Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

A few things have changed since our last trip report from the Crissy Field Warming Hut. Some of the changes are related to an electric car that mysteriously burst into flames here exactly two years ago; the water damage from putting out the fire shut The Hut down for repairs for most of 2007. But [...]

Yesterday’s NovoMetro (a rough-around-the-edges local online guide to Oakland) published an article on a new café coming to downtown Oakland called Awaken Café: NovoMetro. It’s scheduled to open in early August with an emphasis on community, slow food, sustainability (and all those other obligatory feel-good adjectives you need to operate a coffee shop in the [...]

Earth Day couldn’t pass last weekend without a multitude of feel-good press releases from coffee peddlers. We already knew that our coffee could support Ernie & Bert‘s ambiguously gay lifestyle on Public Television. Now we read about how our coffee could save chimps, help solve the energy crisis, and even how it could stamp out [...]

Now we’ve written before about the importance of a good cup when drinking espresso. And we’ve written that there are times where what’s right for flavor and what’s right for the environment go hand-in-hand. The paper cup issue is the perfect example, and some governments are contributing to the cause: Taiwan to ban paper cups [...]

Today the Chicagoist blog published an interview with Intelligentsia founder and CEO, Doug Zell: Chicagoist: Chicagoist Grills: Intelligentsia Coffee & Roasting Works CEO Doug Zell. Intelligentsia not only boasts some of the best roasted coffee in the country, and the reigning U.S. barista champion from one of their cafés, but they also helped set a [...]

Yesterday’s Sunday Times (London) ran a story concerning McDonald’s UK’s announcement of a coffee supply partnership with the Rainforest Alliance: McDonald’s brews up £1m fair trade deal – Sunday Times – Times Online. At first read, I opted not to add a blog entry on how the Rainforest Alliance served as another alternative example to [...]

One of coffee’s big stories of the past year has been the seemingly sudden discovery and public awareness of Fair Trade coffee. Twenty years after the founding of Equal Exchange, Fair Trade coffee awareness reached critical mass this year in the U.S., the U.K., and many other nations around the world. This awareness began with [...]

With coffee prices reaching new highs, suddenly the premiums that organic and Fair Trade coffee beans used to command are dwindling in comparison to the additional overhead required of growers. Or so suggests an article today from Reuters: Reuters AlertNet – FEATURE-Farmers question value of ‘responsible’ coffees. The article points out that coffee farmers that [...]

Today Reuters reported on organic coffee’s diminishing financial appeal for Nicaraguan growers: Organic coffee loses appeal for Nicaragua growers | World Crises | Reuters.com. Organic coffee certification involves a process where a farm typically takes years to demonstrate itself “chemical free” (of pesticides, growth additives, etc.). Between this expense and the lower per-acre yields of [...]

Opening just this month, this café was started by The Rogers Family Company (perhaps best known for their ‘inorganic’ and dirt cheap San Francisco Bay Coffee Co. beans, available at Costco) and other investors. It’s heavy on the Fair Trade organic coffees, and that’s just where its social causes begin. They heavily brand their devotion [...]