You may have heard the news already: this year’s North Central and South Central Regional Barista Competitions have been joined together in a joyful coitus. Attend two events in one! It’s going down March 23-25th at the Ravenswood Event Center (4011 North Ravenswood Avenue) in Chicago, Illinois. The space looks caps lock GORGEOUS, and bills itself as home to weddings, Indie Wedding expos, philanthropic hullabaloos and “mitzvah celebrations”. You can do us ALL a mitzvah by checking out the Big Central Regional Barista Competition on Facebook (yes, that’s what it’s called), where they’ll be announcing registration info shortly. In case you’re link-adverse, here’s some deets:

Hosted jointly by: Intelligentsia Coffee, Counter Culture Coffee and Alterra Coffee

This year, both the North Central and South Central Regional Barista Competitions will be held at one singular event in Chicago, March 23–25. Though this is one event, two regional titles will be given away for the Barista Competition and the Brewers Cup. This is an opportunity to join two communities together for one great event and we look forward to seeing everyone there!

The North Central Competition applies to these states: ND, SD, NE, MN, IA, WI, IL, IN, MI.

The South Central Competition applies to these states: KS, MO, OK, TX, AR, LA, MS.

Whoa! That’s a lot of states. They’re gonna need a platoon of judges, a cadre of volunteers, and two extremely focused unofficial media sponsors to bring the action to you love. This means we will in advance be declining your drinking invitations on the eves of 23-24 March, unless those invites involve Aviary, and include the guaranteed picking up of our tab.

Official USBC landing page here!

Facebook linkage doublepost here!

Back in October we reported on the Blue Bottle Chelsea location – a cafe not exactly located next to Ninth Street Espresso’s Chelsea Market space, but rather, around the corner and past the loading dock. With Google, the FBI, Milk Studios and the Food Network all in that one city block, the more great coffee the better and Blue Bottle is open now.

Quoth a commentator on our earlier BB Chelsea post: “shops [sic] owners frequently talk to eachother, visit eachother [sic], tweet, etc and differ in prices/offerings/hours.” Too bad Coffee Common didn’t make their Chelsea pop-up space permanent. Can you imagine the opportunities for delicious coffee? One could do a hearty cafe crawl by simply getting off the 8th Ave L stop. Go for a stroll on the Highline…have a little lobster roll at the Chelsea Market…divine.

Could a lot of these problems be solved by legalizing drug trade? Probably.

Is this video compelling? Yes.

Do these people know a lot more about this subject than we do? God, yes.

Should you watch? Absolutely!

Is it time for lunch? Almost.

The World Fair Trade Organization asks government leaders a big question, the answer to which will determine the kind of world we live in and the kind of values we live by. We don’t have to live with poverty, climate change and economic crisis. The values we live by determine the outcome not just for us but for future generations. The WFTO has a letter signed by leading figures and economists requesting for a shift in values from Greed and Ignorance to Transparency, Accountability and Fairness. The question, the letter and the tools for a sustainable economy will be presented to the G8 in July.

 

The very first United States Aeropress Championship will be held in conjunction with the grand SCAA Event and USBC this April, at the Oregon Convention Center. The event will take place at the La Marzocco / Marco booth on Friday, April 20th between 11AM-1PM. To register for USAC, simply follow this link here. Info for registering should be up before March 12, 2012. The top three competitors at USAC will have a reserved spot for the grand finale World Aeropress Championships, held in in Portland straight after the USAC.

This year’s WAC is going to be fierce – it’ll be a competition to even compete – so winning the USAC will be a huge boost. Get to work on your Aeropress brew skills ASAP, and consult this essential Aeropress method guide from 2010 WAC winner Marie Hagemeister. May we offer one piece of advice? Get yourself a couple of liters of Portland-area water, and get a leg up on the competition.

Update: And if you’re in Poland, registration is open now for the Polish Aeropress Championships!

Today, activated carbons or porous coals are used in treatment facilities to draw hydrogen sulfide from sewage. But when coffee grounds are transformed into activated carbon, the researchers found that they sop up sulfur particularly well. That’s because of a key ingredient in coffee: caffeine.

