The Curb Kaimuki Archives - Page 11 of 36 - The Curb Kaimuki

For those convening upon Boston this past weekend, there was no shortage of great coffee at mini-cafes popping up outside, over, around, and through the 2019 Specialty Coffee Expo. But of course, when you get right down to it, there will always be those superstars of the pop, those who pop a little EXTRA with the best coffee or the longest lines or biggest buzz or deepest DJ grooves. Here’s what our team on the ground spotted on the scene of see and be seen coffee pop-ups.

Miir

Seattle-based Miir is an “it” vessel manufacturer these days, whose sustainability mission as a reuseable cup company walks the walk with a giving program that contributes grant money to philosophically aligned projects like providing clean water to the Asian subcontinent, or bicycles to help Zambian students (and teachers) get to school. The B Corp’s Seattle flagship is LEED-certified, and let’s be honest—the cups are also stylish af, which is why all the coffee brands you love already use them.

And which is also why fans of the brand—and free stuff—lined up for times upwards of one hour Friday and Saturday mornings to get some of the most coveted swag of the convention: SCA Expo-exclusive Miir mugs, which of course you could have topped up with Verve coffee brewed in Miir’s ingenious fold-flat pop-out travel drippers, or with the same roaster’s Nitro Flash Brew coffee. Once in hand, the Miir Expo cup proved to be the perfect fashionable accessory to flash while lounging around the modern furnishings of the Miir booth flipping through Verve’s latest Farmlevel journal, or admiring numerous displays of other Miir designs out of which one was not currently drinking. And if you so happened to be sucked out of the calming Miir oasis and back into the vortex of the show floor, that same cup proved perfect for sustainably sampling coffee from all the other great pop-ups out there.

La Marzocco

It’s almost not even news to say that La Marzocco‘s Expo presence drew a bustling crowd, but let’s go ahead and say it: this equipment company is always on the vanguard not only of coffee tech but of roaster/barista relationships. The LM booth at Expo is a perennial nexus of activity for those looking for an excellent espresso drink from a quality roaster (maybe one they’ve never tried before) made on a beautiful machine.

This year the company drew attention for its angular new KB90 machine, built with barista ergonomics in mind, like portafilters that slide straight in. But the La Marzocco booth—or should we say, booths, as the company’s appeal is large enough to have literally spilled across the convention aisle—was also a hotspot for roasters from all over to pop up throughout the event. The list of guests on the La Marzocco booth included, but was certainly not limited to, such names as Tandem Coffee Roasters, George Howell, Linea Caffe, Metric Coffee, Pavement Coffeehouse, Joe Coffee Company, Ruby Coffee Roasters, Variety Coffee, and Onyx Coffee Lab. You were pretty much guaranteed NOT to get a bad coffee if you came through—and that’s the kind of guarantee we can all pop about.

Dark Matter

Chicago-based Dark Matter flipped the show floor script a bit with a corner cafe/booth that pumped out good music and good energy while drawing in a crowd that felt like community—no small task in a building that looks like a slightly upscale airplane hanger. First, the company went big on color: from bringing in a vanload of tropical plants, to hanging a huge, vibrant mural from Chicago artist Dan Grzeca with the artwork for the brand’s new This Caffeine Kills Fascists coffee blend. Guests brewed in color as well, on loud, proud Origami coffee drippers, and Dark Matter’s flamboyant “coffee cold” cans (with names just as trippy as the can art, like Brown Acid and Black Splash) were on sample too.

But beyond all the posi vibes emanating from the actual, you know, marketing, Dark Matter’s was also a booth with a meaning: Hope For the Day, a suicide prevention and awareness group, shared space alongside the coffee crew, offering community outreach and their “it’s ok not to be ok” messaging. It was uplifting to come by this booth again and again during the show (and not just for the caffeine).

Atlas Coffee

If there’s an importer with a stealth reputation for fun it might just be Atlas Coffee, which doubled down on its Expo presence with both a high traffic coffee pop-up on the main show floor as well as a coffee bar in the World Coffee Championships Roaster Village. At either location you were likely to find pro baristas alongside traders alongside coffee producers, sharing both coffee and stories.

