Maybe you spent the last week lounging on the beaches of some remote island off the coast of Washington, or maybe you just had a job and kids and a real life that kept you busy. Whatever the case may be, here’s all the coffee news you missed in the last 7 days —all in one spot. It’s like a fun-sized candy bar, only it’s not a candy bar—it’s just words.

Your World Barista Championship Finals In Words and Pictures: After being narrowed down from a field of 51 competitors, we saw 6 WBC Finalists on the biggest stage blow us away. We’ve got exclusive photos and in depth essays on each of the competitors and their routines. You don’t wanna miss this one—here it is!

We released exclusive WBC videos that you didn’t get to see! We made a whole heap of new videos at this year’s World Barista Championship – some for the competitors, and some for the commercials that aired between routines. Watch them all back-to-back, Netflix style right here on YouTube, where you can find more than 100 (!) other Sprudge Videos.

Liz Clayton took a look the Very Best Coffee At Grand Central Terminal in NYC. With more than 21 million annual visitors, the iconic Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan is one of New York City’s loveliest – and busiest – public spaces. Ms. Clayton proves that Grand Central isn’t just a place to hop on and off trains—it’s also home to a dizzying array of specialty coffee options, delicious espressos, bright and lovely filter coffees, and every imaginable brewing doodad are available to purchase. All aboard, amirite?!

Our dedicated New York City staff writer Alex Bernson (@AlexBernson) teamed up with legendary photographer Ben Spell (@BenSpell) – to bring us these drool-inducing shots of Intelligentsia‘s brand new bar in Chelsea, NYC and 17 Excellent Geeky Details At The New Intelligentsia NYC Cafe. If you’ve been brainwashed by twitter and can no longer read more than 140 characters at a time like me, this is a really easy read—it’s basically like scrolling through your twitter feed.

Glanville & Babinski’s opened their new cafe at Grand Central Market (GCM) in LA, and Julie Wolfson has the latest scoop. She sat down with both the G and the B in G&B to talk everything from the long bar to the menu to some of the exciting new “spirits-inspired” espresso drinks they’ll be offering. G&B + GCM 4EVER.

DCILY reported that Koppi, the feisty Helsingborg outfit, has opened a pop up shop In Stockholm adjacent to raw denim purveyors Denim Demon. The DCILY feature has gorgeous photos and loads more info on the shop. WIC rejoice!

Harald Johnsen Vøyle and his sister, Ingri M. Johnsen, armed themselves with a notebook and a camera, then went on a whirlwind dazzle-tour of the MICE merry-go-round. They took a look at the brand new Slayer One Group Espresso Machine and broke down some of the new features—we’ve got seven words for you: digital touch interface with fingertip swipe technology.

Steve Albini of the AV Club (and founder of the band Shellac) endorsed Kopi Luwak on a recent feature so we took a second to shred-ucate him on the ATROCITIES OF CIVET ABUSE and recommend a few local Chicago cafes with better coffee that he could visit. Take THAT, weasel poop coffee.

We woke up the next day to a really thoughtful email from Steve Albini about weasel poop coffee in our inbox.

It was a big week for specialty coffee in the mainstream media for a lot of different—VERY different—reasons. Here’s a really quick rundown of what’s been floating around out there:

Seattle Weekly published a piece on the rebirth of Seattle Coffee, highlighting Milstead & Co and the folks at Slate Coffee.

Reuters took some time to distill the rising popularity in the growing craft coffee industry – and they do it quite nicely.

The second season of the Sprudgie Award Winning Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee is returning June 13!

A HAIR ON THE STEAM WAND, JERRY! (Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee)

Toddlers In Tiaras has a new breakout star, Alexa, the two-year-old coffee drinker. We asked our readers to sound-off about T&T, toddlers and coffee, and feeding children hot dog buns for breakfast (and boy howdy, did they ever) – including a comment from Alexa’s mother, Tori:

Kolache.

Thanks for writing in, Tori! Until next week!

The post Last Week With Ben Blake: Week of June 7th, 2013 appeared first on Sprudge.com.

With more than 21 million annual visitors, the iconic Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan is one of New York City’s loveliest – and busiest – public spaces. And befitting NYC’s status as a glittering global coffee capital, Grand Central’s Beaux-Arts halls are today home to a dizzying array of specialty coffee options, where delicious espressos, bright and lovely filter coffees, and every imaginable brewing doodad can be yours for the purchase. In this feature, Liz Clayton goes exploring amongst the pounding human beat. This is New York City coffee in 2013. 

