Like McDonalds and the famed Royale With Cheese, so too does Starbucks change its offerings and decor while assimilating with different cultures worldwide. It’s got HuffPo buzzing! [Editors note: We stole 95% of this feature from HuffPo, a blogging practice HuffPo is credited with inventing.]

Starbucks at the Ibn Battuta Mall (Dubai, UAE) Via: HuffPo

Talk about a mall Starbucks outlet unlike any other. Located inside Dubai’s extravagantly decorated Ibn Battuta Mall — allegedly the world’s largest themed shopping mall — this Starbucks location benefits from some pretty stunning surrounding design. Namely, a gorgeous blue-and-yellow, mosaic-tiled domed ceiling and a showpiece of a chandelier.

Xi’an Starbucks (Xi’an, China) Via: HuffPop

Looking like some sort of futuristic battleship, this Starbucks in Xi’an, China (apparently the city’s first when it opened in 2007), has quite a unique exterior. The sharp angles and symmetric wood paneling make for quite the stand-out-in-the-crowd design.

Fukuoka Starbucks (Fukuoka, Japan) Via: HuffPo

Designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates, the store is located on the street leading to the Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine, which apparently influenced the firm’s approach to the project. The designers wanted to have the store fit in seamlessly with the setting, and so the interior features some 2,000 light wood blocks interwoven throughout the length of the store. According to reports, the stunning effect is meant to evoke the look of branches in a forest, giving the impression that the store is “nestled in a tree.” Design-wise, it might just be the coolest Starbucks ever.

Ooh, girl!

The post Huffington Post: Chic Starbucks Styles A Design Delight appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Keep this number handy - (503) 227-1212 – that’s a direct connection to Radio Cab, Portland’s half-century old jewel of a car service, with affordable rates, quirky drivers, and 24 hour service.

Here’s what we’ve gathered:

• Tuesday, April 17th

SCAA Kick-Off Party & Latte Art Throwdown
Wonderland Ballroom
6:30PM – 9:30PM
Free! Food! Open bar!

We’re looking forward to the entire program at for Portland’s Barista Nation event. UNIC is premiering its Stella di Caffe DCL Dial Machine, Richard Sandlin from Fair Trade USA will MCing the Latte Art Throwdown. There’s a $5 buy in, with all proceeds go to CARE. The grand prize is a Macap Grinder. There will be meatball sliders and UNIC is sponsoring an open bar. Woohoo!

• Thursday, April 19th

Imbibe / Roast Magazine Party
Spirit of 77
9:00PM – 11:30PM
Invite Only

Imbibe and Roast Magazine are throwing an invite-only party at Spirit of 77, which is definitely going to be party central all week long. Expect top-shelf imbibables from some of Portland’s top bartenders and a curated menu from Spirit’s capable kitchen.

Live Show With DJ Shopping Cart, MSG, and Male Perspective
Stumptown Belmont Cafe
7:00PM
Free!

If you feel like enjoying a low-key quintessentially Portland affair, head over to the Southeast Belmont neighborhood to watch some shreddage from a couple of Stumptown employee bands. MSG, barista Tim Wenzel’s stage name, is an act that’s not to be missed: cassette tape backing band, low-fi keyboards and songs that come deep from within Wenzel’s brain juices. He only performs live as MSG twice a year, so this is a rare treat. There’s sure to be some tasty coffee around, and maybe they’ll save us a date bar?

• Friday, April 20th

Coffeelandia
Portland Roasting Headquarters
7:00PM – 11:00PM
$10 Suggested Donation

Copy and pasteboard: “A block party and fundraiser for Portland Global Initiatives and Global Brigades, COFFEELANDIA will be at 7 p.m. in front of Portland Roasting’s headquarters at 340 SE 7th Avenue, just a half mile from the Oregon Convention Center. Proceeds from the suggested $10 entrance donation will go toward water stewardship projects in Honduras.”

La Marzocco, Stumptown, BMag Happy Hour
Spirit of 77
6:00PM – 8:00PM
Free!

If you feel like staying close to convention land after the first day of SCAA/USBC, go across the street to Spirit for a casual happy hour. Avoid the lines and get in early for a pre-dinner pre-funk.

