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A Custom Linea Mini From La Marzocco Home And Pantechnicon

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Few things in the coffee world give us greater palpitations here at Sprudge Global Headquarters than a choice custom espresso machine. Perhaps its our West Coast roots—there’s just something so hot rod, zoom zoom, neo-maxi KaBoom! about a hot piece of handmade custom espresso kit. It gets the heart racing, does it not?

One of the real leaders right now in custom espresso design is Jacob Ellul-Blake, the founder of Pantechnicon Design in Seattle, Washington. We’ve grok’d Blake’s gear for years here at Sprudge, including his work in myriad gift guides and show floor recaps, each more drool-inducing than the last. The drool continues today, as our friends & partners at La Marzocco have teamed up their La Marzocco Home division with Pantechnicon for a sleek, gorgeous new riff on the Linea Mini home espresso machine.

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This is the latest salvo from LM Home’s Craftsman series, which launched to great acclaim late last year in the form of this hot collab with Saint Anthony Industries. For fans of custom espresso machines, this project offers a pretty stunning twofer: eye-catching design work from some of the industries leading souper-uppers, backed by the customer service and brand guarantee of an established espresso machine manufacturer. Think of it as a kind of custom espresso machine version of Design Within Reach.

A super limited amount of these LM Home x Pantechnicon machines are being built, and they’re only available at La Marzocco Home’s official website. Should you manage to be one of the lucky purchasers, you’ll receive a custom Pantechnicon Linea Mini with brass & white accents, a custom knockbox made of brass, oak, and Delrin, and a way-cool custom copper Acaia Lunar espresso scale. The package retails for $6500, but if you’re an Acaia completist you can order the scale on its own for $350 (the knockbox can also be ordered separately for $110).

Acaia scale.

Acaia scale.

To learn more about the project, Sprudge co-founder Jordan Michelman spoke with La Marzocco Home Director Scott Callender and Pantechnicon founder Jacob Ellul-Blake in advance of today’s launch.

Hello Scott & Jacob, and thanks for chatting with Sprudge about this sweet-as new custom espresso machine. First question is for you, Scott: this is the second LM Home collaboration series, following your first round with Saint Anthony Industries. Tell us how this collab with Pantechnicon came about, and why you chose them to work with.

Scott Callender: Jacob at Pantechnicon was one of the first people I started working with when I joined La Marzocco in 2013. He had just started building custom machines for customers like Stumptown. I thought his work was beautiful and he and I started brainstorming what it would be like to develop a custom program for the GS3. He was instrumental in developing all the GS3 options that are now available on the La Marzocco Home site. I knew at some point we would do a special edition Linea Mini and I wanted him to be our partner due to our long relationship and the amazing work he creates.

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For you Jacob, as Scott mentions, this is not your first time customizing La Marzocco espresso machines, and we’ve featured your work on GS3s and Stradas previously on the site. What design challenges and opportunities does working with the Linea Mini offer?

Jacob Ellul-Blake: A new La Marzocco machine model is a significant milestone for the industry, and I am very lucky to have the opportunity to work with the Linea Mini to create a limited edition Pantechnicon Linea Mini for the Craftsman Series. In all the custom work that we do, we are constantly pushing toward more refinement and cohesiveness in design. The Linea design is iconic, and so in this project we really tried to distill down to the essentials, and add detailing and refinement to what is already there. We added some brass trim to visually connect the upper machine body to the control panel section, and remade the paddle housing in polished white acrylic to blend more into the background with a few brass accents for texture.

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Can you tell us more specifically about this machine—what options can folks choose from? How customizable is each unit? What are some of the design elements you’re most excited about?

SC: This collaboration is the second installment of our Craftsman Series. The idea behind the Craftsman Series is to give artists and craftsmen the opportunity to take one of our machines and use it as a canvas to show off their material and design aesthetic. Jacob is building a limited number of these Pantechnicon Linea Mini Craftsman machines. There’s no modular “options” to choose from, per se—just the opportunity to own one of a handful of machines built and designed by Jacob.

This is such a beautiful machine, and all of the little touches he added are brilliant. But for me, being an espresso nerd, I’m most excited about the addition of the Acaia Lunar Scale in the drip tray. Acaia also made a special edition copper scale to complete the design. I love the idea of bringing the brass and copper that make up the inside of the machine as design accents on the exterior.

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Jacob, I’m curious about how Pantechnicon has grown over the last few years. Do you have staff now? A dedicated facility? Tell us more about what your day to day is like.

JEB: We have 3 full time employees now, and two of them are me. Charles Danyer came on board last December from a musical instrument builder, and has been killing it on the production side. Our historical manufacturing facility, built the same year (1928) as La Marzocco’s founding, is a vertically integrated live/work space, with production at the basement level and eating and sleeping above. On the day to day, we do a huge range of stuff: design, fabrication, product development consulting. Everything that is possible for us to make, we do. That means we are working with wood, plastics, composites, and metals on a daily basis, using everything from basic tools to CNC machines we built ourselves. Usually we have a handful of custom projects at different phases of completion, so it’s not unusual to do design on one project, fabrication on a different project, finishing on yet another project, all in one day.

Wow, that’s rad. You’ll need to let us come take a peek soon. For both of you I would love to know—what’s your dream placement for one of these new custom machines? 

SC: To me, this machine fits perfectly in modern, clean kitchens with an Italian design flair maybe on a Carrara marble counter top. I could also see Jay Gatsby making espresso on the Pantechnicon Linea Mini for party guests during one of his Gilded Age parties. But honestly, because of the clean design, it could probably fit in multiple environments, while still being a central conversation piece.

JEB: Definitely the Space-X Mars colony in 2026—it’s gonna look so good with your white spacesuit and helmet with brass hardware. Barring interplanetary installations, having one at Beyonce’s house would be pretty rad.

The La Marzocco Home x Pantechnicon Design custom Linea Mini launches today. Limited quantities available. Much more information at LaMarzoccoHome.com

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

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Build-Outs Of Summer: Anchorhead Coffee of Seattle, Washington

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Established coffee companies are getting into the cold brew game hard these days, expanding their offerings line with bottled options and cute lil’ cartons. But what about a company that first made waves with cold brew expanding their options into a full-on cafe? The folks at Anchorhead Coffee are doing just that, setting out to open an 1100 square foot cafe in downtown Seattle with floor to ceiling windows. They’ll be baking pastries in-house, which is unusual for this part of the world, and using an espresso machine from Synesso, whose factory is just down the road in SoDo.

As told to Sprudge by Jake Paulson of Anchorhead Coffee. 

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For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?

Anchorhead Coffee started in May of 2013 as a wholesale roaster and cold brew bottling company. Since then we have gotten product into 165+ locations throughout Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. Along with our growing wholesale, we won America’s Best Espresso at Coffee Fest Portland and had a lot of interest in our coffees locally and throughout the US.

Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

The new space is located in the 1600 7th building in downtown Seattle. It’s 1,100 square feet, but will have one side opened up to the lobby giving a little more space for seating. Our main goal with this cafe was to have a different look and feel than most cafes in the city right now, and we think we have achieved that. The cafe will be mostly black, with a lot of dark woods, steel, black and grey tile, which will all be brightened up by floor to ceiling windows.

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What’s your approach to coffee?

We used to work in audio doing live sound for touring bands, so we are very technical people by nature. This is no different with coffee. We spend a lot of time sourcing, roasting, and playing with coffee to see what we can actually get out of it. Customer service and customer education is also a top priority for us. We feel the coffee world can be kind of daunting for outside consumers at points, and we want to make sure that isn’t the case with our cafe. Our goal is to have knowledgeable baristas, that will do whatever they can to make sure the customer has a great experience.

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Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

We will be using a three-group Synesso MVP Hydra paired with two Mahlkönig Peak grinders for espresso. Then we will have a Poursteady to handle our rotating single-origin menu, and three to four cold brew tap options. We will also be baking all our pastries in-house, and have some unique waffle options that are magical.

What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?

Hopefully the beginning of September.

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Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?

Moss Interior Design, Armstrong Construction.

What’s the address?

