Your 2013 United States Barista Championship finalists, featuring original photography by Charlie Burt for Sprudge.com. For a complete look back at the 2013 United States Barista Championship cycle, including photos of every regional competitor, join us on The Road to Melbourne.

Sprudge.com’s coverage of the 2013 United States Barista Championship was made possible by direct support from Counter Culture Coffee and Nuova Simonelli.

Charles Babinski, G&B Coffee, Los Angeles – 2nd Place Overall.

With his second consecutive second place finish on the national stage, it’s tempting to trot out one of those old cliches about bridesmaids and brides, but that sorely misses the point of what Charles Babinski continues to accomplish with his competition routines. If you follow barista competitions, you know – and have known for some time – that Charles Babinski is one of the very best and most respected competitors in the world. It’s the sincere hope of this publication that Mr. Babinski will some day earn the chance to prove this fact on the world stage. It just won’t be this year.

Mr. Babinksi’s began his routine by reciting for the judges a wrote, clinical definition of espresso, and then upending that definition by declaring that  “to me, espresso is any wondrous thing that comes out of that machine over there.” He competed using 49th Parallel’s Colombia El Descanso, a coffee that yielded espressos with notes of “blackberry acidity & sweetness, cane sugar, and honey.” In a unique twist, Charles pre-dosed and pre-ground his espresso during his 15 minutes of prep time, storing the grounds in little silver canisters on stage; this is similar to the style of espresso prep that folks can expect at the new incarnation of G&B Coffee. He made two distinct signature drinks: the first with an uber-luongo 70 grams out shot, paired with orange blossom honey and meant to express “espresso as a canvas” for a beverage’s deliciousness; and the second, a more standard 30 grams out shot mixed with pomegranate juice and sparkling water.

Charles Babinski (LF) year-end stats for the 2013 season: 489 ABs, 119 runs (NL-1st), 159 hits, 33 2B, 4 3B, 21 HR, 65 SB, 97 BB (good eye), .439 OBP (NL-1st), .577 SLG, 1.016 OPS, 189 OPS+, 1st in National League MVP voting.

Trevor Corlett, MadCap Coffee Company, Washington DC – 3rd place overall

Since packing up their lives & families and shipping out for Washington DC in late 2011, the folks at MadCap Coffee DC – Trevor Corlett and Colin Whitcomb – have enjoyed pronounced competition success both regionally and nationally. Let’s review, shall we? In 2012 Mr. Corlett made USBC Semi-Finals; in 2013, Mr. Whitcomb was edged out from winning the SERBC outright by just a half point (by Lem Butler), and both Corlett & Whitcomb made appearances at the Semi-Finals round in Boston. Mr. Corlett advanced on to finals, and wound up placing third nationally in an historically competitive field. Oh, and Trevor was featured by Good Morning America and the New Yorker.

What we’re saying is, success at USBC is measured by a number of metrics, only one of which is points. We were captivated all three times by Mr. Corlett’s finals routine for a variety of reasons, including its exploration of “past crop” and “fresh crop” terminology, his stunningly sparse and mannered stage setting (our Twitter feed called it “Midwestern minimalist”), and Trevor’s ability to compete with a resting heart beat that never rises above a leisurely chat. His routine featured two distinct harvests of MadCap’s Didier Reinoso Colombia, one from July 2012 and another from December of that year. Mr. Corlett’s signature drink layered shots from both harvests with grapefruit, maple syrup & egg whites.

Sam Lewontin, Everyman Espresso, NYC – 4th Place Overall

Now in his third of competition, Sam Lewontin has emerged as one of the major talents on the US Barista Championship circuit. Winning the NERBC will do that for you, especially in this day and age, as New York City continues to establish itself as one of the world’s specialty coffee capitals. But this reality has a quirk; as New York has became a major destination for coffee talent and high-level work, it has remained a real bastion of barista community and closeness within the ebb tide of that massive, anonymous city. Specialty coffee can make strange bedfellows – that’s part of why we love it so much! – but it can also make dear friends, and watching Sam Lewontin carry the cheers and adulation of his peers on stage at USBC was living proof.