On the exhibition floor, Atlas’ bright, sort of picnic-chic cafe stall cranked out guest roasts all through the day surrounded by those who’d brought the same coffees to this (highly!) drinkable point from their origins as green. And while it might be a little easier to impress the masses roaming glassy-eyed up and down aisles of de-gassing valve technologists and water wizards, Atlas held its own in the Roaster Village alongside the likes of full-time, full-on retailers like ST. ALi, Stumptown, locals Broadsheet, and many more. When we visited, Sumatra’s Ketiara Cooperative was the featured origin, the kiosk graciously hosted not just by Atlas’ own staffers but by the co-op’s leader, Ramah, who also offered woven Ketiara wristbands to visitors. You can’t drink a coffee under much more origin-storybook conditions than these, folks.

Chemex

Leave it to Chemex to do something both totally stylish and a little elusive all at the same time. Tucked away on the second floor of the convention center—which of course you’d easily find if you had diligently attended all of the lectures you’d planned to—popped an epic Chemex kiosk, its glassy-Rube-Goldberg-esque towering waterworks providing a stunning spectacle bathed in natural light. These hometown heroes—okay, home state—okay, home commonwealth—lived up to their reputation of timeless good-looks, offering a variety of brews on lovely new glass single-cup Chemex X-5 drippers, spinning dizzying rings around the barista (don’t try this at home) in a handcrafted artisan bar. The drippers were paired with new Chemex “Chettles” (oh yes they did), induction-heated water kettles with gooseneck spouts. (They’re also cool to the touch and dishwasher safe, for those of you teaching your children to brew alongside you.)

From the grand presentation (yes, that’s a Chemex as big as your torso at the top of that crazy display) to the new products on display to the respectful murmur that always accompanies this classic brand, you’d think that might be enough. But no—in a seating area adjacent to the Chemex pour-over bar was the pièce de résistance—a Chemex The Game station, projecting the truly unique game onto a big screen for all around to see your successes (or failures) at reliving the life of Chemex founder Dr. Peter Schlumbohm, filtering out the nastiest bits of coffee brewing in search of that perfect cup. As we sat basking in the late-afternoon glow high above the trade show floor, living out our fantasies as an 8-bit inventor, one couldn’t help but think they’d achieved a glory almost as crowning as having your own gold-plated Chemex hood ornament.

Liz Clayton is the associate editor at Sprudge Media Network and the co-author of Where to Drink Coffee. Read more Liz Clayton on Sprudge.

The post The Incredible Pop-Up Cafes of SCA Expo 2019 appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Freda Yuan (Photo by Gary Handley)

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.

Freda Yuan is an accomplished coffee professional based in London. She is the Head of Coffee at Origin Coffee Roasters; a two-time UK Cup Tasters Champion, placing 3rd in the world at the World Cup Tasters Championship in 2017; a licensed Q Grader and SCA educator in both English and Mandarin; and an MBA from Middlesex University. Yuan has worked many roles throughout her coffee career and has been a vocal champion for recovery and advocacy related to eating disorders.

Nominated by Cat O’Shea

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

Substantiality of the coffee business and coffee supply chain especially from farm and environmental perspectives.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

Sensory and connection with people. I suffered from bulimia and depression before. Through tasting coffee, it increased my self-awareness in not just tasting but also other elements in life. It also helps me to recover from the conditions and now engage with more like-minded people.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

Sugar, milk, and decaf. I personally think people should enjoy whatever coffees they like. The specialty coffee industry is still too small. To be able to expand to broader audience, we should be more approachable to the general public.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

Sweetness. I always look for sweet and balanced coffee when I source. It’s always been my thing.

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

I dialed-in one decaf coffee in my early barista life. The espresso was really sweet and juicy. That is when I realized decaf coffee can be good, too.

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

It is when we are not distracted by phones or any other conversation with friends, but just stop for moment and truly focus on the cup of coffee in our hands. The story behind that moment can be one of hardship—hardship of producing, roasting, and brewing—but this is what helps make the coffee truly stand out.

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

I am the head of coffee of Origin Coffee Roasters in UK. I am very proud to say that it is my current dream job. Not only that I source quality coffees for Origin, I also set up many internal and external educational events to encourage everyone to pursue their passions.