1600 7th Ave #105, Seattle, Washington.

Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat: Anchorheadcoff.

The post Build-Outs Of Summer: Anchorhead Coffee of Seattle, Washington appeared first on Sprudge.

Support, Encourage, Inspire: At The Coffeewoman’s Seattle Event

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Laila Willbur wants to be clear. “It’s not meant to be, let’s get a bunch of girls in the room and bitch about men,” she says. Instead, The Coffeewoman exists to “support, encourage, and inspire” women in the coffee industry.

Exploring the social constructs of gender and coffee in the United States and abroad is a timely conversation that needs to continue. The Coffeewoman is a relatively new voice at the table; the six-month-old project has begun to offer a space for mentorship between established and emerging coffee professionals and has created an important new frame of reference for women getting their bearings when entering the industry.

Maybe most importantly, The Coffeewoman is talking about universal issues that can affect women more often than men, but that resonate with just about everyone, anyplace, at anytime: how not taking risks can hold us back professionally, how building relationships should be everyone’s priority. And how instead of isolating ourselves, female-identifying coffee professionals can do more to help each other succeed along the way.

The standing room only crowd gathered at The Coffeewoman’s August 4 event in Seattle is proof that the project is exploring the role of women in the coffee industry from a positive posture that is generating real interest. Hosted at Starbucks’ Roy Street Coffee & Tea on Capitol Hill, the event explored networking and mentorship and was moderated by Willbur.

Laila Ghambari.

Laila Ghambari [File Photo]

Willbur, the 2014 United States Barista Championship Champion and Barista Guild of America Chair, launched The Coffeewoman alongside Vice Chair of World Coffee Research and Specialty Coffee Association of America Vice President Tracy Ging at the US Coffee Championships Qualifying Event in Kansas City last February. The friends saw the need for more women contributing to the conversation around the lack of elite women barista competitors. “Every year around USBC there’s usually some sort of Twitter explosion about how there are six dudes in the finals of the USBC again and how it’s sexist,” Willbur says. “It’s this Twitter battle generally in male voices.”

The Coffeewoman also found inspiration in Europe’s Barista Connect, and is establishing itself as the American coffee offshoot of similar projects working to support women throughout the hospitality industry, including Toklas Society and journals including Cherry Bombe and Render, the food feminist quarterly.

In contrast to the first Coffeewoman event in Kansas City, programmed as a panel led by moderators, Willbur told me the idea for the Seattle event was “more of a networking mixer, mentorship thing.” The evening started with around 20 mentors talking about their careers and sharing advice they wished they knew when starting out in coffee. It ended with a short Q&A and networking time. Mentors represented both small and large companies across the coffee industry, including importing, roasting, equipment, and sales.

The Seattle mentor group included few women of color, and the topic of racial equality has yet to be raised at the first two Coffeewoman events. When I asked her about diversity in coffee, Willbur said that while ”I don’t want to try to take on everything,” she would “love to support” and help facilitate an event around women of color in the industry if someone is willing to host.

 

I met Juliana DeCarvalho Anderson while she was weaving through the crowd gathering before the event. Anderson began working as Assistant Buyer at Zoka Coffee nine months ago and came to the event to meet new people and support mentor friends. “It is harder, as you get higher and higher up you can definitely see that it’s a male-dominated field,” Anderson said. “I want to be more exposed to people that are on a higher level of coffee and know that it’s totally possible. Not giving up on the dream really. It’s a long journey.”

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I also met Heidi Rasmussen, who talked about working as a service manager for Visions Espresso in the “big phones” and “pager” era of the early ’90s. Now Senior Manager for Education and Quality for illy caffè North America, Rasmussen recalls several times when, as the only woman she knew doing machine maintenance work, she would respond to a call and men would ask her repeatedly if she needed help doing her job. “There were many times when I stood up and said, ‘you called me.’” While decades later she wishes for more female barista competitors, Rasmussen also sees progress with more women moving into coffee careers in technical, equipment, and education.

As the room filled to more than 100, Willbur welcomed the group and invited mentors to speak. Several shared specific job opportunities and encouraged women to apply, regardless of whether or not they feel fully qualified.

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Whitney Cornell (La Marzocco)

Whitney Cornell, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for North America at La Marzocco, told the group to “be brave and apply for positions that fascinate you and you’re passionate for,” adding, “the more that you hustle, the more you’ll be recognized for being capable and competent for those roles… that you may not be 100 percent qualified for.”

The idea that women should be bold and clear with career goals was reinforced by mentor Jill Killen, who owns three Seattle cafes including the recently opened Royal Drummer. “You don’t ask, you don’t get,” Killen told the group. “Go out of your way to let your boss know exactly what you want. And what you want to make. And if you don’t find it there, go somewhere else.”

Hanna Neuschwander, Director of Communications for World Coffee Research and occasional Sprudge contributor warned against taking opportunities that offer “some good experience” but don’t pay. “Your skills are valuable,” she shared. “Don’t say yes to everything. Do say yes to the things that are going to get you what you want.”

During the Q&A, one woman in the crowd asked the mentors how women can build each other up, adding that we’re “so good at tearing each other down.” Willbur told the group that early in her career she felt like she was “competing against the girls.” She said, “it took me a while to figure out I’m not a good girl competitor. Or girl barista. I’m a good barista. And a good competitor. Being gender female has nothing to do with how talented we are or how smart we are.“

Kelly Goodejohn, the Director of Global Responsibility and Public Policy at Starbucks, affirmed Willbur’s point. She told the group, “the worst thing that you can do is have a female colleague that’s your competitor. Look at the women around you. Support them. Mentor them. Those younger than you, older than you, and your competition.”

Sarah Dooley, the co-founder of Milk and Coffee and Brand Development Coordinator for Slayer Espresso, was first to speak but brought one of the most memorable messages of the night. “There’s something amazing in our industry that we don’t take advantage of, it’s the [passing on] of guidance and leadership,” she said. “In this room, the people that are willing to give us their ear and their time are unbelievably talented and just waiting to be asked. There are a lot of women in this room that are literally changing the world.”

Sara Billups (@hellobillups) is a freelance journalist based in Seattle. Read more Sara Billups on Sprudge.

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Build-Outs Of Summer: Emissary of Washington, DC

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In this crazy coffee world of ours, there’s a new story to tell every single day. Take your mind’s eye to the American capital, Washington DC, where a coffee pro with experience in Scandinavia has been tasked with turning former karaoke bar in DuPont Circle into a European-inspired specialty coffee hub. The space is just walking distance from a cluster of international embassies. Its name? Emissary Coffee.

As told to Sprudge by Reggie Elliott of Emissary. 

For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?

I was approached a little over a year ago by my employers to help them flesh out the concept they had in mind to turn a former karaoke bar into a European-influenced cafe. Coincidentally, frequent Sprudge contributor Dawn Shanks actually was the one who arranged our meeting. In talking to the ownership team early on it was pretty obvious that there was an overlap of what we felt a cafe should be due to my experience of working in cafes in Gothenburg and Stockholm, Sweden and their experiences visiting cafes in Europe.

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Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

Located near DuPont Circle and surrounded by many of the embassies here in Washington DC, which is where Emissary takes its name. It sits on a major conduit between the popular areas of DuPont Circle and Georgetown. As mentioned above the space used to be occupied by a once popular, but more than a little shady, karaoke bar that suddenly closed down a few years back, one can imagine why. Emissary hopes to cleanse the space of that aura and shares the space with its upstairs neighbor and sister company DuPont Circle Yoga but isn’t necessarily a “health cafe.” We really hope to live up to our name by giving those visiting the city a literal “taste” of DC by trying to use as many local, or regional, products as possible. That includes a cocktail and beer program featuring only spirits and beers produced in the Mid-Atlantic region, the first program of its kind in the area.

What’s your approach to coffee?

