Some seriously heavy hitters – Square Mile, Prufrock Coffee, CoffeeHit, Has Bean and more – are gathering together this Wednesday, February 29th to raise money for the guys at Safehouse Coffee in Georgia, in the wake of their fire tragedy. We chatted with the Safe House folks at the SERBC in Atlanta, and their rebuilding phase still had a long ways to go – insurance is covering damages, but there’s a ton of red tape. There’s nothing like a little independent intervention to make recovery easier, and so longtime UKBC competition stalwart John Gordon has organized an event with one of the most impressive auction rosters we’ve ever seen:
Raffle and Thumb Wrestling Prizes will be Coffee from Hasbean, Square Mile Coffee Roasters, Extract Coffee & James Gourmet Coffee. Some exciting goodies from Marco Beverage systems. Clever Coffee Dripper’s from Coffeehit. Tea & teaware from Waterloo Tea and much much more. Auction for one off’s, a custom Knock Box made from old Coffee Roaster parts by Dave Faulkner of Extract Coffee Roasters, a little Special something from Kees van der Westen, a custom Handmade Tamper from Myself with 1st edition GT poster, a peice of East London Furniture’s finest & a piece of Artwork By Martin Kingdom.
But make no mistake, that’s not just “a little special something” from Kees van de Western. It’s this:
That’s a one-of-a-kind A 1.300watt Kees van der Westen 1 group special, manual infusion (separate switches for group valve and pump), progressive pre-infusion, partially made from reconstituted bike parts. It’s one of the coolest espresso machines we’ve ever seen, it’s going for a good cause, and best of all, the bidding on this machine is not just limited to Brits – the auction for this super-special Kees wonder is online worldwide. Read more by visiting John Gordon’s site, Gorilla Tampers, and you Londoners, check out the event info here – consider attending Wednesday evening at Prufrock Coffee (23-25 Leather Lane).
