The city of Houston is home to what we consider one of the very best small specialty coffee roasters in North America: Greenway Coffee Company, owned and operated by longtime BF & GF team David Buehrer and Ecky Prabanto. Greenway’s flagship cafe is on the first-floor food court of an immense commercial high-rise plaza in Houston, but as of this week, they’ve got some pretty amazing fresh digs open to the public. Meet Blacksmith, a collaboration between Greenway Coffee and a like-minded crew of bars and restaurants in Houston’s crazy-imaginative Westheimer Street food scene.

We had a chance to sit down with David Buerher and pick his brain about the project, his coffees, and Blacksmith’s super-serious food program. If you live within striking distance of Blacksmith, you should run, not walk, and go check this place out.

Sprudge: David! We’re so stoked you’re open at Blacksmith. Let’s start with the shout outs – who are you collaborating with on this project?

David Buerher: Hay Merchant, Anvil, Underbelly – three of my favorite places in Houston. My new shop is what it is because of my partnership with these guys. So much knowledge and expertise came to me from them, and it’s on things I would have never thought to think of…like putting 6 inch concrete curbs on every single wall in the shop. If it floods, or something gets spilled, nothing gets damaged.

Also, our coffees at Greenway are sourced via a collaboration with InterAmerican Houston. They go out of their way to get the coffees we need. It’s a relationship we’ve had for several years and the coffees just get better and better…they make it so I can buy such beautiful coffees. And I have to shout out John Letoto, a barista who moved here from Louisville to help us open Blacksmith. He’s gone above and beyond to do this shop.

Sprudge: Talk us through your opening day coffee menu. What style of service do you guys offer? Which coffees?

DB: Lattes, cappuccinos, flat whites, cortados (which are big down here in Houston), Valrhona chocolate ganache for mochas made in house, caramel for drinks made in house…we keep an open door policy for thinks like caramel and chocolate. We’re happy to say yes, happy to take your order, and that’s very important for us. I put as much time and care and effort into a mocha as I do a single cappuccino or espresso, because that customer is worth it just as much as anyone else. The coffee we’re using for these drinks is Greenway’s seasonal espresso, which we call “Scrimshaw” – right now it’s a 50/50 blend of Guatemala Bella Carmona from Antigua and Fazenda da Lagoa from Brazil, but that’ll change next month when some of the sweet Daterra coffees come in from Brazil.

We also have a “coffee bar” menu, which offers a bartender-style of customer and barista interactions. Right now, the menu for this part of our shop is very focused on hand-made coffee, single variety coffees, which we’ll brew for you in any way you like. The coffee we’re featuring here is from Steve Mierisch’s Pulley Collective - it’s their Honduras Finca El Trapiche, from the Marcala region. This coffee was used by Tyler Hawks of Velvet Espresso in his competition routine at Big Central Regionals.

The menu on the bar service side will change each month, as directed by a new barista. I’m running it for the first month, but in the coming months it will be run by others, and they may choose to not even serve our coffees. The goal is to give people an opportunity to get personal with their barista, and create a relationship.

Sprudge: So you love gear, we love gear, everyone loves gear. What coffee brewing gear are you guys using at Blacksmith?

DB: My big goal with the bar is to have a wide diversity in the equipment we use. We have Robur, Anfim, and competition-standard Mahlkonig K-30 Twin grinders; a fantastic 1 group modified pump La Marzocco GS3, a rebuilt La Marzocco AV Linea 2 group, and a Nuova Simonelli Aurelia T-2. My hope is to be able to really train and learn on all of this gear, and to be able to give that access to different gear to our baristas.

For manual brewing, we have Chemex and Clever on the bar, and will soon have some Kalita brewing equipment as well. We use a Fetco Extractor for batch brewing, but Chemex is our preferred method. We got a rocking Everpure water system that I think works fantastic.

Sprudge: Talk to us a little bit about the food situation at Blacksmith. We know food is very important to you as a person, so we’re guessing it’s pretty important at the shop?

