We’ve compiled five of our favorites – including a brand new one we’ve spotted Four Barrel Coffee assistant manager and sugar bear Alex Powar sporting on Instagram. The first four are available in a multi-tat-pack (you get two sheets for five bucks!) The last one is available on its own (it’s a very large piece). Let’s check them out!

5. Americano in a cappuccino cup.

4. Four-tiered tulip.

3. Mug of drip.

2. Take it to go!

Coffee. Designed by Julia Rothman – Brooklyn, New York. This charming set of four temporary tattoos are a perfect compliment to an already inked up arm, or great on their own! Use them as a reference when asking someone if they want it “for here” or “to go”! ($5 for two)

1. Oh, delicious coffee. Designed by Mike Lowery – Atlanta, Georgia. This totally adorkable tat has a coffee mug with an almost pensive look about it. With lovely lettering and the positively sweet “oh coffee, how i love thee” sentiment, this is perfect for just about anyone in coffee. ($5 for two)

The post 5 Totally Temporary Coffee Tattoos From Tattly appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Randal H. Bodom is our international party circuit correspondent, with a long, wild history of covering Natvia events.

Hi gang, it’s me again, your old pal Randy Bodom, and I’m positively wiggling with excitement over this brand new party announcement for USBC Boston. The folks at Natvia go all out, and these parties have a tendency to get a little wild – costumes, mysteries, shirtless dancing, unspoken moments between strangers – and it seems to be that Sweet Fantasy Boston has all the right moves to get nasty as she wanna be.

The party goes down Sunday, April 14th from the 7pm til who-knows, and who-cares. You might be saying, “well Randy, if it’s on a Sunday, won’t I already be exhausted? Won’t I be heading out of town?” Not if you’re not a muffinhead you won’t. This party needs to be built into your plans, man. Stay the last night in town, and be whisked away to a land of wonder and sweet, sweet fantasy alongside all your previously respectable peers.

Some spirits, elixirs, and poppers from those sneaky old speakeasy days.

And the party itself? It’s roaring 20s themed, full of costumed guests, rip roaring dances, and speakeasy cocktails from a local still. Flapper girls and dapper gents, all breaking society’s rules and morays together in one night of unbridled passion and flowing Gibsons. It’s enough to make a man thirsty and the party won’t happen for another 76 days, so you know ol’ Randy will be there, losing my mind and finding again to bring you wild event coverage.

You can learn more about the Sweet Spot Party Speakeasy on their brand new website, and follow the party on Facebook for lots more details. Old Randy managed to pull a few strings and made sure these tickets are free! But remember, stay in town on Sunday night, because you don’t want to miss the party you won’t be able to forget.

Little old me trying out my outfit for the Sweet Spot Speakeasy party!

The post Sweet Spot Party Boston: Beantown Gets Bodom’d appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Stunning news out of the small hamlet of Anaconda, Montana. Back in July, someone allegedly urinated in a can of pre-ground coffee and smeared feces all over the coffee maker in the Anaconda / Deer Lodge County Courthouse. At the time, there was no immediate evacuation. The public servants of Anaconda have since been flushed and left in the dumps after failing to deduce the heinous culprit in this truly stinky act. Investigators attempted to find DNA left on a soiled styrofoam cup, but their attempts were essentially a waste. More from Helen Air News:

Police in Anaconda are no closer to finding the culprit who left both urine and feces in a coffee maker at the county courthouse in June.

The suspect is believed to have urinated into a can of coffee grounds in the chief executive’s office, and returned four days later to smear clumps of feces directly into the machine.

Employees later found a Styrofoam cup left at the scene stained with feces. The evidence was sent to the state crime lab in Missoula for fingerprint analysis, but Police Chief Tim Barkell said the results came back with no positive identification.

“A lot of time, on porous material (such as Styrofoam), you can’t get a good print,” Barkell told The Montana Standard this week. “We’re at a loss right now.”

Investigators also believe the feces came from an animal, not human, meaning it cannot be tested for DNA. At this point, Barkell said they are hoping for someone to provide a new lead.

“Hopefully, someone will come forward with something,” he said.

