Barista Health & Workplace Safety
Alex Bernson at Sprudge.com has an interesting article up based on a pretty significant research project he’s been doing. Using survey data collected from 475 coffee professionals, he’s produced a three part series exploring the health impacts faced by the people who prepare your daily coffee. Workplace health and...
World Barista Championship, 2012
Over the last few days the world’s best baristas have been battling it out over in Vienna for the 2012 World Barista Championship. I’ve been too busy to watch it live given that I’m traveling at the moment, but it’s always worth watching these presentations to see what the state of the art is in...
The Social History of Coffee
If you’re in New York you should check out a lecture at Joe Coffee’s Pro Shop tomorrow night. Barista extraordinaire and scholar of cafe history Alex Bernson will be leading this class on the social history of coffee: Come join us for a special class that examines the history of cafes and coffee consumption in...
Tonx Coffee – Bolivia Buena Vista Mill
I just signed up for Tonx Coffee’s subscription using their $10 off coupon and thought I should share my experience. The first shipment I received was a coffee from Bolivia’s Buena Vista Mill. The silver packaging is iconic, and hard to photograph. The written materials in the box walk a fine line between personable accessibility...
The Independent Coffee Book – London
London is blessed with a great coffee scene, numerous cafes, and no less than two World Barista Champions who call the city home. I’ve been slowly cataloging the cafes I visited on my trip to London, but if you’re planning your own vacation a new guide book has come out that’s worth your while. The...
Toby’s Estate, Brooklyn – Public Cupping Sessions
Toby’s Estate is a new cafe and roastery in Brooklyn, with Australian roots. I’ll be writing more about them later (the short review: nice coffee, great sandwiches, cool space), but for now I wanted to share that they are offering public cuppings every Wednesday. I went a few weeks ago and had a great time....
Wet Mill – A New Blog to Follow
Several days ago a conversation broke out on Twitter between a few coffee industry heavy-weights talking about the relative impact of variety (and cultivar, both of which are often confused with the term varietal) in the taste of a particular coffee. You’ve probably seen the words (Typica, Caturra, Catuai, Bourbon, SL28, Pacamara, and so on) on coffee...
Cup of Excellence Coffee Explained
Cup of Excellence, often abbreviated COE on menus, is something more consumers should know about. The video above was produced by Toby’s Estate and it does a great job explaining the competition, interviewing both judges & farmers, and showing what it all entails. In short, Cup of Excellence is a program active in several coffee...
1960s London Cafes & Thoughts About Cafe Design
I’m loving this old video, shot in documentary style, looking at the wide variety of cafes that had opened up in London in the 1950s and 1960s. Part of its charm lies in its anthropological gaze, spending most of the allotted time on the unglamorous and precarious economic end of the business, while highlighting the...
Does ‘Specialty Coffee’ have an image problem?
The video above (which I find funny, I don’t know about you) has been making the rounds today. It’s similar in tone to an older video, below, that makes fun of customers with similar attitudes. Of course the videos aren’t perfect representations – the majority of quality focused cafes are actually trying to serve a...
Brewing with Different Waters @ Lilla Kafferosteriet
Lilla Kafferosteriet, a cafe and roastery in Malmö, hosts occasional cuppings on Sunday afternoons. I’m terrible at keeping up with the Swedish coffee scene (I don’t speak Swedish) and would never have known about these, but luckily Oscar from Portafilth.com keeps me in tune with where the coffee geek action is happening in Malmö. Last...
Taste Testing Coava’s Aeropress Metal Filter
Portland based Coava Coffee Roasters must be making a killing with their new metal Kone filter for Chemex, and Disk filter for the Aeropress. Both of them seem to be spreading around the world, judging by all the twitter reports and blog coverage. Last week I spent a morning over at Solde Kafferosteri with Dan...