Who are your coffee heroes?

Anette Moldvaer and Sara Morrocchi. They both are doing some incredible work at origin.

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

Eckhart Tolle. His books make me understand and appreciate life more.

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

Maybe restaurant management or textile related work. These were my life before coffee.

Do you have any coffee mentors?

I am really lucky that I was supported by many great coffee people. Sam Langdon from Caravan Coffee Roasters was one of the guys who really saw my talent and took me under his wings.

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

Relax, it is just coffee. This universe is bigger than coffee.

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

Comandante grinder, Kalita Wave 185 and filters, and Brewista Scale. These are my travel essentials.

Best song to brew coffee to?

Actually I’ve never thought about this! I don’t play music when I brew coffee.

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

My crystal ball is very murky still. I hope I can contribute more work at origin and do more promoting specialty coffee and mental illness awareness to general public.

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

Passionfruit flavored granola with banana and PG Tips tea with Oatly.

When did you last drink coffee?

This morning.

What was it?

Werka Wuri from Caravan.

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 Freda Yuan: The Sprudge Twenty Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Southwest Wisconsin’s Kickapoo Coffee have announced that after 14 years in existence, the specialty coffee roaster will change names. In a statement released yesterday, April 17th, owners TJ Semanchin and Caleb Nicholes cite appropriation as the reason the company has opted for the wholesale change.

According to the press release, Semanchin and Nicholes chose the name Kickapoo when starting their coffee company back in 2005 “with the intention of honoring the place where our business has its roots: the Kickapoo River Valley.” They were at that time unaware that Kickapoo—an Algonquin word meaning “one who goes there, then here”—is also the name of an indigenous people that once inhabited the area. There are currently four tribes in the Native American Kickapoo Nation: the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, and the Mexican-Kickapoos.

“Holding onto the name was not consistent with our values,” Semanchin tells Sprudge. “We really started asking ourselves the hard questions within the last year… one question led to another… and once we allowed ourselves to take the blinders off of some willful ignorance, it just seems like something we had to do.”

Per the company’s statement, “Semanchin and Nicholes have apologized directly to the three US-based Kickapoo Tribes, all of which were unaware of the name use until the company reached out last fall, and have shared their decision to change the company’s name with each Tribe’s leadership.” Semanchin tells Sprudge that the coffee company has a face-to-face meeting with the leadership of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma in the coming weeks as part of an ongoing conversation with the different tribes. The point of these conversations, according to Semanchin, is to own up to their mistake and keep the lines of communication open. Semanchin goes on to make clear that the company isn’t seeking any labor, emotional or physical, from the Kickapoo Nation: “we know this is our problem not [theirs].”

The new name for the coffee company has yet to be decided and is expected to roll out in early 2020. According to the press release, the new name will seek to accomplish Semanchin and Nicholes’ original intention in picking the Kickapoo name: “A pride in the place where we live, roast, and raise our families remains at the heart of what we do. Our new name will better reflect this in an honest, authentic, and respectful manner.” Semanchin tells Sprudge that the announcement of the change doesn’t coincide with the rebrand itself to allow their mistake to be seen in its own light. “We didn’t want a new name and marketing blitz gloss over [this issue].”

In an effort to remain transparent about everything associated with the Kickapoo name, Semanchin and Nicholes will be hosting a Q&A session via Instagram Live at 12:00pm CST today, April 18th. The company will also respond to questions, comments, or concerns sent to name@kickapoocoffee.com.

To read the full statement, visit Kickapoo Coffee’s official website.

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

Top image via Milwaukee: Inside Scott Lucey’s New Kickapoo Coffee Cafe

The post Citing Appropriation, Kickapoo Coffee Announce They Will Change Names appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Du Jianing of China is the 2019 World Brewers Cup Champion. This is Jianing’s first win in three World Brewers Cup appearances, finishing 15^th in 2016 and 8^th in 2018.

