” That increases awareness and curiosity, and I think it has really contributed to increased interest over the last few years.

At a tea garden in Taiwan, from one of Elena Liao’s recent sourcing trips.

There is an interesting section on your website about the health benefits of tea. Talk to me about that a little bit more—is this something you have experienced in your own life as a tea drinker?

I think for most people, when you ask about healthy tea they’re going to say green tea, first and foremost. The Japanese government has actually commissioned quite a few studies around the health benefits of green tea, and they see it as an angle to sell the product.  For us, on the website, there was so much info we could have included, but we had to narrow it down, and so what you’re reading now is very broad-stroke—and of course we want to be compliant with regulations, and make it clear that any benefits are suggested. We’re not claiming efficacy in any way.

But if you look at Chinese medicine and, well, tea throughout China’s history, tea has its origins as a medicinal plant. Chinese medicine is all about plants and animal parts, and tea consumption comes from a medicinal place. There’s different properties of tea that, when it gets processed differently into white teas, green teas, oolongs etc, impact your body differently. And body type is a part of that. Not everyone benefits the same way, and some have sensitivities.

For me personally, you know, I think I have been conditioned to just accept tea as part of my life in a really intrinsic way. I drink more tea than I do water, and it’s been this way since I was a kid. My mom, when I was an infant, would use tea leaves to rub around my gums before I had a tooth come through, because this was thought to be antibacterial. I have been drinking this stuff since I was an infant, and as an adult I’m constantly dosing myself, so I don’t really know any different. But I do see it with our guests who come in—people really do feel better from drinking tea, for different reasons. It gives them focus, it calms them, it brings a sense of awareness and focus internally. Some dream when they drink tea, whereas they never used to dream. People can almost get a little addicted to it, but I think some of the benefits are certainly obvious.

How much tea do you drink a day on average?

A private tea tasting at Té Company.

You touched briefly on the private tea tasting experience available to guests, but I’m wondering if you can tell our readers more about what they can expect if they book this?

Tea tasting—and really, just the act of sitting with someone to drink tea—is not a very common thing in the United States. I’d say in terms of experience, maybe a wine tasting is the closest thing to it, but generally people don’t know what to expect from this when we offer it.

Basically you sit with us for an hour and a half, or maybe two hours if I’m hosting—I am chatty and I talk a lot about tea—and we try five different teas in sequence. Generally that means maybe two different styles of tea, and some variation within those styles. The foundation of these tastings are educational based, so it’s not so much like, “Do you taste apricot in this brew vs. do you taste grass?” because the truth is, people taste different things. What we had for breakfast, our life experiences, all these things influence how we experience flavor. And so it’s really more about using the opportunity as an education, where we show you photos of where this specific tea was grown, what it looks like, and where it’s made. You get a virtual leaf to cup experience without traveling. We share photos and videos from when I go sourcing, and answer any questions people might have. Oftentimes I’m asked the same question you asked about health benefits; tea is a large and wild world, and I do not know every answer, but we try and make it a very fun and open experience, so if I don’t know something I’ll be there on my phone alongside you looking it up!

And of course, sometimes people just want to drink tea and talk about their cats, and that’s fine too. We have no rigid design to our private tastings. It doesn’t have to be a certain way.

How much time a year do you spend sourcing tea?

I’m gone about a month a year, give or take.

What did this charming building in the West Village used to be?

Most recently it was a vintage cookbook store, and then prior to that it was a lampshade store, and then at some point a record shop where you could smoke weed. When we got in here, it was empty. The building is from 1911.

People are obsessed with your Pineapple Linzer cookies! How did this all come about? What’s the most you’ve ever seen someone buy in one day?

So, the story of the cookie…

In the very early days of Té Company, when I first started thinking about selling brewed tea to public customers, my husband and I would sign up for these outdoor markets. And for the first few that we did, I knew that I wanted something that could help… well, tea can be a little obscure. It’s not as friendly on a pedestal to some people, especially when you’re charging a premium in line with it being a premium product. If you grew up on Lipton tea, it’s not as easy to connect with at first. And so I really just wanted something that would be fun to have as a hook—have a cookie, try some tea.

Pineapple cake is a very common tea snack in Taiwan, and it’s used as a celebratory snack. You can find it in most bakeries, and there’s certain places who are very well known for their version of pineapple cake, which in Taiwan is typically like a cube of butter pastry, soft and crunchy, with pineapple jam inside. My husband has been a chef for many years, so I asked him if he could make something like that. If you visit Taiwan and bring a gift home, it will be some kind of pineapple cake, probably picked up next to all the teas gift boxes they sell at the duty-free. It’s a very common thing.

The famed Pineapple Linzer cookie.

And so my husband, he did a few trials and sizes, but ultimately the linzer cookie form was the winning combo, with zest and cook salt. It started for the markets and then just kind of stuck around through us opening the store. It’s become a very important part of our journey.

