Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

This renowned pie bar (/bakery) and ice cream shop opened in May 2014 to a lot of wine country accolades. And although coffee isn’t in their name, they also give a significant nod to their coffee service. It’s a simplistic storefront off of the historic Healdsburg Town Square. Everything is covered in white-painted wood — […]

Today’s East Bay Express published a good, and long-overdue, cover story on some of the quality coffee changes going on in our fair East Bay: Surfing Coffee’s “Third Wave” | Feature | East Bay Express. Its use of the Third Wave crutch is unfortunate, but also par for the course these days. Meanwhile, we will […]

This casual, local café caters to the locals in a big way: to both patrons and employees. It’s located in a large, long building alongside the town railroad tracks at the dead-end of a street. Out front there is limited sidewalk seating — and an abused Snoopy sculpture, customary for Santa Rosa (aka Charles “Schutlzberg”). […]

Opening in the Spring of 2008, this remote Ritual location is little more than a counter inside Napa’s relatively new Oxbow Public Market. At first we questioned why the Wine Country needed a Ritual outlet — rather than an expansion of Sonoma-County-based Flying Goat Coffee. But then as we’ve monitored the quality over at The […]

It’s been a rather sad week for coffee news. An embarrassment, really — with headlines dominated by the ridiculous. There’s Racheal Ray’s TV commercial promoting both Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee and her Death-to-Israel Hamas credentials (though who hasn’t wanted to go jihad on her?). There are vocal members of Christian groups that we now need […]

After recently posting on the Flying Goat mothership, the time seemed right to dust off another Flying Goat review I should have published long ago. This large outlet of “The Goat” (as it is affectionately known by locals), a Healdsburg-based chain café and roastery, is located across from the Santa Rosa train station. Bright and […]

This started as a small, Sonoma-based chain café and roastery. It has since grown, deservedly, due to its popularity. There are two locations in Healdsburg (the other being the roasting plant, for Phil Anacker‘s finest, plus take-out-only coffee at 419 Center St.), one in Santa Rosa, and one soon planned for downtown Napa. The locals […]

The Petaluma Hot List As I mentioned in a previous post, the 2006 Western Regional Barista Competition was held in Petaluma over this past weekend. Twenty-two baristas from across California and Hawai’i participated in the annual competition — many for their first time. In addition to bringing out some of the best espresso preparation the […]

A barista championship in Petaluma? Yesterday (Saturday, March 4) I attended my first SCAA barista competition. Held at the Sheraton Sonoma County in Petaluma, the Western Regionals are a competitive prelude to next month’s U.S. Barista Championship. (Petaluma: it’s not just world arm wrestling championships anymore.) The annual Western Regionals covers competitive baristas across California […]

It took a moment for me to dig up an online version, but here it is. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the March 2006 issue of Food & Wine Magazine has a special report on coffee: An Obsessive’s Guide to Coffee | Food & Wine. The editors apparently “spent 410 man-hours tasting 157 coffees […]