Watching Du Jianing’s winning Finals routine on Sunday, one couldn’t help but feel like you were sitting around her kitchen table or at a practice run in her home shop Uni-Uni Roasters and Bakery in Nanjing (part of former Chinese Barista Champion Jeremy Zhang’s M2M Coffee brand), drinking exceptional coffee while Jianing used you as a sensory judge proxy. Part of this is due to the 10-minute routine itself, where Jianing prepared a fourth cup of her Ninety Plus Gesha Estate coffee for herself to drink with the judges.

But what truly made this feel like a dry run was how flawless it was. No one—and I mean no one, not World Barista Champions, not World Brewers Cup champions, absolutely no one—has a Finals routine that is without even the slightest indicator that they are feeling the weight of the moment. Perhaps it’s a shaky hand showing signs of nerves, often it comes as a script bobble, or maybe it is just a pause that is perhaps too pregnant to be intentional. No one makes it out unscathed. Except Du Jianing.

Her performance, which I have since gone back to rewatch multiple times to find any signs that she is in fact mortal like the rest of us (jury is still out), was completely and utterly without blemish. It was a 10 minutes of casual discussion about intentional, well-thought brewing, delivered as though the grandest prize of them all was not on the line.

For her winning brew, Jianing came equipped with a Gesha variety coffee—roasted just a brief four minutes in an Ikawa sample roaster—that she pre-ground off-stage. This was not due to any sort of time constraint; anyone who saw Jianing’s routine knows that she could have calmly fit 15 minutes worth of performance into the tight 10-minute window the Brewers Cup provides. It was due simply to the complexity of her grind. Jianing opted to grind her coffee twice: once as a coarse ground after which the chaff was removed to promote flavor clarity and then ground again to a smaller size. This, according to Jianing, produces particles sizes that are “more evenly distributed.”

With coffee in tow, Jianing opted to brew through the Origami Dripper, a new device whose shape draws inspiration from the flatbed Kalita Wave filter, essentially eliminating the air insulation normally created between the circular brewing device and the ridged filters. Along with the Taiwanese Brewers Cup Champion Shih Yuan Hsu, Jianing was one of two Finalists to use this brew method, doing so because the thinner paper and large opening at the bottom of the brewer are such that “water can go through the coffee quickly and achieve clarity of flavor.”

The flavor produced was punctuated by floral and apricot notes throughout, beginning with the floral, apricot, cacao, and whipped cream aroma that presented on the palate as apricot, white grape, cacao, champagne, and delicate florals, and finishing with a lingering aftertaste of white wine and apricot. It was a brew that Jianing describes wonderfully (and the best coffee description I think I’ve ever heard) as “round and elegant like a cello concert.”

Beyond flavor calls, it was the easy precision of Jianing’s routine that impressed both onlookers and judges alike. Not only was she  intentionally oscillating pour rates from six grams per second to four and then up to five, but she was providing judges with real time information via iPad to check her work. Counter Culture’s Kathy Altamirano, a sensory judge during Jianing’s Finals performance, explains the high-stakes game the Chines Brewers Cup Champion was playing: “Her presentation was the vision of transparency. She provided us with time, temperature, and flow rate readings in real time for each brew, which is a huge risk if you make a mistake on stage.”

Which, of course, she didn’t.

2018 World Brewers Cup Champion Emi Fukahori presents Jianing with the first place trophy.

But perhaps the most striking thing in Jianing’s exacting performance was not what it included, but what it didn’t: information about the coffee itself. While most scripts will devote a majority of their 10 minutes to discussing the interesting or experimental facets of the coffee they are using, Jianing’s routine was notably light. Yes, we learned it was a Nintey Plus Gesha Estates coffee grown at 1,600 MASL that used local bacteria during fermentation, but that’s it. That’s not a Cliff’s Notes version of the information; that’s all of it. You’d have to have foreknowledge of Ninety Plus or do research on your own even to come up with Ethiopia as the country of origin. And while I can’t with 100% assurance say this wasn’t some sort of misstep—though were it a misstep it would bring the grand total to one, so it’s safe to assume it was intentional—what it did do was place the focus on the coffee she was brewing right then and there. Where it came from, who produced it, what variety it is, what wacky processing method was used during fermentation, these are all important factors for how they helped shape the coffee up to that point.