Sam Lewontin competed at USBC using Counter Culture Coffee’s Burundi Mpemba – click that link for featured tasting notes written by Mr. Lewontin himself. Sam’s routine included the second appearance of his “choose your own adventure” signature drink, in which his sensory judges were asked to choose flavor notes they might expect from a washed Burundi. These notes were used to tailor a sig drink with more than a dozen possible variations – you can read more about this aspect of Mr. Lewontin’s routine here.

At times a stream of consciousness mumble, or baseball statistics in-joke, or mad reporter dash, every once in a while we get something right in our live barista competition Twitter feed. Of Sam’s finals routine, we wrote, “You are watching just one shining moment in a coffee career so bright, it requires shades.” If you don’t mind us saying so, that’s about exactly right.

Charlie Habegger, Intelligentsia Coffee, Chicago – 6th Place Overall

There’s something in the water at Intelligentsia – perhaps added in directly via their filtration systems, who knows – that creates top-flight barista competitors year after year, in regions all across the country. This year was no different, as Chicago’s Charlie Habegger took his automatic Semi-Finals bid from North Centrals all the way to his first-ever appearance on Finals Sunday.

Mr. Habegger’s stage setting was perhaps the most visually striking of any competitor: each judge sat down to gracefully arranged white ceramic fruit bowls, full of vanilla, white chocolate, blackberries, basil, and other flavors found in Mr. Habegger’s coffee, a little number from Huila, Colombia marked by Intelligentsia as Tres Los Santos. His signature drink focused on the “lot building” practice common at origin, where different flavor characteristics are pulled coffees grown in a geographically contiguous set of farms. Charlie pulled different pieces of fruit from his judges’ table setting – a piece of vanilla here, some blackberries there – to visually anchor the flavors and ingredients they’d find in his signature drink, which included espresso shots pulled directly on top of blackberry and basil jam.

Educator at Intelli Broadway, green buyer in charge of Intelligentsia’s purchases in Peru, and now a USBC finalist… Charlie Habegger may well take over the world out from under us all.

Nick Purvis, The French Press, Santa Barbara – 5th Place Overall

Every Finals Sunday has its dark horse, a Cinderella story, a competitor who’s name may not have made the early predictions of competition watchers and bracketologists. This year it was Nick Purvis, representing a two-shop cafe brand in Santa Barbara called The French Press. Prior to USBC 2013, Nick had never advanced in a barista competition, having bowed out in the first round at two consecutive Southwest Regionals. His Semi-Finals appearance was a first, and there was much joy from the Verve Coffee Roasters delegation at USBC when his name was called for Finals Sunday.

Much joy, sure, but not an ounce of shock. We were lucky enough to watch all three of Mr. Purvis’s USBC runs, and he shone brightly all three times with a service that felt educational, comfortable, and tirelessly classy. Like spending a half an hour with your favorite bartender before the room opens, or enjoying a private dinner at the best table in your favorite restaurant, Nick Purvis was able to make his coffee (Verve’s Colombia Los Naranjos) come alive in a routine that focused on customer service itself, and the power baristas wield as public educators. Nick’s signature drink was drool-inducing, a combination of caramelized tangerine juice, red apple juice reduction, and a liquified coffee cheesecake made with cold brew and marscapone. On paper at least, it was probably the tastiest sounding sig drink of USBC finals, because honestly who doesn’t want liquified coffee cheesecake? Let’s be real here.

The thing about dark horses is, next year they come back as 1 seeds. Should he continue pursuing competition – and we sure hope so – Nick Purvis is one to watch in 2014, and his 2013 USBC run is one we’ll remember for a long time to come.

Pete Licata, Parisi Coffee, Kansas City, Missouri – 1st Place Overall

A huge congratulations to Pete Licata, your 2013 United States Barista Champion! A full accounting of his exploits is available in our exhaustive Pete-focused feature here. Learn more about the coffee Pete used to win it all right here!

The post The 2013 USBC Finals In Words & Pictures appeared first on Sprudge.com.

For the second time in three years, Pete Licata is your United States Barista Champion. With 7 career USBC appearances, Mr. Licata is arguably the most seasoned, experienced barista competitor in US competition history. His previous USBC win came in Houston, Texas back in 2011, and he went on to place 2nd at the World Barista Championship in Bogota. His win in Boston returns Pete Licata on the world’s biggest stage, where he’ll represent his country in the upcoming World Barista Championship in Melbourne (May 22-26).