Red E & Sprudge.com USBC Party
Spirit of 77
10:00PM – 2:30AM
Free! Drink specials!

Sprudge.com and The Red E are proud to present the best DJ in Portland, DJ Beyonda, who will spin her legendary soul set for a late-night evening of dancing and debauchery. Belly up to the bar and order some drink specials, including a spiked Red E Tiki punch, or the “Sprudge”, a beer-and-whiskey combo priced for the traveling barista’s budget. This is a night for dancing, and we’re going to dance dance dance.

• Saturday, April 21st

Tight Shots & Short Cups
The Clubroom
8:00PM
Wristband Required*

Intelligentsia, Chemex, La Marzocco, Caffe Ladro, Verve Coffee Roasters, Marco and notNeutral are throwing a big shabangalanga on Saturday night at the Clubroom at the Leftbank Annex, just blocks from Conventionland. There will be small bites from Phresh, beer from Upright, and a special delivery of brew from Chicago notables Three Floyds.

* To make sure you’re granted entry, obtain one of 700 wristbands that will be distributed by the seven sponsors for the event. If you need help sneaking in, talk to us.

Roasters Guild Party
Rontoms
7:00PM – 2:00AM

Copy and pasteboard: “Come hang out with the Roasters Guild on Saturday night during the 24th Annual SCAA Event! Grab a bite to eat and a drink at this great venue and get connected with the members and friends of the Roasters Guild. You won’t find a better way or a crazier bunch to relax with and unwind after a long day at the Event.”

Speakeasy In Portland
Jupiter Hotel
8:00PM – ?
Invite Only

Copy and pasteboard: “Speakeasy is hosted by the American Barista & Coffee School, Water Avenue Coffee, The Oregon Bartenders Guild and Barista Exchange. We will be throwing a Speakeasy party featuring local spirits and libations, as well as signature cocktails from Portland’s top bartenders. Must have invite to get in, or print this event from Facebook.”

• Sunday, April 22nd

BGA & USBC Party
Spirit of 77
6:00PM – ?
RSVP On Facebook

The final shindig, the party where historically baristas take off all there clothes and get nasty. Julia Barber will surely be tweeting at 3 that morning with regrettable shots of former barista champions doing all sorts of homoerotic things. Get ready.

The post Your Official Portland Party Portal appeared first on Sprudge.com.

This guide was originally published for the Southwest Regional competition, but we felt like it was pertinent to parents, friends and colleagues competing this weekend in the Big Central. So it’s a copy-paste-job, big whoop.

This feature is for the moms and dads of this year’s BCRBC competitors. If you’ve never been to our website before, that’s totally fine – Sprudge.com concerns itself with coffee culture, coffee in the media, global coffee issues, and how best to photoshop coffee’s celebrity class. This weekend’s barista competition in Chicago is a really big deal to us – so far this year we’ve been to Santa Cruz, Atlanta, New York City, and Tacoma, covering events just like this one. To us, these barista competitions are like Major League Baseball; your son or daughter is the starting third baseman for Detroit, or batting clean-up for the Dodgers; and we’re ESPN, your go-to place for live coverage.

Let’s start with some basic info on these barista competitions. This is the 11th year of competitive barista events in the United States. It’s a 15 minute competition format, during which the barista makes 4 shots of espresso, 4 cappuccinos, and 4 “signature drinks”, a concoction unique to each individual barista. Signature drinks can be sweet, savory, acidic, pleasing, challenging, and strange – often all at the same time. During that 15 minutes, each barista is umpired up and down by a team of certified judges, who score routines on a byzantine set of rules that emphasize cleanliness, economy of movement, taste, and expertise.

These rules can and do change each year; remember how we said these competitions were kind of like Major League Baseball? Well, in reality they’re probably more like the NFL: there’s an immense amount of strategy involved, and the nuts-and-bolts of how scores are administered can appear bewildering to casual observers, but the game itself is a joy to watch. Barista competitions are a delightful spectator sport, once you know what to look for.

• A race against the clock! 15 minutes is not a lot of time, and points are deducted once the competitor passes the 15 minute mark.
• Grace under pressure! Poise and confidence are a constant among barista competition winners.
• Dropping knowledge! The best barista competitors are coffee ambassadors. Viewers should come away from each routine with a new found knowledge and appreciation of the coffee, even if they’re already so-called experts.

