Tag Archive 'sammy_piccolo'

Vancouver’s Caffè Artigiano tackles expansion conundrum

Posted by TheShot on 03 Feb 2010 | Filed under: 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, [...]

Does the growth in high-quality independent cafés mean the mom-and-pops are making a comeback?

Posted by TheShot on 28 Dec 2009 | Filed under: Café Society, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Quality Issues, Starbucks

Has it really been a couple weeks since our last third wave rant? A few years after we thought this topic was dead and buried, lately newbie third wave coffee articles have been cropping up in local newspapers like teenage vampire profiteers. London, Oakland, and now Vancouver: Indie cafés perfectly poised to quench coffee aficionados’ [...]

Vancouver’s new cafe wins best coffee in region

Posted by TheShot on 05 Oct 2007 | Filed under: Foreign Brew, Roasting

From yesterday’s Vancouver Sun, the praise is rolling in for Vancouver’s 49th Parallel Roasters, a new coffee destination established by Vince and Mike Piccolo (the former of Caffè Artigiano fame): Vancouver’s new cafe wins best coffee in region. Just don’t ask what Krups is doing as self-appointed tastemakers of good espresso via the annual Krups [...]

Movie Review: ‘Black Gold’

Posted by TheShot on 11 Apr 2007 | Filed under: Beans, Fair Trade, Starbucks

No, I’m not slated as the latest guest movie reviewer for TV’s Ebert & Roeper. (Though I would love to be backstage to witness Robert Roeper tell his guests, “My show. Got that? It’s my show now!”) But last night, KQED aired a coffee-crisis-themed documentary for PBS’s “Indepedent Lens,” titled Black Gold: Independent Lens . [...]

Coffee roasting for the computer age

Posted by TheShot on 26 Mar 2007 | Filed under: Machine, Quality Issues, Roasting

It’s no secret that I generally disdain superautomated espresso machines (myself and Howard Schultz apparently included) and the convenience-step-forward/quality-step-backwards home pod machines. So you may get the (false) impression that, when it comes to coffee, I am an anti-technology Luddite. While I have never placed PID temperature controllers on the group of my home machine [...]

The season is upon us: Barista Gymnastics 2007

Posted by TheShot on 08 Feb 2007 | Filed under: Barista, Quality Issues

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 & [...]

The WBC: Canada’s quest for coffee supremacy

Posted by TheShot on 25 May 2006 | Filed under: Barista

Today the WestEnder of Vancouver, Canada posted an article on one of my favorite baristas in the world, Sammy Piccolo: Canada’s quest for coffee supremacy. Sammy has made some of the best espresso I’ve ever had in North America … if not the world. Back in 2000, along with his brothers Vince and Michael, he [...]