We can only hope that Anaconda County detectives get to the bottom of this hot mess, but for right now, it appears that John Doe has the investigators wiped.

The post Help The People Of Anaconda Find Their Fugitive Fecal Felon appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Seattle’s Arabica Lounge is one of the hottest cafes in the trendy Capitol Hill district – with a regular rotation of performance art presentations, outrageous art exhibits, delicious rotating Stumptown Chemex and espresso service, and a truly inspired and unique menu of food, it’s definitely a “must visit” when in Seattle. Never one to rest on his laurels, owner and dreamweaver  Jojo Corväiá is hosting a Himalayan dinner next week as a part of his 1550 Supper Club on November 18th. Enjoy Jojo’s take on Indian, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan dishes!

Onion and balsamic reduction biscuit with prosciutto and crêpe nest. (Via: Facebook)

The Lounge will be filled with drinks, food, and music! We have space for 23 so respond as soon as possible to ensure you get a place. $35 per guest for dinner (not including tax, drinks, dessert & gratuity)There will be a bar available with beer, wine & select cocktails.

Welcome to Jojo’s World. (Via: Facebook)

RSVP on FACEBOOK.

The post SEA: Himalayan Supper Club At The Arabica Lounge appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Trish Rothgeb and Nick Cho, the dynamic duo behind Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters, have officially signed documents for their very first real-live stay-put coffeebar in San Francisco. Located inside gallery and event space Firehouse 8 (1648 Pacific Ave), the building owners have big plans for the future. Trish tells Sprudge, “Firehouse 8 is building a kitchen and a potential cocktail space. When that gets done, all that stuff is going to work together.” The building itself is almost 100 years old, operating as a firehouse from 1917 through the late eighties.

The cafe has been operating the last few weekends as a pop up, serving Wrecking Ball’s Pillow Fight espresso blend off of a La Marzocco GS3 and Kalita filter brewed coffee. Rothgeb & Cho plan to start serving pastries soon, and will be installing a two-group La Marzocco Strada EP in November.

@beanwife behind the bar at Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters, Firehouse 8 (via Instagram)

We asked Nick and Trish if they were going to do anything different with their menu. Mr. Cho told us, “One thing that I want to do – because of Trish and her preference for certain things – is to make sure espresso drinks have the option for single or double. So much so there will be different size cups for a single cappuccino (5 oz) and double cappuccino (6 oz). In specialty coffee, so much of it is those little details. For us, it’s about wanting to make people yummy coffee.”

Little details.

Future guests can also expect Wrecking Ball to offer a proper tea service, with offerings sourced by Highwire Tea. They plan to bring their cafe up to green certification standards, and once the bar is built, there are plans to place a three seat slow bar inspired by the Brewers Cup Competition and Youngmin Lee (South Korea’s “Top Barista“).

While hunting for the perfect location over the last two years, Nick and Trish have been working various pop-up markets around the Bay Area, and have been the target of numerous write-ups from publications like Men’s Health, San Francisco magazine, and Esquire.

For now, Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters will be open for retail every weekend from 10am-4pm. Starting November 1st they’ll be open daily from 7am to 2pm.

Wrecking Ball is hiring.

The post Pop Up, Stay Put: Wrecking Ball Roasters Has A Permanent Coffeebar appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Breaking late this afternoon (but in the works for the last few weeks, and achingly difficult to keep quiet), we’re absolutely thrilled to announce that Sprudge.com will be working together with the Specialty Coffee Association of America as your official Digital Media Sponsor for the 2013 United States Regional Barista Competition cycle. Expect a marked expansion on our innovative coverage model for all of the 2013 USBC regional events, leading up to the Championship event next April in Boston.

For you, this means we’ll be able to provide you with even better coverage of each of the 2013 Regional events. Expect daily recaps, constant live Twitter updates, wild and wonderful video content, photos, an ever-popular cornucopia of .gif moving images, plus all kinds of other stuff we’ll be rolling out at the first event in the cycle, happening November 2nd-4th in Atlantic City. Regardless of your location on the planet Earth or your ability to attend these events, you’ll be able to follow along with us and stay informed, in living color. Our new collaborative relationship with the SCAA means better coverage for you.

