The Curb Kaimuki Archives - Page 27 of 36 - The Curb Kaimuki

We are up to our ears in ballots here at Sprudge Studios campaign headquarters. Still with two short weeks from the closing of the polls for the 10th Annual Sprudgie Awards presented by Oatly and we can already unequivocally that the number of votes cast this year is going to be the largest in history.

But don’t let the record-setting turnout deter you from letting your voice be heard; you’ve still gotta rock the sprote. Yours may be the difference between your favorite coffee person/shop/thing winning or losing to that coffee person/shop/thing. You know the one. There’s still time! Vote for your faves, start a grassroots campaign, hire a few bad actors to spread disinformation about your opponents (don’t actually do that). But whatever you do, don’t not vote.

Vote here for the Tenth Annual Sprudgie Awards presented by Oatly. 

If you’ve yet to pick your ponies for the 10th Annual Sprudgies, we’ve listed the finalists for each of the 12 categories below. Don’t see who you are looking for? Do you feel like someone else is more deserving? You’re in luck. This year we’ve opened up the awards for write-in candidates. In a coffee scene where write-in candidates can ascend to the SCA Board of Directors we absolutely want to make the same campaigning available for The Sprudgies.

Once you’re ready, head over here to let your voice be heard and celebrate those helping to push the industry forward. Happy voting!

Voting for the 10th Annual Sprudgie Awards presented by Oatly closes at 11:59 PM PST on Friday, January 4th 2019.

Notable Roaster

This award honors a roaster doing exemplary work in 2018. This may include roasted coffee quality, strength of e-commerce, cafe locations (if applicable) and all other facets of running a successful coffee roaster. This year’s nominees are:

Devoción (Brooklyn, NY),
Go Get Em Tiger (Los Angeles)
Black & White Coffee Roasters (Wake Forest, NC)
Square Mile Coffee (London, UK)
Red Bay Coffee (Oakland, CA)
Gardelli Coffee (Forlì, Italy)
Sey Coffee (Brooklyn, NY)
Coffee Manufactory (San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA)

Notable Coffee Producer

This awards honors outstanding work by a coffee producer at origin. This year’s nominees are:

Daterra Coffee (Brazil)
Benjamin Paz (Honduras)
Long Miles Coffee Project (Burundi)
Gesha Village (Ethiopia)
La Palma y El Tucan (Colombia)
Juan Peña (Ecuador)
Gilberto Baraona (El Salvador)
Aida Batlle (El Salvador)

Best New Product

This awards honors a new coffee product released for public use in the year 2018. This year’s nominees are:

Minor Figures Oat M*lk
Atmos Vacuum Canister by Fellow Products
Melodrip
Yes Plz Coffee Subscription
Modbar AV
DrinkTrade.com
Huskee Cup
Umeshiso Cupping Spoons

Best Coffee Video/Film

This award honors an original coffee video or film released in the year 2018. This can include feature films, short films, promotional videos or social media clips. The nominees are:

AeroPress Movie
Gender In Coffee
Chris Baca on YouTube
James Hoffmann on YouTube
Go Get Em Tiger on YouTube
Cafe Imports Roasting Concepts Series
Flower Of Flowers by Stumptown Coffee
Unpacking Coffee

Best Coffee Writing

This award celebrates the best coffee writing of the year. Please nominate an individual, or a specific feature. If you nominate a feature, please add a link for review. This year’s nominees are:

RJ Joseph for The Knockbox
Phyllis Johnson for Strong Black Coffee originally appearing in Roast Magazine
Sabine Parrish for She’s A Lady originally appearing in Standart Magazine
Dear Coffee Buyer by Ryan Brown
The Monk Of Mokha by Dave Eggars and Mokhtar Alkhanshali
Ashley Rodriguez for Barista Magazine Online
Jenn Chen for Newsletter and Collected Works
James Hoffmann for JimSeven.com

Best Coffee Magazine

This award honors an outstanding coffee magazine or print publication release. This year’s nominees are:

Drift Magazine (USA)
Solo Magazine (Spain)
Caffeine (UK)
Coffee People Zine (USA)
Standart (Slovakia)
Roast Magazine (USA)
Barista Magazine (USA)
Pour Over by Califia Farms (USA)

Best Coffee Instagram/Twitter

This award honors outstanding work across social media platforms. This year’s nominees are:

@umeshiso_
@fellowproducts
@coffeefeedpdx
@dapperandwise
@catcloudcoffee
@symmetrybreakfast
@perfectdailygrind
@coffeetablemags

Best Coffee Podcast

This award honors outstanding work in the podcast medium. This year’s nominees are:

The Coffee Podcast
Cat & Cloud
Boss Barista
Keys To The Shop
Coffea
Coffee People MX
Coffee With April
SproCast

Best Design/Packaging

This work honors notable design or packaging work in coffee. Nominees may include coffee products, coffee bags, coffee logo or graphic design work, or any other example of outstanding coffee design. This year’s nominees are:

Coffee Manufactory (San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA)
Sweet Bloom Coffee Roasters (Lakewood, CO)
Brandywine Coffee Roasters (Wilmington, DE)
Kaffa (Oslo, Norway)
Fjord Coffee Roasters (Berlin, Germany)
Onyx Coffee Lab (Bentonville, AR)
Lüna Coffee (Vancouver, Canada)
Friedhats (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Best New Cafe

This award is presented to a cafe that has opened in 2018. Nominations for cafes that have opened before January 2018 will not be eligible for this category. This year’s nominees are:

Ladder Coffee (Spokane, WA)
Dayglow (Los Angeles, CA)
Mane Coffee (Boca Raton, FL)
Misión Café (Madrid, Spain)
Provider (Indianapolis, IN)
Stumptown Coffee Cobble Hill (Brooklyn, NY)
Center Coffee Myeongdong (Seoul, South Korea)
Rosslyn Coffee (London, UK)

Sustainable Cafe

This award is presented to a cafe for prioritizing sustainable environmental stewardship. This can include zero waste practices, pursuing a reduced carbon footprint, and highlighting sustainable coffees and products. This year’s nominees are:

Isla Cafe (Berlin, Germany)
Casa Quilha (Brasilia, Brazil)
Bar Nine (Los Angeles, CA)
Madcap Coffee (Grand Rapids, MI)
Houndstooth Coffee Walnut Hill (Dallas, TX)
Kokako Organic (Auckland, New Zealand)
Smith Canteen (Brooklyn, NY)
Miir Flagship (Seattle, WA)

Outstanding Achievement In The Field of Excellence

This award is presented each year to a remarkable coffee person, organization, cause, or entity that embodies coffee excellence. This is our most prestigious award. This year’s nominees are:

T. Ben Fischer
Phyllis Johnson
Coleen Anunu
Umeko Motoyoshi
Agnieszka Rojewska
Adam JacksonBey
Michelle Johnson
Erna Knutsen (posthumous)

Vote here.

Voting for the 10th Annual Sprudgie Awards presented by Oatly closes at 11:59 PM PST on Friday, January 4th 2019.

The post There’s Still Time To Vote For The 10th Annual Sprudgie Awards appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Well, the time has come. Though he’s forever in our hearts, we’re sad to announce that sales of this year’s very special collaboration coffee, Santa Claude, featuring beloved British cat Claude himself (illustrated by Martin Kingdom) have now come to an end. But that’s no reason for to sunset the fun.

Thanks to your purchases worldwide, and with special help from Claude and the teams at Round Hill and Cafe Imports, we’ve raised a cool $1000 so far to support De Poezenboot, Amsterdam’s beloved floating cat rescue. To commemorate this momentous occasion—and to help raise just a little more scratch for the cat boat—we’re hosting a very special auction of a new original Martin Kingdom work right now over on the Sprudge Instagram, depicting Claude in all his glory. The auction begins at 12:00pm PST on December 19th, and ends 24 hours later, at 12:00pm PST Thursday, December 20th.

De Poezenboot. Photo courtesy of Djaro G.

Go follow Sprudge on Instagram to check out auction details and place your bid today. All amounts raised will be donated directly by the auction winner to De Poezenboot, our charitable partners throughout the Santa Claude campaign. See our Instagram for complete details on the auction.

We also thought we’d take this moment to chat a bit more with Martin Kingdom, who is coming up on a very big holiday weekend indeed—his art is featured in the hotly awaited new Mary Poppins film, starring Emily Blunt and Lin Manuel Miranda.

Hello Martin! Thank you for chatting with us, and thank you for helping create such lovely and adorable design work for this project. First, how did you get started as an illustrator?