Our approach to coffee is that we want to appeal to the coffee nerd without catering to them and more importantly we want to be approachable by the average coffee drinker, just looking for a pick-me-up. But more than anything, hospitality and service are what we are focusing on. I’ve got nearly a decade of working in cafes here and in Sweden so we can’t help but be nerdy about it! But at the same time, we’re very conscious of the stigma of the “hipster barista” that still lingers over the industry. So our approach to coffee is that we love the coffees we’re serving (thanks, Counter Culture Coffee!) and we want to share it with everyone here in the community. There is a branch of a certain major coffee chain that shall remain nameless directly across the street from us so we feel if that’s what people want then they are more than welcome to get that product over there. We also feel that once people step inside Emissary—and if we’re doing our job correctly—then they should instantly be able to see the difference between our product and theirs.

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Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

We’ll be pulling shots on a three-group La Marzocco GB5, we’ve got a lovely white Mahlkönig EK 43 that we’ll use for batch brew, decaf, and decaf espresso drinks while a Nuova Simonelli Mythos Clima-Pro is our primary espresso grinder. We will also offer by-the-cup options brewed via Yama Hermiston brewers sitting atop Acaia scales. And all of our beans, training, and equipment comes via the ever-dependable Counter Culture. I started at Murky Coffee nine years ago so when it came time to choose a coffee provider, Counter Culture was the obvious choice. Even if they’re based in North Carolina, no roaster has had a larger impact on DC’s rapidly growing specialty coffee scene than Counter Culture. That doesn’t even take into account their dedication to sustainable sourcing and their focus on training and education. It was a no-brainer.

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What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?

August is where things kick into full steam… pun intended.

Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?

The bar was designed in house, actually, and build by Streamline Construction LLC.

Emissary is located at 2032 P Street Northwest, Washington, DC. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Photos courtesy of Reggie Elliott.

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Narrative Coffee: A Story From Everett, Washington

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When it comes to coffee, Everett, Washington has earned the dubious distinction of being home to some newsworthy bikini-barista stands. But the city 30 miles north of Seattle welcomed a new option of the high-end-cart variety when Narrative Coffee Co., the project from veteran barista competitor Maxwell Mooney, opened on July 4 in the heart of the city’s small downtown core.

Narrative is hedging its bets on Everett, a still-affordable Pacific Northwest city that Mooney hopes will attract coffee enthusiasts from near and farther afield. “I definitely see the democratization of specialty coffee happening for a variety of reasons,” he says. He theorizes that as big cities with thriving coffee scenes produce more and more professional baristas, some who came to the city from small towns will want to move back and start something new. Like Mooney, “they see more opportunity in places no one else has touched.”

narratvie coffee cart everett washington spotted cow coffee company sprudge

For a growing population, Mooney noticed that there was no “new wave-style” coffee companies in Everett and very few options in the entirety of Snohomish County. “You have this incredible concentration of brilliant coffee companies in Seattle. Then you go outside the Seattle city limits and you can’t find hardly anything. So it’s been a major point of mine to try to be that for people outside of Seattle,” he explains.

Everett began as a mill town and houses both the largest public marina on the West Coast and the biggest building in the world by volume—Boeing’s airplane factory. Still, the small town “gets referred to as grungy and kind of dingy. It’s the brunt of many jokes,” Mooney says. “But it’s got a really thriving music scene, and a lot of really cool stuff that’s happening.”

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Maxwell Mooney

Everett is currently more affordable than Seattle, a city with quickly changing demographics that, thanks to the rise of tech, is in the middle of a housing shortage and affordability crisis for renters and homebuyers. “[Everett] is getting more expensive but it’s radically more affordable,” Mooney says, citing the average home price in Everett as less than $350,000, compared with more than $650,000 in Seattle. A few new apartment buildings with retail space on their ground floors are being built in the blocks surrounding Narrative, including a market-style project headed up by Steve Carlin, the guy behind several upscale markets in California such as the Ferry Building Marketplace and Oakville Grocery.

Mooney has been sitting on the Narrative name—a nod to the story behind coffee and the connections it can create—since he was at Caffe Ladro. He wrote the company’s business plan a year and a half ago and pitched the idea to Spotted Cow Coffee Company, “but a lot of people are scared to take a chance on [Everett],” he says. “My boss was not as thrilled about the idea as I was, and I said, ‘Okay, if you won’t do it there’s a huge possibility here and I’d like to take it on.’”

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Mooney has lived in Snohomish County, of which Everett is the county seat, for the past seven years. On his first official day of his first-ever barista job at Caffe Ladro, he competed in-house and was selected to represent the roaster at the North West Regional Barista Championship 2013. He left coffee to finish school and worked as a pest control specialist in California, then headed back north to work at Mill Creek, Washington-based Spotted Cow, where he still helps out from time to time. He competed for Spotted Cow in the NWRBC in 2014, 2015, and 2016, earning third place in the Northwest in 2015. He made United States Barista Competition appearances in 2015 and 2016.

In addition to lifting Narrative off the ground, Mooney intends to train for competition. An amicable, down-to-earth guy, he turns serious when asked about plans to compete in the future. “Competing is in my DNA. I intend to compete until I win,” he says, or until it’s time to pass the baton to a burgeoning Narrative barista.

narratvie coffee cart everett washington spotted cow coffee company sprudge

So does Mooney see Narrative as a risk or an opportunity? “It’s both,” he says. After searching for a brick-and-mortar space and settling (for now) on a cart in downtown’s Wetmore Plaza, Mooney was able to keep startup costs low. He rebuilt a machine and refurbished a cart donated to him from a local church. But starting any business involves risk, especially in an emerging town with lighter pedestrian traffic than Seattle and that is less acclimated to a milk-and-espresso menu.

Mooney says the biggest challenge with his cart is the focus on hospitality that he would want to prioritize in a future brick-and-mortar space. Narrative rotates through a trio of roasters: one chosen from Snohomish County, a second from the Pacific Northwest, and a third based outside the region or internationally. In addition to educating customers about roasters via Narrative’s menu and helping them find a drink they love, Mooney says that “in a to-go setting, one of the most hospitable things you can do is get someone their coffee relatively quickly and see them about their day.”

Narrative Coffee is located at 2730 Wetmore Avenue, Everett, Washington. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Sara Billups (@hellobillups) is a freelance journalist based in Seattle. Read more Sara Billups on Sprudge.

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Build-Outs Of Summer: Sound & Fog of Seattle, Washington

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We love coffee. We love beer. And boy do we love wine. A new cafe in West Seattle is set to open serving up all three, with the goal of becoming a “neighborhood destination.” To sweeten the pot they’ll have select coffees from revered Nordic roasters, alongside a coffee menu anchored by local heroes Olympia Coffee Roasting Company. This is exciting news indeed for West Seattle, which will welcome these newbies Sound & Fog sometime this month.

As told to Sprudge by Justin Krebs of Sound & Fog. 

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For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?

Sound & Fog is a specialty coffee bar in West Seattle that features great coffees and several beers on tap as well as extensive wine offerings. The goal of Sound & Fog is to become a neighborhood destination that provides amazing coffee and an approachable evening menu of beer and wine. We’ll have Olympia Coffee Roasting Company, a rotating local roaster, and a monthly “while supplies last” Nordic coffee pour-over option provided by Kaffe Box. The beer and wine will rotate as well.

Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

The space is going to focus on the bar which takes up about a third of the space. It’s going to have a nice Shou Sugi Ban application that will contrast with all the white and grey in the space. There will be ample seating and we have giant windows that open onto what will become a future park (now it’s a temporary fire station).

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What’s your approach to coffee?

Our approach to coffee is to keep it accessible for everyone and create a fun experience. There will be a standard menu of “basics” and multiple slow bar offerings as well as cold brew on tap and limited natural in-house syrups (i.e. sugar+water+1-2 organic ingredients). We want to focus on seasonal drinks but also allow for our customers to get creative and find what we can make that’s right for them.

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Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

For coffee I’ll be using the following equipment; La Marzocco Linea PB two-group, Nuova Simonelli Mythos Clima Pro grinder, Mahlkönig EK 43 grinder, Marco Ecoboiler, Baratza Forte, and Kalita Wave for pour-overs.

Coffee: Serving Olympia Coffee Roasting Company as espresso and retail. Also serving a rotating local roaster and a monthly Nordic pour-over option provided by Kaffe Box out of Norway.