I can’t speak for everyone, but in decades past, I’d come to to expect a certain degree of anonymity from transit hubs, even those as beautiful and special, as well-integrated into city environs, as New York’s Grand Central Terminal. Before the fetishization of food took over where, you know, everything else cool left off, the best cuisine we could generally expect while on the run to our plane at point A, or our subway at point B, was a choice between the lesser chain evils of Dunkin Donuts or Sbarro. (What IS it about travel that makes Sbarro sound so good?) But, as you have no doubt already noticed, times have changed.

In the coffee-alert metropolis of New York City, a surprising thing has happened over the last couple of years. Grand Central Terminal, the railway nexus connecting Manhattan with the Hudson Valley, Connecticut and that soup dumpling place in Flushing, has become more like a Grand Coffee Terminal. No longer is it required to leave the beaten path and seek out the finest artisanal coffee tastes, or brewing bits and bobs. You can simply pick them up en route. Looking for a fantastic macchiato? V60 filters? A hand-prepared iced Kalita pourover brew? A selection of Cup of Excellence-winning beans? An electric Bonavita kettle? A cardboard box of coffee with a handle on it that comes with a handful of sugar packets and some bagel detritus stuck to the bottom? Look no further! However high your brow, Grand Central Terminal is now the one-stop one-hundred-year-old coffee shop for you.

I spent a jittery afternoon touring the concourses and passages of Grand Central, cataloging just how many specialty coffee options—and indeed, any kind of coffee options—exist within these halls. This is how they break down by area of interest:

Espresso

Quality espresso is available at Joe (in the dark and somewhat elusive Greybar Passage) and at Irving Farm (newly opened in the downstairs dining concourse). Both cafes give one the option of drinking your espresso-based beverage in an appropriate ceramic cup, no matter how late you are for your train. Financier, a bakery with a three-group Linea, will also make you an espresso (they appear to use Brooklyn private-label roaster Stone Street), which will be quite astringent and come in an itsy to-go cup—but to its credit is also presented with an itsy cello-wrapped pastry perched atop the miniature lid. Points for effort. Should you swing that way, there is also a Starbucks in the Lexington Passage.

Filter Coffee

Unsurprisingly, filter coffee options are where Grand Central Terminal really shines, and if you’re looking for something out of a Fetco you’ll be unbelievably fulfilled in this train station. Three Fetcos continually crank out a dozen (!) rotating urns of fresh coffee at Joe, and another battalion of thermal soldiers does the same downstairs at Irving Farm. Starbucks, if for some reason you can’t find the other coffee shops, at least maintains a batch of Blonde Roast on its urn rotation. And in an admirable move, Irving Farm also features by-the cup Kalita Wave brewing, in case you’d like to miss your train. And this reporter was able to suss out a bit of a scoop: Oren’s Daily Roast, located within the weird and stressful Grand Central Market portion of the station, isn’t technically allowed to sell prepared coffee (they stick to beans and gear)—but they do offer wee free samples from an airpot!

Gear and Whole Beans

Looking to outfit your countertop coffee bar en route to Poughkeepsie? You’re in luck! Grand Central is, somewhat inexplicably and totally unexpectedly, the perfect place to shop for assorted coffee accoutrements. Joe heroically fits a wide range of brewing tools into its diminutive space: V60 drippers, Buono kettles, Hario range servers, Chemexes. And just a couple hundred labyrinthine feet away is a truly Texas-sized array of gear at Oren’s Daily Roast: Clever drippers, Aeropresses, V60s, Chemex carafes in different sizes, a couple of Baratza grinders to choose from, Skerton hand grinders, Bonavita kettles and automatic coffee makers, Sowden Softbrew brewers, paper filters in all shapes and sizes…and that’s only the nice stuff. If you also need a selection of Moka Pots, handheld milk frothers decorated with the Union Jack, or novelty mugs bedecked with Hello Kitty, tie-dye, Scrabble motifs, or the cover of Abbey Road: they have that, too. Oren’s, Joe, and Irving Farm also all sell bags of their self-roasted whole bean coffee, though only Oren’s is forced to share airspace with an olifactorily distracting spice merchant just a few feet away.

