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I meet a lot of people working in coffee who express frustration with how far consumers lag behind coffee professionals in their understanding and appreciation of good coffee. It seems to be a common barista lament.
I don’t believe this frustration is well founded or fair, for a number of reasons. For starters, I […]

Yesterday I grabbed the very last of the $5 early copies of the hulking San Francisco Panorama, McSweeney’s epic one-time broadsheet newspaper, from their Valencia Street headquarters. The paper was a five month labor of love of a team of great writers, artists, graphic designers, and investigative journalists to demonstrate what might be done […]

The pixels had barely dried on my previous post before I received word from someone involved in the unfolding SCAA negotiations with the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange. The short of it is that there was solid reasoning behind keeping a low profile on the sensitive dialogue with the ECX, that significant progress was being made, […]

Today I got a rare communique in my inbox from the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America), the big trade group that promotes specialty coffee, sets standards, and holds our industry’s annual trade show. Currently a delegation from the SCAA is in Addis Ababa meeting with representatives of the controversial new government run Ethiopia […]

Hope everyone is having a lovely Solstmas. Here is a fun video I put together from Saturday night’s FourBarrel/SweetMarias canned chili and homebrew bash, proving once again that coffee people are good at having fun.

May all your Santa pinata be filled with super bounce balls.
Tags:  superbounceballs pinata corndog fourbarrel

At 11:39am this morning I had the following strange SMS conversation with my favorite coffee-gear guru, Terry Z of espressoparts:

me: “have you ever put green coffee in the laser etcher?”
TerryZ: “no….. never. should we try it?”
me: “of course you should try it!!!”
TerryZ: “just a hole or do you want […]

There is a lot to process and a lot to say about the experience at Slow Food Nation. For now I just want to say that it felt like it was a tremendous success and thank everyone deeply for their hard work and the love they poured into it.

The coffees were amazing, […]

The ambitious, massive and inaugural Slow Food Nation, being billed as the largest celebration of food in history, is taking place in San Francisco starting on August 29th. Coffee is getting a place at the table.
Over Labor Day weekend, SF’s Fort Mason will be the site of the 50,000sq ft Taste Pavilion, presenting a […]

Congratulations are in order for Stephen Morrissey who captured the crown in Copenhagen and became the new World Barista Champion, adding another trophy to the crowded mantle at the U.K.’s nascent Square Mile Coffee Roasters.
The time and resources dedicated to these competitions by the folks who finish on top is as much awe-inspiring […]

Pushing the limits of my camera’s battery and memory card, I shot over 900 photos during the three days of the Western Regional Barista Competition this weekend in Berkeley. Mercifully, I have edited them down to a reasonable 93 non-sucky images now up on flickr. Big congrats go to Ritual’s Chris Baca who […]