For us, this means improved access throughout the USBC competition cycle. Our new collaborative relationship with the SCAA means we’ll get to help these events grow and flourish. We’ll be taking an active roll soliciting the interest and involvement of outside media sources, with the goal of growing these events and seeing them covered by a wide variety of press. We believe in these events, and we’ll continue to document them in a way that expresses that to the utmost of our ability and work / sleep ratio.

Our designation as official Digital Media Sponsors (with capital letters at the start of each word!) means we get to do the same job we did last year, only better. As our coverage improves, the real story of the United States Barista Championship – the competitors, the coffees, and the remarkable culture that surrounds specialty coffee – will be fully documented in a way that expresses how rich, vibrant, and charmingly unique these competitions truly are.

We’re just delighted and we can’t wait to bring all this great content to you, throughout the full span of the 2013 USBC cycle. While we wait for Atlantic City, relive our groundbreaking coverage of the 2012 USBC competition cycle by clicking here the links below. Do we sound stoked? We are really stoked.

Full coverage of the 2012 USBC event in Portland – featuring original essays from Liz Clayton and photography from Alex Negranza.

A Complete Look Back At The 2012 USBC Regionals – the regionals in compendium form.

2012 Northwest Regional

2012 Southeast Regional

2012 Northeast Regional

2012 Southwest Regional

2012 Big Central Regional

The post Breaking: We’re The 2013 Official USBC Digital Media Sponsors! appeared first on Sprudge.com.

We’re pleased to announce our very first finca Real Estate feature on Sprudge.com. Do you dream of moving to Central America and owning a coffee farm? For the price of a suburban McMansion, your dream can become a reality in realty. An unexpected e-mail from Mr. Ralph Carlson showed up in our inbox a few days back, sharing with us the word that Mr. Carlson’s coffee finca is now listed and ready to hit the Costa Rican realty market:

I have a 70 acre farm in Berlin, Costa Rica with 20 acres in coffee for sale. The farm has forest, fruit trees, ocean view, streams, waterfalls and lots of wildlife. The farm has a pond for Talipa and area for agriculture. It is located between two public roads and has 20 titled lots, all with ocean view

Our coffee is Rainforest Alliance Certified and grown in the San Ramon area above 1000 meters thus producing an excellent coffee

I am looking for a coffee lover to purchase this farm – $499,500

Interested? E-mail us at iwannabuyafinca@sprudge.com today, and we’ll put you in touch with Ralph!

The post Buying The Finca: Move To Costa Rica! appeared first on Sprudge.com.

It’s summer in Portland! Let’s go for a walk around all the new shops west of the river. There’s the stunning new Sterling Coffee Roasters location in NW, the Case Study pop-up on Yamhill, Phuong Tran’s bike-through espresso bar Maglia Rosa, Keith Miller and Mindy Farley’s Red E Cafe counter in the EcoTrust building, and a soft-open first look at Billy Wilson’s new Barista location on Alder and 3rd. All these spots are an easy walk from one another, or an even more pleasant bike ride. It’s 75 degrees out with a nice breeze off the river, the sun is shining, and the air feels crisp and cool. Why wait?

First up is the newest to open: Barista 3, located at 529 SW 3rd Avenue in the heart of Downtown Portland. This new addition to owner (and former NWRBC champ) Billy Wilson’s portfolio of properties is immediately distinct from the other Barista locations. Barista’s Pearl District shop is sleek, modern, clean and compact; their Alberta street location is a neo-hunt club tribute to an older generation’s masculinity, all taxidermy beasts and brass newspaper holders. The Downtown space holds over some of those vintage touches from Alberta while echoing the modernity of the Pearl space, but with an urban Downtown Americana vibe all its own: white dot “penny round” tile floor, an antique cherry-tinted wooden cash register (with iPad inlay), analog push-button light switches, a turn-of-the-last-last-century hand washing faucet behind the bar, ancient mounted wall fans, similarly ancient-looking library desk light mounts, and a 13 star Third Maryland Regiment American Flag, a replica (probably) of the one originally used at the Battle of Cowpens in 1781, during the American Revolutionary War.