DB: Houston has a really cool food community, and I’ve been able to get a lot of exposure and experience from folks who make it great. The food program at St. Ali in Melbourne is a huge, huge inspiration for me – that shop is focused on coffee, but their food is just awesome. It begs the question, you know, “if the food isn’t as good as the coffee, then why are we doing food?” St. Ali does such a great job with their food program, and I wanted to try and emulate that here in Houston, but the problem is…I can’t cook.

We hired Erin Smith to be our chef at Blacksmith. She’s formerly of Per Se and Babbo in New York City, and she came back here to do a wine bar concept, and that’s how we got her. She’s making yogurt from scratch, almond milk from scratch, granola from scratch…every chance we get, if we can make something here in house, we do it. Marlowe & Sons in NYC is another huge influence – their food has the ability to make you feel awesome after you eat it, and that’s what we want to do here.

Sprudge: Tell us a couple of favorites on the menu.

Erin Smith makes these biscuits from scratch with marmalade from scratch and they’re really special. Our menu is just nine items long, but it’s kind of the best nine items ever. We definitely pull from some Houston-area ethnic influences…there’s this Vietnamese steak and egg dish we do, called “Bo-ne”, which is a cast iron marinated steak, two fried eggs,  chicken liver pate, french bread, greens, and savory garlic & salt mayo. You serve open faced as kind of a make-your-own-banh mi. This is super working class food in Vietnam and in the vibrant Vietnamese community here in Houston; sort of like a ploughman’s lunch, this is perfect if you’re only going to eat like one big meal in a workday.

Sprudge: Dang dude.

DB: Yeah it’s really good. You have to come try it!

Blacksmith Coffee (1018 Westheimer Rd.) is open everyday from 7am-5pm. Like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter @Bl4cksmith.

The post NOW OPEN: Blacksmith, A New Cafe In Houston From Greenway Coffee appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Sprudge.com co-founder and writer Jordan Michelman is embedded with the La Marzocco Road Show crew as they tour the great state of Texas. Follow along as they tour Houston, Austin, Dallas, and all points in between all week long.

The city of Houston is not boots and barbecue. It is not George Bush Jr., or 10 gallon cowboy hats. Houston is dim sum, all-night phở, weird oil field vistas, and 30 mile “short” drives. It’s palm trees, in-house butcher shops, and a seemingly endless network of tiny water ways tinted in mud and sun. It’s the Los Angeles of the South, the fourth largest city in America, startlingly diverse and weird and cool. The people here doing great food, great drinks, and great coffee have done it all themselves, in the process developing a kind of gracious, polite chip on their collective shoulders; there’s amazing stuff to eat and drink in Houston, and they’re damn proud of this fact, and they want you to know it. Houston is growing into something very special, and as is so common with these narratives of fine dining and awesome beverages, small businesses and young entrepreneurs, those roasting and serving great coffee are helping to lead the way.

Sprudge and La Marzocco were lucky enough to experience this town as part of the first-ever Texas installation of the La Marzocco Road Show. The event itself went down at The Hay Merchant, a tastefully appointed beer bar in the historic Montrose neighborhood. La Marzocco had their own little landing pad set above the seating floor, where they set up an impressive tech line-up: a three group Strada EP, a GS3, Robur E grinders, a Marco grinder, and a Marco water tower. The Hay Merchant is part of an enormously influential and forward-thinking restaurant group in Houston, whose other spaces include Underbelly (high-end Houston locavore) and Anvil (nationally recognized cocktail-palooza). All of these are located in the historic and uncharacteristically dense Montrose neighborhood; if you’re in Houston and you enjoy beer, consider The Hay Merchant to be your first stop.

Around fifty people filtered in and out throughout the event, making this one of the most successful LM Road Show events yet. Props for the turnout are owed to the event hosts, Greenway Coffee and Fusion Beans. These small independent businesses are doing fascinating work here in Houston.