In a post-competition interview, Mr. Licata repeatedly told us how sincerely impressed, inspired, and even nervous the high level of competition at this year’s USBC made him feel. “In 2011, I felt like I knew I had a good chance,” he told us. “But this year? I had no idea that I would win. How could anyone know? I honestly had no idea.”

It was clear to us in the audience that Pete was pretty firmly in the zone on stage, nattily dressed in a seafoam green button-up with a paisley tie. Pete cruised through his first routine in Semi-Finals, exuding a confidence that comes from years of practice and presentation at competition coffee’s highest level. Again, this is an astonishing seventh USBC appearance for Pete Licata, and at the end of the day – up against an historically talented field of competitors – his experience may well have helped Pete win it all.

5 notes from Pete Licata’s routine at USBC:

• Pete Licata began his USBC-winning routine by handing instruction cards to his tech judges. We’re used to seeing visual instructions and written materials distributed to sensory judges – this is common place, and a source of much experimentation for top barista competitors – but Pete’s choice to issue materials to his tech judges is highly unusual, and representative of the intentionality at work throughout this routine.

• Mr. Licata’s competition espressos were dosed at 20 grams in, extracting 38 grams out. He explained this ratio as being “with the intention of bringing out the best balance” in his producer’s coffee. He described the resulting flavor notes in those espressos as having flavors of “red Zinfandel, a pop of cranberry, & then this deep, heavy sweetness that hits you in the back of the palate.” The judges evidently agreed.

• As in years past, Pete Licata put on a station maintenance and movement conservation clinic while on stage at USBC. He doesn’t even really have to do station maintenance; he doesn’t make a mess in the first place.

• Pete made a point of shouting out Parisi Coffee‘s roaster John Welsh, who he identified as one of the most important touch points in the journey of this coffee, alongside producer Arnulfo Leguizamo and his partners at Cafe Imports. For more on the work being done in Colombia by Arnulfo Leguizamo and Cafe Imports, check out our forthcoming supplemental feature running later today on Sprudge.

• Mr. Licata’s signature drink was inspired by classic cocktails, and made use of implements you’d find at any cocktail bar worth its salt: coup glasses, industrial metal strainers, a gorgeous Japanese stirring pitcher, and chunky rocks of ice. The drink itself took cooled espresso, palm sugar simple syrup, and non-alcoholic bitters made with lemongrass and orange peel. He told the judges, “I don’t think a drink has to be incredibly complicated to be incredibly delicious.”

It’s the opinion of Your Sprudge Editors that the 2013 United States Barista Championship will go down in history as the most fiercely competitive event of its kind in US history. Any one of the Finalists – heck, any one of the Semi-Finalists – would have a punching chance at winning the whole thing in Melbourne. So many new faces, so many gifted young competitors with glory shining bright on the horizon of their careers in specialty coffee.

But in a way it’s poetic that Pete won. Mr. Licata *is* the USBC – he is its past, its present, and surely its future as a trainer and advocate. There’s just one thing he has left to do, and that’s win the whole dang thing Melbourne. We can’t wait to watch what happens next.

Full finals standings:

6th Place – Charlie Habegger, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, Chicago

5th Place – Nick Purvis, The French Press, Santa Barbara, CA

4th Place – Sam Lewontin, Everyman Espresso, NYC

3rd Place – Trevor Corlett, MadCap Coffee Company, Washington DC

2nd Place – Charles Babinski, G&B Coffee, Los Angeles

1st Place – Pete Licata, Parisi Coffee, KCMO

Original photography by Charlie Burt for Sprudge.com.

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Samuel Lewontin is your newly crowned 2013 Northeast Regional Barista Competition champion! Mr. Lewontin is the manager at Everyman Espresso SoHo, a dedicated Counter Culture Coffee account located at 301 W. Broadway in New York City. Mr. Lewontin competed and won at the NERBC using Counter Culture’s Burundi Mpemba, from the Kazoza N’Ikawa cooperative.

