10.07
What would brunch be like with Duane Sorenson, the founder of Portland’s celebrated coffee company Stumptown and budding restaurateur? Fantastic. Chris and Sarah Rhoads, from We Are The Rhoads, attended such an affair and captured Duane’s love of coffee and food with friends and family for Bon Appétit.
There was definitely coffee, brewed by Duane himself, but it wasn’t the only thing worth noting. The atmosphere was punctuated by famed artists (both in person and on vinyl), a delectable looking sausage & broccoli rabe frittata, salmon & capers, hazelnut granola and a fantastic looking cocktail called the “Dark Moon.”
Dark Moon Cocktail
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups of cold brew coffee
- 1/2 cup coffee liqueur (Duane uses this)
- 1/2 cup spiced rum
- 1 bottle of “Mexican” coke
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
Mix all of the ingredients together (except the cream) and divide into rocks glasses filled with ice. Distribute cream evenly on top and serve.
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View all of the photos and recipes from Duane’s brunch on Bon Appétit.
[Photos: Chris & Sarah Rhoads, We Are The Rhoads]
posted by
bwj on 10.07.2013, under
Misc.
10.03
Bruer, a new start up in California, launched a new cold brew coffee maker on Kickstarter last month called the Cold Bruer. This isn’t the first cold brew coffee maker to launch on the crowdfunding site, but it’s the first one that’s practical enough for home use. Unlike the meter high towers that most people design for cold brew coffee, the Cold Bruer’s simplicity is what makes it so fantastic. Less is more—and the minimal design of the Cold Bruer makes that clear (as the glass it’s made with).
Bruer was founded by Andy Clark and Gabe Herz who met at a product incubator in the Santa Cruz mountains. After discovering their joy of cold brew coffee and being unhappy with all the options available for making it—they decided to create their own. The two co-founders wanted to design something transparent to show the process, and they’ve created an elegant and compact way of accomplishing that.
The Cold Bruer was conveniently designed to work with standard paper AeroPress filters, but comes with a reusable mesh filter of its own if you aren’t concerned with clarity. With a capacity of 700ml of water and about 56 grams of coffee, it produces three cups of coffee concentrate (6 cups diluted) to be enjoyed however you like it—with ice, water or milk. The drip valve is fully adjustable allowing brew times to be as short as two hours or as long as eighteen, depending on your level of patience.
The photographs published here are of a Cold Bruer prototype, so I spoke with Andy at Bruer to find out if any changes will be made to the final product:
The prototype is pretty much the same as what we will be delivering. There are a couple changes that have happened already, like the shape of the glass to make the interaction between the pieces more stable. There is also a silicone “shoulder” now that provides a cushion between the two glass pieces. We will be making some improvements to the valve to make it easier to use, based on feedback we received from people who tested our prototypes…
Andy said they’ve also begun designing a lid that will fit both the reservoir on top as well as the pitcher for storage that will also be included with the Cold Bruer.
When I first shared the Bruer on Twitter a few weeks ago, I never really followed up on it since I’m personally not a fan of cold brewed coffee—but I know many people are. I do however think it’s one of the best looking cold brewers on the market and the design alone is worth sharing. Now that the Cold Bruer has surpassed its goal on Kickstarter by over 450%, there’s only a week left to order one at a discounted price.
By backing the project on Kickstarter you can pre-order a Cold Bruer for only $50—later retailing for $70. And although the original delivery date was estimated for January 2014, there’s a possibility they might ship a bit sooner. Andy said with the success of the campaign so far, some parts have already been ordered in hopes of delivering early. That’s good news for cold brew fans everywhere.
Cold Bruer on Kickstarter
10.01
Mr. Porter, an online retailer of high-end menswear, published a lovely interactive map of global coffee trends this summer in the journal section of their website. You can glide around the map and read tidbits about each location’s coffee culture and brief summaries of various brew methods and coffee drinks.
The illustrations were done by some of my favorite designers at Hey Studio in Barcelona, Spain. Their simple geometric style illustrates twenty-nine different drinks from around the world, from the AeroPress to the Ten Belles.
The map is also accompanied by some thoughts from Mansel Fletcher, the site’s Features Editor, and Marco Arrigo from Illy, regarding today’s evolving coffee scene:
One of the striking things about the modern coffee scene is the extent to which the Italian tradition has been written out of the picture. The flat white has become so popular that it’s possible to imagine that the espresso was invented in Melbourne, rather than in Turin. However, Mr Marco Arrigo, Illy’s head of quality in the UK, believes that there’s one element of Italian coffee culture that Anglo Saxons can’t reproduce. “In the UK and the US you can have the coffee, but you still don’t have the culture. You should enjoy a coffee with somebody else, sitting down, drinking from a real cup. To drink coffee on your own, from a paper cup, while sending an email on your BlackBerry is missing the point; it’s like eating a meal in front of the television. It’s sterile.” – Mr. Porter
View all the illustrations and explore the map at Mr. Porter Journal.
