Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

Yesterday we came across a post where a Boston Globe writer implored winemakers to be more like their coffee counterparts: A lesson in winemaking – straight from the espresso bar . . . – By the glass – Wine News, Views & Reviews – Boston.com. It wouldn’t be the first time coffee’s wine analogy ran [...]

Today’s Metro Pulse (Knoxville, TN) published a lengthy-but-interesting piece on Knoxville’s budding local coffee scene: Revenge of the Knoxville (Coffee) Nerds » Metro Pulse. The article includes plenty of common themes we’ve seen many times before — pour-over bars, direct trade, the wine analogy. However, the article succeeds by being non-judgmental while going beyond the [...]

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 [...]

Just when you think the profession of the coffee “middleman” was on its way out in this era of the Internet, in come a number of entrepreneurs trying to reintroduce them. What we’re talking about are consumer retailers that intermediate the sale of roasted coffee — with examples that include Citizen Bean, GoCoffeeGo (see Man [...]

As Starbucks‘ future looks ever bleaker and bleaker, CEO Howard Schultz continues his maniacal lever-pulling atop Starbucks’ runaway corporate bulldozer. After shedding themselves of music, movies, and books, they’ve tried everything from an online suggestion box and free coffee promotions to membership cards to less expensive (“daily”) roasts and smoothies. Mr. Schultz’s latest lever pull [...]

It is Labor Day weekend in San Francisco. And the only thing keeping us from inaugurating Itching Man, our long-proposed rival event to Burning Man, was Slow Food Nation ’08. For a little background, we mentioned this event in a post last week. Given how it had been billed, we had hopes there would be [...]

With little fanfare, last week Four Barrel Coffee finally graduated out of the ranks of the Malaysian street food experience and opened up its formal café space. So this week we paid a visit to check out the new digs — and update our espresso review. (See: our previous Four Barrel Coffee Trip Report.) Last [...]

Tacoma’s The News Tribune published an unusually lengthy bio piece today on Stumptown Coffee Roasters owner and founder, Duane Sorenson: Coffee’s benevolent Mr. Bean | TheNewsTribune.com | Tacoma, WA. One of the big, early supporters of SF’s Ritual Coffee Roasters, Duane is quite a famous character in the industry. Among many other things, the article [...]

The London Times today published a business section interview of Andrea Illy, the head of IllyCaffè: The original Mr Bean – Times Online. More of a financial/business article, it discusses Illy’s role in the world of specialty coffee — touching on Illy’s technical innovations (some of them regrettable, IMO), brand positioning, and even Mr. Illy’s [...]

For the latest installments that hash and rehash the pros and cons of Fair Trade, we turn to yesterday’s Oakland Tribune and today’s International Herald Tribune. The International Herald Tribune covered the big chains and the impact on some growers: ‘Fair trade’ certification yielding benefits for Brazilian coffee farmers – International Herald Tribune. Of particular [...]