In his 15 minute competition routine, Mr. Lewontin highlighted this coffee’s fruit and citrus notes, achieved by a unique “eco-pulping” method at Mpemba wet mill in Burundi. Like nearly all Burundian and Rwandan coffees, the coffee Mr. Lewontin served was comprised mainly of the Bourbon variety. The espresso Mr. Lewontin brewed was based on a 1.7 to 1 brew ratio, with an extraction time of 25 seconds. Throughout his routine, Sam focused on simplicity and expertise, culminating in a deceptively simple signature drink. Based on flavor descriptor cards the sensory judges chose, the drink could have been up to sixteen different combinations of ingredients – a kind of “choose your own adventure” signature drink. Ultimately, Mr. Lewontin’s drink combined a ginger syrup spritz, date syrup, a 5% malic acidity solution, and espresso into glassware for each judge, with the lip of said glasses rimmed with fresh cut ginger.

Mr. Lewontin (center) pictured with the 2nd place finisher Brian Gelletly (right) and 3rd place finisher Jordan Barber (left).

This is Sam Lewontin’s first regional barista competition win – he goes on to earn an automatic bye into semi-finals at the 2013 United States Barista Competition, happening April 11th-14th in Boston. Along with a lot of great coffee gear and prizes, Mr. Lewontin wins a trip to Kenya this coming November with the folks at Cafe Imports.

Congratulations to Sam Lewontin, the team at Everyman Espresso, and Counter Culture Coffee!

The post Meet The Best Barista In New York City: Sam Lewontin! appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Like clockwork, every Saturday our intrepid intern Joanna Han (@joannakarenina) provides us with a delightful run-down of the best in This Week’s Sprudgery. We are going to write her such a nice letter of rec someday. Enjoy!

Let’s Talk Pergamino: While in Medellin, Colombia earlier this month for the Let’s Talk Coffee conference, your Sprudge editors had the pleasure of visiting an impressive new café called Pergamino, located in the trendy El Poblado district. Owned by coffee exporter, roaster, and barista Pedro Echaverria, the shop has a charming, modern aesthetic and serves Chemex, Japanese style iced coffee, and espresso off of a La Marzocco Strada MP. Many of the featured coffees come from the farm of Echaverria’s father, who just happens to be a coffee producer. We highly recommend a visit to Pergamino if you ever get a chance. In the meantime, here’s a little video we put together (the husky high-five was not staged):

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Let’s Talk Even More Let’s Talk Coffee Recaps: As a part of the LTC conference earlier this month, we attended a Robusta workshop led by Dr. Sunalini Menon of Coffeelab, Ltd. from Bangalore, India. Dr. Menon introduced us to the concept of fine robusta, and a cupping of several robustas followed. Our assessment: Most were not-so-tasty, but one — a high-elevation natural-processed Tanzanian — was surprisingly pleasant to drink. More than anything, though, it was a fantastic and unique experience. Below is a clip from the workshop, featuring Dr. Menon, Andrew Hetzel from Cafemakers, Sam Lewontin of Manhattan’s Everyman Espresso, and Adam McLellan of Sustainable Harvest:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Seattle Coffee On The History Channel: The History Channel’s web series, Food Tech: Side Orders, have posted an arguably cute but definitely outdated video about Seattle coffee. Watch for a younger, mustachioed version of Sprudge.com co-founder Zachary Carlsen at 2:17.

Coava Coffee Roasters On Tresplace: Coava Coffee Roasters was featured by TresPlace, a new Portland-based blog who are “discouraged by the content available” from all other worldly outlets for coffee writing. It sounds like their Applied Digital Storyweaving undergrad degrees from UC-Boulder (with minors in Holistic Start-Up Noosphere Strategies) hath prepared them well, at least for their outside hiring decisions. While much of the copy on the website itself is unreadable, the video they farmed out is pretty, and worth a watch.

Another Portland Microroaster: Our very own Portland, Oregon has another addition to its already rather saturated list of coffee roasters, and we were overjoyed to land noted author and journalist Hanna Neuschwander for her exclusive take on the topic. Launched by a fellow named Marty Lopes last week, Rosaline Coffee is a new boutique roasting company operating out of Portland’s inner SE. Using a brand new 1.5 kilo Proaster, Lopes roasts coffees in what he calls the “Northwest juice-balanced” style. His coffees can be found at Barista, where he’s previously spent time as a coffee buyer. Follow Mr. Lopes on Twitter for updates!

The post Unpaid Intern: Weekly Weekend Week In Review For 10/27/2012 appeared first on Sprudge.com.