Experience

If you’re looking for a 3WE (Third Wave Experience), your best choices in this building are clearly Irving Farm and Joe, though it’s at Joe you’ll feel most like you’re in a hip cafe—the baristas look the part, may be ironically debating classic rock records released before they were born, and there is a picture of Angry Cat pasted over the tip jar—and also least like it—there is nowhere to sit, everyone in there is often a white male in a suit, etc. That said, people do linger and often order smaller drinks to stay, and the coffee is fantastic. Irving Farm, down below, features an entirely circular bar which extends the seating possibilities to those of the wooden benches of the crowded dining concourse. You can take your fancy coffee and sit with the pizza-eaters and tallboy-drinkers, but you can also drink it in ceramic. Their buildout is impressive, with a shiny white La Marzocco FB80, which pleasingly distracts you from the fussy customers ordering custom-proportioned Arnold Palmers and cucumber sandwiches. Because this is — did we mention—GRAND CENTRAL FRIGGIN STATION—the number of staff is also staggering for these tiny locations. When I visited there were at least six staff were on duty in the midday hours at each, and I have a feeling more were hiding behind the scenes or crouched low under the counter. It’s a miracle how much is accomplished, how quickly, and in such magnitude, under these conditions. And pulling it off with quality? Very impressive, and very New York.

But this was meant to be a thorough exploration of Grand Central’s coffee offerings, and so I’m happy to report that should you find the aforementioned high quality options for satisfying your short- and long-term coffee needs insufficient, a survey of the premises concluded that one does, indeed, have other options. Magnolia Bakery will make you a coffee, as will the Tri-Tip Grill, Junior’s Most Fabulous Cheesecake, Mendy’s Kosher Delicatessen, Ciao Bella Gelato, Dishes, Zoro’s, Central Market New York, and hell—you can even get a cup of Lavazza at the Grand Central Oyster Bar. (We saw no brewing equipment visible at the Chirping Chicken or Feng Shui, but you might just have to know a guy.)

With these myriad options in place, your next trip upstate, crosstown, or just to the Apple Store should be more than satisfied by a selection of the finest in coffee and coffee-making equipment. And hey, should you also need a huge selection of makeup, olive oil, cigars, hard-to-find beers over $30 a bottle, or pret-a-microwave turkey meatloaf slabs, you’re going to be super-duper satisfied there, too. And there’s an even more coffee-ful future ahead for Grand Central. Rumor has it that Starbucks’ lease will be up within a year or two, to be replaced by something more locally grown. Fantastic news. Until then, we’ll be lingering awkwardly outside their entrance, soaking up the free WiFi signal.

Liz Clayton contributes coffee and tea coverage to Serious Eats, and will soon release her first book of original writing and coffee photography, “Nice Coffee Time.”

Read more Liz Clayton on Sprudge.

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We’re hoping not to diminish the serious and senseless violence that took place just after SCAA ended, but rather to celebrate the fun we had in Boston. The enthusiasm that courses through this industry runs parallel to the dedication of those who love the marathon, the city of Boston – hell, even the Red Sox – and any other niche passion that brings people together to work hard and do awesome. We had a great time, and send nothing but the most buoyant wishes that the city’s wounds heal quickly. – LC

It would be disappointing to roll up to a town the day before a coffee convention – this being the 2013 SCAA Event and United States Barista Championship in Boston – and not have the baristas at the local cool spots call you out immediately. Of course, you have to be alert enough to understand what they’re saying, which I was not when I thought I heard the nice young man at dwelltime ask me, “Are you here from another dimension?”

“Uh,” I stammered. “Sort of? I’m here from New York?”

It turns out he wondered if I was here for the convention. This was not off to a good start.

My assignment this week, beyond photographic duties, was to once again capture the after-hours frisson of the SCAA and USBC nightlife for Sprudge.com: what were the must-hit parties, who would have the best watered-down mixology, whose selection of Whole Foods hummous would prove the most delicious? And who better to send than a weary photojournalist whose interest in after-parties focuses on such key features as: what might the snacks be like? And are there chairs? It turns out that even when these questions are answered, even when one puts their best party feet forward, it can be harder than you think to go out at night.