Martin Kingdom: My background is more rooted in fine art really, I’m a bit of an imposter in the illustration world. I suppose you could say I straddle art and illustration. I studied art for a year in Oxford, and pretty soon after that landed a job as a silk screen printer, making fine art prints for some quite big-name artists. I moved from this into being an artist’s assistant, which involved oil painting on a daily basis, so I have put my 10,000 hours in on that front. From there I began making prints and producing my own work, and was asked to join an illustration collective called Puck. I began getting commissioned seriously from then, and at the moment I’m able to earn a living using my artistic skills, painting and illustrating.

What was your first coffee design project? 

My first coffee related drawing job was to illustrate the four-, six-, and eight-ounce cups for Prufrock Coffee, in I think 2009. They had a wonderful set up in a men’s clothes shop in Shoreditch, and one of the baristas, Jessie Fay, asked if I could draw a four-, six-, and eight-legged creature on to the three different sized takeaway cups. I don’t remember what animals I drew, as I’ve done several different sets because they kept getting stolen or lost! I’ve done bears, mice, lobsters, crabs, moths, bison, and of course the cute bunn, which Prufrock kept as their mascot.

View this post on Instagram

It’s been a really hard week of Claude Coffee sales. I think I’ll spend all weekend napping ready for next week! #santaclaude #claudecoffee #brewingwithcat

A post shared by Santa Claude (@monsieur_claude) on Dec 8, 2018 at 12:37am PST

What has been your very favorite design project to date? 

Well, this week sees the release of Mary Poppins Returns, the Disney sequel to Mary Poppins, and I was lucky enough to get to work on one of the main props in the film! I was commissioned to paint the scene on the magical Royal Doulton bowl which the characters get transported into as part of the story. It was an amazing thing to do, I got to meet the director and visit the studios at Shepperton in West London too. I saw the film a few days ago, and I’m pleased to say the bowl ends up in the hands of Meryl Streep!

And, of course, anything to do with Claude is always a great pleasure to do. He’s such a very nice cat. Despite all the coffee he drinks.

View this post on Instagram

Claude has his secret Santa sorted. Have you? #santaclaude #claudecoffee #brewingwithcat @roundhillroastery @sprudge @cafeimports

A post shared by Santa Claude (@monsieur_claude) on Dec 1, 2018 at 10:49pm PST

Ah yes, Claude. What special challenges does portraying Claude present?

The main challenge of portraying Claude is the fact that he drinks so much coffee, he just can’t sit still, so he’s constantly jumping off the chair, chasing rolled up sweet wrappers and messing about with his friend Patti.

The Prime Minister (of Great Britain) has a cat called Larry that is the official cabinet mouser, that lives at 10 Downing Street and is supposed to catch all the invading mice, but is in fact pretty useless. He has his own Wikipedia page. I’d love to paint his portrait, in oils, and have it hang in the National Portrait Gallery. I like to think of him sitting on Theresa May’s lap as she plots to destroy our country further (sorry, got a bit political there).

I think we can all agree on being pro Mouser. Thank you Martin! 

Cruise over to Instagram and check out today’s auction action. Bids close at 12:00 PST on Thursday, December 20th, 2018. 

Special thanks to Round Hill Roastery, Cafe Imports, Dutch Pack, Oli Bradshaw, and Claude. 

The post Meow Hear This: A Very Special Santa Claude Charity Auction appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Ahhhh amaro. Is there a better way to finish off a meal than with a little herbal digestif? If you are reading this one, at least one of two things is true: 1. You like coffee, and/or 2. You may have a large holiday meal in your future. If either of these are correct, then have I ever got good news for you. Madcap Coffee have teamed up with fellow Grand Rapidians Long Road Distillers to create Amaro Pazzo, a coffee-based Italian-inspired Michigan-born liqueur.

It’s been a busy month for Madcap in the way of news. Hot on the heels of the big announcement that the coffee company will be opening their first Detroit cafe inside the Shinola Hotel (though technically they did first mention that they were moving somewhere in Detroit back in October), now they dropping some booze news. According to the press release, Long Road and Madcap devoted a chunk of the yearlong process in bringing Amaro Pazzo to tasting coffees in order to find the best fit. Ultimately, they opted for the wash processed Reko from the eponymous washing station in the Kochere region of Ethiopia. With notes of citrus, lemongrass, and ginger, the Reko is said to help create a balance of sweetness and bitterness in the liqueur.