The (Incomplete) Unimportance Of Brew Methods: Earlier this week we highlighted a post by John Martin of Intelligentsia called “The Unimportance Of Brew Methods”, and it’s resulted in quite a bit of thoughtful, interesting discussion. Martin argues that all brew methods can yield the same extraction and encourages baristas and customers alike to stop focusing so much on methodology. Everyman Espresso’s Sam Lewontin responds, adding that an overemphasis on methodology by the barista leads to service that can seem unpleasantly didactic and condescending to the customer. Both Martin and Lewontin agree that what matters most is what’s in the cup. We highly recommend you read the full posts and check out the discussion on Sprudge’s comments section — it’s interesting stuff!

Craft Coffee’s Kickstarter Fully Funded: We were happy to see that the monthly coffee subscription service Craft Coffee has reached its Kickstarter goal. These folks feature coffee from some of the best microroasters in North America, blind-taste test all of them, and deliver them to your door. We love what these guys do and look forward to seeing them continue to grow. Click here to sign up.

Let’s Talk Let’s Talk Coffee Recaps: The Let’s Talk Coffee conference in Colombia last weekend was a fantastic, informative, and eye-opening event, attended by producers, importers, finance experts, WalMart marketing staff, Colombian politicians, Sustainable Harvest staff, and assorted roasters from 28 countries on 6 continents. It has completely enhanced our perspective of the coffee world, and we had a blast hosting our late-night talk show (aka our panel interview featuring a handful of specialty coffee experts). Video footage and continued recap coverage from the event will be coming your way soon, and until then, take a peek at the video introductions we put together for our guests.

Divine Providence!: Your tireless Sprudge editors have very little semblance of a work/life balance, and as such they are currently in Providence, RI hosting not one but two panels at the Mid-Atlantic / Northeast Coffee Conference (MANE). The panel topics are “How Did I Get Here?” and “Retail Therapy,” and will involve candid and insightful discussions with a bunch of industry notables/geniuses (click here for the full list of speakers). Check by for tweets, photos, and recaps all weekend long on Sprudge.com! And then they get to go home. For 8 whole days!

Reading Rainbrew: Blue Bottle Coffee’s much-anticipated book, “The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee,” is now available! You can catch James Freeman and company on their book tour in NYC.

SERBC Dates Leaked: It’s officially unofficial! The Southeast Regional Barista Competition, the second event in the 2013 USBC regionals, will be held in Atlanta, Georgia starting Friday, November 30. Regional competitions for the US Cup Tasters championship and the US Brewers Cup are happening the same weekend, and word on the street’s that Batdorf and Bronson, the event host, will throw a massive party Friday night at their new Ponce City Market Dancing Goats coffee bar. Sprudge will be there to keep you updated, and we can hardly wait! Atlanta is really an amazing city and the folks in that community are real sweet. Here’s some of our video coverage from last year’s SERBC just to whet your whistle:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

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There’s some top drawer fresh content up today via the Everyman Espresso blog, a rebuttal of sorts to the “Unimportance of Brew Methods” feature we highlighted a few days ago on Sprudge. But first, to address some confusion that’s been lingering for a few days: the original blog post from Extractions & Distractions was not written by Espresso Parts’ Michael “Panda” Fernandez – he was mentioned in our original post because his Facebook feed was what originally brought this article to our attention. Sorry for any confusion, Panda.

On to the rebuttal! Sam Lewontin’s written a corker, whose introduction we’ll go ahead and excerpt:

The notion that all brew methods are created equal– or, to soften the rhetoric a bit, that most are of equivalent merit– has been cropping up a lot in recent discussions among specialty coffee folk. Let’s make no bones about it: this is an oversimplification gross enough to make it untrue. It does, however, point to an interesting and worthwhile consideration regarding service.

Let’s start with the nature of the oversimplification. All brewing methods are, indeed, tools for accomplishing the same task: extraction. The theory is: as long as the variables governing said extraction are manipulated properly, one should be able to use any method to near-optimally express the flavors present in any coffee. Hence, the argument goes, equivalence.

Mr. Lewontin goes on to eloquently opine:

Overemphasis on methodology can also directly detract from the “feeling good” aspect of the service. A didactic mode of service serves (just as does any didactic rhetorical approach) mainly to make the listener aware of the inadequacy of their own knowledge. It inculcates in our customer base the notion of baristas as somewhere between snobs and priests, reveling in arcana as a means of self-empowerment at the expense of our audience. While it is indeed valuable to have the answers to questions (when they’re asked!), the practice of focusing up front on specific brew methods and minor differences in technique– in dialog, menu composition and marketing– is at best self-aggrandizing and at worst a serious distraction from what actually matters.