Let’s start with Thursday. After the opening ceremonies in the grand ballroom, wherein I totally scored a free cup of water, I was quickly kidnapped by benevolent friends in the direction of a lobster roll. After my first day of convention food (by which I mean, starvation), this was as good a party as any I could ever, ever imagine. There was a Boston TNT going on that night, hosted by Espresso Parts. While deciding my next move, I heard from an inside source that there were going to be pupusas at this throwdown. I then heard from my source that the scene was a “shit show!!!” Point taken. I am pretty sure I then went back to the hotel to rest up for Friday.

Before any good Friday night of thrill-seeking in Beantown, of course, it’s best to lay a groundwork of food first. I had a lovely dinner with my New York compatriots from Dallis Bros. Coffee, where Anne C. began pre-partying with a drink that engulfed her in clouds of dry ice. We were off to a good start. We were off to a not-as-good-start once we climbed into Mike D.’s car, however: I did some terrible multi-task navigating of Boston’s incomprehensible noodle-tangle of roads, all while trying to keep driver Mike on course while taking into account his slight left-and-right dyslexia. It’s better for Mike if you don’t give him directions like “turn left” or “turn right”, but instead point him towards or away from something he can see. As Anne was in the passenger seat at the time, my directions quickly became phrased in relationship to her, e.g. “Go towards Anne when you get to Mass Ave” or “Go away from Anne”. We got to Somerville, after much mistake-making on my part, and saw that the party at Counter Culture Coffee‘s training center was raging, with people dancing on the cupping tables as we first went past. Looking for parking, we continued to loop around the neighborhood, and had to make a right turn to maneuver back to prime parking territory. “Up at the next corner,” Mike D. confirmed with me, “I’m just going to bang an Anne?” Again, I stress: this was all my fault.

We arrived safely arrived at the Counter Culture party, but I couldn’t understand why C. Whitcomb was standing outside on the street, under an umbrella (it wasn’t raining) and just shaking his head at me. I don’t like to ask too many questions, so I proceeded inside for a quick site survey.

It was unclear if there was beer left. There was still dip. Someone was holding a newborn baby. I saw 40 empty cups with only ice. Where was the music? J. Hoffmann’s here, and he’s going “next door”, which I think is the same party only in a different room. Maybe that’s where the beer and music are. Award winner Dan Streetman says the cops are here. He’s soaking wet with his own perspiration. Moments earlier. he had been grinding against other industry leaders atop the CCC custom cupping tables. Now, Counter Culture’s Daryn Berlin is standing atop the tables explaining that “we have been clearly told by the authorities that the party must end.” Well, at least we had that scenic drive to Somerville! The party quickly migrates to the sidewalk and the parking lanes, where Peter D. is smoking an E-cigarette. Someone starts a rumor that it was DJ Sprudge themselves who called the cops, so they could go home and take a nap. Everyone disperses somewhat to try and figure out the next (poor, sad, unfortunate) not-too-sketchy bar to take over completely, a few people who drove get pre-pulled over by the cops, and one guy is asking for local tips because he is on a Good Will Hunting tour of Boston. It is no longer hailing outside.

I end up with a tiny group at a late-night Peruvian place with a live band and a competing group of coffee people who have split their dinner tab into about 300 separate checks. Back to the Harpoon brewery? Too much ambiance. We head to the Lord Hobo for one, and I go the heck to sleep.

Saturday Night! The mind boggles. In fact, what’s more boggling than a party that shuts down the moment you arrive? A party you’re never allowed into in the first place! My scouting team and I headed over to the La Marzocco/Cafe Imports / Barismo / George Howell event at “Space With a Soul” – the space with a soul! – which started at 5, during the finals announcements for USBC. It was already at capacity by 6:45. Even R. Willbur was forced to stand on line outside the venue, which is pretty unbelievable because he works for La Marzocco, and is R. Willbur. Someone came out from within and cautioned: “It’s hot, and all they have is cheese,” but despite how appealing this sounded there was no getting in anytime soon. I followed my team to a bad Mexican bar, then disbanded in search of food with LA and Chicago kids, only to watch them settle on eating last-call deli sandwiches in a grocery store. It was going to be the kind of night where I went to eat a hamburger by myself while playing Carcassonne on my telephone at the bar and went to bed early, and that was just fine with me. I heard reports that a few other parties had generated more success: the Roasters Guild party was supposed to be good, and somewhere in town James H. reported in as being covered in spray cheese. I’m not sure if this was entirely true or not, but I’m sure that party was great too. So was going to bed at 11.

