Earlier this week, KRUPS, that bastion of great coffee, announced the winners of their National “Cup O’ Joe Awards”: Revealed: Nation’s best coffee shops – This Just In – Budget Travel. Now if only this announcement had anything legitimately to do with good coffee. Heck, if only KRUPS had anything legitimately to do with good coffee.

Of course, what we really have is one of the oldest tricks in the PR playbook: fabricate some kind of award (the broader the better — for potential distribution), issue your press release, and pray that it gets picked up in your target markets. The technique works, because we’re picking up the story here. Just probably not in the way KRUPS’ marketing department intended.

Over the past 20 years, KRUPS has probably done more to disappoint more home espresso consumers than any other company, and a multitude of American landfills contain much of the evidence. To counter this reputation, KRUPS has resorted to associating itself with “upmarket” coffee — such as years of sponsoring barista championships. Here KRUPS created a new Cup O’ Joe Awards out of thin air to honor the nation’s best coffee places — and to remind consumers to keep filling their landfills with KRUPS coffee equipment (and not just KRUPS waffle makers and deep fryers).

One signature of the fabricated press release award is when the award winners have never heard of it. Another is carpet bombing high density population centers (i.e., home espresso machine consumers) to maximum effect. Thus KRUPS ignores Portland, OR, quality coffee’s Biggie Smalls, while New York City, quality coffee’s Jay-Z, gets awards for each of five boroughs.

And when it comes to the criteria for why one place inches out another in a given market for this coveted award, we learn the criteria involves “mailers, street teams and social media pages.” It’s Battle of the Bands all over again.

From their press release: “Krups USA polled 250 coffee-toting New Yorkers on the streets of each borough to discover their picks for the city’s best sips.” Can you imagine a SCAA barista champion crowned without the use of scoresheets — but instead by some quasi-magical popularity contest involving random street interviews, mailings, and Facebook Likes?

The San Francisco award went to Blue Bottle Coffee, which is hardly unwarranted. But KRUPS awarding the nation’s best coffee shops is a bit like Chef Boyardee awarding America’s best Italian restaurants.

A few weeks ago we received the latest (and tenth) edition of the annual Bar d’Italia del Gambero Rosso for 2010. It is the closest thing in print we’ve seen to our Web site reviews, and we’ve generally found it indispensable when traveling Italy in search of good espresso. (We last reviewed the 2007 edition.)

Illy is, as they have long been, a heavy sponsor of the guide. If this seems like an conflict of interest, it certainly is: not all award-winning cafés in Italy necessarily serve Illy coffee, and non-Illy winners frequently display their Illy-branded credentials.

Italian culture seems to accept these conflicts of interest more readily than America (more in a fatalistic way than anything else). But when you have Krups as the lead sponsor to the U.S. Barista Championship, it’s not like we have a lot of high ground to stand on either.

And, at least in Europe, Illy coffee is often an excellent option — unlike the blander, stale distribution that dominates their U.S. market.

Bar of the Year 2010

On September 24, a panel of experts met at the Città del Gusto di Roma (quite literally the “city of taste” in Rome) to present this new edition of the guide and to announce the winner for Bar of the Year among the guide’s 18 highest-rated finalists: Zilioli of Brecia, Lombardia. Former winners of the Bar of the Year award include Converso Bra, winning it in both 2004 and 2005.

Among all of Italy’s 20 regions, Piemonte still dominates the awards, boasting 7 of the 27 highest rated coffee bars in the country — including Baratti & Milano, Caffè Platti, Caffè Mulassano, Neuv Caval’d Brôns, Strumia, and the aforementioned Converso Bra.

The print stock and cover of this year’s guide is a bit flimsier than our 2007 edition (it’s now closer to a Zagat paperback guide), but it otherwise seems largely the same. As in past years when we’re not in Italian bookstores, we purchased it from ibs.it for €10 plus €10,20 shipping — which, for being FedEx’ed from overseas in under a week, is one of the better deals out there.

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 not hundreds, of times before. But besides the usual descriptions of contestants’ “espresso cocktails” (specialty drinks), they touched on an interesting point for the industry:

“Caribou, after Starbucks the nation’s second-largest purveyor of coffee in terms of number of stores, is a major sponsor of the conference, yet has no baristas entered in the competition. Why don’t titans like Starbucks and Caribou participate?”

It’s a great question. The article quotes the new SCAA president, Mark Inman, who suggests that the barista championship is an underground cult and that the big, deep-pocketed coffee pushers are casing out the event before getting more involved. But that’s as much a load of crap as the self-serving “Third Wave” platitudes on the conference Web site.