Go ahead and do yourself a favor – read the whole thing here via Everyman Espresso’s blog. There’s also some great commentary up on the original post we ran, so spend some time there too. This discussion is ongoing, so jump in to our comments and sound off below. The water’s fine!

The post Lewontin’s Rebuttal: “Incomplete Unimportance of Brew Methods” appeared first on Sprudge.com.

And so, Let’s Talk Coffee 2012 was the start of something new for us. First, the panel we ourselves hosted, featuring Sam Lewontin (Everyman Espresso), Jared Linzmeier (Caffe Ladro), Fabrizio Sencion-Ramirez (Cafe Sublime / 5 PM / 2-time Mexico Barista Champion) and Stephen Vick (Blue Bottle Coffee). The concept for this panel was born in the Portland offices of Sustainable Harvest several months ago, when SustHarv first approached us about the idea of attending and participating in their 10th annual LTC event. The folks at Sustainable Harvest gave us a lot of leeway; they wanted us to find voices from the top tier of the North American specialty coffee experience, but beyond that, what we actually talked about and how we presented our guests was entirely up to us.

So we put together a late-night talk show.

Jordan hosted, while Zachary produced the whole thing from up in the audio-visual crow’s nest. We put together four “clips” for each of our guests, with the idea of bringing the audience at Let’s Talk Coffee – many of whom were from producing countries in the Southern Hemisphere – into a series of cafe environments in New York City, Seattle, Guadelajara, and the Bay Area. Check out those clips here – these cafes are the final touch point for some of the coffees brought into the world by producers who were in the audience, which is sort of like closing the global chain.

Each guest got walk-on music, just like a late night show. There was a couch and mugs and a “hot seat” and everything. The interviews were candid, lively, and while tailored individually to each guest, a couple of different topics came up repeatedly:

• How much coffee do you roast / sell a week?
• How many individual coffees to you offer at one time?
• What brew methods do you employ in your cafes? What kind of equipment do you use?
• What’s your individual market like? Who is your typical clientele?
• Tell us about your average day.

Suffice it to say, we’re really excited to be able to show you more from this presentation, and it’s a format we’re hoping to expand upon with continued public appearances throughout 2012 and beyond. We plan on being able to share video from this presentation in the coming weeks, just as soon as the raw material is provided to us for editing by Sustainable Harvest.

In the meantime, we can’t thank our guests enough – Fabrizio, Jared, Stephen and Sam, thank you for being a part of our hosted panel at Let’s Talk Coffee 2012. We’d have interviewed you for hours if there had been time. Here’s the video introductions we put together for each guest:

Stephen Vick, Blue Bottle Coffee, Bay Area / NYC

Sam Lewontin, Everyman Espresso, Manhattan

Jared Linzmeier, Caffe Ladro, Seattle

Fabrizio Sencion-Ramirez, Cafe Sublime / 5 Pm, Guadalajara

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It’s true! We’re reporting to you live from beautiful Medellin, Colombia, where the mornings are clear and cool, and the evenings pop with cloudy zaps of lightning. We’ve traveled here as guests of Sustainable Harvest, to take part in the 10th anniversary of their annual Let’s Talk Coffee conference, an event that brings together producers, roasters, quality specialists, global financial experts, major investors, and industry thought leaders for a week of discussion, presentations, and new connections. We’ll be covering the event all week long with videos and essays and Tweets (the wi-fi works great), and later today we’re hosting what should be a lively and informative panel session with some of the brightest, most fascinating folks in specialty coffee.

The topic of our panel is: “Entrepreneurship and Experimentation in North American Cafes.”