09.27
Kenya is a beautiful place. Many of my favorite coffees come from this East African country and having the opportunity to visit a few years ago, still remains one of the greatest trips I’ve ever taken. Verve Coffee in Santa Cruz, California has captured many of the things I loved about that trip in a new video, while also showing the process your coffee goes through before getting into your cup.
Thanks to technology, curiosity and roasters who visit coffee farms, there have been an increasing number of coffee origin videos in recent years. The production quality continues to rise, bringing many people closer to coffee farms than they will ever get themselves. This particular film stands out for its warmth and for its broad perspective showing the viewer coffee farms as well as the lively street culture and dramatic country side of Kenya.
Verve worked with What Took You So Long to produce the film, an organization who is quite experienced with film making in Africa. WTYSL was founded by Sebastion Lindstrom to make guerrilla films in the most remote parts of the world and to share positive stories from those regions. The organization came together during a trip across 16 countries in Africa while researching best practices within nonprofits. Since that maiden trip they’ve built up an impressive portfolio of work on the continent.
So grab a fresh cup and enjoy this lovely journey through Kenya.
09.26
Yesterday, I shared an article from the New York Times travel blog on Facebook that mentioned the plans of Paris-based international hotel chain Le Méridien to hire and train 100 new Master Baristas. These new baristas are meant to be at the center of the hotel lobby’s concierge services, encouraging social interaction and offering recommendations for things to do around town.
During the company’s research for the new strategy, they found that an incredible 78% of 7000 people surveyed would rather give up alcohol, social media or sex with their partners for a year than forfeit their coffee—now that’s true love. I got in touch with a Le Méridien representative for more details on the new program and its potential.
The new program is being led by the expertise of Fritz Storm, the 2002 World Barista Champion and trainer of several high placing World Barista competitors—including Fabrizio Ramirez who finished 2nd and Miki Suzuki who finished 4th in the 2012 WBC. The new program will complement 100 locations where the lobbies have been transformed into hubs that provide a more coffee shop-like atmosphere.
The disappointing part of all this is that Le Méridien has partnered with Illy to provide the program’s coffee. If the focus was truly on elevating the coffee experience as well as creating a more personal interaction about the city where each hotel is located, it would have been great if they worked with local or regional roasters. Instead they’ll be providing a bland coffee that many other hotels (and grocery stores) already offer.
It seems like the company has put a lot of money and energy into this program—and Fritz has a track record of training talented baristas—but in the end, the company seems to have chosen a safe route that will most likely go unnoticed by many.
[photos via Le Méridien]
posted by
bwj on 09.26.2013, under
Misc.
09.25
In this amazing episode of Sesame Street, Grover works at a café called The Coffee Plant and takes a customer through the process of where coffee (and coffee condiments) come from. Muppet hilarity ensues. There’s a lot of work that goes into serving the freshest cup of coffee IN THE WORLD! So next time you’re enjoying a fresh cup, stop and think about all the work that’s gone into it.
[ht Nick Cho via Everyman Espresso]
09.25
Novel is just that—a novel travel kettle that folds up for easy packing. The kettle design, by Slovakian designer Stanislav Sabo is currently patented, but I’m not sure how functional it is at this point. Very little information is available about the technical aspects of how it would work, if it would actually work at all. But what if it did? It would make the ultimate travel coffee kit complete. I want one.
When I travel, I always carry my AeroPress, hand grinder, pocket scale, KeepCup and fresh coffee. The missing link is always the hot water. Sometimes you can find it in large boilers set aside for tea, or you can hunt down a nearby café and awkwardly explain that you only need hot water to brew your own coffee. Some hotels have kettles, but they are often pretty scary on the inside—to the point that you wouldn’t want to drink anything that came out of it. But even those hotel room kettles are beginning to be replaced by K-Cup machines.
The Novel is made from a 100% silicone liner that’s wrapped in heatproof plastic panels, which all fold flat. The pieces, including the lid are held together by magnets which also activate fuses in the electric base. From the illustrations of the prototype, I’m not entirely sure how energy is transferred to boil the water, but this can’t be an impossible task—we landed on the moon damn it!
I’ve had conversations with manufactures about this type of product, but they’re convinced the market isn’t big enough—I think they’re misjudging the potential. If something like this could be powered in the car or by solar adapter, then backpackers, campers and road trippers of all stripes would be totally into something like this—no more bulky butane kettles taking up valuable space in your pack.
Any product engineers out there want to help Stanislav make this functional and Kickstart it? Or let’s start from scratch and make something awesome. Give me freedom or give me death! Is that really too much to ask?
