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How do we improve the quality level of the world coffee drinks' market?

Posted by Peter Tam on June 7, 2008 at 1:30pm

For the top level of those coffee professionals, we may be at the similar level for the quality of espresso drinks.But, most people cannot make others to do the same, or even better coffee drinks. It is mainly due to the understanding about espresso and its brewing skills.As I said once, we can train about 30 - 50 people in 15 days, if there are enough people coming.Someone said that, they can do many more. Does it mean that they can have those people to make their cafes and the coffee drinks great? OK, let us make a simple calculation.Suppose they can train 80-100 people, then it would be > 150 people per month, and 1800 people per year. How many cafes they can have? it is probably 500 cafes? Or an half of them? In three years, their cafes will cover the whole country and improve their local coffee market totally. Does it happened somewhere?For us, the difficulty is mainly too few people who want to be trained, or know how to choose a right place to be trained. There are indeed many trainers here. If one care enough to visit some of them, and taste their coffee drinks, they can easily find that we are better. But, most people do not. Specially for those young people, they chat with others on the internet and go with them, without careful searching.On the other hand, our trainees are mostly the potential investors for cafes, only few would work as barista. They are mostly high educated and know how to choose the right one from several training places. So, the number of "high qualified cafes" are still small, but continuously increasing. For last year, it was about less than ten, but for this year, it is expected to be around 20-30 for the whole country.As many people knows, we are extremely different from the world coffee industry and those professional organizations. But, our theory really works well. Do you want to give it a try?If someone would have our "barista training" set up for other countries, we can give the best condition for cooperation, because the globel market is so huge and we cannot cover it all. We also expect to improve the quality level of the world coffee industry. So, we need your help.

Yirg, Yirg and more Yirg!!!! Friday Cupping 6/6/8

Posted by scott@herkimercoffee.com on June 5, 2008 at 5:18am

Checking out some Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and possibly some other africans on friday afternoon. 2pm at Phinney. See you then!Cheers,ScottHerkimer Coffee7320 Greenwood Ave NSeattle WA 98103206-784-0202

Bellissimo wins Award at the 2008 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival for WBC documentary

Posted by Matt Milletto on June 5, 2008 at 5:00am

Bellissimo Media Productions wins Award at the 2008 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival for documentary about The World Barista Championship Portland, OR - Bellissimo Media Productions Wins Bronze Award at the 2008 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival for The World Barista Championship 2007: Tokyo. “The World Barista Championship 2007: Tokyo,” co-produced by Bellissimo Media Productions and the World Barista Championship (Wbc), was honoured with a Bronze Remi Award at the 41st Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival held April 11-20, 2008 in Houston. This elite award was given to only 158 video/film productions out of a total 4,500 category entries from 37 countries. WorldFest-Houston is the 3rd longest-running International film festival in North America and one of the premier film festivals in the world. Previous WorldFest-Houston winners include Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Oliver Stone, Jonathan Demme, Ridley Scott, the Coen Brothers and Ang Lee, who were novice filmmakers when they each received their first awards at WorldFest. WorldFest-Houston offers 12 major areas of competition and awards. “The World Barista Championship 2007: Tokyo” won its award in the Film and Video Production Category in the training sub-category. “It’s a great honor to win this award,” said Bruce Milletto, Bellissimo president and the DVD’s director. “Knowing the criteria and how difficult it is to win an award at WorldFest makes this particular honor very sweet.”

“The World Barista Championship 2007: Tokyo,” documents the 8th Annual World Barista Championship (WBC) held in Tokyo, Japan July 31 to August 2, 2007. The DVD is the first of its kind produced in the eight-year history of the WBC, and uniquely captures both the heart and mind of the exciting 2007 championship event. This documentary-style DVD includes interviews, local colour shots and footage of many of the competitors in action. The film was shot and edited by Dana Vion of Sky’s the Limit Productions also based in Oregon. “The DVD documents the full WBC experience, and allows viewers to see and feel the excitement generated by this competition as well as to hear from the participants, attendees and coffee professionals from all over the world,” said Milletto. This is the third time Bellissimo Media Productions has been honoured by WorldFest-Houston. In 2001, the Bellissimo/Kenneth Davids production, “The Passionate Harvest,” was one of only 15 festival entries to win a Platinum Award, and in 2005, “Advanced Barista Training: Extreme Pours,” won a second place Gold Award in the training category. You can also find this DVD at PT's Coffee Roasters website or at Espresso101.com

Looking for Great Coffee?