Starbucks’ and Caribou’s Public Humiliation Championship 2008 — presented by Krups

Sure, according to Mr. Inman, Starbucks and Caribou should “have the resources to hire and train the best talent in the industry and sweep the competitions.” But it’s not because “they choose not to expose themselves to this arena”. What big corporation doesn’t want free PR and employees who can boast national awards? Particularly Starbucks these days, who are desperate to claim some kind of coffee quality relevance after selling their souls and taking the highway to fast-food hell.

Mr. Inman is being rather disingenuous — he knows better than that. Krups is once again sponsoring the competition, afterall — a company that profited for decades selling an armada of landfill-bound home espresso machines. The reason Starbucks and Caribou don’t participate is because they are incapable of participating and they are afraid of the embarrassment when that fact publicly comes to light.

The No Espresso Left Behind Act

The best baristas in the country are not lured to work for the big chains to prefect their craft and their love of coffee. And even if they were, Starbucks’ espresso delivery system™ would put their baristas behind equipment and supplies that place them at an extreme competitive disadvantage: no barista trained on a push-button Verismo or Mastrena machine, using pre-packaged beans purchased in bulk supply for chain consistency, would have a chance against the competition.

The truth is that Starbucks and Caribou don’t want an event to prove to the public how woefully inadequate their coffee standards are — especially when compared to the level of competition that comes to these championships. If millions of their customers realized how much coffee quality they were being cheated out of at $4 a pop, it would be a boon for many independent coffeeshops and it would scuttle corporate coffee with long-lasting damage.

Big corporate coffee may not be that great, but they’re not so stupid as to give away their dirty secrets. The coffee quality strategy of major chains like Starbucks and Caribou isn’t at the high end of the scale — i.e., to provide the best coffee possible served by their most talented staff. Instead, their strategies are focused at the low end — i.e., how to best elevate the worst coffee made among all their chain stores using the least-skilled staff available to them.

Imagine a sort of twisted, parallel universe where CoffeeRatings.com was born of a chauffeured limousine driving about the city, shuttling me from café to café on an itemized list in search of SF’s finest espresso. Now imagine this endeavor sponsored by a leading purveyor of cheap plastic and metal, responsible for more kitchen appliances in our world’s landfills than any other company on the planet. Then imagine this happening in Toronto instead of here, and you’ve pretty much got today’s read: Krups Cup of Excellence – Suggested Itineraries – Martiniboys.com.

“Recruit a crew of coffee connoisseurs, supply them with a short list of cafés to visit within a day, and limo-chauffer them from café to café on a search for the city’s most quality-driven coffee house,” reads the plan. By this method, the article comes up with a few interesting suggestions for the “undiscovered” Toronto espresso. But given how I’ve held myself to no more than four espresso tastings in a day — to avoid taste bud fatigue, not to mention over-caffeination — do you think I could get Krups to spot me four months of personal limo service?

I could even rideshare with Willie Brown if need be. Hey, it’s gotta be faster than MUNI.

Coffee pods are a fad that is on life support at the value end (i.e., for machines under $100). However, home sales of high-end coffee pod makers are up significantly: MediaPost Publications – Upscale Coffee Makers Drive Segment But Overall It’s Flat – 03/19/2007. As I discovered in Lisbon’s fashionable Chiado district last year, an upscale market for these devices currently exists in espresso-loving Portugal at least.

But the U.S. isn’t Portugal. According to a recent NPD report, the machines are primarily gift purchases — which should be a warning alarm for the technology right there (remind anyone of Krups circa 1990?). Given that these single serving coffee pod machines use stale, pre-ground beans, these days the home espresso drinker generally has increasingly better quality options among nearby cafés and coffeehouses. Which is why I generally believe the survival of the coffee pod format depends more on the bargain end of the coffee consumer market: it can’t sustain itself in a high-end market, because the quality will always be inferior despite the machine conveniences.

UPDATE: March 21, 2007
When you’re living in England and have been conditioned to drink instant coffee for most of your life, even the downmarket home machine marks a real improvement: Sales of espresso machines soar as Brits turn their backs on instant coffee | the Daily Mail.

Speaking of Nick Cho recently…

Last Fall, Nick won the Southeast Regional Barista Competition (the press always wants to say “Championship”, but it’s “Competition” at the regionals). Congratulations, Nick. (No, seriously!) This means that Nick is headed down to Long Beach, CA to compete for the national title at the SCAA’s 19th Annual Conference & Exhibition in May: Nation’s Best Baristas Take a ”Shot” at U.S. Championship Title.