“Few put as much time and dedication into their craft as Madcap,” said Jon O’Connor, co-owner and co-founder of Long Road Distillers. “Amaro Pazzo is an ode to our shared commitment to take the time to do things right, and to craft the exceptional. We can’t wait to introduce people to what we’ve been able to create together.”

Clocking in at a very drinkable 57 proof, Amaro Pazzo adds to the flavors in the Reko with myrrh, turkey rhubarb, two types of orange, wormwood, “and a blend of other ingredients.”

We’re pretty big fans of amaro here at Sprudge, be it mixed with hot coffee, cold brew, or with coffee as an ingredient during distillation. Unfortunately for us, Amarzo Pazzo is only in distribution inside Michigan at the current moment, though the companies are looking to cast a wider net in early 2019. I guess this bottle of Caffé Amaro from J. Rieger & Co. and Thou Mayest will just have to keep me warm until Amarzo Pazzo moseys its way on down to Texas.

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

Top image via Madcap

The post Madcap Teams Up With Long Road Distilling For A Coffee Amaro appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

There’s a new threat to the growth of Arabica coffee in Colombia. It’s not climate change or leaf rust or unsustainably low prices. It’s Robusta.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Robusta hasn’t exactly been popular amongst Colombian coffee growers, going so far as to call it “reviled” in the “country that invented Arabica snobbery.” The revulsion, according to the article, comes from the perceived inferiority of the coffee’s flavor compared to that of Arabica. The article doesn’t outright say Robusta doesn’t taste good; the WSJ lets Andrew Hetzel do it.

“People say it tastes like tires. Like petroleum barrels,” said Andrew Hetzel, a consultant in the specialty coffee industry. “I’ve even heard it described as ‘the tears of children.’”

But the economics of growing Arabica are becoming less and less tenable, especially in the face of a viable alternative. Colombian Arabica averaged a price of $1.39 per pound, over half a dollar above the average Robusta price of $.87. But Robusta is easier to grow with a higher yield (and more disease-resistant) than Arabica. Couple that with the fact that Asia, the fastest growing coffee market, is dominated by Robusta and the move starts to make sense.

In the face of this changing market, some Colombian farmers and scientists are experimenting with Robusta. Nestlé has shipped 3,000 Robusta seedlings to Colombia that agronomists with the Agriculture Ministry are currently tending to under hyper-sanitary lab conditions; think sanitary smocks, hairnets, iodine foot baths, and three-stage entry “to keep out insects and microbes.” One businessman, Diego López, has been the last decade planting small amounts of Robusta around Colombia to find the conditions where it grows best.

And while the country originally balked at the idea of growing Robusta lest it taint the perception of their coffee quality, the Colombian government has since espoused growing it, thanks in no small part to an increase in Robusta’s quality. In fact, Sustainable Harvest‘s Chief Coffee Official Jorge Cuevas says that a good Robusta can be “creamy and intense, with a full, syrupy mouthfeel.”

[Cuevas] put it this way: If robusta and arabica walked into a bar, arabica would blend in, but robusta “would be bigger, louder, funny and charismatic. It would draw a lot of attention. You can’t miss it.”

Soon enough, specialty Robusta may be a much more common sight than it currently is. Imagine a coffee shop promoting “100% Colombian Robusta”—that could be your children’s future. Fucking climate change is real y’all.

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

Top image from What Is Natural Coffee? Let’s Find Out From Counter Culture Coffee Expert Tim Hill

The post Colombia Is Beginning To Experiment With Growing Robusta appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

As high-quality specialty coffee spreads across Japan, the city center is becoming more and more competitive. As a result, we’re seeing more specialty coffee shops in Tokyo opening in local neighborhoods, where instead of fighting for a spot among the heavy hitters, the convenience stores, and the vending machines, coffee shop owners can instead gradually make themselves a part of the local community.

It was in a community just like this, near Mizue station in the Edogawa area, that I found Deakin St Coffee Stand.

Owned and operated by Simon James French and Chie Kamiya, Deakin St Coffee Stand is a relaxed space for coffee and chilling out, built into the first floor of the building the couple calls home. It’s an easygoing, friendly space with a small counter and a comfortable couch, and a bench outside for when the weather is nice.