Barista 3 is still in its soft-open, which means certain elements (like the condiment bar and window seating) have yet to be put in place. But what’s there now is impressive enough, particularly the battalion of 4 Mazzer Robur E grinders and the brand new La Marzocco Strada MP, decked out in a custom in-house matte black paint job with cream La Marzocco script on the sides. The windows and center of the space are marked by arching marble counter tops, roughly a foot wide, mounted on who-knows-how-old brass piping. Their entry hallways has a collection of mounted wall clocks, each set to Portland time – for small cities called Portland in North Dakota, Texas, Connecticut, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania.

The opening day menu at Barista 3 featured Heart’s Ethiopia Yukro, Coava’s Guatemala Xeucalvitz, and Intelligentsia’s Black Cat espresso blend. Brewed coffee is available via French Press press pot. Look for more on Barista 3 as the local food and design blogs inevitably descend upon it, but for now, congratulations on Mr. Wilson and Co. for a decidedly firm soft opening, and we’ll be watching for big things to come.

Meanwhile, eight blocks away, 2005 USBC champion Phuong Tran is pulling shots at her brand new cafe Maglia Rosa. We offered an exclusive first look at Maglia Rosa when it opened a week and a half ago, so today was a lovely chance to stop back in, say hi to Phuong, and enjoy shots of Stumptown’s Colombia Hacienda El Roble and Ethiopia Mordecofe. Phuong’s warm wood and forest green bar is buttressed by a simple menu, and the space itself was in full flower in the sunshine, open to passers by and bikers schlepping around town or patronizing West End Bikes, the shop with which Maglia Rosa shares space. We especially enjoyed Maglia Rosa’s wall-mounted filtered water tap, and its lovely seating area complete with mock Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair love seat. Our shots were top notch.

Sterling Coffee Roasters has been an important part of the NW Portland neighborhood vibe since opening in 2010, and so a little thing like losing their lease to Trader Joe’s couldn’t possibly phase them. Sterling’s new location on NW 21st, billed by the company as a “tidy Parisian cafe”, shares digs with M Bar, a neighborhood wine and beer joint with piquant outdoor seating and an interior built on economy of space. Sterling is the daytime stop; M Bar is the nighttime destination. The designer wallpaper and carefully coiffed aesthetic of Sterling’s original location have been held over here, and the sophisticated vibe has been amplified by a couple of utterly unique service choices. Is there another cafe in North America sporting white table cloths? Does anyone else serve their espresso in Glencairn whisky glass?

Maybe we’re wrong here; maybe this is all old hat. Or maybe Sterling thought of it first. In any case, there may be no greater tactile thrill in all of coffee culture than swirling one’s espresso in a brandy snifter, allowing the shot to cool just a bit, then sipping slowly and tipping the head back while doing so, so as to force the espresso onto the back of the soft palate. An enjoyable experience indeed, one we took on for both their Brazil Sertao and Ethiopia Kochere.

Case Study Coffee have long had a lock on coffee service in NE Portland’s Hollywood District, but now they’re building out a brand new space on Yamhill and 10th, just across the street from the iconic Downtown Portland Public Library. Until their official space opens, the curious can stop by their neon-clad pop-up shop just down the block on Yamhill. When we visited, there was one coffee on offer – Case Study’s own Guatemala Santa Maria de Jesus – which Case Study offers in both a “dark” and “light” roast format. The Case Study employee on hand was quick to show us some of the new cafe’s incoming fixtures, including antique piano benches he boasted were “like a hundred years old!” Look for the new Case Study space to be open by October.

Last but definitely not least, North Portland fixture The Red E Cafe has been open their new Pearl District location for a few months, during which we’ve had plenty of time to hang out there (one of us even worked a few shifts). Red EcoTrust is awesome; owner Keith Miller’s custom woodworking sets the tone, which is equal parts lobby hang-out and espresso on the run. Stop by for an espresso shot on their La Marzocco Strada MP, and enjoy coffees roasted by Mr. Miller and sold under The Red E brand.

