Tag Archive 'barista_championships'

American wins World Barista Championship?!? What’s the world coming to?

Posted by on 25 Jun 2010 | Tagged as: Barista

Clearly, America has become a Third World nation. That’s what The Daily Show‘s John Oliver said two days ago when Team USA qualified for the next round of the World Cup by dramatically defeating Algeria with a deserved injury-time goal to close the group stages. Mr. Oliver’s logic? We have the rampant unemployment, the devalued [...]

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A Winning Formula for Traditional Espresso

Posted by on 13 May 2010 | Tagged as: Barista, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Local Brew, Quality Issues

In recent months, The Atlantic — much like the New York Times — has shown a heightened interest in coffee. Most of it has come from articles penned by Starbucks co-founder, Jerry Baldwin. But today’s article comes from Giorgio Milos, Master Barista for illycaffè: A Winning Formula for Traditional Espresso – Food – The Atlantic. [...]

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Intelligentsia Wins National Title, then Throws it Back

Posted by on 19 Apr 2010 | Tagged as: Barista

Is there anything the The Huffington Post won’t publish these days? Fortunately, this includes one of the better summaries of the US Barista Championship, completed yesterday: Todd Burbo: Intelligentsia Wins National Title, then Throws it Back. Congratulations are in order for Mike Phillips of Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea in Chicago, now the winner for two [...]

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Intelligentsia Coffee’s CEO talks beans

Posted by on 05 Apr 2010 | Tagged as: Beans, Fair Trade, Foreign Brew, Quality Issues, Roasting

Saturday’s Chicago Tribune published a pretty good piece on Intelligentsia CEO, Doug Zell: Intelligentsia Coffee’s CEO talks beans – chicagotribune.com. While Doug gets a little loopy (our opinion) in abusing the ever-popular wine analogy for coffee — e.g., espousing such shoehorned ideas as coffee pairings — he’s been a pioneer and leader in areas such [...]

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Vancouver’s Caffè Artigiano tackles expansion conundrum

Posted by on 03 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Quality Issues, Starbucks

Today’s The Globe and Mail (Toronto) featured an article on the coming growing pains for Vancouver’s Caffè Artigiano: Coffee chain tackles expansion conundrum – The Globe and Mail. For those unfamiliar, Caffè Artigiano still represents the best espresso shot we’ve ever had — produced by the hands of barista savant, Sammy Piccolo. Pulled in 2003, [...]

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The myth of the perfect espresso

Posted by on 14 Dec 2009 | Tagged as: Consumer Trends, Quality Issues

Last Friday, the UK edition of Wired magazine published one of those well-meaning articles that thoughtlessly got much of it all wrong: Computing the perfect coffee. At the article’s core is the myth of the “perfect” espresso — something we believe to be about as real as the tooth fairy. Blame for the modern myth [...]

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Disparaging the Third Wave, Part 3: The Cult of Baristas and Coffee Geeks

Posted by on 21 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: Barista, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Home Brew, Quality Issues

For the last installment of our three-part series on How future coffee “Waves” will come to disparage the so-called Third, we wrap up by examining two major social fads that have come to identify the Third Wave: The focus on baristas The role of coffee geeks We’ll also touch on why, if quality coffee is [...]

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Costa Coffee’s taster has tongue insured for £10 million … and the 2009 USBC winner

Posted by on 09 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: Barista, Café Society, Foreign Brew, Quality Issues

Oh, sure, it’s a rather frivolous promotional piece. Today’s Telegraph (UK) gives us a glimpse into how quality coffee is marketed in the UK versus here: Costa Coffee’s taster has tongue insured for £10 million – Telegraph. Whereas American coffee pros seem to go ga-ga at the altar of Q grader certification, the UK opts [...]

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Trip Report: Café Aquarius (Emeryville, CA)

Posted by on 05 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: Barista, Café Society, Foreign Brew

When exploring the East Bay for espresso, it’s strangely easy to overlook Emeryville. The first city from San Francisco as you cross the Bay Bridge, home to America’s largest specialty coffee seaport, Emeryville boasts numerous coffee businesses, from distributors to roasters. But oddly Emeryville doesn’t boast many retail coffee shops that aren’t part of some [...]

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The Birth of the Caffè Latte: Berkeley’s Caffe Mediterraneum in the news

Posted by on 26 Jan 2009 | Tagged as: Add Milk, Barista, Local Brew

Today’s Daily Californian, an independent student newspaper for the UC Berkeley campus, published an article on Berkeley’s venerable Caffe Mediterraneum: Historic Cafe Grounds For Coffee and Conversation – The Daily Californian. Sure, the coffee isn’t so great here. But for a place that is over 50 years old and is most often credited as the [...]

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