Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

If there ever was a news article that embodied what we’ve found unsatisfying about how barista competitions are promoted, this one from today’s News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) is up there: More than another cup of joe | TheNewsTribune.com | Tacoma, WA. Over the weekend, Tacoma hosted the Northwest Regional Barista Competition. Barista competitions may be [...]

This week we came across a curious video published by Voice of America: VOA News – Seattle: Capital of Coffee Houses. If you wonder why something called “Voice of America” produces video, you’ll question that even more after viewing this parody of a 1980′s corporate training video. But the video is essentially a review of [...]

Now that we’ve caught your attention with the sensationalist title, we’ve had a thought that has been milling around in our heads for quite a while. All this talk about a supposed Third Wave in quality coffee (it truly is that hard for us to restrain our contempt for that term) seems to have coincided [...]

We’ve previously posted about the phenomenon of well-heeled consumers paying for the privilege of performing manual labor in food production that our country could otherwise only get illegal immigrants to do. But here’s a new twist on the continued glamorization of the food service industry — yesterday Microsoft announced a new video game for the [...]

We’re more than a bit late with the news here, but a hearty and well-deserved congratulations to Kyle Glanville of LA’s Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea for winning the 2008 U.S. Barista Championship (USBC): 2008 US Barista Champion « The Official 2008 SCAA Conference Blog. Proving the West is Best, and giving us some minor trash-talking [...]

While I’ll be checking out Barista Coffee in India, Minneapolis will be hosting this year’s U.S. Barista Championship during the SCAA conference this weekend. Yesterday, the host city’s hometown paper, the Star Tribune, published a rather lengthy article on the event: The great barista battle is brewing. It’s a story that’s been covered dozens, if [...]

With Spring upon us, that means it’s time for the 2008 Western Regional Barista Competition (WRBC): ‘Attention to every detail’ at Berkeley barista contest – San Jose Mercury News. Starting this past Friday and ending today (check out their photo album), the 2008 WRBC performs a time-honored ritual to select a barista champ representing our [...]

Seattle’s Coffee Fest trade show ended yesterday. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an article announcing the winners of its “Millrock Free Pour Latte Art competition” (isn’t that a mouthful?): Artistic cup of joe brings home $5,000 prize. Top honors and $5,000 of prize money went to Layla Emily Osberg of Vancouver, BC’s Blenz Coffee — where [...]

The votes have been tallied and a huge round of congratulations are in order. Props to James Hoffman, of La Spaziale UK Ltd. and jimseven fame (jimseven.com has linked over here often), for winning the 2007 World Barista Championship (WBC) today in Tokyo: Briton is crowned world espresso ‘barista’ champion at Tokyo contest (International Herald [...]

I can’t in my right mind write a legitimate review of SF’s infamous Buena Vista Cafe. Sure, it’s no secret that I frequently dismiss the merits of the coffee cocktail — what people do to coffee when it either isn’t very good, when people don’t like it, or when people get bored easily. Even if [...]