So next time you’re out and about in Portland and you’re thirsty for some espressso, maybe want to bring some pour-over upon your lips, consider these brand-new and exciting new cafes to visit and explore! Heck, if you have anything to add, sound off in the comments below!

View Downtown Summer PDX Walkabout 2012 in a larger map

The post A Downtown Summer PDX Walkabout appeared first on Sprudge.com.

No, really, this is actually happening: Todd Carmichael is getting his own TV show. It’s called “Coffee Hunter”, and it’s been confirmed by the Travel Channel for their summer line-up of programming. The details-adverse folks at Philly Eater have a Q&A with Todd:

Where are some of the other places you’re shooting episodes for Coffee Hunter?
Angola, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Madagascar. We’re headed to re-emerging places that in a lot of cases the world forgot about. It’s funny, people are always on the hunt for buried treasure, and in my opinion when you’re looking for that, you need to go where no one else is looking. We’re working on Cuba, too, which is my real goal. We have to figure out a way to get there and establish trade without getting arrested (laughs). But, really, Cuba is a goal for us in terms of coffee at La Colombe and for the show.

What do you think will be the most surprising aspect of the show for viewers?
Beans aren’t grown at chateaus in wealthy areas. There aren’t these beautiful vineyards full of beans growing all over, usually they’re grown by farmers who also have yams, potatoes, and peas in the same rows of soil. Sure, you can go to developed areas like Costa Rica and see it in a different light, but in reality, most of our beanage comes from places like Haiti. It’s going to surprise people to see that, I think. People group wine and coffee together in terms of enthusiasm and those who are passionate about it, as well as knowing good quality product. But, we save the meat of a grape to make wine, and we save the seed of the coffee plant to make coffee. It’s a different beast. And that’s almost a metaphor for the different cultures surrounding wine and coffee production.

We’ll hold off on the op-ed until we actually see “Coffee Hunter”, but we hope The Travel Channel knows the very real responsibility they’ve taken on by developing this program. We wish we’d seen someone from the Travel Channel – or Todd Carmichael, for that matter – at last week’s SCAA Symposium, an event where serious issues of global coffee commerce were discussed and dissected in a non-sexy way. We hope the producers who green-lit Todd’s program took a moment to verse themselves in his subject matter, by reading books like “Uncommon Grounds“, “God In A Cup“, or Jean Nicolas Wintgens’ “Coffee: Growing, Processing, Sustainable Production“. And last, we all-but expect that the folks at the Travel Channel took the very real culture of coffee buying and cultivation seriously enough to consult about their new TV show with outside experts, i.e., people who are not Todd Carmichael.

The idea that you can just plunk someone down somewhere – Myanmar, Madagascar, the Moon – and simply “find” coffee is more than just stupid; it’s ignorant, deeply ignorant, and if this is how they portray green buying on their show, they will be misinforming millions of Americans. Let’s all hold our breaths, shall we?

The post Carmichael’s TV Show Is Really Happening appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Katie Carguilo is your 2012 United States Barista Champion. Ms. Carguilo competed in the USBC as a regional champion, having last March earned top prize at the Northeast Regional Barista Competition in New York City, where she lives and works. Let’s get to know her a bit more, shall we?

Katie has worked in the trenches of specialty coffee for nearly a decade, as a barista, a trainer, and a customer service rep for Counter Culture’s NYC office. She got her start in specialty around 2003, whilst working at a Barnes and Noble cafe, where she met Nick Cho and made the jump to his newly-opened murky coffee in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. She joined the murky crew, going on to manage their Arlington, VA cafe space for four years. In 2007, she moved to NYC to join the Counter Culture Coffee crew as a customer relations representative.

Katie first competed in 2005, in the Southeast Region – she competed using an Indian Monsoon Malabar espresso, and her first signature drink was entitled “The Fighting Vicky”, named after her guinea pig (Ms. Carguilo has owned a series of GPs over the years; they are her spirit animal). She placed second in that year’s SERBC. The next year, in 2006, she competed in the Mid-Atlantic region, and went on to compete in the 2006 USBC using a signature drink called the “Ring of Fire”, which was supposed to capped off by lighting a ring of fire around the signature drink vessel. Unfortunately, Ms. Carguilo left the lighter on a cart that was wheeled off stage prior to her performance. Hearts sank in the audience as Katie conceded, “It appears that I’ve forgotten the lighter.”