Greenway Coffee is the work of David Buehrer and Ecky Prabanto, a boyfriend-girlfriend business combo on the forefront of Houston’s burgeoning coffee scene. Mr. Buehrer is a native Houstonian, and has worked in the coffee industry for more than decade. Ms. Prabanto is the roaster for Greenway. They currently have their flagship space in a office park in metro Houston, described to us as being a Third Rail-esque microcafe. Coming soon is a second flagship cafe, called Blacksmith, located in the Montrose neighborhood and adjacent to the current Hay Merchant / Anvil / Underbelly triumvirate. They’ve purchased, and are now in the process of restoring, a beautiful and historic former gay bar called Mary’s, which was the epicenter of Houston gay culture until closing in October of 2009. Greenway’s plans for the space include a lush outdoor patio space, food service, and a showcase for Greenway’s coffee offerings, with a tentative opening date projected for this Fall. At the event itself, we enjoyed a variety of Greenway espresso including   the Cocatu Cooperative from Rwanda and a single origin espresso, Hunapu, from Guatemala (Alterra Coffee also serves Hunapu, and was the espresso choice of BCRBC finalist Sam Brown last weekend.)

Fusion Beans is owned by Sean Marshall, another Houstonian coffee entrepreneur with big plans for expansion. Fusion Beans has been roasting and selling to Houston-area clients since 2007, and they’ll be opening their first permanent cafe just down the block from The Hay Merchant and Blacksmith. Mr. Marshall is calling his new cafe Southside Espresso, and he’ll be offering fine coffees from Fusion Beans and various guest espressos, as well spirits and beer. Immediately prior to the Road Show event in Houston, Mr. Marshall had been in Yemen, where he has established and is now operating an entity called Red Tree Trading Company. Red Tree specializes in Yemeni coffees, and they’ve built their own mill there called Rayyan, located near the capital city of Sana’a. The Rayyan mill specializes in natural processed coffees, on account of tradition and also due to a nation-wide water shortage. The coffees processed at Rayyan comes from the Beni Ishamel region of Yemen, where it’s grown not on estates or via co-ops, but rather by individual farmers cultivating in their own backyards. Mr. Marshall and Red Tree will soon make available three distinct – lots for sale as green coffee: Al Dha’im, Al Maharaba, and Al Malala, and also a peaberry lot called Lul Beni Ishmael and a blend of lots called Zumirid Ishmael. He expects around two containers to be produced and shipped from Rayyan in the coming year.

It’s worth mentioning that Mr. Marshall and Mr. Buehrer are longtime friends; Mr. Buehrer told us the two “grew up together in coffee”, which is a characteristically sweet way to describe their longtime professional and personal relationship. This owes much to why these guys are opening specialty coffee shops within a few blocks of each other. They want to aide in the Montrose neighborhood’s growth into a major destination for consumer experiences, and to add great coffee to the list of reasons why Westheimer Street is worth visiting, regardless of where you hail from. Other reasons include: amazing and historically reverent Tex-Mex at El Real; the fried pig ears at The Hay Merchant; lunch at Underbelly; food truck Chinese from The Rice Box; and surely lots of other stuff we didn’t get to see on this trip.

On the way out of town we stop at Revival Market, a foodie nerd’s dream of a grocery store in the Heights neighborhood, offering in-house charcuterie and butchering, a wide variety of preserves, jams, and condiments, and delicious sandwiches. Coffee before hitting the road: Greenway’s Scrimshaw espresso – “a tribute to 2008 Black Cat”, according to David – made up of 60% Daterra Estate Sunrise, 40% Bella Carmona from Antigua, Guatemala, processed by Beneficio, paired with a cappuccino and some Topo Chico mineral water from Mexico. This is, we’re told, the quintessential Houston coffee experience: Topo Chico and great espresso and an outstanding cappuccino made with grass-fed, local dairy from Revival. David and Ecky and Sean are keenly focused on making Houston better, but if you’ve never been before, or your experience there is limited to last summer’s USBC convention center moonscape, please do not be misinformed: people in Houston already have it pretty fucking good.