Last but not least, who doesn’t want to chase down a week/end of involuntary starvation and scavenged sponsor coffee by hitting up a totally bumpin’ sweetener party? Thanks to Natvia‘s antipodal generosity, ticketholders for this final-night soiree were greeted with a dance party of interesting proportions, featuring a real-life bouncer at the door, a photo-booth with comedy hats and glasses, and the crown jewel of all barista parties: a cash bar.

I arrive in a complete stupefaction of fatigue, on the edge of sleepy tears. Gianni C. is wearing a sailor hat, outgoing United States Barista Champ K. Carguilo is shaking people from Wisconsin with urgency, and D. Latourell is NOT on the dance floor, or even on this continent. Lara G. from the SCAA insists I sample her drink: a salty, acerbic martini that tastes like green olives mixed with lighter fluid. P. Ramirez and I smoke a couple of candy cigarettes and talk about sleeping. There are no cabs. The Boston Marathon will be run tomorrow, or at least partially run, because the world is fucked up in ways we in the first world part of coffee tend to remain blissfully ignorant of far too much of the time.

I myself call it a night: it’s time to return to my cousin’s home, and normal life. Time to eat meals again, hold cute babies, and think about the bigger picture beyond how long a walk it is to the door of the convention center and whether they’ve considered installing a monorail. In a few days, I might even think about having another cup of coffee.

Liz Clayton is a Brooklyn-based writer and photographer, a Sprudgie Award winner, and a regular contributor to Serious Eats. Her debut book of coffee travel & photography – “Nice Coffee Time” – is due out Spring 2013 from Press Pop / Tiny Person.

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Joe Coffee has officially opened its doors in Philadelphia with a brand new cafe in Rittenhouse Square, at 1845 Walnut Street. This new cafe is serving coffee roasted exclusively in-house by the venerable New York chain, a first for any of their now 9 locations. Sprudgie Award winner Liz Clayton has a first hand account via Serious Eats:

A coffee chain opening their first cafe outside of their hometown isn’t always a game-changer. But looking at the likes of Intelligentsia and Stumptown: sometimes it is. Enter New York’s City’s Joe, then—who last week opened their first-ever out-of-state cafe in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia. Their entry into this growing coffee-literate city—until recently rather dominated by local roaster La Colombe, with a little Counter Culture and Stumptown thrown in the mix—isn’t shocking at first. But throw into the mix that it’s part of Joe’s gradual transition to roasting their own coffees exclusively and the Northeast will soon have another major roasting force on its hands.

As can be expected, Liz Clayton’s feature is awesome – go read the whole thing here. Congrats to Joe! This is the first of two cafes they’re slated to open in Philly. Learn more here via their listing at the official Joe NYC website.

The post Joe Live And Direct In Philly Town, Rap And Hype And They Can Brew Down appeared first on Sprudge.com.

It has been a massively busy week for your Sprudge.com editors – who knew “doing journalism” would be so much darn work! This week’s WWWIR is brought to you by our trusty intern, Joanna Han, with edits and additions made live from a converted ranchero estate somewhere in the mountains of Antioquia, Colombia. Take it away, Joanna!

Let’s Talk Coffee In Colombia:  Your Sprudge editors are currently presenting, holding live panel interviews, tweeting, and wishing they knew Spanish at this year’s Let Talk Coffee conference, presented by Sustainable Harvest. Their panel (on the topic of fancy cafes in North America) was a real hit, presented in “Late Night TV” style, and featuring such industry notables as Sam Lewontin (Everyman Espresso), Stephen Vick (Blue Bottle Coffee), Fabrizio Sencion-Ramirez (Cafe Sublime / 5PM / 2-time Mexico Barista Champion) and Jared Linzmeier (Caffe Ladro) Sprudgey co-founder Jordan Michelman was also featured as part of a panel on “Storytelling At Origin”, where he showed videos and read from an original essay from Sprudge’s recent trip to Rwanda with Fair Trade USA.