French and Kamiya

“When we started here, a designer told us that Deakin St was our ‘life’ work, and that our day jobs were our ‘rice’ work, in that it puts rice on the table,” says French. “And he was right; Deakin St is our passion project.”

French says he’d been thinking of starting a coffee shop for a while, though initially he envisioned saving money and starting a shop in Kyoto; having only arrived in Tokyo last October in 2017, French was expecting a coffee shop to be a long-term goal and something later down the line. However, when looking for a place to live, he and Kamiya discovered the shop space in Edogawa, and found that with a little help from Allpress—where he splits his time roasting when not at Deakin St—they could start up much sooner than expected, and so they did.

Naturally then, the coffee selection comes courtesy of the Allpress roastery in Kiba, in the form of Americanos, lattes, hand drip, and cold brew, though French says he’d like to share coffee from Australian roasters in the future, also. Together with the coffee, Deakin St offers a selection of cakes from Kathy’s Kitchen, based in Kyoto and available only at Deakin St.

The name Deakin St, French says, is a nod to the place he and Kamiya called home for a year and a half in Australia.

“When we were living in Australia, we lived at 1 Deakin Street, which was our home and was really special; we have really good memories. We lived with an older professor; super friendly and loud and cool and very Aussie, and we had a really great relationship for the year and a half we spent together. When we started talking about our goal of one day opening a cafe, Deakin St felt right.”

“We wanted to create that Deakin St experience for Japan,” adds Kamiya.

The style then is like the area; mellow and relaxed. French handles the coffee, and Kamiya handles the counter, but both are always happy to talk and hang out with the locals passing by, many of whom have already made the place their regular go-to coffee shop.

And when you visit Deakin St, you get a real sense for why specialty coffee shops make so much sense in residential areas, and in the corners of local communities: it’s an experience that acts as a point of connection, bringing a moment of relaxation or easy conversation to everyday life. It’s the kind of environment and feel in which a coffee can be savored without a rush.

Hengtee Lim (@Hent03) is a Sprudge.com staff writer based in Tokyo. Read more Hengtee Lim on Sprudge.

The post An Australian Experience For Japan At Deakin St Coffee Stand In Tokyo appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Interns of the world rejoice! (Or maybe cower in fear, depending upon how much importance you place on your coffee-running abilities.) Starbucks has announced that they are teaming up with Uber Eats to offer delivery coffee from nearly a quarter of their company-owned US stores.

According to Forbes, the Seattle coffee chain will roll out delivery at nearly 2,000 stores during the first quarter of 2019. After a successful expansion into China that was bolstered by a delivery partnership with Alibaba, Starbucks is leaning more heavily on delivery, which is already showing signs of profitability domestically. From Forbes:

In the past two years, U.S. mobile orders for delivery and pay at Starbucks’ U.S. company-owned stores have more than doubled to 12% of those stores’ total sales, from 5%. That outpaced the growth in drive-through sales, which increased to 37% of the total, from 34%, during the same period, Starbucks said Thursday. Meanwhile, orders made at brick-and-mortar cafés declined to 51% of the business, from 61%.

Starbucks has been testing delivery with Uber Eats in Tokyo and Miami and is now ready to make the move nationwide. It’s part of the company’s 2019 growth strategy that also includes bringing nitro cold brew to all company-operated stores by the end of the 2019 fiscal year “to meet growing consumer demand” as well as opening its second US-based Starbucks Reserve Roastery—this one in New York’s Meatpacking district—to compete with “the growing crop of specialty coffee shops like Blue Bottle Coffee.”

Now, getting your mid-day Bux fix will be easier than ever. Too bad your drink will be dead by the time it gets to you. Hopefully by 2020, they will roll out a new “barista on a scooter” initiative to make drinks at your preferred destination. Or, you know, just got get the damn coffee yourself.

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

Top image via Skyscraperpage.

The post Coming In 2019, Starbucks Is Bringing Coffee Delivery To The States appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

Portugal is not yet known as a country that boasts a large variety of quality coffee. In fact, finding a good place that serves a great caffeine fix can be tricky—unless you’re in big cities, like Lisbon or Porto, where the specialty coffee scene is already starting to take shape, thanks to a new wave of entrepreneurs willing to look with more attention at what they put inside the cups.

In the many cafes and bakeries spread all over the small and charming territory located in Peninsula Iberica (Portuguese people love coffee!), usually the coffee served is over-roasted, made with Robusta-Arabica blends without much concern for quality. But this scenario is starting to change slowly—even in the interior of the country.