Yes, it’s that time of year again. So if I may return to my regularly scheduled curmudgeoness… Ho hum. Another year, another series of competitions, another national and world barista champion. I’m not sure why barista competitions suddenly seem so trite and tiresome to me this time around.

It’s not Krups — who have done more to humiliate the home espresso than any single brand I can think of — and how they’re sponsoring the U.S. Championships for the fourth year running. Rather, I think it’s the format of these competitions. There’s too much emphasis on espresso gymnastics in a way that’s far removed from the things I really enjoy about having a great espresso.

What’s Love of Espresso Got to Do With It?

Sure, I love the quality of great shot. But do I really care about trace milligrams inside the grinder after the barista finishes my shot? Do I really need to inspect the spent coffee puck for firmness afterwards? Do I care if my barista can make an espresso cocktail using tamarind and Ruby Port, precipitously balanced in chilled glasses on a bed of kaffir lime leaves? None of this has anything to do with reality — with what I enjoy so much about espresso.

And as far as I’m concerned, all great baristas toss out shots — something that the competitive format does not allow with the clock running. The first time I had an espresso shot pulled for me by Sammy Piccolo, a long time Canadian barista champion who made frequent appearances among the top three baristas in the world, he tossed the first two attempts before he deemed his creation as “adequate.” (Thus another reason I scoff at super-automated espresso machines.)

Lifelong master Italian baristas never seemed to have a need for this sort of thing. So maybe the culinary art and the barista profession need to be elevated and respected. But when I want a great meal, I go to a good restaurant with good food. If I want to be entertained or if I want to see people scored on arbitrary criteria, I’ll turn on the Iron Chef or go watch some Benihana chef toss a shrimp tail in his hat for the 47th time — neither of which are very fulfilling, however.

It is no wonder why I find just the simple act of sipping great espresso with like-minded people as the best part of these events.

Today’s Edmonton Journal published a primer on the more sophisticated home espresso setup: Getting Serious About Coffee. In other words, what do you do when your $100 home Krups machine isn’t cutting it — because the espresso it produces belongs in the same landfill where your machine will deservedly rot its final days?

There’s an avalanche of articles, and dedicated Web sites, on the topic. However, I will briefly point out my own Rules of Home Espresso Engagement from my own years of home espresso-making:

• Don’t buy a home machine as a means of saving money. You’ll spend more by throwing out the cheap piece of junk you bought because of the bad coffee it produces, and you’ll end back up at square one.
• To do this right, it’s going to be expensive. Don’t even bother getting a home espresso machine if you can’t afford at least a $400 Rancilio Silva.
• Buy your espresso machine from a specialist retailer. Bigger-name retailers of kitchen appliances and gourmet food equipment mostly sell overpriced, underperforming landfill.
• An exception to the above rule is if you want something self-contained, push-button, and of the ultimate convenience. In which case, I recommend that you forget the home machine, find your favorite café on CoffeeRatings.com, and pay someone else to brew your espresso.
• Do your research online, get opinions of those you trust.
• Don’t spend more than $400 on an espresso machine without also spending almost as much on a decent burr grinder. Most everybody treats the grinder as an afterthought, and an inexpensive grinder will throttle the quality completely — making your expensive espresso machine pointless.
• Use coffee beans as fresh as you can possibly get — ideally less than one week since roasting. Your crema will notice the difference. Bags of the stuff that you find on Starbucks‘, Peet’s, or other store shelves are typically weeks old — so go to a local roaster if you can. If opening the bag doesn’t make your house stink of coffee, it’s not fresh enough. (Unless it’s roasted that day — and it never is.)
• Unless you drink espresso daily and in significant quantities, you may want to consider home roasting your own beans. People did this for centuries before Sanka, today it is a lot less complicated than it sounds (think “hot air popcorn popper”), and you can’t beat the freshness.
• Clean your equipment frequently, as with food-safe coffee oil solvents such as Puro Caff, and perform regular maintenance, such as replacing seals and gaskets about every year, to prevent your home espresso from going rancid in a hurry.

Local Charlotte, NC news TV station, News 14 Carolina, ran a story today about the ongoing annual SCAA convention being hosted in town: News 14 Carolina | 24 Hour Local News | TOP STORIES | Coffee convention buzzes uptown. (Includes TV news video clip.)

Conference attendance includes over 8,000 people from around the globe. The article makes mention of the 2006 U.S. Barista Championship, which will crown a winner tomorrow. Hopefully, none of the winners have to go home with a Krups machine (the event’s main sponsor).