Our Panel guests:

• Fabrizio Sencion-Ramirez: Two-time Mexican Barista Champion, and runner up in the 2012 WBC, Mr. Sencion-Ramirez works mornings as a roaster for his own boutique roasterie, Cafe Sublime, and evenings as a lead barista at 5PM, a bustling specialty cafe in Guadalajara.
• Jared Linzmeier: From humble beginnings washing dishes for Intelligentsia Silver Lake, Jared Linzmeier progressed up the chain from barista to roaster, quality control specialist to regional wholesale manager. In 2011 he amicably departed Intelligentsia to become Director of Coffee and green buyer for Seattle’s revitalized Caffe Ladro.
• Sam Lewontin: One of the smartest young minds in specialty coffee, Sam Lewontin got his start at Equal Exchange in Seattle, before moving to New York City to spearhead OTG Management’s World Bean airport cafe program. These days he’s the manager and education director for Everyman Espresso, running operations at their newly opened SoHo location and making delicious Counter Culture Coffee on the daily.
• Stephen Vick: A Sprudgie-award winner with deep roots in the specialty coffee industry, Mr. Vick’s Zelig-like resume places him in crucial positions throughout specialty coffee’s immense decade of growth. He’s worked with companies like Zoka, Stumptown, Sustainable Harvest, Intelligentsia, and now Blue Bottle Coffee, where today he manages quality control at their Oakland headquarters. His Capote-esque wit and broad base of knowledge has made him a longtime favorite of this website, and we’re delighted to have him on our panel.

Do we sound excited for this panel? Good, because we are – sleeping was hard last night, and not just ‘cos of jet lag. Watch for coverage and recaps all week long on Sprudge, as we report live from Let’s Talk Coffee in Medellin.

The post Medellin: Sprudge at Let’s Talk Coffee! appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Two New York coffee types – Sam Lewontin (Everyman Espresso) and Alex Bernson (Joe NYC) – have teamed up together on Food Republic to offer you a dreamily potable coffee cocktail for those first days of spring. Imagine Rwanda Buf Cafe from Toronto’s Detour Coffee Roasters, mingled with orange zest and aged rum…well, best to just let them tell it. The drink is called the East African Spritz:

For Coffee:

1.5 ounces Rwanda Buf Café from Detour Coffee Roasters*
13 ounces water
6.5 ounces ice

For Cocktail:

16 ounces coffee
4 ounces aged rum
1 ounce Arancello
Orange peel, for garnish

Directions:

Brew coffee using a pour-over brewer, with ice in serving carafe. Combine ingredients in a chilled pitcher. Stir.
Serve over ice in a straight-sided old-fashioned glass with a twist of orange peel.

Yum. There’s also this nice blog from Cora Lambert, a bartender, barista (formerly at RBC), and noted New York alcohol avatar. Her recent post is a boozy doozy, our own personal dream jaunt through the jook joints of the East Village:

Going on a cocktail crawl in the East Village can be dangerous by the sheer volume of great cocktail bars. This neighborhood has too much ground to cover in just one visit, so here are 2 of my favorite crawls.

#1

Angels Share —> Mayahuel —> Death & Co.

Climb the flight of stairs to Village Yokocho, and enter the unmarked door to the left of the dining room. Here you will find Angel’s Share…

Her second crawl goes on to feature Amor y Amaro, Cienfuegos, and PDT, which seriously, sign us up. Now how come there isn’t an egg cream gossip blog…

The post A Thirsty Lot: NYC Coffee Does Cocktails appeared first on Sprudge.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Here’s Park Brannen, chatting with us and snuggling up with WBC champ / Handsome honcho Mike Phillips.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Our favorite new person we met this weekend was Daria (pronounced dare-ee-uh) Whalen, of Pavement Coffeehouse in Boston. We were really impressed by the Boston showing at NERBC, and look forward to checking out the cafes in that city soon.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Sam Penix is the owner-operator of Everyman Espresso, in the East Village. He just missed the cut for this year’s NERBC finals. Sam’s store manager / right hand man, Sam Lewontin, placed 4th in this year’s NERBC, and will compete at the USBC in Portland.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Some love for the Brewers Cup, which had a circus-like atmosphere of onlookers and attention at this year’s NERBC. If you haven’t had the pleasure already, meet Tamara Vigil of Irving Farm coffee, a double-competitor in both barista and brewers events, who competed in the finals for Brewers Cup.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

We caught former Mid-Atlantic Regional winner Katie Carguilo as she was walking in on the very first day of NERBC, the calm before the storm.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

And finally, the ever-humble, still shell-shocked Katie Carguilo gave us a moment of her time after winning the 2012 Northeast Regional Barista Competition. She thanked the entire Counter Culture team for their ongoing support throughout her months of training.

Congratulations to all of the competitors this year!

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