In the beginning we didn’t make that many a day, maybe just 20? When we first opened nobody even knew where we were, we were very hidden, but then somebody wrote an article and mentioned the cookies and all of a sudden… people started wanting dozens and dozens… and we had people like, throwing temper tantrums or shedding tears because there aren’t enough cookies. I had to give people tissues. I felt bad, it’s like, “I’m sorry—there’s no kitchen attached so we can’t just make more.”

It’s become this kind of modern New York thing, I think—a taste of New York to travel home with or bring your friends.

Yes, absolutely, and as it has gotten more popular now we are a lot more organized. Over the holidays we sold big boxes, and we have a cookie assembly line in the back of the store. People are flying with these back home now from New York all the time.

Graceful Hill from Yilan, Taiwan.

Do you have a personal favorite tea? An all-time best, or something you return to year after year?

Yes. It’s called Graceful Hill, and it comes from a tiny town—Yilan—a beautiful town an hour outside Taipei. My parents are from there, and the family that makes the tea is friends with my grandfather. This is the very first tea garden I ever visited, although it’s not a town that’s famous for tea. You do not see these teas at the airport. People kind of don’t really know about it.

It is not an expensive tea, and it is machine harvested—in many ways, on the scale of how you evaluate tea, it is not top of the line. But I grew up drinking it, and until my late 20s it was nearly all I ever drank, and so the flavor of this tea has been imprinted on my brain since I was an infant. I have an emotional connection to this particular tea, and I’m a little afraid that it will go away, honestly. The wife of the family who grows it, she is 80 years old now, and she runs the show. I’m nervous every year that she will stay in good health.  This is the most gulpable and satisfying tea for me to drink anytime, in the shop or just around the house.

As for the rest, all the other teas—it depends! Picking a favorite tea is like picking your favorite child. It depends on the day, and the rest—depends! Greener style oolongs, or roasty oolongs… it’s like picking your children, who do you like most. It depends on the day.

Thank you so much. 

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

All photos courtesy of Té Company.

Sprudge Tea Week is presented by Breville USA.

The post Elena Liao of Manhattan’s Té Company: The Sprudge Tea Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Late in 2017, I couldn’t sleep. I was up all night, in fact. After several weeks of sleepless nights, lost in a fog of midnight madness, I decided to try the unthinkable: I give up caffeine. It was early 2018 and still the season of New Year resolutions and self-care regimes so it seemed like a good time to introduce the idea that I, the founder of coffee blog Sprudge, would go caffeine free in 2018.

I experienced about three days of headaches brought on by the withdrawal, but it didn’t take long (and it doesn’t take long for most) to acclimate to life without the stimulant. The only thing missing was the ritual of enjoying a hot beverage in the morning. Fortunately, I live in a city with a lot of cafes with excellent tea programs and those programs tend to have a few caffeine-free alternatives on offer. Indeed, almost every cafe has at least one herbal infusion, a botanical blend, or fruit-forward tisane, and as I continued what would be a seven-month journey of caffeine abstinence, I discovered delicious offerings beyond your run-of-the-mill rosehips or chamomile.

Just don’t call it tea.

While many call the following drinks herbal teas, these are *actually* herbal tisanes. Tea is a plant, Camellia sinensis, and if it’s not from that plant it’s not really tea. This is a pretty simple thing but it is wildly and widely misunderstood, and for tea professionals who do this stuff full time it is deeply frustrating, to which I sympathize.

Tisanes aren’t teas, but they are highly delicious, or at least they can be in the right hands. For the purpose of this guide, we’ll explore a range of beautiful steeping flowers, roots, plants, and fruits served warm and delightfully free of caffeine. I invite you all to correct your friends, tut-tut your family members, and go forth calling the drinks in this guide tisanes—botanical tisanes if you’re feeling especially fancy.

These drinks can be made at home with very little equipment or expertise and are available to purchase on the internet (or in some cases your produce aisle!) but they also get along quite swimmingly with gear from Breville, our sponsors here at Tea Week, whose range of automatic steeping systems seem ready-made for the thirsty tisane lover. For those at home counting, these tisanes are low calorie, vegan, mostly gluten-free*, keto, paleo, South Beach approved, and mostly sugar-free**.

A note about health claims: There are a lot of claims out there about the healthful benefits of ingredients like ginger, turmeric, mint, and many others in the tisanes below. While these are all well and great we’re going to base these suggestions purely on the taste experience and enjoyment factor—not their purported healthfulness.

Produce Aisle Winners

The following tisanes are simple to make and use fresh ingredients that most can find in their local specialty shop, farmers market, or grocery store.

Ginger Root

Ginger is a lovely tisane with a tremendous flavor. It’s a spicy meatball if you’re heavy on the ginger so I encourage you to start out using about a tablespoon per cup of hot water to start and moving up from there. At this point, I jam in as much ginger in my tea-pot as I can.