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Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?

Architect: Allied 8
Contractors: Plumb Level Square (They do all the Matt Dillon restaurants in Seattle.)

What’s the address?

4735 40th Avenue Southwest, Seattle.

Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

The post Build-Outs Of Summer: Sound & Fog of Seattle, Washington appeared first on Sprudge.

Build-Outs Of Summer: Fonté Coffee Roasters In Bellevue, Washington

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Longtime Seattle specialty coffee stalwarts Fonté Coffee Roasters are expanding across the lake, opening a new location in Bellevue, Washington later this year. This will be one of the last new cafes featured in our 2016 Build-Outs of Summer seasonal series!

As told to Sprudge by Joyce Monaco, Marketing Director at Fonté Coffee Roaster.

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For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?

Fonté Coffee Roaster, one of the Seattle area’s original micro-roasters, was established in 1992 by Paul Odom, then 21 years of age. His goal: to deliver an exceptional coffee experience by carefully defining distinctive specialty coffee flavors and then doing everything possible to deliver those flavors intact in every cup.

Paul met Steve Smith, Fonté’s Master Roaster, who had over a decade of experience at this time. Smith’s wealth of coffee knowledge and Paul’s business experience was a perfect match.

Fonté’s production and service team boasts over 20 years of experience in virtually any setting in which coffee is offered. High-end coffee bars, fine dining, banquet facilities, and in-room brewing are just a few of the areas in which our practical expertise can assist you in the design, administration, and maintenance of a coffee program.

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Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

Fonté will be taking over the space in Bellevue Place currently occupied by Tully’s.

What’s your approach to coffee?

Fonté’s proprietary blends are created by Master Roaster Steve Smith, one of the most senior roasters in Seattle with more than 30 years of experience in the coffee industry. Smith works to create unique blends, and then roasts by hand to bring out the natural flavors of each region represented. All orders are shipped the same day the coffee is roasted, ensuring to-the-minute freshness to all customers. Renowned for meticulous methods of production, Fonté is committed to exceptional cup quality—from sourcing the highest-quality coffee beans to blending complex aromas and flavors to roasting coffee by hand with masterful expertise.

build-outs of summer fonte coffee cafe bellevue seattle washington sprudge

Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?
– Four-group La Marzocco Linea Classic
Nuova Simonelli Mythos One Clima-Pro grinders
Mahlkönig EK 43
FETCO water tower

 

Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?

Mallet Incorporated.

The new space is located at 10500 Northeast 8th Street, Bellevue, Washington. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Photos courtesy of Fonté Coffee Roaster.

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At Seattle’s Craftworks Coffee, Staying Local In A Changing Neighborhood

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craftcoffee works seattle washington queen anne kuma coffee olympia roasting company cafe sprudge

Has Lower Queen Anne gotten hip?

Craftworks Coffee is one of several new signs in the area that strongly point to yes. Located beneath the Expo Apartments, one of Seattle’s many new residential developments, and just around the corner from the La Marzocco cafe inside KEXP radio’s Seattle Center campus, Craftworks is owner Eric Smith’s first retail business. Smith developed a love for pour-over single-origin coffees while working as an engineer in Seattle and hopes to provide a place for people that feel the same.

craftcoffee works seattle washington queen anne kuma coffee olympia roasting company cafe sprudge

Eric Smith, owner of Craftworks Coffee

Immediately upon walking into Craftworks you’ll notice a large menu of single-origins from Olympia Coffee Roasting Company and Kuma Coffee, two of the Pacific Northwest’s best independent roasters. These might be brewed for you on Craftwork’s Poursteady pour-over machine, a device also in use at Olympia Coffee. Smith chose the Poursteady for its ability to deliver consistent cup-to-cup quality, as opposed to manual brewing, which can be of differing quality from person to person, according to Smith. Espresso shots are pulled on a Synesso MVP Hydra, and Craftworks also currently serves Olympia Coffee for espresso drinks.

craftcoffee works seattle washington queen anne kuma coffee olympia roasting company cafe sprudge

craftcoffee works seattle washington queen anne kuma coffee olympia roasting company cafe sprudge

The Poursteady does its thing at Craftworks.

With a low height to the coffee bar and seating all around, Smith hopes to provide an atmosphere that encourages conversation—which will often likely be about the many single-origin coffees offered, as customers wait and watch while the Poursteady does its thing. “We want to take the mystery out of coffee,” Smith said.

craftcoffee works seattle washington queen anne kuma coffee olympia roasting company cafe sprudge

The name of the shop is a nod to the work that goes into every cup of coffee served here, from the sourcing and roasting down to the brewing itself; Craftworks’ memorable logo, an origami rhino, celebrates the regions where coffee originated. Individual pieces of the rhino motif are scattered along the main wall as a massive art piece. Local artists will fill other Craftworks wall space, starting with mixed-media artist Emily McLaughlin.

Craftworks’ menu offers standard espresso drinks along with as many as five rotating single-origin coffees. Cold brew is available on tap, and there is a decent selection of loose-leaf teas. Craftworks also stocks pastries from Macrina Bakery, a local bakery, with a plan to add breakfast sandwiches to the menu in the future.

With all of that, a full slate of unique Northwest coffees, and a bright, relaxing shop atmosphere, Craftworks looks to have a bright future in one of coffee’s global capitals. This is just one more glimpse of a neighborhood—and a city—transformed in 2016 into something at-times unrecognizable, but undeniably cool.

Craftworks Coffee is located at 110 Republican Street, Seattle. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Joey Brantley is a freelance journalist based in Seattle. This is Joey Brantley’s first feature on Sprudge.com. 

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Cherry Street Public House: Community, Coffee, and Khoreshes

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cherry street public house coffee cafe persian food seattle sprudge

cherry street public house coffee cafe persian food seattle sprudge

With Seattle at the forefront of the resistance to Trump’s travel ban, Ali and Laila Ghambari’s first cafe explicitly featuring flavors and traditions of their Persian heritage seems a well-timed rebuke to the President. In fact, it’s a coincidence. Opening day comes at the end of a two-year road for Cherry Street Public House, a bigger, more elaborate branch of their coffee chain, Cherry Street Coffee House.

Two decades after Ali Ghambari opened his first coffee shop, he and his daughter are opening this all-day cafe and restaurant, serving high-quality coffee, and Persian-inspired breakfast, lunch, and, soon, dinner from the center of Seattle’s Pioneer Square. The cafe anchors the new Weyerhaeuser building and fronts onto Occidental Park.

cherry street public house coffee cafe persian food seattle sprudge

“It’s my vision, made possible by my father,” says Laila Ghambari, of how Cherry Street Public House evolved. The space came to them through Ali Ghambari’s partner in Cherry Street Coffee House, Greg Smith, who developed the building. Laila Ghambari, a 2014 US Barista Champion who previously had worked for Stumptown Coffee Roasters and Caffe Ladro, took over as director of coffee for Cherry Street Coffee House and upgraded their coffee program in 2014. When this space showed up as an opportunity, Cherry Street already had coffee shops two blocks away in two directions: she knew this was their chance to fulfill a dream by doing something new.

“My dad always wanted to serve Persian food,” Laila Ghambari says. Even at the coffee shops, serving freshly made food was always a priority for Cherry Street, but it was prepared by their baristas. Here, she could build-out a first-rate coffee shop, as well as a full restaurant kitchen with dedicated chefs.

cherry street public house coffee cafe persian food seattle sprudge

cherry street public house coffee cafe persian food seattle sprudge

The high-ceilinged, cool-colored space is long and narrow, with big windows running the length of the cafe. The blue and white tiled coffee counter, brewing Counter Culture Coffee on a La Marzocco Strada AV and Marco SP9s, faces the main door at the north end. To the left is a small coffee shop area: small tables for a quick seat. The counter stretches out to the right, transitioning into an open kitchen with bar seating in front of round marble-top tables, set up for more of a real meal. At the far end, up a few steps, the laptop bar looks over the rest of the room—perfect for settling in to do some work.

