For years after I joining the website and forums abroard where we can meet the baristas, home-baristasm, and coffee professionals, we had been still alone for the good coffee and espresso drinks.In Chinese phrases, we say that it is the coldest when you are at the high level of development. It is what we have to be, and let us be there.I cannot conclude that the effects for the trainees from other training of baristas, while for us, it is so nice to have more and more trainess to have their own cafes opened aorund different cities in China. And for those who follow our suggestions, their cafes must have the high quality espresso drinks from the first day of their openning. No more time needed.After two opened in Hainan by one of our trainees, now one is going to open in Shenzhen, and another one is in Harbin, again, following another which was opened a couple of years ago.In Guangzhou, the coffee market is going down, and one can see only the cafe closed, not opened. The next wave will come after the new cafes opened by our trainees in near future.A couple of years ago, I and our colleagues were worried about this, due to those cafes with rather poor coffee drinks are opened fast, to decades of cafes in a year. But now, the market is down and everybody is quiet, and looking at the coffee market without investing any. In this case, our trainees' cafes are going to open one by one, steadily.Go, go, go, Kaffa Cafe is going, without any respects and worries from those who used to drink coffee and may know more about coffee, and good in business in this free market. We are practicing a new, or maybe in fact, the oldest business spirit for success.While everybody say NO, some people are copying from us but in terms of many different sources like taiwan and abroad. Our standards are also going to the people, the baristas, and the cafes finally. The world is changing, and the earthquake may occor some day.Recalling to the posts in the beginning of 2006, we knew only that we are learning. But, one day, we were surprisingly to find that we are just in front. Why the world is going so slowly?Wait, and see. What will happened, in near future.
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Just watched the finalists announcement, here they are:
Nick Griffith, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea
Pete Licata, PT’s Coffee Roasting Company
Chris Baca, Ritual Coffee Roasters
Heather Perry, Coffee Klatch
Kyle Glanville, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea
Drew Catlin, Ritual Coffee Roasters
Congratulations to all of the competitors, what an unbelievably tough competition. Best of luck to all the finalists tomorrow, and now off to the BGA party.
- Matt
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Hey guys, I guess you haven't heard from me before or know a lot about me, I'm not a barista but a coffee grower and promotor from Guatemala. I had been in this business since I was 18 or so. My family has been in the coffee business for more than 2 generations and I guess the passion goes generation after generation. I had always wanted to share the passion and art of coffee, not as a beverage ONLY but as our culture. We grow in the culture of coffee since we are kids, no wonder why 70% of the population one way or another are involved. Please bear with my english if I messed up.
As I have shared with some of you guys before, I represent several plantations in Antigua and we are trying to get more regions involved. That is why I founded Kafes Guatemala in the United States, to simply represent the best coffees from my country and believe me it has been rough, between the coffee crisis and hurricanes, unless you love the business and YOU ARE NOT HERE for money you will stick around, and honestly it is not easy. I respect the fact that you guys create art with your hands and I love the fact that you love to work only with the best coffees and make awesome expresso beverages. NOT like the big coffee shop chains and their weird names. I'm glad is out of my chest hahahahaha.Anyway...........focusing on my topic. We are ready to provide coffee tours at affordable prices, and actually live the REAL EXPERIENCE, many of you guys contacted me regarding this before and as I share with you one of the plantations I represent and work with, has their own hotel, actually a really fancy one, but yet I wasn't able to understand why you were not interested, until I got it............................pricy hotel in a plantation is not the real experience. It will be if I go to a wine plantation in CA and perhaps stayed in a Marriot hotel right? I want to thank you, for the soooooo many advises you gave me and that helped me to understand your perspective, what is it that an American is looking as a coffee REAL experience.Now we are ready to offer you to stay in a house in Antigua coffee region, a real town house that can hold up to 12 people with all the included services in a really nice and safe area at really affordable prices indeed. You will eat the real Guatemalan food, cook by a real guatemalan cook (not profesionally) , interact with Guatemalans and if you want even practice your ESPAÑOL, you will visit the plantations, learn about the entire harvesting process, you can do the coffee tour even riding a horse, we have zipline tours in the plantation as well all the way from 200 to 720 feet (6 rides all together). Also tour Antigua and simply enjoy living as if you were from Guatemala. That means you better like beans and tortillas. Also we would like you to visit the educational and nutritional program for children that we support as Kafes Guatemala, YES! I believe as a Guatemalan I need to support and help my country change and get better. For more specific information please contact us at www.kafesguatemala.com or simply contact me at my page.muchas gracias.Pablo
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Coffee Kids was delighted to be able to present at the keynote address at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's (SCAA) Conference and Exhibition.We'd like to thank all of our members, partners and sponsors throughout the world who have helped make it possible. We recently put together this video with the help of Machine Hero, a Providence, R.I.-based firm. It features images from our partners in Latin America and interviews with a number of our long term supporters and friends. The video explores Coffee Kids' effect in the global coffee community and how support for Coffee Kids and other non-profits at origin translates to support for the long term future of the specialty coffee trade.Thanks for making our first two decades rewarding and fruitful!If you are attending the SCAA Conference in Minneapolis, be sure to visit us at our booth #1241 and learn how your contributions are making a difference and if you can't make the conference, check out our Web site to learn more about our work.