Steeping ginger photographed here in the Breville One-Touch Tea Maker.

Preparation: Carefully peel ginger root and slice into small coins (the smaller, the more infuse-able surface area). Boil water and steep for at least ten minutes. Strain and serve immediately. Wonderful with the addition of lemon and honey.

Hot tip: The Breville One-Touch Tea Maker will infuse ginger root in boiling hot water for 10 minutes at a time.

Fresh Peppermint

Fresh mint tea is a staple in Amsterdam cafes and couldn’t be simpler: stuffing mint leaves in a glass and steeping them in water. No tea bags or filter necessary! Not only is it a pleasure to drink, it’s also a beautiful presentation.

Preparation: Rinse peppermint leaves thoroughly. Place a considerable amount in a tall tempered glass. Pour boiling hot water over leaves and steep for five minutes. Drink from the glass!

Beautiful Blends

These tisanes are a mix of dried ingredients—most available in grab-and-go sachets or in their loose form.

Organic Turmeric Tonic

The Organic Turmeric Tonic from Kilogram Tea is a blend of turmeric root, ginger, lemon verbena, licorice root, lemon peel, and citrus oils. It’s warming, spicy, and slightly bitter. The pyramid-shaped filter bags are a nice touch and keep those pesky pieces of roots out of your drink.

Source: Kilogram Tea
Price: $8.99 for fifteen bags. Also available bagless.

Also worth checking out: Rishi Turmeric Ginger, which all but saved my life during a most unpleasant 2016 Winter season.

Blend No. 67: Meadow

Portland, Oregon’s Steven Smith Teamaker produces this tasty blend of “golden Egyptian chamomile flowers and mildly stimulating, fragrant hyssop joined with smooth Cape rooibos, rose petals and linden flowers.” It has a pleasant mouthfeel and sweetness and a pleasure to steep and re-steep.

Source: Steven Smith Teamaker

Price: $11.99 for 15 sachets. Also available loose.

Carrot

Song Tea in San Francisco creates botanical blends that simulate the profile and visual representation of their traditional teas. Carrot is a “blend of domestic dried carrots and burdock, South African honeybush, Chinese ginger, and Indonesian sweet cinnamon” and has a remarkable fruit quality backed up by the spice of the ginger and cinnamon. Should you come across a coffee bar serving this tisane, it pairs wonderfully with a single-origin espresso shot.

Source: Song Tea
Price: $14 for 120 grams, loose.

Single-Origin Tisanes

These are perhaps the highest-end tisanes on the list in terms of price and scarcity in the US. Available through special importers, the following tisanes aren’t for the faint of heart (but they sure are delicious).

Kettl Nagano Soba Cha 

Sugars in the buckwheat kernels caramelize in the toasting process giving this tisane almost a sugar-cereal-in-the-morning flavor but in a really good way. Sourced from Nagano by Kettl, this beverage is one of our favorites.

Preparation: Kettl recommends steeping 5 grams in 200ml of 205ºF water for but a minute.

Source: Kettl
Price: $20/200grams

Roasted Black Soybean

Tea Dealers sells this roasted soybean tisane that also doubles as a snack (the beans can be eaten once they’ve been steeped!) These soybeans are a smaller cultivar known as Sengoku from Hokkaido. The drink is slightly savory and has a nice sweetness.

Preparation: Steep 5 grams in 200ml of 195ºF water for a minute up to three times.

Source: Tea Dealers
Price: $16/100 grams

Wild Persimmon Leaves 

To wrap up this guide I present another offering from Tea Dealers: wild persimmon leaf tisane sourced from Hadong, Korea. The tisane is orange, like the fruit, but has an herbaceous and nutty quality.

Preparation: Steep 5 grams in 180ml of 176ºF water 3-4 times.

Source: Tea Dealers
Price: $38/50 grams

This guide is just the beginning to the many caffeine-free opportunities that exist out there. There are hundreds of herbs, botanicals, roots, leaves, twigs, fruits, and heck, even bones out there to throw in heated water and infuse for one-to-several minutes. Drink up!

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

Sprudge Tea Week is presented by Breville USA.

The post Actually, It’s A Tisane appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

After a successful Kickstarter campaign and the subsequent addition of print into their weekly subscription service, Los Angeles-based Yes Plz is expanding. Now, those looking to enjoy the combination an ever-changing coffee blend and weekly zine from Tony “Tonx” Konecny and Sumi Ali need not wait for it to be delivered to their doorsteps. In a Sprudge exclusive, Yes Plz has announced their brand new stockist program. Starting Monday, March 4th, consumers will be able to find the weekly box set at book and periodical shops and cafes around LA.