The post LM Texas Road Show: Houston Report appeared first on Sprudge.com.

The roadshow rolls on later this week to Dallas and Austin, for events hosted by Cuvee Coffee (they of newly-crowned SCRBC champion Lorenzo Perkins). Stay tuned to Sprudge.com all week for event info and outsider insight on the Texas coffee milieu. If y’all live there, we’d love to meet y’all!

The post Houston: La Marzocco Wants To Party appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Here’s where the party be at this weekend for USBC, and rest assured, you’ll be seeing us there:

Friday, April 29th:

2nd Annual Queers In Coffee Happy Hour (Hilton Americas Houston Lobby Lounge, 1600 Lamar, 6:30pm)

The weekend party schedule gets into full swing on Friday night, starting with the second annual “Queers In Coffee Happy Hour”. Sprudge.com will be proudly curating this informal event, held in the Houston Hilton lounge after the announcement of your USBC semi-finalists. Friends, partners and allies are all welcome – last year’s reception in Anaheim was lovely, and we hope to see you all there.

Amalgam Brew-Down (Revival Heights, 550 Heights Boulevard, caravan transport from SCAA starting at 7:30pm)

Need to fit some more competition into your USBC experience? Come brew down at this, ahem, “Brew Down”, hosted at Revival Market on the Friday night. Their party invite promises “Local beer, local food trucks, local music, local coffee community, no two-stepping”, though we doubt there will be a Texas Ranger on hand to enforce the ban on the boot-scoot boogie. This party is open to one and all, features complimentary transportation from outside the convention center, and should be a real southern fried Gulf Coast shit-show.

Saturday, April 30th:

Roasted and Toasted, Presented By Cuvee (St. Arnold Brewing Company, 2000 Lyons Avenue, 6:30pm)

If you can’t already tell by the name, this will be one of the funnest parties of the weekend. Austin-area roasters Cuvee have teamed with a local brewery and the folks at La Marzocco, Barista Magazine, Mahlkonig and Sweetbird to throw a beery bash on Friday night of USBC. The kicker? $10 raffle tickets available from the La Marzocco show room booth, with a prize package that could kick start your very own cafe: Mahlkonig’s K30 grinder and an oh-snap Marzocco USA GS3 paddle group. Open to the public, get there early, please refrain from taking and posting drunken pictures of your barista community.

SCAA Roasters Guild Party (7pm, Armadillo Palace 5015 Kirby Drive)

The Roasters Guild Party is always the classiest affair at USBC. Don’t let the “Armadillo Palace” moniker fool you: this year should prove to be no exception, and The Goode Company, who owns Armadillo Palace, serve up what some consider to be the best brisket and half-smokes in Houston. This event is open only to members of the Roasters Guild.

Sunday, May 1st:

Barista Guild and USBC Party (7pm, Anvil Bar & Refuge, 1424 Westheimer Rd)

Once the tears have dried and the cheers have subsided, all there’s left to do is drink. Come enjoy top-drawer coffee cocktail concoctions from the Anvil staff and noted Seattle barman / barista Alex Negranza, talk shop, get in a final furtive flirt, and place your bets on the upcoming WBC debacle in Bogota.

JAM NOTHIN’ BUT THEM GRAY SCREW TAPES DOWN HERE IN HOUSTON…

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The post USBC 2011 Party Preview: Glitz, Glamor, and Rollin’ Lean In Houston! appeared first on Sprudge.com.

USBC competition heats up later in the week, but starting tomorrow you can expect wall-to-wall coverage of the SCAA Symposium right here on this very website. Expect frequent updates, videos, and an inside look at what the SCAA Symposium is all about. We’re really and truly excited to bring this coverage to you over the next few days, and especially looking forward to upcoming presentations from Peter Giuliano and James Hoffmann, to name just a few, as well as the Producers Panel featuring Price Peterson, Aida Battle, Arturo Aguirre, and Jose Francisco Pereira.