At the coffee counter, patrons will find a noticeable absence from the usual set up: there’s no condiment bar. “Why would we give you coffee not served as you want it?” Laila Ghambari asks. Instead, each style of coffee is listed on the menu and brewed with a bean that fits the desired flavor—a single-origin Burundi for black, for example, and a custom-blend for cups with cream and sugar. In addition to the espresso and coffee options, they’ll serve drinking vinegars, and have both kombucha and nitro cold brew on tap.

cherry street public house coffee cafe persian food seattle sprudge

While the direction of the coffee menu came from Laila Ghambari’s deep expertise and research, that of the food menu comes from the heart. There aren’t many Iranian restaurants in Seattle, she explains, and the local Persian community missed the flavors of home. Her dad “wanted to serve his people the tastes they love.” At breakfast, avocado toast shares the menu with a waffle topped with tahini butter and pistachios, the breakfast sandwich comes with pickled fennel, and there’s a scone served with maitake mushroom gravy. Lunch features khoreshes—Persian stews—served over saffron rice; the vegetarian version features butternut squash, pomegranate, and walnuts. “They’re hearty, filling, and a good lunch,” Laila Ghambari says, excited to introduce them to people less familiar with the cuisine. Persian flavors sneak into other parts of the cafe as well, like in pomegranate-infused drinks and the chai made with a Persian spice mix.

cherry street public house coffee cafe persian food seattle sprudge

It’s a departure from the sandwiches and salads menu their previous shops serve—which were so devoid of signs of the Ghambari’s Persian heritage that when someone on Twitter announced he would boycott Starbucks for hiring immigrants, he suggested people “Drink Cherry Street” coffee instead. Laila Ghambari laughed at the irony, but also points out that while there hasn’t been Persian food in the shops, they’ve long been a part of the local Persian community, with Ali Ghambari having been a founder of the local Iranian American Community Alliance and its annual Iranian Festival.

“We don’t need to stand up or give a statement,” says Laila Ghambari about their feelings regarding Trump and his travel ban. “We fight every day.” As pillars in the local community, people call them when translators are needed at the airport or elsewhere. And they plan to continue to do so—now with Persian flavors on the menu. “We make an impact by continuing to serve the community.” By which she means us all.

Cherry Street Public House is located at 210 Occidental Avenue South, Seattle. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Naomi Tomky (@gastrognome) is an award-winning freelance writing for The Stranger, Saveur, Lucky Peach, Tasting Table and more. Read more Naomi Tomky on Sprudge.

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Coffee Sprudgecast Episode 37: Kyle Gaffney of SkB Architects

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Welcome to Episode 37 of the Coffee Sprudgecast, Sprudge Media Network’s podcast dedicated to coffee and hosted by our founders Zachary Carlsen and Jordan Michelman.

Check out The Coffee Sprudgecast on iTunes or download the episode hereThe Coffee Sprudgecast is sponsored KitchenAid craft coffee equipment and Urnex Brands.

This week on the show, Zachary gives Jordan’s Signature Reads “The Book Lover’s Guide To Coffee” foreword the David Attenborough treatment, surprising him live on the air. Elsewhere our duo discloses the fact that Sprudge is at least part satire in the era of fake news, give a quick recap and thank you of last month’s nationwide cafe fundraiser for the ACLU, and chat with Kyle Gaffney, one of the founders and lead architects at SkB Architects. That’s the firm behind KEXP’s New Home in Seattle, home to the La Marzocco Cafe, our 2016 Sprudgie Award winner for Best New Cafe.

We hope you enjoy this week’s episode of the Coffee Sprudgecast. Happy listening!

Sign up now as a subscriber to the Coffee Sprudgecast and never miss an episode. The Coffee Sprudgecast is sponsored KitchenAid craft coffee equipment and Urnex Brands.

Listen, subscribe and review The Coffee Sprudgecast on iTunes.

Download the episode here. Thanks for listening!

 

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Nice Package: Indaba Coffee In Spokane, Washington

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I’m going to be real: some of the best artists I know are baristas. Take Joey Bareither, a Spokane-based graphic artist and barista responsible for the gorgeous art upon the bags of Indaba Coffee. Bareither now runs JMB Design & Illustration, and has worked with a number of local coffee companies. For Indaba, Bareither went with a block print aesthetic and we totally dig it.

We spoke to Bareither over email, who explained that he “wanted to be intentional about where each bean we use is from, using that region to inform and influence the style that I work in [and] the textiles, landscapes, etc. that are depicted in the labels.”

We first featured Indaba in our Spokane coffee guide in 2013, and again in 2015 on their second location. We spoke digitally with founder, owner, barista, roaster, trainer, speaker, and consultant Bobby Enslow to catch up.

As told to Sprudge by Bobby Enslow.

Tell us a bit about your company.

Indaba Coffee first opened in 2009 with the goal to create a positive change in a tough neighborhood. We’ve evolved over the years from a single roaster cafe, to a multi-roaster cafe, into a roastery cafe, and finally in 2017 we are set to build out a larger roasting and wholesale operation. As a social benefit company we strive to train at risk youth in our neighborhood, provide supportive employment to the marginalized, and provide a meal for every bag of coffee we sell. We are also the founders of Spokane Barista Academy, which is a not for profit job readiness coffee training program.

When did the coffee package design debut?

In the Fall of 2016 we had the pleasure of employing a talented barista and friend, Joey Bareither. After returning from mission work in Thailand, he wanted to start his own design company. He picks up barista shifts when not designing.

Who designed the package?

Joey Bareither Design. Checkout his work @jmb.designs on instagram or http://www.joeymb.com/ He’s also the man behind the labels @honeybeecoffeeco

What coffee information do you share on the package?

The front label is pretty general with just a country, farm, or mill name along with some basic flavor notes. The back has more detail into the specific story of the sourcing of the coffee. It also speaks to how we provide a meal for every bag of coffee sold. We want to communicate not just global, but local impact.

What’s the motivation behind that?

We want the front label to be focused more on the art and simple approach to origin information. We found with our customers that having too many specifics on the front caused confusion and clutter. We also want to tell as much of the story of the coffee as we can on the back so that people can feel more connected to the hard work of the farmers.

Where is the bag manufactured?

We source our bags from Pacific Bag Inc out of Woodinville, WA.

Where is it currently available?

Our retail coffee is currently available on our website at indabacoffee.com, in our two cafes, and with our wholesale partners like @vergecoffeeco, @ephatacafe@thewellatlibertylake, @thekitchenengine, @caffedolcemissoula, @roostcoffeepullman, and some other rotating cafes and restaurants. With the construction of our larger roastery cafe this summer, we plan to expand our wholesale operations to more outlets.

Nice Package is a feature series by Zachary Carlsen on Sprudge. Read more Nice Package here.

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Espresso Subscriptions & Tim Wendelboe At The La Marzocco Cafe

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The La Marzocco Café and Showroom inside Seattle’s KEXP Studios—winner of the 2016 Sprudgie Award for Best New Cafe—has a guest program like no other, allowing roasters from around the country to take over their space for a month to deliver their own version of a cafe experience to customers. And now the coffee bar is going Nordic. La Marzocco have announced their roaster lineup for the next year and it kicks off with Oslo’s Tim Wendelboe.

Beginning March 20th, the Scandinavian roaster will take over the space for what Wendelboe believes will be a new experience for both customers and company:

Having a residency at the La Marzocco Cafe is for us an opportunity to bring the Tim Wendelboe experience from Oslo all the way to Seattle – for an extended period of time. It means we get to showcase how we taste, brew, serve and appreciate a great cup of coffee for the first time in the US.

Stay tuned for an interview with Wendelboe next week on Sprudge, in advance of his March 20th residency.

In conjunction with the 2017-18 cafe roster announcement, La Marzocco Home is also launching an intriguing new espresso subscription program that will mimic the showroom’s lineup. Along with a selection of coffee from the current roaster in residence, La Marzocco will also send out educational resources to subscribers—videos, brew guides, and much more. The new subscription service costs $39 a month and includes two bags of espresso each month to be delivered around the 15th.