Brew Fest Success: Last week’s Hüsker Brew event in Minneapolis, Minnesota was a truly fantastic event in all respects, gathering together over 200 people to eat, drink, and be merry at the Cafe Imports Warehouse. We cupped over 50 coffees from quite the impressive list of roasters — all generously donated, and all thoroughly enjoyed. Hüsker Brew was the fifth in an ongoing series of public cupping parties held by Sprudge this year. For the next one, we’re headed to the Windy City on October 25th!

Espresso Nerd Video Of The Year: Nerds: we love them. St. Ali Coffee Roasters’ Matt Perger has come up with another great coffee video, and this one’s as nerdy as they get. Charts, graphs, and data analysis galore, the video aims to show that “if you’re not using volumetrics or weighing every single shot’s dose and yield, your espresso bar will be grossly inconsistent.” Watch Perger’s V-60 pour-over method video, also accompanied by a damn catchy soundtrack, and read our love letter to roaster nerds.

At Last, Good Coffee In Paris: Is France perhaps on its way to joining Portland, London, Tokyo, and Oslo as a major coffee destination? Oliver Strand sure hope so – he’s tired of his favorite city having such crummy coffee, which is why the delight is palpable in his most recent T Magazine Online “Ristretto” column, in which he gives three Parisian shops his seal of approval. Now the espresso accompanying that Ladurée macaron won’t have to taste like “ashy swill.”

The Verismo, Verifiably Bland: Starbucks has come up with the Verismo, a new automated pod machine that creates both brewed coffee and, according to Starbucks,  “caramelly rich true espresso.” Liz Clayton of Serious Eats was bold enough to give it a try, noting in her excellent article that the pod milk tastes “bland at best,” that the system is quite wasteful, but that overall, the machine does do a great job at replicating Starbucks drinks for those who want the Starbucks experience at home. Worth a read!

Glansville & Babinski Opens In LA: G&B is not a pop-up, but it’s not not a pop-up, and anyway, this new café from 2008 USBC champion Kyle Glanville and perennial USBC favorite Charles Babinski opened its doors this week in Silver Lake, LA. In addition to coffee from roasters like 49th Parallel, Ritual, and Heart, G&B serves delicious-sounding brown rice bowls and brioche toast. They’re hiring.

Coffee Potpourri For 500, Alex: 5 historical attempts to ban coffee, from Sweden to Prussia; 20 most beautiful cafes in the world, from Denmark to Israel, according to some gal who probably hasn’t been to any of them; a “reading” and Coffee 101 demo in San Francisco next week from Left Coast Roast author Hanna Neuschwander; and the new Blossom Coffee Brewer in action, as approved by Joey Lawrence. Whoa!

The post Unpaid Intern: Weekly Weekend Week In Review for 10/6/2012 appeared first on Sprudge.com.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, there’s some really great coffee writing coming out of the Serious Eats: Drinks blog, from regular contributors Erin Meister and Liz Clayton. Ms. Clayton is up to bat today, in a feature where she boldly tries the new Starbucks Verismo pod system, including its mercurial (and apparently misunderstood, if the comments are to believed) powdered milk frothing pod.

There’s no doubt about it, robots still have tremendous intellectual appeal. Perhaps at no more enticing time than first thing in the morning, when you’re desperately hoping someone else, anyone else, anything else, might make you your coffee. The growth of the pod-coffee segment of home brewing machines has been tremendous, and it’s not just because people are lazy and they look cool. It’s because they are capable of producing a surprisingly acceptable—sometimes even good!—cup of coffee.

At long last, Starbucks is throwing its hat in the ring. The company announced in September the arrival of the “Verismo” automated pod machine, a push-button single-cup espresso maker that offers the added functionality of brewing drip coffee and…wait for it…even steaming milk for you by using milk pods…all in one handy chute.

As always with Ms. Clayton’s content, it’s a corking good read, and given the subject matter (capable of sending coffee enthusiasts into convulsions) she walks the tight-rope nicely. Read the whole thing here via Serious Eats:Drinks.

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While White’s style is certainly more academic than storycraft, or even narrative nonfiction, her open, direct approach to the combined forces behind coffee’s sway over this part of the world (and, it should be added, her willingness to explore feminist questions many other writers wouldn’t have thought to ask) should be of of keen interest to anyone who likes coffee, urban spaces, or just Japan.

