t o n x . o r g

The Hoff with his lovely pit crew of Stephen and Anette face the cameras on the L.A. stop of their recent whirlwind tour.
Coffee nerds can chalk up yet another reason to envy U.K. barista James Hoffmann; prolific blogger, donut alchemist, brilliant photographer, ladies’ man, and now World Barista Champion.
James is exceptional in that he […]

I recently had the pleasure of spending some quality time among the bean fiends at Ritual Roasters in San Francisco, a city which continues to charm me with each increasingly frequent visit. When I arrived on Friday night (back on July 20) Ritual was hosting the Bay Area ‘Spro Down*, closing shop early and […]

I got a drivers license this year. My first. After a decade in New York City and five years of walking in Seattle (is there life beyond Capitol Hill?), I’d started to think I might dodge that passage into proper adulthood that comes from piloting a large hunk of metal at high speeds. […]

I am no longer an employee of Intelligentsia.
After some discussions last week with the newly installed L.A. wholesale and roasting manager, we could not arrive at a mutually satisfying job description and I was let go. I’m not thrilled to be exiting just as we hit the final stretch, but I respect the new […]

I’ve been maintaining internet silence on the particulars of Intelligentsia’s L.A. rollout, not wanting to say too much until we are closer to a firm opening date. But for my eight remaining readers who want a peek at what all our fuss is about, I’d like to alert you to our roasting works […]

Last weekend I was in icy Chicago to attend the belated Intelligentsia holiday party. Aside from the always inspiring conspiring with colleagues, the highlights of the trip include sleep deprivation, cold weather, too much alcohol, an unshakable common cold, deafeningly loud music, clothes that smell of cigarettes, and my first experience of blood sausage. […]

Last weekend Kyle and I snuck into Vancouver BC with Intelli honcho Doug Zell, the Suge Knight of coffee, for an epic west coast coffee crawl. In three days time we would aim to hit every major coffeebar on the west coast from Vancouver to Seattle to Portland and on down to San Francisco, […]

I scrooged away much of my Soltsmas in front of my laptop failing to write up a coherent epilogue of the many lessons I learned in my week of guestblogging about coffee on Dethroner.
Mostly I learned that writing is hard. I had an ambitious list of articles I wanted to crank out and barely […]

Just finished reading the chocolate detective story/expose that has been making the rounds and is being much discussed in coffee nerd circles as it parallels some of the deceptive marketing practices that crop up in the coffee biz. Well written (coining the Suessian term Sneetchcraft - possibly the next truthiness) and inspiring in me […]

All this week I’m guestblogging at Joel Johnson’s awesome Dethroner where the week’s theme is coffee. For those who complain I don’t post enough on this blog, come check out my tiresome rants on Joel’s.
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