The La Marzocco Café and Showroom guest program is one of the most ambitious of its kind, and now thanks to their new subscription program, it isn’t just limited to Seattle folks. Southerners like myself want to get in on the fun too, y’know.

For more information or to sign up for the subscription service, visit La Marzocco Home’s website here. A complete list of roasters at the La Marzocco Café and Showroom for 2017-18 can be found here—they pretty much all rule, but call me especially stoked for residencies from folks like Madcap Coffee (June), Olympia Coffee & La Fontaine de Belleville (Fall 2017), and Onyx Coffee Lab (Spring 2018).

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.

*top image via La Marzocco

La Marzocco is an advertising partner on Sprudge Media Network.

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The Wind Is At Your Back At Velocity In Port Townsend, Washington

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velocity coffee cafe port townsend washington olympia coffee roasting company sprudge

velocity coffee cafe port townsend washington olympia coffee roasting company sprudge

To understand what makes Velocity, a cafe in Port Townsend, Washington, special, you have to start by learning a little bit about Port Townsend itself.

Port Townsend is a town with salty roots. Named by Captain George Vancouver in 1792, Port Townsend was officially settled in 1851, recognized as an important shipping port. The town grew rapidly, and the boom of that era is still visible today, with Victorian houses dotting the area. Called the “City of Dreams,” it was once thought that Port Townsend would become the largest port north of San Francisco.

It didn’t. But today, with just over 9,000 people, Port Townsend is a quaint and quirky small town in a beautiful natural setting, and its maritime past is very much a part of its present.

velocity coffee cafe port townsend washington olympia coffee roasting company sprudge

While the town’s main street hugs the water, the central residential part of town is perched upon a hill, with almost every street offering a view down to the waters below.

The Olympic Mountains hover on the horizon to the southwest, the waters of Port Townsend Bay to the south, and the shores of Whidbey Island to the east. To say that the town is in an idyllic setting would be an understatement; it’s clear why people come here and fall in love with the place. Not too far away in Port Hadlock is the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building, an educational and training center for some of the best and brightest in wooden boat construction, and besides being a host of the popular Wooden Boat Festival, Port Townsend itself is still a hub for all kinds of watercraft, particularly fishing boats coming down from Alaska to be repaired and stored over the winter.

But even if you’re currently not interested in boats, a visit to Port Townsend’s Velocity cafe might just spark a new obsession.

velocity coffee cafe port townsend washington olympia coffee roasting company sprudge

This cafe is housed in the Northwest Maritime Center, and while it has all the defining factors of a cafe devoted to specialty coffee—a La Marzocco Strada MP, various pour-over options, sparkling water served next to your espresso—its location and ambiance makes it anything but average.

This LEED-certified building, opened in 2010, has become a focal point of Port Townsend, and for a community coffeehouse, the location couldn’t be better. Velocity shares the space with the Wooden Boat Foundation, boat shops full of tools for wooden boat work, and a boat rental facility. In fact, you can even walk from the cafe right into the Wooden Boat Chandlery, a store where you can buy anything from lengths of rope to books on maritime history.

How many other places can you pick up a nautical chart or some rigging equipment followed by an espresso? If the weather is willing, you can even take your cup of coffee and sit at one of the communal picnic tables outside, watching the waves and the occasional ferry, shuttling passengers back and forth from Whidbey Island.

velocity coffee cafe port townsend washington olympia coffee roasting company sprudge

velocity coffee cafe port townsend washington olympia coffee roasting company sprudge

I was in Port Townsend for a long weekend earlier this fall, and each time I went in, Velocity was buzzing with people. There were people who had just come back from a run or a row, there were people working on their laptops, and there were groups of friends gathered for a catch0up—it truly felt like a community hub.

Pastries come from town’s infamous Pane D’Amore bakery, where European-style treats are baked fresh every day, and there are also bagels in a variety of styles from Bob’s Bagels, delivered by bicycle, of course. Keeping with their Washington State roots, the Velocity team serves Olympia Coffee Roasting Company, also available to buy and take home.

velocity coffee cafe port townsend washington olympia coffee roasting company sprudge

velocity coffee cafe port townsend washington olympia coffee roasting company sprudge

A bar lines the large windows facing out towards the water, and whether it’s a glorious sunny day or a more blustery one, there’s no better place to sit and nurse a cup of coffee. You’ll be addicted to this wonderful town and cafe before you know it.

Who knows, you might even buy a boat.

Velocity is located at 431 Water Street, Port Townsend, Washington. Follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Anna Brones (@annabrones) is a Sprudge.com staff writer based in the American Pacific Northwest, the founder of Foodie Underground, and the co-author of Fika: The Art Of The Swedish Coffee Break. Read more Anna Brones on Sprudge.

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Storms A Brewin’: The New Mega Cold Brewer From BKON

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Last year, BKON dove into the cold brew landscape headfirst when co-founders and brothers Dean and Lou Vastardis began researching ways to use their patented RAIN (“reverse atmospheric infusion”) technology to make cold brew. Their goal with the prototype was to brew up to five gallons in under 20 minutes. Prototype no longer, their newest creation is called the Storm and is said to be able to produce an astounding 100 gallons of cold brew in 15 minutes, and you’ll be able to taste the fruits of its brews for yourself next week at the SCA Global Coffee Expo in Seattle.

More than just a behemoth of a cold brewer—which the press release from BKON notes will speed up the 20+ hour process by 80 times its current rate and “reduce coffee expenses by 30%, with no proportional increases in labor, overhead, or capital costs”—the Storm “allows for the creation of true single origin cold brew coffees.” From the press release:

Cold brew coffee marketed today as “single origin” falls short of delivering the true and distinguishable flavors that are experienced when the same coffees are brewed hot or served as an espresso. Roasters can now create and promote a continual release of cold brew offerings based on the origin of coffee in a way that the equals the credibility of their other specialty coffee extractions.

Because of the RAIN technology, which has been given a completely updated algorithm for the new larger cold brewer, the Storm allows for new types of “low-temperature extracted coffee beverages,” according to the statement. One such example is the Coldstretto, a ready-to-drink version of an espresso. This new drink type—made with coffee from Panther–will be showcased at BKON’s booth at the SCA’s Global Specialty Coffee Expo in Seattle later this month. Single origin cold brews will also be available from coffee brands like Ceremony, Neat, and Allegro, among others yet to be officially confirmed.

The Storm, unfortunately, won’t be at Expo, because you try lugging around a few 100-gallon tanks, but you will be able to taste STORM’s brews on tap at the event, including the aforementioned Panther ‘Coldstretto’, which definitely sounds like a Summer 2017 hit single. More information about BKON’s new mega cold brewer can be found on their website.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Spros Disclose: BKON is an advertising partner on Sprudge Media Network.

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The Uninhibited Sprudge Guide To SCA 2017

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It’s here! The Specialty Coffee Association‘s Global Coffee Expo has arrived, and it’s going down over an action-packed weekend in Seattle, Washington. Buckle up—this is coffee’s equivalent of E3, CMJ, and Coachella all rolled into one (though hopefully with fewer headdresses) and it all happens at the Washington State Convention Center.

Sprudge has been covering the SCA’s annual event since 2009, and our site got its start in Seattle over a busy morning shift at the Stumptown location on Pine. Below you can find our exclusive and indispensably authoritative guide to the week’s happenings and doings, but first we want to pay tribute to a vowel taken from us too soon.

As some of you may be aware, this marks the first year in which the SCA event is not the SCAA event—the second “A” was dropped as part of last year’s global coffee trade union merger. This event has always been international, but 2017 marks the first time the newly unified Specialty Coffee Association (Earth chapter) will be hosting a global event by name. We’re excited, but want to first take a moment to acknowledge our departing friend.

Farewell, second “A”—we hardly knew ye. As Americans, we rejoiced in the rare opportunity to pronounce a vowel twice, and for our international friends, the dipthong you produced in their pronunciation reminded us of sweet ska music and good times. We’ll miss you forever, second “A”, and you are never to be forgotten—truly, it is hard to remember that we are not to announce you. A proper Viking funeral for the second “A” is planned for the shores of Lake Union one evening over SCA(A) weekend. Get in touch if you’d like to attend the pyre—tickets are available via a private EventBrite, and include a virtual reality farm tour courtesy of Starbucks.