Caffeine contains nitrogen, which increases carbon’s ability to eliminate sulfur from the air, said Teresa J. Bandosz, a chemist and chemical engineer at CUNY and an author of the report. To carbonize the coffee grounds, she and her colleagues mixed the grounds with water and zinc, and then dried the mixture in an oven. Dr. Bandosz hopes that entrepreneurs might take the research and turn it into a business.

A coffee drinker herself, Dr. Bandosz came up with the idea because she throws out piles of coffee grounds. “Fresh coffee would work even better — it has more caffeine,” she said. “But it is not economical.”

Coffee: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.

Perhaps you’ve noticed the caution-tape yellow adverts at all of this year’s USBC events…or maybe you’ve noticed the disturbing “fat man in a box” ad running on the bottom right-hand side of this very website. Natvia, the official sweetener sponsor of the USBC and WCE, are running an innovative contest to send a whole mess of people to Vienna for free. A lot of people have asked us, “hey, what’s the deal with that contest?” You can always trust Sprudge to give it to you straight. If you enter this contest, you can win:

• 3 nights stay in Vienna with a friend!
• 2 round-trip air tickets!
• Backstage access (whatever that means) to the World Barista Championships 2012 in Vienna!
• A chance to be “Natvia Ambassador”, a role for which you’ll be allowed to interview “The Coffee Gods”! (we’re assuming they mean Brent Fortune)
• VIP tickets to the official Natvia “Sweet Fantasy Party” in Vienna!

All this can be yours, should you choose to 1. Enter the contest, 2. Make people vote for you, and 3. Compete in a series of wacky challenges, each wackier than the last.  Four categories of competitors are in play: Andrew Tucker currently leads the baristas, Alan Collins is leading the roasters, Dear Coffee I Love You’s Brian W. Jones is leading the groupies, and Jack Groot is leading the cafe owners.

Remember we mentioned wacky video challenges? Well, should you win said challenges, ye shall receive:

• Nuova Simonelli Muscia Espresso Machines!
• Reg Barber Gold Tampers!
• Plus more prizes which remain a surprise! (we’re assuming they mean Brent Fortune)

This whole campaign has us edging with excitement, an edging which is sure to boil over when we ourselves attend the Sweet Fantasy Fantasia in Vienna. Go sign up here and try to win this thing, or vote for your friends, or marvel in all the ways in which they’ve visually utilized that fat man sitting in a cardboard box.

The machine even comes equipped with a “virtual barista” to assist you. Chief of Coinstair Paul Davis explains: “We wanted to create a truly genuine customer experience with our autobots, so we’ve included our propriety G.A.B.R.I.E.L. (Gammatron Autobot Barista Routine Instantaneous Experience Liason) artificial intelligentsia unit with each machine. GABRIEL will scoff when you order flavored drinks, demean you for using incorrect lingo, and even roll his eyes upon sensing a packet of Splenda. If you use more than two ounces of half & half, GABRIEL will shout, ‘You should’ve ordered a latte if you wanted that much milk.’ It’s really a lot of fun.”

More (not fake) from the NYT:

The coffee kiosks are the first of what Coinstar expects to be a wave of new vending machines from the company. It is testing the machines in locations around the country and expects to have about 500 installed by the end of the year.

Mr. Davis envisions the 3-foot-by-3-foot kiosks going into supermarkets, gas stations and office buildings, though he does not see a need for them in retail locations that already have a small Starbucks or some other coffee chain. Coinstar joined with Starbucks on the kiosks, which are labeled with the company’s Seattle’s Best Coffee brand.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said he believed the coffee kiosks represented a meaningful growth market for Coinstar. “The retailer relationship is their biggest competitive advantage,” Mr. Pachter said. “If every place has a coin box, they know how to get another 12 square feet.”