But this routine wasn’t about the coffee up to that point. It was about the coffee at that very moment, how it tasted on stage at the Finals of the World Brewers Cup Championship in Boston, Massachusetts, thousands of miles away from where it was grown and even further from Jianing’s home in Nanjing. This was a moment not about a coffee’s past, but about its immediate present: being brewed by a world-class coffee professional, to be shared with a panel of expert tasters from around the world, in front of a crowd of hundreds. It was the moment Du Jianing became the 2019 World Brewers Cup 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 Elizabeth Chai

The post Du Jianing Of China Is The 2019 World Brewers Cup Champion appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

For the past couple of years, March 29, 2019 has been known by some in the UK as “Brexit Day,” the historic moment when the country would unmoor itself from the tiresome burden of Europe and float off into a glorious, sun-dappled, immigration-free future.

However, if you’ve been paying attention to the news, or a calendar, you’ll know that Brexit Day has come and gone, with the shambles that is Brexit limping on from extension to humiliating extension. This uncertainty has real-world consequences, one of which is the lack of skilled workers willing to risk moving to the UK when a no-deal, hard-border exit is still a genuine possibility. We’ve covered the impact of Brexit on the British coffee industry before, but since 2017 the issue hasn’t much changed. If anything, it’s become even more muddled. And it may just mean there aren’t enough workers to run the coffee shops.

According to Sky News, Brexit will make it “more difficult to attract applicants from EU countries and that British workers have not yet made up for the shortfall.” And the disparity between foreign-born and home grown workers is significant; Andrea Wareham, an HR manager at Pret a Manger, estimates that “just one in 50 applicants for jobs at the chain are British.” This is amid a bit of a boom in British coffee culture, where the UK coffee shop market grew 7.9% in the previous year, bringing the total value of the industry to £10.1 billion ($13.27 billion). An estimated 6,500 new coffee shops will open over the next four years and will require an additional 40,000 workers.

But the question remains: if there is a no-deal, hard-border Brexit, who will work in British cafes? Skilled European baristas have dozens of friendly cities around Europe with burgeoning specialty coffee scenes would seem a much safer, more hospitable, bet.

This much is certain: come Brexit Halloween, not many will go dressed as baristas.

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

The post Who Will Work In British Cafes After Brexit? appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Emboldened by my trusty press pass, I was lucky enough to get behind the velvet rope at Boston’s 2019 Re:Co event. Whereas Re:Co—an event put on by the Specialty Coffee Association that has often been likened to the Ted Talks of coffee—usually focuses on a variety of subjects relevant to thought leaders in specialty coffee, this year’s event homed in on just one subject: coffee’s C market price crisis.

Attacking the crisis from a multiplicity of angles, the event started at the macro then moved to the micro, moving from producer to consumer and back to producer. The goal of this year’s content was to move ideas toward action; everyone was asked during Re:Co founder Peter Giuliano’s opening remarks to think about their Re:Co pledge, and for the first time, Re:Co attendees were split into interactive group sessions to find and commit to those pledges. There were way too many amazing speakers for me to be able to cover all of them, so to follow the event blow by blow, check out our coverage on Sprudge Live under Re:Co Boston’s official hashtag #RecoBoston. To learn more about the larger themes engaged at Re:Co, read on!

A Key Highlight to Set the Stage

One highlight I want to lead with is the single exit fallacy. Brought to the Re:Co stage by Yale post-doc Janina Grabs, the single exit fallacy starts with an analogy: picture a crowded theater when a fire breaks out. The theater has an emergency exit and people start exiting; the first person gets out fine, as does the second, and the third, but what about the hundredth? This is Grabs’s analogy for using quality differentiation to help farmers exit the C market.

As more farmers try to produce quality coffee that will allow them to differentiate their way to better prices, they incur increased cost of production that cuts into their quality premiums (if they receive as-promised premiums at all). At the same time, the increasing mainstreaming of specialty also means that the concept becomes watered down, making it harder—not easier—for producers to differentiate by producing quality. Grabs’s talk hurt; it laid out an essential failing of the third wave movement, one which few even acknowledge, much less address. By focusing on quality, we’re trying to move select people out of an emergency exit rather than turning on the sprinkler system that would quench the fire, ensuring that all coffee producers make a living wage regardless of the quality of coffee they produce.

