Posted by TheShot on 15 Feb 2011 | Tagged as: Beans, Quality Issues
Ecco Caffè founder and fellow South Side Chicago homie, Andrew Barnett, posted a little background about the Cup of Excellence program on SFGate yesterday: Inside Scoop SF » The Cup of Excellence: The Oscars of the Coffee World. Thankfully he compared CoE to the Oscars and not the Grammys — the latter of which have [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 11 Dec 2010 | Tagged as: Barista, Beans, Foreign Brew, Machine, Quality Issues
Call it coffee’s version of Hubble’s Law: the rate at which a local coffee scene evolves is inversely proportional to its maturity. What?!? Let us explain. Seattle and San Francisco are examples of well-established coffee cultures, and the rate of evolution and improvement we see in the coffee there tends to nudge along at a [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 02 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Quality Issues
In the headlines today, Consumer Reports continues to explore the merits of ghetto coffee: Lack of excellent coffee blends: Consumer Reports | Reuters. Whereas before they chimed in on the McDonald’s vs. Starbucks debate — something we’ve always likened to a beauty contest between Courtney Love and Joan Rivers — this time their “expert” taste [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 13 Jan 2010 | Tagged as: Beans, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Quality Issues
Recently I was approached by a writer exploring ideas for an article to be published by Wired in the UK. (This wouldn’t be the first time.) The subject line of his e-mail? “The Future of Coffee.” His goal was to put together a piece about the “vanguard of the coffee industry,” featuring “new and disruptive [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 12 Jan 2010 | Tagged as: Beans, Local Brew
The Mission is one of SF’s best neighborhoods. We don’t necessarily mean Mission Street, however: home to BART’s Plasticuffs Station and a decent assortment of angry heroin addicts. We’re talking about 24th Street — a working class neighborhood with a strong immigrant community, but without many of Mission Street’s rougher edges. Decent coffee is now [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 15 May 2009 | Tagged as: Beans, Local Brew, Roasting
Opening just a week ago — in the space previously occupied by the Illy shop, Caffé Il Latte — this tiny café is the first in San Francisco to use beans from Santa Cruz-based Verve Coffee Roasters. The tiny space relies on mirrored walls to add depth, and there is a little bit of a [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 09 May 2009 | Tagged as: Barista, Beans, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Quality Issues
Australians are no slouches when it comes to appreciating good coffee. But last month, an opinion piece in The Australian highlighted what the author, John Lethlean, felt was a lot of misplaced fuss, pomp, and circumstance going into coffee origins these days: Just a strong one, thanks | The Australian. A self-described “coffee-geek groupie,” Mr. [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 07 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: Barista, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew
Yesterday’s Chicago Tribune reported on a curious coffee bar concept planned for Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea‘s latest location, currently under construction in Los Angeles’ Venice Beach. The concept includes featuring five different stations where five separate baristas personally attend to each customer, individually catering to their unique coffee whims: Intelligentsia plans a groundbreaking coffee bar [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 25 Feb 2009 | Tagged as: Beans, Local Brew, Roasting
While revisiting Dynamo Donuts earlier this month, we quickly noted the bags of Four Barrel Coffee in the back. Like the Four Barrel Coffee mothership, Dynamo had been using Stumptown Hairbender to date — with rumors that they would switch over to Four Barrel once they got their roasting operations going. Four Barrel commenced their [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 27 Sep 2008 | Tagged as: Beans, Local Brew, Machine
It’s not often that a lone double shot of espresso warrants a post here. But last month (hey — we got lazy) we had a rather rare espresso experience. We alluded to this espresso shot in a previous post, and it was among the best we’ve had in the Bay Area. (And we’re including the [...]
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