Like with the subscription, each Yes Plz box found at a stockist comes with a 250g bag of The Mix, a weekly-changing, “ever-evolving blend” per the website—currently The Mix consists of coffee from San Ignacio Peru, Uganda, and the El Limonar from Guatemala, but Ali tells Sprudge that blend will change next week to include an Ethiopian coffee sourced through Collaborative Coffee Source and two Central American coffees—and Yes Plz Weekly, the brand’s accompanying print mag covering an eclectic mix of topics. Previous topics have ranged from dance to the postal service, bees to dating in the digital age in the soon-to-be-released Issue 015, which includes an interview with writer/filmmaker Nancy Jo Sales, whose HBO documentary Swiped “investigates the dark side of the mobile dating trend,” as well as “[taking] up the cause of the star-crossed would-be lover with some Missed Connections.”

Konecny tells Sprudge that the plan with Yes Plz was always to break out of the subscription-only model, but they needed time “kick the tires.”

The beans and ‘zines combo is a little unusual and I think people are immediately intrigued by it or drawn to it when you hand them a box—whereas with merchandizing stuff on the web, you’re always pushed to center the value proposition around getting coffee sent by mail, framing it around “solving a problem” for the customer. We don’t want to limit ourselves only to people who’ve bought into the utility having a coffee subscription.

It’s hard to grasp what we’re doing with this crazy print magazine thing without holding one in your hands. And then people can’t believe we’re doing it every single week!

For the initial brick-and-mortar release, Yes Plz will be available at Dayglow Coffee, Dinosaur, Kindness & Mischief, Cafe Dulce, and WoodCat as well as Now Serving book shop. More stockists will be announced in the coming weeks, and Konecny states that Yes Plz is looking to expand outside of the LA area, assuming the right partners come along. Any interested stockists can inquire about carrying Yes Plz via email at stockists@yesplz.coffee.

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

Images via Yes Plz

The post Coffee & Print? Yes Plz, Coming To LA Stockists Next Week appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

I have written quite a bit about coffee-related shoes, each time not-so-subtly suggesting that the company give me a pair because of what a big-deal tastemaker I am in the coffee industry. The ploy thus far has been unsuccessful. And I’m done—DONE I TELL YOU—groveling at the trendily shod feet of these brands for a pair of coffee-adjacent footwear. But these avocado toast sneakers, hatchi matchi, Saucony should definitely send me a pair of those.

After what I can only assume was a successful Pumpkin Spice Latte colorway for the Grid SDs—successful enough to not send their old friend Zac a pair at least—Saucony has turned to another ubiquitous cafe offering, avocado toast, for their newest limited edition shoe design. According to Footwear News, the Originals Shadow 6000 “Avocado Toast” is a green and brown take on the brand’s “classic running silhouette.” Per Saucony’s website, the shoe is made of a “toast-ed leather” upper (which some may call babyshit brown, if you use that sort of colorful language), with “smashed avocado textured suede,” and a “red pepper flake speckle collar lining.” The insole features an image of an avocado cut in half, with “Saucamole” written across the heel.

Released on Tuesday earlier this week, February 26^th, the Saucony Originals Shadow 6000 “Avocado Toast” is now available via the brand’s website and through select retailers for $130. And at that price, perhaps this is the avocado toast Millennials are buying everyday that is keeping them from buying houses.

I can’t help but wonder, though, if Saucony knows the difference between a smashed avocado and guacamole. Much of the marketing around the new sneaker is very guacamole-forward. Cilantro, lime, fresno peppers, some sort of chipotle or perhaps adobo spice, these are all things that could reasonably go in a nice guac. I’d prefer jalapeños and I have no idea what those scallions are doing there, so maybe they don’t know what guacamole is either. All I’m saying is, you call that “toast-ed” a “cumin leather upper” and you’ve got yourself some nice guacamole shoes.

And don’t get me wrong, Saucony, I want you to send me a pair of these shoes. But if you want my $130, you’re going to have to make a new colorway that’s some combination of coffee, wine, and queso, because that’s what is most likely to get spilled on my sweet kicks.

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 Footwear News

The post Avocado Toast Sneakers Are Real And I Want Them appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photos by Evan Gilman for Sprudge Media Network.

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

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Source: Coffee News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top image via the POUR Coffee Festival

The post POUR Coffee Festival Returns To Charlotte March 10th appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Harris.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Inside Upper Left Roasters’ New Downtown Portland Cafe appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

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

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

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

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

DCSA sandwich board. Photo by Audrey Fiodorenko

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

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

Illustration by Zac Cadwalader.

The post UK’s Department Of Coffee & Social Affairs Acquires Baker & Spice appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

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

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

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

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

MUMAC. Photo courtesy of Gruppo Cimbali

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

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

Paolo Molteni

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

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

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

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

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

Early Espresso History Room at MUMAC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Source: Coffee News