1. The two actors don’t get espresso teeth (the temporary browning of teeth) so they’re obviously faking it.

2. Joe NYC was the inspiration for this video. Via FRSHGRND:

“Joe opened a shop near my apartment a few years ago. I began going every morning, and soon twice a day. One day I was there in my early-morning pre-caffeine stupor, and as I sipped from my 4 oz. cup of deliciousness the world came slowly into focus – colors became more vivid, sounds more resonant – and for those precious few moments, my entire world was infused with that wonderful little caffeine buzz. In that blissed-out state, I thought: I have to make a music video about this! I called a friend of mine – Alan Smith – a brilliant filmmaker whose obsessive coffee needs rival my own. He, of course, loved the idea – so we got to work.”

Sprudgie Award winner Aleco Chigounis was there, along with several other coffee buyers. We followed along with their tweets:

@jasonwhat: Who buys Ethipopia’s coffee? 1. Germany 2. USA 3. Saudi Arabia 4. Belgium 5. Italy #EAFCA #Africa

@AlecoChigounis: Duromina wins 1st prize at Taste of Harvest comp in Addis this weekend. Congratulations @sweetmarias, @coffeeshrub and @stumptowncoffee!

And now, according to EthioSports.com, EAFCA is now AFCA.

Eastern Africa Fine Coffees Association (EAFCA) became African Fine Coffees Association (AFCA) on Friday, thereby embracing the continent to promote African coffee to the world.

According to the chairman, more and more African nations have an interest to join EAFCA.

“It is not because we persuade or lobby with the rest [coffee growing] African countries but it is the sheer interest of other African countries to join EAFCA,” Kalua said. “Looking at our activities and achievements through the years, more and more African countries are requesting us to be members. And that is why we have now changed our name from EAFCA to AFCA as EAFCA stands for East African countries as the name suggests.”

And apparently there’s a barista competition going down? Our weekend was okay, but man, Ethiopia was clearly the place to be.

Using our considerable cache and network of underground moles, we’re proud to offer you this glimpse inside Starbucks Marketing headquarters. What follows is an unedited transcript, based on audiotapes smuggled out of Starbucks HQ at great personal risk. Names have been changed to protect our source:

Wendy: Hear ye, hear ye, I call this dark coven to order. On the blood-docket altar: Shall we ghoulishly allow our foolish minion to fatten themselves upon Trenta-sized Frappuccinos™?

Eugene: Hail Beelzebub, Wendy. Will you yield order of the Coven?

Wendy: I shall; speak now, Eugene, lest our Underlord smite thee, and move thy basketball team from its place in the natural order.

Eugene: Very well. Our diabolical plan has worked in a manner most mellifluous. First we released the thirty one ounce “Trenta” size. One of our chief soul-getters, the raven-blooded Ellen, was very excited, and lo, she shared our deeds with a dutiful minion. We fought off the foolish nutritionists and doctors by first restricting the Trenta size’s use for “iced coffee and iced tea only”.

Coven (all): FOOLS! (evil cackling)

Damien: Wendy, if I may continue Eugene’s unholy incantation…

Wendy: Thou has spoken out of turn, Damien. I punish thee to death by gustation! Bring forth the Panini of Ouroboros! (screaming, sounds muffled as Damien is dragged from Dark Boardroom.) Thou may continue with your market research, Eugene…

Eugene: Yes, my Dark Witch of Target Markets. Our evil Trenta plan then continued unabated. Over time, we let the rules slide as consumers demanded a larger 1,200 calorie Frappuccino. We gave them double mochas. We gave them eight pumps of vanilla. We added brownie crumbles, much to the pleasure of our Dark Lord. We even let them add soy.

Beatrix: (just arriving) Oof, I’m so sorry for being late, the traffic getting off the West Seattle bridge was just awful.

Wendy (now fully transmogrified into a terrifying she-demon): Silence! And then???

Eugene: I’m proud to report our unholy banner of pestilence and blight is one step closer to being unfurled.

Coven (all): Bwahahahaha!

Starbucks Gossip reports:

“We Just Say Yes to Trenta whatever. I like how my DM put it – why turn away money. If they want something we can make, let them know we aren’t supposed to use this cup normally but we will for them this time.”

I’ve said before on this site that it’s only a matter of time before Starbucks will offer Trenta sizes for all drinks “because of customer demand.” I didn’t think it would happen so fast — albeit at a “rogue” store.