Now on to the good stuff!

The US Coffee Championships

Yes! The 2017 US Coffee Championships are happening at the 2017 SCA Global Expo, which means hot, delicious barista competition action for you across a multitude of disciplines. The US Barista Championship, US Cup Tasters Championship, and US Brewers Cup Championship all kick off on Friday morning. Attendees can check out the action each day at the Washington State Convention Center, and Sprudge’s industry-leading coverage of the events happens at SprudgeLive.com, our dedicated hub for coffee competition coverage. Follow @SprudgeLive on Twitter for live play by play from the barista competition, and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook for photos and video reports from our dedicated coverage crew.

Sprudge’s coverage of the 2017 US Coffee Championships is made possible by Cafe Imports, Swiss Water Decaf, Baratza, AeroPress, Hario, and Pacific Natural Foods. All of our 2017 Barista Competition coverage worldwide is supported by Urnex Brands and Nuova Simonelli.

The Many Parties

Good heavens, is this year’s SCA Event chockablock with after-hours opportunities for revelry. We suggest you avail yourself of the evening’s many delights, because life is short, parties are fun, and most of the time people are nice.

Here are all the parties you should go to. Do you know about even more parties that we haven’t featured? Tell us.

Symposia, Lessons & Lectures

It’s good to expand your soul and your get-working network at events like SCA Global Coffee Expo, but it’s also important to expand your mind. Fortunately there’s a battery of opportunities to do so, starting the SCA’s annual Re:co Symposium event. Sprudge co-founder Jordan Michelman spoke at it last year, and this year’s crop of speakers and fellows earn high marks on the intellectual cupping table of life.

If you aren’t attending Symposium, but will be checking out the show, don’t miss some of the stirring lectures being offered up at this year’s event. There’s something worth seeing over all three days, but we’ve got time marked off for Saturday morning’s one-two punch of Emerging Trends in Coffee Quality  and The Chocolate Barista + The Coffeewoman | Intersectionality, Building Influence, and Changing Power Structures. 

And if you’re hungry for learning that’s a bit more official, SCA are offering a number of classes through their Pathways programming at this year’s event. A full list of those classes is available here.

The Magical Showfloor

This category heading is no mere hyperbole, as the Global Coffee Event’s show floor is due to be quite magical indeed this year. A murderer’s row of exhibitors are bringing their best to the event across a series of booth experiences, each more innovative and engaging than the last. Not to be outdone, the SCA themselves are offering up a series of interactive experiences at the event, with highlights like the Design Lab, Tech Pavillion, and Uppers & Downers Coffee Beer kiosk.

Add to that heaps of coffee cuppings, endless free spro, all manner of new tech debuts and product launches, and you’ve got a show floor experience enough to make even the most seasoned conventioneer blush. Sprudge.com will be here to cover the best and brightest of it throughout the weekend—as best we can, given the dizzying array of options.

The City of Seattle

Hey, what a place! Seattle’s changed a lot since Sprudge picked up its operations and moved down I-5 to the forest city of Portland, Oregon, but we’ll always have a special place in our heart for this town. It’s one of the most aesthetically beautiful cities in the world, positioned between salt water, lakes, mountains and forest. For the 2015 expo we published an exhaustive list of where to eat, drink, and have coffee in Seattle, and most of those picks are still around (and haven’t been turned into condos). A little further back in the site history, and one of the first guides we ever published was a love letter to the cafes of Seattle. That guide was published in 2011, and you’d be hard pressed to find an American city that’s changed more in the years since, but sometimes it’s fun to look back.

Nouveau-tech cities like Seattle are particularly susceptible to the corporate hot list press release Eater-fication of American food writing, but fortunately the city’s venerable alt-weekly, The Stranger, has upped its restaurant game as of late. Just a few weeks ago The Stranger issued this valuable guide to the city’s best restaurants, and you should use it (and our above guides) to help you decide where to eat.

Have Fun

We hope you have so much in Seattle! This city gives us #feelings and they’re pretty complicated, as far as #feelings go, but this year’s Global Coffee Expo is an excuse to confront them all head-on and to the best of our collective abilities.

Follow us here on Sprudge, at SprudgeLive.com, and across our panoply of social media accounts for all the latest from Global Expo 2017. We’ll see you in Seattle, fam.

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The 2017 Fantasy US Barista Championship Is Now Open

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The Fantasy US Barista Championship is back again for 2017. All you have to do is pick your six favorite baristas (that you can afford) and sit back and watch the cash prizes and adoration from all your coffee friends and idol come rolling in. It’s just that simple!

Back for its second year—well, it’s third installation if you count the 2016 World Barista Championship—the Fantasy US Barista Championship works like single-week fantasy football. Each team starts with 15,315 “dollars” that they use to select six baristas of differing values to fill their rosters. You can’t just pick the top six baristas, you know.

The trick is to find the folks that you think are undervalued. I’d tell you all of Zac’s Hot Locks for the 2017 season, but they are taking Tech Judge Tina Belcher all the way to the top this time around. The top I say! Baristas are awarded points based on how they score with bonuses given for advancing in the rounds.

It’s free to play if you’re just looking for the bragging rights. But if you all the glory and make a little extra cash money, you’re going to have to pony up the $5 entry fee. For more information, check out the Fantasy Barista Championship Fantasizr page. Good luck to all. You’re going to need it to take down the feisty behemoth that is Tech Judge Tina Belcher.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.

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Kyle Ramage Is Your 2017 United States Barista Champion!

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Kyle Ramage of Mahlkonig USA in Durham, NC, has won the 2017 United States Barista Championship. Over the past three days in the Seattle, Washington, 36 of the country’s best baristas put together their tightest 15 minute presentations to vie for the title of US Barista Champion. Those 36 were whittled down to 18, then six, and ultimately, down to just one. That one is Kyle Ramage. This is Ramage’s first career US Barista Championship win, after competing in previous years at the regional and national level. Ramage now moves on to represent the United States at the 2017 World Barista Championship taking place in Seoul, South Korea between November 9th and 12th.

Ramage is a somewhat different sort of competitor, working for a coffee equipment company and not a roastery or cafe, and in fact is the first US national champion to hail from a non-coffee making company. But this didn’t seem to slow Ramage in his pursuit of the title. Not in the least bit. His routine was one of experimentation and science, shouting out MIT chemist and Water for Coffee co-author Christopher Hendon and utilizing dry ice frozen coffee (-79°C to be exact). Ramage spent a good portion of his routine donning cold resistant gloves as he was moving back and forth between his dry ice chest and Mahlkonig EK-43 grinder.

But Ramage’s routine relied upon more than just crazy science tricks; he also had a beautiful Geisha variety coffee from Finca Nuguo in Jurutungo, Panama processed in two ways: honeyed and natural. Grown at 1800MASL and roasted by Counter Culture, this is the same coffee that 2016 US Barista Champion Lem Butler used in competition, though Butler’s was from the previous year’s crop and fully washed. In the milk course Ramage employed the naturally processed version of the Nuguo coffee.

For the other two courses, Ramage utilized the honey processed Finca Nuguo, which during his presentation was expressing notes of jasmine, lime, citrus, and rainier cherry. To play off these flavors, Ramage created a signature beverage from a Mosaic hop tea, a dark honey simple syrup, and a tartaric acid solution, all nitrous charged and served semi-chilled.

We’ll see Ramage again in November for the World Barista Championship in Seoul. Much more coverage of Kyle Ramage’s win, and all of the 2017 United States Barista Championship competitors, can be found on SprudgeLive.com, our sister site dedicated to coffee sports.

Sprudge’s coverage of the 2017 US Barista Championship is made possible by BaratzaCafe ImportsAeroPressPacific Natural FoodsHario, and Swiss Water Decaf. All of our 2017 Barista Competition coverage worldwide is supported by Urnex Brands and Nuova Simonelli.