The Macro Level

After kicking off the event, Giuliano welcomed former SCA Executive Director Emeritus Ric Rhinehart to the stage to lay out the coffee price crisis as it stands. Using the analogy of the heart condition that led to the heart attack he survived, Rhinehart described the coffee price crisis in similar terms. While the C price’s drop to around a dollar for an extended period of time is indeed a crisis in the same way a heart attack is, it doesn’t happen in a vacuum: the conditions that allowed this to happen are chronic, even as this episode is acute. “We can see that coffee follows a typical boom-bust cycle,” said Rhinehart, displaying a graph of coffee prices over the last 40 years. “This is typical market behavior, but the average price throughout has never adjusted for inflation over 40 years.” So even if the C price were in a more “normal” place, it still wouldn’t have adjusted for cost increases that producers experience.

On the more esoteric side, trade attorney Jeff Glassie dropped some knowledge about how antitrust laws can sometimes constrain organizing around prices. Some things that are illegal under antitrust laws include price fixing (collectively deciding that you will only accept a certain price) and boycotts.

Pushing back on oft-repeated beliefs that are completely unsubstantiated (eg. “we only use 10% of our brains”), Peter David of Enveritas collected mass data on how many coffee farms there really are (that would be 12.5 million, not the oft-cited 28 million). He admonished us to question everything, to be cynical, and to think about how we know what we know.

Discussing market consolidation and hitting us right in the facts with a slate of necessarily depressing statistics, Andrea Olivar of Solidaridad talked to us about the Coffee Barometer, a major market survey on key market trends in coffee, a resource that alerted many to the severity of the crisis. Some salient stats:

• As an industry, our annual investment in sustainability is under 1%.
• Only 10% of the value generated by the coffee industry directly reaches producing countries.
• 55% of global coffee production is certified, but only 20% is actually sold as such.

On Day 2, Peter Roberts of Emory University talked to us about his work on the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide, a guide that collates prices paid for coffee shared anonymously by coffee buyers. In discussions of taking coffee off the C market, he found that one of the main points of resistance was that people wanted a benchmark, and harmful as it is, the C market does offer that—but, as Roberts said, “Almost any benchmark would be better than the C market. My weight would even be a better benchmark for coffee prices than the C market.” So he’s working on the Transaction Guide, hoping it will act like the World Coffee Producers Forum presented to us “on behalf of all the producers of the world, many of whom couldn’t be here.”

Texas A&M doctoral candidate Taya Brown also discussed issues of profitability, specifically for smallholders in Guatemala. ”I’m sure some of you pay really fair prices for coffee that you buy,” she said, pointing out (similarly to Grabs) that producing quality raises costs. “The issue is that the quality has to be there first.” Brown encouraged us to think about profitability in terms of not just money, but also of knowledge, and to always share knowledge.

Utilizing live translation earpieces for the first time, SCA board member Chad Trewick hosted a multi-language panel featuring Rene Leon Gomez, Herbert Peñalosa, Peter Dupont, and Michelle Bhattacharyya. Gomez laid out some painful statistics, including the fact that the US coffee industry received more money last year than all of 25 million coffee producers in the world. Peñalosa focused heavily on the importance of sharing knowledge; farming is skilled labor, and not everyone has the knowledge toolkit that would allow them to achieve profitability. Dupont discussed how pushes for transparency can look in a retail setting, from writing numbers on walls to printing them on cups. Bhattacharyya talked about her work on establishing a living wage project in the banana industry, and how that experience would benefit the coffee industry by both educating consumers and empowering them to make values-based purchases.

Further emphasizing the role of education and sharing knowledge, Enrique Magana of the Salvadoran miller and exporter Magana Coffee talked about how lack of access to knowledge of best practices hinders farmer profitability.

Re:Co attendees talk between sessions.

The Consumer Side

While production is a necessary and fascinating focus of much of Re:Co’s content, I found talks on the consumer side incredibly engaging, featuring stars like Michelle Johnson of The Chocolate Barista, Phyllis Johnson of BD Imports, and Red Bay Coffee founder Keba Konte.