Braga, a beautiful and calm city in the heart of Minho region well known for its religious tourism, now may become a destination for fans of good cups of galões (the local term for espresso with steamed milk) and espressos, since Ricardo Ferreira and Catarina dos Santos Silva decided to open Nórdico there last March.

After a four year stint in London—in which dos Santos Silva worked as a fashion designer and Ferreira as an assistant manager in a sushi restaurant—the couple decided to go back to their homeland and open their own business. “After Brexit, living in London was no longer so appealing,” says Ferreira. “As we spent most of our time in coffee shops socializing and tasting new beverages, our knowledge of coffee grew so we thought it was a great opportunity to get back and open our own coffee shop.”

Ricardo Ferreira and Catarina dos Santos Silva

During their first years in London, they didn’t even imagine opening their own business, but over time the couple discovered the specialty coffee scene and “fell completely in love” with this universe, Ferreira says. They both attended workshops and classes in roasting and latte art during the time they lived in the English capital, where the specialty coffee scene has become one of the most important in the world. “There could be no better place to learn about coffee,” he says.

With the increase in tourism in the city of Braga, along with the growth of the Brazilian community in the city (that has an even closer relationship with the beverage), they thought a coffee shop was a good bet. “Although we are more decentralized, we thought that Braga had much potential to welcome this idea since it is Portugal’s youngest city, the third largest in the country and before us, there were no specialty coffee shops,” Ferreira says.

Located in the historical area, Nórdico is a cozy coffee shop where one can eat a variety of bagels, toasts, and pancakes, as well as order an espresso tonic, an iced matcha latte or even a ristretto—prepared on a La Spaziale S5. “We chose to open in Rua do Anjo (Angel Street) because it is a popular zone with great potential, where some of the most alternative and modern restaurants in the city are opening, creating a new hip neighborhood,” Ferreira points out. Being a developing area, too, makes rent values still attractive, as he explains—in the piece of land where they are located, besides the interior area, there is also a patio with tables and stools.

The name Nórdico honors their influences from northern Europe, especially those related to the coffee scene that was created there. “We love the lifestyle, the minimalist way of addressing all the issues and the great weight that sustainability and equality have in those countries. We also chose to work with light roast beans, especially for our espressos,” dos Santos Silva says. The coffees used at Nórdico coffee vary according to the sensory profiles and may come from different roasters—although their favorites are from Has Bean. “For our espresso, we like to work with notes of chocolate and caramel, as for brewed options we like to use single origin with more citric aromas. But it’s not a rule, and we change every month,” dos Santos Silva adds. For brewed coffees, they serve method options such as V60, AeroPress, and Chemex.

Dos Santos Silva also explains that food plays an essential role in their concept, which leans towards breakfast fare like fruit pancakes and avocado toast with a poached egg. “We tried to maintain a healthy and natural style of food because it is something that we feel was missing in Braga, where food chains dominate,” she points out.

The formula has worked, as the coffee shop seems to welcome more and more visitors. In addition to the couple—who are in charge of serving customers and preparing coffees and dishes—, Nórdico also has two other employees during the weekends, when the crowds are bigger. For the future, Ferreira and dos Santos Silva hope to be able to do their own roasting, but it is a plan for later: now they are very busy cooking and preparing coffees—and even helping to improve the diversity of the coffee scene in their homeland.

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

Photos by Nani Rodrigues.

The post In Braga, Portugal, A Touch of Scandinavian Coffee Culture At Nórdico appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

It’s your last chance to secure Sprudge Shop goods before Christmas and this weekend we’re offering special flat-rate shipping prices for US/Canada. PLUS, all shoppers enjoy 10% off storewide using promo code SPRUDGECLAUS.

That mean’s 10% off The New Rules of Coffee:

10% off Bumper Stickers:

Show you’re proud of the coffee professional in your life by picking up a couple of Proud Parent bumper stickers from Sprudge. Available in the following phrases:

Please note: these stickers are also applicable to any and all colloquial/social issues of the term “mom”, “dad” etc. You can be someone’s “coffee mom” without being their biological mother, and that is totally cool—indeed, we have made these stickers with exactly this scenario in mind.

10% off totes:

Cat shirts (new sizes in stock!)