[ht PSFK]
09.24
On October 1, Counter Culture Coffee’s new world class, state-of-the art training facility will officially open in New York City. The fully renovated space offers 3,600 sq feet of epic coffee training wonderland that will include one of the first Modbar systems in the country as well as equipment from all the top equipment manufacturers—La Marzocco, Ditting, Mazzer, Nuova Simonelli, Marco and Mahlkonig. If the Modbar wasn’t enough there will also be several Über boilers and an EK-43.
Counter Culture Coffee is headquartered in Durham, NC but sells coffee through wholesale accounts in most major cities and beyond. The company doesn’t have cafés of their own and instead focuses their energy on thoroughly training their wholesale customers. The training program has proved quite successful for their own employees as well, helping both Katie Carguilo, the 2012 US Barista Champion and Erin McCarthy, the 2013 World Brewers Cup Champion win their respective competitions.
The training center will be used for an array of classes from the company’s Counter Intelligence program and boasts an incredibly multi-faceted design to host a broad range of events. There will be free public cuppings every Friday at 10am (which also take place at their other training centers around the country), home brewing workshops and even food pairing events with guest chefs.
For the industry side, there’s an espresso training room that fits up to 20 people, a full service tech lab in the basement, and a competition training room. If you happen to be a Counter Culture wholesale customer you’ll even have your own key. As Counter Culture’s own Jesse Kahn puts it, “our training lab IS our wholesale customers training lab. They have access whenever they need it. It’s all about helping people have sustainable in-house training.”
The design utilizes ample amounts of reclaimed and salvaged wood filling the space, and its 16ft high ceilings, with some warmth. The architect, Jane Kim, has worked with other well known coffee spots in NYC, including the second location of Everyman Espresso and Third Rail, but the work for Counter Culture seems to better reflect some of her beautiful lofty residential work.
[above the CCC dream team in their new training center: Park Brannen, Katie Carguilo, Jesse Kahn, Erin Meister, and Erin McCarthy] Photos: Alan Tansey
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For those of you in NYC this weekend, the training center will have an open house on Friday and Saturday to celebrate with cuppings, brewing workshops and giveways. I can’t make it, so stop by the new space, taste some great coffee, Instagram the hell out of it and give Jesse Kahn a giant hug for me.
The New York Counter Culture Training Center
376 Broome Street
New York, NY 10013
09.20
John and Radek, two coffee lovers in the Czech Republic, have recently directed their passion towards creating unique, hand crafted products to compliment your coffee making. WeBrew sent me one of their hefty—yet delicate—slow pouring decanters, which is a pleasure to use and makes much more of an impression on guests than the Hario vessels we’ve become so accustomed too.
A beautiful tasting coffee can be enjoyed many ways. You don’t need fancy glass to get a fantastic cup, but it sure does look nice on your table. The vessel you choose to drink (or serve) coffee from can affect your perception and experience more than you may realize. From the balance and comfort of the vessel, to the thickness of the lip and the heat your hands are able to feel— it all enhances or limits the experience.
WeBrew set out to compliment the joy of great tasting coffee with well made products. They’ve already created a small line of their own that includes hand blown glassware, custom wooden tampers and denim aprons.
Check them out at WeBrew!
09.20
Andrew Barnett is a veteran of specialty coffee who has been around longer than many of the younger roasters you might be familiar with. In 2000, Andrew founded Ecco Caffe which roasted coffee for the San Francisco Bay area for years before it was sold to Intelligentsia in 2009. New Yorkers may also be familiar with Ecco from its use at Joe Coffee, until Joe began roasting for themselves earlier this summer.
This week, Andrew opened the door of his newest foray in the world of coffee—Linea Caffe. The new espresso bar is an intimate, open air café on the corner of 18th and San Carlos in the Mission District. The focus on espresso based drinks and its standing room only intimacy, creates a European feel that’s contrasts with the spacious San Francisco spots that can feel more like co-working spaces than coffee bars. For those who don’t have work to do, Linea provides a warm neighborly environment that’s better for standing around talking with friends than meeting deadlines.
Apart from Andrew and his coffee, the space is also shared with Anthony Myint, of Mission Chinese fame, who’s making fluffy Brussel-style waffles and salads meant to satisfy. Andrew is determined to ensure the focus on coffee and fare be well balanced, instead of leaving the food as an afterthought. So Linea Caffe partnered with Anthony to launch food concepts that will be just as much of a draw as the coffee.
The espresso at Linea is meant to be sweet, balanced and approachable, leaving the more experimental flavor bombs to some of San Francisco’s other specialty coffee bars. After sampling the espresso with and without milk, it was right on target. It was a straightforward, enjoyable coffee that should please both coffee purists as well as the rest of the neighborhood. Next I’ll be sure to try the waffles.
Linea Caffe
3417 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
8am – 3pm Daily
@linea_caffe
(I’m also a big fan of the Heath Ceramic demitasses)