In the meantime, click below for an easy-to-read Symposium schedule guide, listen to as much music from the South Side 3rd Ward as humanly possible, and get ready for a week in fabulous Houston!

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

Wednesday

7:30 – 8:25: Breakfast!

8:30 – 9:05: Welcome, Introduction, and Keynote Address

• Hal Hamilton of Sustainable Food Labs, presenting models for sustainable agriculture and coffee’s role in the global context.

9:05 – 10:25: The New Context: Climate Change and Coffee Production

• Climate change and “peak coffee”: Dr. Peter Baker
• Climate change, pests, and production: Dr. Juliana Jaramillo
• Climate change and quality: Dr. Tim Schilling
• Guided discussion about short and long term supply chain implications.

10:30 – 11:00: Coffee break!

11:00 – 12:45: New Market Reality

• Strategies for a volatile market: Oscar Schaps
• The new floor: Carlos Brando
• Where the money is going: Juan Luis Barrios
• What this means for your business: Ric Rhinehart
• Panel Discussion about strategic implications and potential responses.

12:45 – 2:00: Lunch!

2:00 – 3:25: Testing Assumptions

• Does quality equal sustainability? Kim Elena Bullock
• Do we understand quality fully? Drs. Shawn Steiman and Tim Schilling
• Are baristas winning over customers? James Hoffmann
• Is the customer experience as we envision? Special Video Segment
• Moderated group discussion about assumptions vs. realities.

3:30 – 4:00: Coffee Break!

4:00 – 5:20: Scaling Specialty

• Scaling with soul: Peter Giuliano
• Technological solutions: Dr. Flavio Borem
• Producer panel: Price Peterson, Aida Battle, Arturo Aguirre, Jose Francisco Pereira

5:20 – 5:30: Closing Remarks

5:30 – 6:30: Cocktails!

7:00: Dinner!

Thursday
7:30 – 8:25: Breakfast!

8:30 – 8:45: Opening Remarks

8:45 – 9:55: “After the Harvest” World Premiere and Discusion

• Addressing systemic issues in the supply chain: Shauna Alexander Mohr
• Introduction of documentary: Rick Peyser
• “After the Harvest” World Premiere
• Commentary: Merling Preza and Michael Sheridan
• Food security, transparency, and reliable information: Daniele Giovannucci
• Moderated discussion.

9:55 – 10:15: Coffee Break!

10:15 – 12:45 Solutions and Industry Collaboration

• Approaching development: Andrew Sargent
• Simplifying solutions: David Browning
• Practicalities of competitor collaboration – lessons from apparel: Sarah Lugaric
• Round Table Discussions
• Perspective from origin – problems, solutions, and certifications: Luis Fernando Samper
• Sustainability and certifications in the wine industry: Tony Hansen
• Measuring impact: Daniele Giovannucci
• Panel discussion on solutions, collaboration and measurement

12:45 – 1:45: Lunch!

1:45 – 3:55: Small Group Discussions

• Defining and Measuring Quality
• Collaborative Research and the GCQRI
• Elevating the Customer Experience and Creating Value
• Business Strategies for Managing Market Volatility
• Certifications, Transparency, and Measuring Impacts
• Seasonal Hunger and Coffee Industry Response
• Climate Change and Coffee Industry Response
• Disseminating Solutions Throughout the Supply Chain

The program is designed so that topics may be added based on group response.

4:00 – 4:15: Video Summary of Results

4:15 – 4:30: Closing Remarks

The post SCAA Houston Symposium Preview and Schedule, Featuring Big Hawk appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer delves into one of the country’s hottest specialty scenes, covering the monthly Philly TNT madness at Shot Tower and giving some love to Sprudge pal Aaron Ultimo. Read the story here.

Sprudge in Philly for next month’s TNT? Developing…

The post City Scenes: MSM Takes On Coffee In Houston, Philly appeared first on Sprudge.com.