Posted by Scott Baldwin on June 4, 2008 at 1:21pm

Well, It has finally happened. I finally got the Dream Job of a life time back in Specialty Coffee. I now work for Caffe Vita. So for all of you reading this... Go to CaffeVita.com Right Now! And even if you do know about or think you do. I still would recommend you to go to CaffeVita.com Right Now! There is a really great aspect to Caffe Vita on the top of the website called CaffeVita+OnePot. Deffinately Check it out! Great information about farm direct coffees and traditional rituals that take place when roasting coffee at the estate.More to come soon.

BBQ Drum Roaster

Posted by Jim on June 4, 2008 at 6:27am

I got a BBQ Drum Roaster installed this weekend and I have to say it will take a little getting used to to get the roastes to come out right. I also tasted some Kenya AA for a company, they had an Iced coffee recipe that came out great. Now I know what my next endeavor will be, a cold brew coffee maker. Toddy makes one that sounds easy.

bX - Upcoming release on Thursday, June 5 from 9-9:15 p.m.

Posted by Matt Milletto on June 4, 2008 at 5:12am

A message to all members of Barista Exchange! I wanted to let you know that we are rolling out a new release to the bX network this Thursday, June 5, from 9 to 9:15 p.m. bX will be offline during this brief window. There are a number of features in this release, including: 1) Forum Improvements. In addition to a redesigned forum, you will now have the option to choose between two styles of threads: "Flat," where replies are shown in chronological order, or "Threaded," where replies are indented below the post or the reply that they respond to. 2) Allow members to customize their My Page layout. Members will now be able to drag-and-drop modules around their profile pages. This will allow you as a member to fully customized what you want on your My Page. 3) Enhanced Widget Distribution. Members can easily spread Barista Exchange badges, widgets, individual videos and photo album slideshows to MySpace, Facebook and 15 other popular destinations without the need to copy and paste HTML embed code. Thanks for your patience I am hoping the site will only be down for 15 minutes. - Matt

A Robot Barista? Starbucks to install selve serve coffee bars

Posted by Matt Milletto on June 3, 2008 at 8:08am

After all their latest pushes to express their passion for quality coffee and espresso, Starbucks now is launching a self serve coffee kiosk, without baristas!? This reminds me of the DVD rental kiosks now littering large supermarkets. Will consumers really want a machine to serve their flavored lattes? The supermarket employees are the ones to refill beans and milk it says, and one can only wonder about the "training" they will receive. Will be interesting to see how these fly with the consumer. - Matt Link to Full Article (Bizjournals) Starbucks Corp. is experimenting with selling espresso drinks from a machine, sans barista. The company, through its Seattle's Best Coffee label, has teamed up with Coinstar Inc. and a small Bellevue company, Concordia Coffee Co. Inc., on automated, self-serve espresso kiosks in grocery stores in eight states. The idea is to "bring coffee to places where you wouldn't or couldn't put a full-service espresso bar," said Tom Ehlers, general manager and vice president of Seattle's Best Coffee.

Ghost Flute Glassware - Barista Competition Signature Drinks?

Posted by Matt Milletto on June 2, 2008 at 8:21am

I am always on the look out for cool glassware and cups that would work well in a barista competition. A lot of baristas serve small volume signature drinks and I wanted to share these beauties. They look awesome and come in Flutes, Tumblers and Goblets. Would be cool to experiment with, and would add a nice visual flare to any presentation.

Want to be a Beer Connoisseur?

Posted by Matt Milletto on June 2, 2008 at 7:26am

I found a great website that does an amazing job of educating the consumer. Here's to Beer, Beer Connoisseur takes you through an extensive curriculum of beer history, ingredients and even beer pairings. This site is inspiring me to explore how to convey this info to the coffee world as well. You do need to log in to utilize the BC, but the Heres To Beer site is also pretty awesome. Here are a couple more screen shots:

Interesting Fundraising Idea

Posted by Coffee Kids on June 2, 2008 at 5:05am

I read a blog this morning about an interesting fundraising idea being used in a coffee shop called Kurekure in Melbourne, Australia. Here's the blog where it appeared originally. The coffee shop gives patrons a card to let them know when their orders are ready. When the patron returns, the shop has a variety of trays where patrons can return the card. Each tray lists a non-profit or effort that the coffee shop supports. The patron returns the card to one of the trays when they pick up their order and the coffee shop donates the proceeds from that order to the indicated non-profit.Take a look at the blog if you get a chance. Seems kinda' clever.

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