James Hoffmann is similarly enamored:

I had no idea of the breadth of coffee influence of Japan – it made me interested in going further into aspects of the history of coffee in Japan.  On the brewing/barista side of things, the term kodawari was appealing and compelling.  I will avoid trying to explain as Corky does a much better job than I!

Perhaps this isn’t really a review, more a recommendation – all I can really say is that I enjoyed it, and if you want to read something well researched and well written then you’ll probably enjoy this too.

You can pick up a copy for yourself via Powell’s, the world’s best bookstore for 41 years and counting.

The post Reading Rainbrew: “Coffee Life In Japan” Met With Praise appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Up live today via Serious Eats, another in what’s become a pretty darn impressive body of work on that site from contributor Liz Clayton. Today’s feature taste-tests and provides infotainment on a variety of decaffeinated coffee offerings, but we’ve been equally enamored with Liz’s recent stroll through the coffee aisle at Trader Joe’s, her coffee tour of Montreal, and this treatise on the improving status of fancy restaurant coffee

On the modern delights of decaf:

Natural processes of decaffeination available nowadays, such as Swiss Water, which eschews chemicals in favor of a pretty amazing soaking-green-coffee-in-decaffeinated-green-coffee-extract method, allow for green coffee beans to release caffeine molecules while retaining as much integrity to the flavor compounds of the bean as possible. Decafs these days are capable of coming out of the gate with great nuance of flavor, minus that tiny bit of edge.

Ms Clayton goes on to profile Four Barrel’s Buena Vista Bolivia, Coava’s Capucas Honduras, Batdorf & Bronson’s Decaf Dancing Goats blend, Intelligentsia’s House Decaf, and Grumpy’s La Igualdad Guatemala. Read the full feature on decaf here, and learn more about the Swiss Water Process here!

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Out yesterday via Serious Eats, the one and only Liz Clayton writes compellingly on “Why Restaurant Coffee Is Getting Better“:

The restaurant coffee problem is an evergreen topic among coffee professionals, those who watch the industry, and anyone who ever goes out to eat anywhere at all. Food providers, from punks who do the highest-end artisanal donuts out of a tricked-out van to the white-tablecloth-and-napkin set, may be genius-like in preparing comestibles…and will then smack you in the throat with the worst tasting coffee imaginable. Stale urns of scorchy, low-quality coffee, or perhaps a thin and bitter espresso prepared by the bus-boy. Why, for the love of all things warm and brown, why?

Aiming to change that are several restaurants of the new guard and some of the traditional guard as well.

She goes on to list Maialino (Counter Culture), Eleven Madison Park (Intelligentsia), Gramercy Tavern (Blue Bottle), Union Square Cafe (Dallis Bros. Coffee), and Atera (Barismo), all fine restaurants located in New York, along with Chicago’s Publican and Lula (both Intelligentsia), and Empire State South in Atlanta (Counter Culture). Atera in particular receives considerable attention in the feature for their relationship with Barismo, with whom they’re carving out a serious devotion for some Colombian Geisha. Read the whole thing here on Serious Eats.

The post She’s So Unsinkable! Liz Clayton On Restaurant Coffee appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Liz Clayton’s coverage of SCAA / USBC after-hours continues. Read part 1 here!

FRIDAY:

The day gets off to an inarguably good beginning with a light rail train full of prominent espresso brewing equipment manufacturers sharing PDX restaurant tips. (“Chipotle. You eaten there? It’s pretty good.”) This was just the kind of sage advice I needed after a night like Thursday, when a raucous crew took over Spirit of 77 for not one but two parties!

Spirit of 77 being the largest, nearest, most basketball-themed bar adjacent to the Oregon Convention Center made it the natural choice for lots of parties each night, or, hey, lots of parties on the same night. A La Marzocco/Stumptown/Barista Magazine happy hour was reported to have taken place in the earlier shades of the evening on Friday — but with all that barista competing going on after hours, it can sometimes be hard to, say, feed yourself, or cross the street. Our merry band of travelers chose instead to arrive on the later side, either fashionably late for the Marzocco party or unfashionably early for the Sprudge.com/Red E Cafe fete. The empty-ish room provided clear sightlines to key partiers like Tim Varney and Ben Kaminsky, who proceeded to show each other several things on space-age so-called “smart” telephones, clearly dedicated to preserving their dancing energy for later. Olympia, Washington’s Michael Elvin was found again at Spirit, hoping to recreate what he described as “probably the best bathroom experience I’ve ever had” with a particular World Barista Champion at the same bar the night before. The mind boggles.