Michelle Johnson started off her talk with an intriguing proposition about a coffee company whose consumer face is recognizable to all of us: “What if I told y’all that there’s someone who’s doing everything specialty is and more? And what if I told you that was McDonald’s.” In 2014, McCafe made a commitment to source all of their coffee sustainably by 2020—and so far, according to Johnson, they’re completely on track. But what does that mean in such a large company? Is it just marketing? According to Johnson, no; McDonald’s actually created their own certification standards that work alongside existing certifications, and goes even further. Michelle Johnson’s session was the talk of Re:Co Boston, showing her range as a speaker and on one of coffee’s biggest stages.

Phyllis Johnson, who hosted the larger session on consumer trends, shared some salient facts about coffee consumption and changing demographics: while white consumers were once the main consumers of coffee (both specialty and commodity), the gap has closed. Now, white gourmet coffee consumption has actually dropped off and ethnic minorities are filling the gap. Black consumers, in particular, are drinking equal amounts of gourmet coffee to white consumers. According to Johnson, these numbers highlight how far specialty coffee has come in terms of diversity—“but we still have a long way to go.” She encouraged us to let go of sameness and rethink the definition of specialty coffee.

Johnson then welcomed Konte onto the stage for a conversation on bringing new groups of people into coffee as workers and consumers. Knowing that an entire workforce and consumer base in Oakland, CA was underserved and underutilized, Red Bay focused on hiring diversely and creating space that truly feels like it’s for everyone. “It’s important to try harder, be more intentional, and get creative,” said Konte, who pulled staff members from a diverse range of industries like chocolate and wine. Discussing the decolonizing work his company seeks to do in coffee, he introduced the nomenclature “value streams” as an alternative to “value chains,” pointing out that “coffee is an industry that, like cotton, is founded on slave labor.” Konte also explained how African Americans can find connection with coffee through its connection to Africa.

Moving us to coffee consumption around the equator, SCA board member Vera Espindola Rafael questioned the term “producing countries” and talked about the thriving cafe and consumer scene in countries that grow coffee, from Brazil to Colombia to Mexico. Not only are consumers there excited about specialty coffee, they’re willing and able to pay for it, and in the case of Mexico, coffee producers make more money and save hassle and energy selling their coffee to local roasting companies. “Specialty coffee is still niche in countries that grow coffee,” said Espindola Rafael. “But coffee retailers are driving new trends and influencing consumers to appreciate the value they add. Can we continue to build on this?”

Re:Co volunteers pour drinks for attendees.

Moving Ideas to Action

At the beginning of Re:Co, we were asked to choose between four labels: influencer, thinker, skeptic, and financial mind. In the middle of day two, we were split into interactive change-making sessions with our chosen cohort (in case you were wondering, I’m a skeptic). In these sessions, we looked through our particular lenses and put down pledges that make sense within our personal spheres of influence. To see the pledges taken by various attendees, follow the hashtag #MyRecoPledge.

As I mentioned earlier, this interactive session was a first for Re:Co, and a necessary one. It’s important that people attending an exclusive event like Re:Co use their privilege to drive action and move the industry forward. I was lucky to attend Re:Co, and as Chad Trewick said, “Most of the people affected by the coffee crisis can’t even dream of being here in this room, and we need to sit with that for a minute.” With Browning of Enveritas’s revelation that one in ten coffee farmers will lose a child to hunger this year, there was a definite dissonance inherent to the luxurious banquet hall in which we enjoyed the event and the plentiful food and coffee we had access to.

“What will the future say about us, the coffee industry,” asked Browning. “I think they will say we didn’t do enough.” We as an industry need to move forward in action, even if we don’t know what a comprehensive solution looks like, and Re:Co aimed to push us in that direction. To increase access, Re:Co is releasing talks in both video and podcast form starting next week, so keep an eye out and experience these talks firsthand.

RJ Joseph (@RJ_Sproseph) is a Sprudge staff writer, publisher of The Knockbox, and coffee professional based in the Bay Area. Read more RJ Joseph on Sprudge Media Network.

Photos by Michelle Johnson for Sprudge.

The post The Very Best Of The 2019 Re:Co Symposium appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

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