We’ve restocked a series of these classic works by designer Thomas Putman, each one featuring a real-life Sprudge cat. Most designs now available in XS-XXL!

Our elves will be shipping off items all week long. Be sure to check “priority” shipping if you want to get these goods before Christmas*!

* Flat-rate priority shipping is available to US shoppers. Order before Monday, December 17th for pre-Christmas delivery.

Shop now!

The post Enjoy 10% Off And Flat Rate US Shipping This Weekend At Sprudge Shop appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

On the second-part of a very special edition of the Coffee Sprudgecast, we take you live to the event floor at the 2019 US Coffee Champs Qualifying Event in Denver, Colorado! There we join multimedia director Elizabeth Chai, who—in addition to helming our must-follow Instagram coverage of the event—taped a series of original interviews for this week’s episode of the podcast.

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

In this episode, Chai talks to Julia Peixoto of Peixoto Coffee Roasters in Chandler, Arizona. Peixoto competed in the 2019 US Brewers Cup Qualifiers using coffee grown on their family farm in Brazil.

Chai also chats with Miguel Vicuña and Rita Kaminsky of Sweet Bloom Coffee in Lakewood, Colorado and Snowdrift Coffee in Roscoe, Illinois, respectively. Along with judging USBC and WCE events for a decade, Vicuña is the current Chair of the USCC (United States Coffee Championship) Working Group. Kaminsky is the U.S. Coffee Champ committee chair for the Coffee in Good Spirits.

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 the episode here.

Sprudge Media Network’s coverage of the 2019 US Coffee Champs is made possible by Joe Glo and Mahlkönig. All of SprudgeLive’s 2019 competition coverage is made possible by Acaia, Baratza, Faema, Cafe Imports, and Wilbur Curtis.

Sprudge is an official media partner of US Coffee Championships.

Follow @SprudgeLive on Twitter and never miss a moment from the shows, and cruise over to SprudgeLive.com to read routine recaps, enjoy dynamic full-color photos, and check in on all the advancing competitors from Denver.

2019 Sprudge Live coverage is produced by Zac Cadwalader. Our lead photographer is Charlie Burt. Multimedia direction by Elizabeth Chai.

See y’all in Nashville!

The post Coffee Sprudgecast Episode 63: Live From US Coffee Champs Denver, Part Two appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News

There’s a new grinder about to hit the market and it’s got the stamp of approval from one Tim Wendelboe, or at least we assume it does seeing how he helped design it. Working with the eponymous coffee roaster, Wilfa has just announced the Uniform, a sleek new grinder designed with the home user in mind.

This isn’t the first time Wilfa and Wendelboe (“Wilfaboe” I’ll call them, because it sounds like “whiffle ball”) have teamed up; the Norwegian homewares company also released the Precision, an automatic coffee maker designed by the World Barista Champion. When conceiving the idea for the new grinder, Wendelboe’s stated goals were pretty simple: “All I wanted was big adjustable flat burrs, and an on/off button.” And what Wendelboe wants, Wendelboe gets; the 58mm stainless steel flat burrs are some of the largest on the home user market, and the on/off button has both an on and an off setting.

But the Uniform Grinder has much more to offer than these rudimentary features. The top off the matte black cylinder also doubles as a precision scale—measuring to the .1g level—with Bluetooth capabilities to interact with a downloadable smartphone app. The 40-step grinder runs at an intentionally slower speed so as to not heat the grounds. And not to keep harping on this on/off button, but the Uniform does have an automatic shut-off feature that uses a sensor to detect when there are no more beans left in the hopper to grind. Add in an anti-static stainless steel container for the ground coffee to keep your counters clean and you’ve got yourself some much-needed improvement to many grinders currently on the home market.

Currently, the Uniform Grinder is only available via the Tim Wendelboe website and only in a 220 volt model. Sorry Americans. The official launch will take place at Wendelboe’s Oslo cafe on December 20th, where an additional 160 units will be available for purchase. The Uniform Grinder retails for 3,499 Krone, roughly $408 USD, which again, doesn’t matter because it won’t work in the States. For more information on the Uniform Grinder or to snag one of the 60 unites available or sale, visit Tim Wendelboe’s official website.

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

All media via Tim Wendelboe

The post Introducing The Uniform: A Brand New Grinder From Wilfa & Tim Wendelboe appeared first on Sprudge.

Source: Coffee News