Coverage at the 2017 US Barista Championship is produced by Zac Cadwalader. Photos by Charlie Burt and Liz Chai for Sprudge Media Network, all rights reserved. Contact us for photo use.

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The Stronghold Roaster Stuns On The SCA Showfloor

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The dazzling SCA Global Coffee Expo showfloor is a land of shiny things—all the better to check my hair in. But once I stopped to look around and hunt for new stories, I discovered a major trend at the show in the form of chic new or fancifully updated sample roasters—products able to roast coffee on a small scale, but without sacrificing big flavor. It seems the market for reasonably sized roasters is booming these days, with plenty of options and more on the way for those who are ready to take the plunge and start roasting their own coffee (a trend that shows no sign of stopping).

One such sample roaster that piqued my curiosity was a beautiful and tech-heavy machine from Seoul-based company Stronghold. It comes with endorsements from the likes of Hidenori Izaki, James Hoffman—two World Barista Champions—as well as Sangho Park, a UK Brewers Cup and Coffee In Good Spirits champion now managing an in-demand global consultancy. Stronghold’s mission is clear: they want cafe owners to try roasting in their coffee shops, and they’re expanding to the US market now. With innovative software and hardware and a compact design, the Stronghold S7 Pro and S9 smart roasters already have 600 users in South Korea, most of whom had never roasted coffee before. And if you listen to Stronghold and walk through their tech—as I did at the event—it’s easy to see why they’re wracking up endorsements.

The S7 Pro, now available for order in US, is tricked out with a patented vertical tower drum to prevent heat loss and a small smoke filter in the back, which effectively deals with the tricky issue of exhaust and fumes in a non-roasting facility. Its 150-850 gram batch capacity is ideal for the small roaster just starting out, while the S9, currently only available in South Korea, has ten times the capacity. The touch screen wifi enabled software is user friendly and customizable with heat and halogen control and the ability to save and replicate roasting profiles.

What most intrigued me was Stronghold’s commitment to sharing roast profiles from experts. They encourage users to connect with roasters using the same coffees in order to strengthen the global coffee community while breaking down barriers for newbies. The $13,000 price point is no small spend, but the machine does look beautiful and takes up an impressively small footprint.

Stronghold’s potential role in the US market is new and unproven, and they’re competing for the same segment of the market as the collaborative roasting projects. On the subject of these roastery collectives, CEO Jason Woo and representative Sungman Chang see their product as a strong alternative. While participating in a roasting collective can open up possibilities for new roasters, “you are not fully engaged in the entire process,” Chang says, translating for Woo. With a smart roaster on your counter, “you can do all of that in your own shop while you’re operating your coffee shop.” Indeed, the image of coffee shop owners who can interact with customers on the floor before walking a few steps to roast their own coffee is a compelling one, which Stronghold promotes in customer interviews on their website.

While Stronghold’s attention to detail and innovative design impressed me, I couldn’t help but be skeptical about its viability somewhere like the Manhattan cafe market. It’s certainly much slimmer and more manageable than a gargantuan Probat, but in a small coffee shop in the big city, where would I stick it? When I asked about cafes facing a true size challenge—a New York quick service joint, say, or an Echo Park broom closet—they told me they were beta testing an even smaller version, the S2, with plans to release it next year. You might consider clearing off the self-serve water station for that one.

Eric J.Grimm is a Sprudge contributor based in New York. Read more Eric J. Grimm on Sprudge

Photos by Lanny Huang for Sprudge Media Network. 

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I Don’t Need Acaia’s New Orion Bean Counter, But I Want It!

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Much as I’d like to fancy myself a proto-Marie Kondo, decluttering myself into a negative existence, I admittedly have a weakness for stuff I don’t need. I haven’t taken the plunge with an Apple Watch, but the desire to sport a hideous device that better allows me to ignore my text messages is real. I once owned a Shake Weight. While it didn’t turn me into a swole beast as promised, it was a great way to welcome visitors into my apartment. (“Sit down, relax, have some water, shake this weight.”) So when I found Acaia’s booth on the SCA floor this year and spotted the brand new global debut of their Orion Bean Counter, I got that same familiar itch. I probably don’t need this, but I want it.

Yes, the Orion is a bean counter, but who knew there could be such elegance in the counting of beans! The Orion is designed for pre-portioning—Acaia describes it as “a minimalistic and compact dosing system”—and sports a sleek paintball gun chic design that just makes you want to touch it. The Bean Counter is designed for weighing out retail coffee bag portions, as well as portioning out whole bean coffee in a cafe setting, and it offers remarkable accuracy within .5 grams. The scale’s weight capacity is 3 kilograms, and every time there’s a new target weight, it records the amount of time it takes to dispense the coffee.

Additionally, one can use a “time mode” to dispense coffee. While the time mode is less accurate, Acaia founder Rex Tseng notes that it is a part of future development for a larger model, which will increase efficiency in coffee packing for roasters. Finally, a manual mode allows the user to totally empty the chamber—the whole thing adds up to an adjustable dose-by-weight coffee portioning system with the modern design touch Acaia is known for (the brand is a two-time Sprudgie Award winner for Best New Product).

Who is the Orion for if not just for me to sit around for hours in my living room watching it dispense beans? The product is geared toward roasters and single cup serve cafes and Acaia wants it on display. “We designed this to hopefully fit on a beautiful café’s countertop,” Tseng says. The Orion, which won Best New Product in the Coffee Accessories category at Expo, starts shipping in July 2017. If the $800 price tag freaks you out, just remember that it costs $500 less than a stainless steel Series 2 Hermes Apple Watch, and will actually make your life and work much easier.

Eric J.Grimm is a Sprudge contributor based in New York. Read more Eric J. Grimm on Sprudge

Photos and .gifs by Lanny Huang for Sprudge Media Network. 

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Mazzer Goes Filter On The SCA Showfloor

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Sometime in our twenties, we come to the conclusion that we cannot live off of beer and pizza alone and should probably add some salad to our diet. In the same spirit of doing what’s healthy for you, Mazzer— an Italian grinder brand best known for their work in the espresso realm—has expanded into manufacturing filter coffee grinders on a smaller scale, but with big possibilities. Showing out and looking fresh on the Global Coffee Expo floor were the new Mazzer Mini Filter, plus the Mazzer ZM, a grinder unlike anything Mazzer has put out to this point in design and functionality.

The Mini Filter, available now, looks almost exactly like a Mazzer Mini espresso grinder. It has the standard grind collar adjustment and touch settings to calculate dose based on time. What’s particularly special about the Mini Filter is that in comes in pretty colors! With shiny yellow and red options, it’ll match that KitchenAid stand mixer your boyfriend got you before he gave you that engagement ring. (I didn’t get one. My marriage is doomed.) Or it could match your flashy car. “They look like Ferraris!” chirped Marketing Manager Cristina Scarpa. “We are Italian.”

The ZM, which will start shipping in September, is named after a grinder that Mazzer used to manufacture in the 50s. Like the kid named after his grandfather, this new grinder gets the legacy name with all of the pressure of doing the family proud. It doesn’t look unlike a Mahlkonig EK43, but the clear difference here is the LCD display and programming options. You can program up to twenty settings and name them, while four settings can be programmed on buttons for frequent use. The retention, or lack thereof, is pretty sick. The chamber holds on to less than .45 grams of coffee. Toss one bean in there and get one ground bean out. Damn, girl.

The decision to start producing filter coffee grinders was one Mazzer took seriously from the outset. “We started from scratch,” Head of Global Sales Luca Maccatrozzo told me. “We asked SCAE to educate our palates and to show us how many brewing methods there are. Once we learned that, we started to design the grinder.” When I asked Maccatrozzo what inspired the nearly eighty year old company to shift gears and move toward filter coffee grinders, I expected some pre-programmed thoughtful answer about integrity, innovation, and the future. Instead, he smiled and simply answered, “Business.” That’s so real, Luca.

Eric J.Grimm is a Sprudge contributor based in New York. Read more Eric J. Grimm on Sprudge

Photos and .gifs by Lanny Huang for Sprudge Media Network. 

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