Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

Today the press release mill churned out the announcement of the next SCAA conference: 10,000 Leaders Shape the Future of Specialty Coffee May 4 – 7, 2007 in Long Beach, Calif. Yes, there will be the usual plethora of speakers, exhibitors, mixers, courses, workshops, and awards. Yes, there’s the circus entertainment of the U.S. Barista [...]

Today’s Daytona Beach News-Journal cited a 2005 SCAA study in reporting that, “The coffee market is booming and expensive brands are the ‘in thing,’ but workers who drink coffee on the run say the less expensive ones stimulate their taste buds just as well as the others.”: Coffee fans fill up on taste, location — [...]

Today’s Spokane Journal of Business took the local angle on coffee’s current explosive growth bubble: Spokane Journal of Business – Coffee industry rides grande buzz. According to the SCAA, U.S. specialty coffee sales rose sharply to $11 billion in 2005, up from $9.6 billion in 2004. And Starbucks, the bellweather of specialty coffee, recently reported [...]

And the winner is… The Charlotte Observer posted an article today covering the final rounds of the 2006 U.S. Barista Championship, held yesterday on the final day of the annual SCAA conference: Charlotte Observer | 04/11/2006 | Coffee artists grind toward national title. For all those who scratched their head thinking, “A quality coffee conference [...]

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 [...]

An article in today’s The News-Gazette from Champaign, IL reported on some of the nuances of coffee cupping, or the process by which coffee professionals taste and evaluate coffee for purchase, blending, etc.: AP Wire | 04/05/2006 | ILLINOIS STYLE: Champaign coffee roaster rates Dominican coffee. A local roaster visited the Dominican Republic, where the [...]

Reason magazine recently published an excellent article on the history of Fair Trade coffee and the complicated web that has evolved around it over the years: Reason: Absolution in Your Cup: The real meaning of Fair Trade coffee by Kerry Howley Starting at the roots of the American Fair Trade coffee movement — at a [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]