Katie competed and won the 2007 Midatlantic Regional, with a signature drink comprised of espresso and pistachio gelato. At that year’s USBC, held in Long Beach, CA, she made a last minute decision to change a signature drink to a popular murky coffee menu item. Called the “Coffee Maker”, it involved a shot of espresso dropped into a glass of warmly steamed milk which all four judges, head judge and Katie consumed together. The signature drink was not well received at USBC; comments from the judges included “Milk? Coffee? Really?”

In 2008 Katie competed at the NERBC in Ithaca representing Counter Culture Coffee, using a signature drink comprised of goats milk, beet juice, and a natural processed Ethiopian espresso, from Biloya. She placed 3rd. After a year off, she came back to the NERBC in 2010 and placed fourth after re-pulling shots and going over time in finals. We spoke to Katie about her 2010 performance:

“I took that loss really hard and thought that I’d never compete again. I felt like I had let myself and my company down.

A judge stopped by the Counter Culture pop-up bar in Houston last year and asked me why I wasn’t competing. I told him that I always messed it up and didn’t have the stuff to win. He said that was ridiculous and that I was a really great barista and that the USBC could use my talent. That confidence inspired me and I began devising a way to reinvent myself as a competitor and really showcase the talents I had accumulated over the last ten years in the industry.”

For her winning routine at the 2012 USBC, Katie competed using organic natural and washed coffee from Ethiopia. She pulled shots of the Idido co-op’s naturally processed coffees for the cappuccino flight. “I did that because naturals have great flavor that’ll cut through milk,” Katie explained. Between cappuccinos and espressos, Katie brought out a sorting screen and described the process of sorting to screen size. Uniformity in bean size lends to an even roast, and at Counter Culture, Katie cupped several screen separations with coffee buyer and quality manager Tim Hill. The roasters in Durham hand sorted all of Katie’s competition coffee, using coffee from the Haru washing station, so that Katie served coffees to the judges that had been separated at screen size 16. She used the screen as a tray for the espresso course.

The signature beverage was a play on the fermentation that occurs before the Ethiopian washing process. “The first washing station was built in Yirgacheffe at 1959. Ethiopia has a unique way of washing coffee, soaking coffee seeds underwater for 48 hours,” she told us, paraphrasing her opening speech to the judges. Using stone fruit, Katie drew an analogy between the pit of a nectarine with the seed of a coffee cherry. Dropping the pit in a glass of water, she explained that over time, the pit/seed   ferments. To recreate the flavor of fermentation water, Katie used jasmine green tea, lemon juice, a nectarine, soda water, and white vinegar, topped with espresso and served the judges a sparkling beverage in grappa glasses.

Throughout the presentation, Katie infused analogies of human relationships and coffee & milk with gems like, “If espresso is my best friend, then drinking a cappuccino is like hanging out with her and her boyfriend. A cappuccino is a relationship between espresso and milk because the elements are not only balanced, but they bring out the best qualities in each other.”

Before calling time at 14:56, Katie finished, ”Coffees are indigenous to Ethiopia; you could make the argument that that’s the place they’re truly meant to be. Ethiopia produces the champagne of the coffee world.”

When asked what advice she’d give to baristas that have aspirations of winning the championship she answers, “Keep competing. Take the feedback, don’t let it get you down, and keep pushing yourself.”

While conducting these interviews with Katie and others backstage, we had a chance to chat with outgoing USBC Director Marcus Boni. We’ll leave you with his quote on Katie Carguilo:

“I think Katie is a consummate, poised professional, and I’m so excited she’ll be representing the United States in Vienna. And I’m doubly excited that it’s a woman. It’s about damn time we got another girl up there!”

Congratulations, Katie Carguilo!

Further reading:

New York Times Interview With Katie Carguilo (published Monday, April 23)

Photos by Alex Negranza, extended USBC coverage made possible with the support of Stumptown Coffee Roasters.

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