Since everything I learned about coffee I learned by watching NBC’s Today show, I had to share an article that came across my desk today highlighting some of their top picks for home coffee and espresso machines: Make a great cup of joe with the latest makers – Today: Food – MSNBC.com.

The article was written by Today food editor Phil Lempert, whose distinguished credits include Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee Chat News — with recent articles such as: “ASK PHIL: Getting the Best Flavor With Your Percolator!” (To which my rebuttal would be, “ASK GREG: Getting the Best Flavor With Your Curling Iron!” Percolating is arguably the most damaging method for brewing coffee.)

In the article, Phil reviews a number of machines — including the required disk-o-coffee pod models (“no mess, no fuss, no flavor!”). But I was honestly surprised that he made mention of the Pasquini Livia 90 and the Rancilio Silvia. While neither machine is “new” by any means (they have been on the market for years), both are solid for personal home espresso preparation.

Of course, Phil calls it the Illy Pasquini Livia 90 (not realizing that Illy doesn’t make espresso machines — they just co-brand them). But given the tendency for mainstream food folks and retail stores to treat Krups as the vaunted brand in home espresso machines, this is progress. (Though I do love the fact that their slogan is, “Krups: Beyond Reason.”)

Speaking of Krups and glorified rice cookers that brew coffee, apparently the C1000 Capresso Automatic Coffee Center machine just joined the list of big ticket/cheesy plastic home espresso machines that spontaneously burst into flames — and yet have no risk of spontaneously producing decent espresso. Maybe my curling iron idea isn’t so ridiculous afterall…

UPDATE: 31-Mar-2006
And now Jura Impressa Automatic Coffee Center espresso machines are being recalled for spontaneously bursting into flames. You heard it here first: soon it will be unsafe to drink any espresso with these automatic home machines without wearing an asbestos suit.

Is your barista worthy?

The Specialty Coffee Association of America is holding their annual convention in Charlotte, NC beginning April 7. One of the main events coinciding with the conference is the 2006 United States Barista Championship. From Business Wire: Barista Champion to Be Revealed from Among Nationwide Competitors; The Specialty Coffee Association of America’s 2006 United States Barista Championship, Hosted by Krups, Takes Place April 7-10 in Charlotte, N.C. (Since when did press release headlines become novellas?)

Baristas are facing an uphill battle for legitimacy. Making a fine espresso is a lot like gourmet cooking — it demands quality ingredients, quality equipment, temperature, pressure, timing, skill, and consistency. And in a number of places in Italy, for example, being a great barista is an artisan craft with a legitimate career path.

Unfortunately, the proliferation of Starbucks in this country has publicly equated the profession with little more than a minimum wage McDonald’s fry cook. And as Starbucks needed to hire thousands of new employees to fuel their growth, they hired more of what was cheap and available in the marketplace: employees with less skills and lower wages. This progression was also largely facilitated by their widespread switch to push-button Verismo machines that a monkey could operate.

Bam! Goes the Weasel

Events like the USBC (and, ultimately, the World Barista Championship) help to elevate the profession and recognize the commitment and skills of those who truly are masters of an art … and science. Other advances include the recent introduction of Barista Magazine (to which I subscribe as a pro bono amateur barista myself).

Some baristas hope to one day see public legitimization of their profession reach the level of the “celebrity barista” — something of a public representative for the specialty coffee industry, not unlike the way that the Food Network has crowned many a celebrity chef (deserving or otherwise).

But despite the achievements of the world’s greatest baristas, I don’t see them ever making good television. Although they’re not accountants, baristas aren’t exactly known for having the most, shall we say, effervescent of personalities. (And I’ve probably been served by more baristas than anyone in SF over the past three years.) And while espresso machines are proliferating in the home, there’s a huge difference between the maestro with a three-group La Marzocco FB-70 … and someone at home, watching on TV, struggling with their Krups machine and pre-ground coffee pod.

It makes great espresso … once you change the light bulb

Speaking of Krups machines and seeking legitimacy… did I read that press release headline correctly? “Hosted by Krups”? And for the third year running?

I wrote about general experiences with Krups espresso machines in a previous post. I simply cannot imagine any self-respecting, professional barista doing anything less but snickering at the association of Krups with this competition. It’s like having the World Pastry Cup hosted by the Easy-Bake Oven.

Both the baristas and the sponsors are clearly hoping to use this event to reach out, educate the public, and improve their image. The only question that remains is who will win this tug of war: the champion baristas pulling up Krups’ image, or Krups pulling the image of the profession down with them?