But faster than you can say “sustainably sourced local milk I had overnighted across the country“, the room began to fill up with party runoff from other night clubs. These revelers were clearly marked by rave-style glowing necklaces and assorted deely-bobbers, and this seemed as good a time as any to call it a night, lest my Sprudge Editors pocket-call me again from across the bar.

SATURDAY

Post-gaming a day like Saturday’s hugely competitive Semi-Finals seemed nearly impossible, even for the seasoned pros. To sturdy up for the night’s worst, an emergency meeting of the 2012 United States Tomato Soup team convened at an undisclosed location, where everyone pretended not to talk about barista competitions. From there, a Radio Cab was dispatched to the “Tight Butts and Short Pants” party hosted by Stephen Morrissey, La Marzocco, cute little baby Linzmeier, some cup manufacturers, David Walsh, the law offices of Zell, Kahn, and Michelman, Roger’s Party Rodeo, Portland Union 106 (piano tuners, cheese mongers, and awful DJs), Parents For A Concerned Society, and surely several other party sponsors, et al.

Directed downstairs to the correct party, I encountered a dance floor lousy with bloggers, water-heating moguls and gigantic, floaty orange cushions that seemed like a bad omen of things to come. As coffee folk dug into case after case of beer shipped exclusively to the party from…Indiana (no real craft beer scene in Portland, I guess), an architect from Brooklyn wished this reporter “good luck” on the evening (another bad omen) while a certain barista finalist’s sister offered to flash me as a pandering attempt to make it into the party recap. NICE TRY, KID. Over in the corner, James “Hot Diggity” Hoffmann doled out free consulting advice to some aspiring cafe owners whilst having his biceps squeezed. The night was off to a good start.

By 10:20PM PST it became painfully obvious that something was missing, and that something was actual music to dance to. Even David Latourell couldn’t have saved this dance floor, but thank goodness Sprudge did, intervening with an emergency double-down of Stacey Q and Blackstreet’s “No Diggity“. Real dancing began to ensue, ensnaring those at the party that hadn’t yet fractured into repeat grazes of the pu-pu bar and a lockdown of seats closest to phone-charging outlets. Marcus Boni led an impromptu Kangoo class while Amanda “Portland, lock up your daughters” Ventresca shook the room with such intensity no one noticed the beer had run out, until eventually, everyone noticed that the beer had run out. (There were still pea crostini.)

As the night wound up, down and off, the word “Jupiter” got passed around the room like a sticky business card. Reports from Tote Fest across town indicated that party had finally dwindled into people peeing off the hotel balcony, so our group agreed that attempting the dregs of the Speakeasy party sounded interesting, if perhaps uncivilized. In the taxi over the river, at least one of the World Barista Champions present began discussing his difficult bowel movements, at which point the previously silent cabbie began repeating “…wow…” over and over until finally presented with the the soonest opportunity to discharge our party.

[Ed. note: Liz did not actually cross the Willamette River while traveling from the Left Bank Annex to the Jupiter Hotel, but Ms. Clayton, bless her soul, does not actually live in Portland.]

Hey, it’s the Jupiter! And there’s nowhere to stand and we aren’t allowed into the section with seats, but all of Los Angeles and Scandinavia and Vancouver are here and boy are they feeling convivial. As our group decides whether or not to stay or go, the bar announces it has stopped serving, and I grab a cab that almost runs over Marcus Boni, and then the driver invites us to help clean the salmon blood from his boat. I’m not from the Pacific Northwest, but I don’t think he was speaking in code.

A tired return to the hotel district downtown yielded a string of late-night fried chicken deliverypersons, the closing bell on the night striking only when a small but work-hardened group of coffee folk trickled in with tales of their evening’s visit to a strip club. (“I think it was actually a brothel.”) Before they could show us any more pictures, this reporter called it a night. One must get a good night’s sleep if one plans to clean salmon blood in the morning!

Having helped refine the dubious “art” of coffee blogging on her influential website Twitchy.org, Liz Clayton contributes coffee and tea coverage to Serious Eats, and is shooting a book of coffee photography to be published by Presspop. She lives in Bed-Stuy and has two (and a half) cats.

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