Baristas who win a regional event automatically qualify (and are given airfare and accommodations) for the national barista competition event, which is being held this April in Portland, OR. Consider this national event – called the USBC – to be like the playoffs of barista competitions. This event is open to all regional barista competitors from this year’s cycle; regional event winners are given a first-round bye. Whomever wins the USBC is then qualified to compete – and given free airfare and accommodations – at the 2012 World Barista Championship, happening this summer in Vienna, Austria.

Many WBC and USBC winners have gone on to open their own cafes; competing and succeeding in these events can be enormously beneficial to your son or daughter’s future.

What your son or daughter is doing this weekend is important. He or she is the final link in a remarkable chain of global commerce, one that stretches (no joke) all the way to the soils of Peru, Papua New Guinea, or Kenya. When your child gets up on stage, those 15 minutes embody a truly daunting amalgam of information and skill; they are part of a very real artisan renaissance, and their ability to educate and inform from a pressurized competition platform is extraordinary. Competing in these barista competitions is like earning an MFA and graduating from trade school, all in the same brain space. One must be intensely knowledgeable and unfathomably dexterous at the very same time. Imagine giving a lecture on the Ford Motor Company, while simultaneously rebuilding a Mustang engine, all the while being carefully judged on grease smears and the tightness of your concentric ratchet circles.

What your kid does is hard, smart, and amazing. You may not have heard from them much in the last few weeks, but please, don’t take offense, for this is very common. Many barista competitors work 60 hour weeks leading up to competition, budgeting in time for training on top of their already full work and life schedules. Often, it is the “life” part that suffers the most; consider this a two-week buffer zone on all marriage, relationship, or personal life inquiries. Your son or daughter is very busy.

You should be proud of your kid for doing this. Here’s some great ways to follow along with your son or daughter’s exploits at the BCRBC:

Watch the event live on your computer! For free!

For each regional barista competition event, the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s event team has allocated funds and time to beaming the action live around the world. This means you can watch the week’s events live from home, right on your computer! The video feed (or “livestream”) is hosted on two different client sites – the official site is here, hosted by the SCAA, but there is a simultaneous feed also hosted by the livestream company itself, called JustinTv, and that’s available here.

Follow the event on Twitter.

Click here for an instant glimpse at anyone and everyone who’ve mentioned the “#BCRBC”. That pound sign is called a “hashtag” in Twitter-speak, and it’s an easy way to follow all of the conversation and coverage of the Chicago barista event.

If you aren’t already signed up for Twitter, they make it very easy – simply go to Twitter.com, enter your name, email, and a password, then select your user name in the next screen. Once your new account is set up, Twitter will ask you follow and add contacts. We recommend following us to start. Your son or daughter may very well have their own Twitter account!

Check back with Sprudge.com.

Sprudge.com will be covering the event live from Chicago, publishing daily recaps of the BCRBC. Simply bookmark our site in your browser, then surf back here throughout the weekend for photos, essays, videos, and more. Chances are you’ll see your son or daughter get a shout-out on Sprudge!

So that’s it – that’s the barista competition thing your kid is up to this weekend in Chicago. It’s sports, education, culture, and craftsmanship, all wrapped up in an amazing 15 minute block. Share this story with your friends back home! Have a viewing party at your house to cheer on your little champion! Think of this as a grown-up version of those soccer games you stood outside in the rain for, back in the 90′s, only this time your kid has already gone pro, and this weekend could be the jump-off point for some amazing career development…plus it’s a lot of fun.

The post A Parent’s Guide: Big Central Barista Competition appeared first on Sprudge.com.

The shocking true story from Deutschland…

A 60-year-old German housewife appeared in court accused of stealing 2,398 jars of coffee from discount stores in the Munich area.

The woman, named only as Olga H., is accused of hiding the coffee jars in leggings under her skirt and then leaving the stores without paying, German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung reported.

It is thought she usually stole 10 jars at a time, but on other occasions, she is believed to have stolen up to several dozen.

Get all the staggering details (most of which we copy-and-pasteboarded) here via Fox News.

(With thanks to the keen mind of Talon Wood)

The post Munich Woman Thieves 2,385 Coffee Cans appeared first on Sprudge.com.