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So I like wandering around Craigslist late at night. You never know when you might stumble upon that sofa that just screams "you". Not that I've found that sofa, or anything else, but I've always wanted to window shop yard sales in my underwear...So I'm on Craigslist and I'm noticing more and more grave plots up for sale. Some people have foresight... That late night commercial about sparing loved ones your final costs really make an impression on them. They drop a couple of grand for the piece of mind that comes from owning a hole in the ground. So it makes me wonder why...Did they suddenly decide dying wasn't for them?Maybe they found a different hole with a better view?Or maybe they thought, "Fuck the kids, I want a new flatscreen!"Then I think, "Maybe I shouldn't drink espresso when I work a close shift."
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So after several months of driving around, calling agents and visiting spaces, I think we may have found the one. It is an up and coming area, and the community is experiencing a revitalization. We have not signed the lease purposefully until all plans and schematics have been approved by the city. Our architect, Christine Mondoor from evolve architecture, www.evolveea.com is just starting the process. We're working on a budget (who isn't?) and things are really getting exciting, but so scary and overwhelming at times. There's still a few things that needs negotiated with our landlord, but we're overall quite satisfied.
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There is a tradition at my house. On Derby Day, we eat fried chicken and drink Mint Juleps.To be clear, I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I'm not even from Louisville. Maybe its because my brother Nick is a chef there and The Derby is a pretty significant event in his world. More likely, its because it is associated with a pretty good (and rather unusual) drink.So on Derby Day, we eat fried chicken and drink Mint Juleps.OK... its a cliche. I'm fine with that. This year's batch is in the fridge mellowing right now. I actually have a pot of mint on the patio (not in the garden - it spreads like nothing else) that was selected specifically for its julep-compatible flavors - "Kentucky Colonel".I'm writing today to share my recipe. I'm assuming that, like me, many of you out in barista-land are home mixologists as well. And this drink recipe rocks. It is from a five-year-old episode of Food Network's "Cooking Live" with Sara Moulton. I guess it's Bill Samuel IV's... he's the guy who's initials are molded into the Maker's Mark bottle. Guy knows his bourbon drinks, right?I usually make half a recipe, cause I like other bourbon drinks too and the full recipe takes a whole bottle. It uses a home-made mint extract, so it is a little non-traditional. But it is smooth, and minty, and tasty. Too tasty...Here it is, more or less as printed. Enjoy it on Saturday!The Perfect Mint JulepRecipe courtesy Bill Samuels4 cups bourbon (I like Makers for this. b)2 bunches fresh spearmint1 cup distilled water1 cup granulated sugarPowdered sugarMake the mint extract:Place about 40 mint leaves in a small bowl and cover with 3 oz of bourbon. Allow leaves to soak 15 minutes, then gather and wring out in a piece of paper towel back into the bowl (I prefer to smash the bourbon out of them in a small wire strainer, though I suppose an unbleached Melitta or Filtropa paper filter would work... or perhaps an aeropress?). Return the bruised mass back to the bourbon in the bowl and repeat the steep-mash process a few times.Make the simple syrup:1 cup water, 1 cup sugar. Boil, cool, blah blah blah.Mix the drink:Dump the rest of the bourbon (3-1/2 cups) into a bowl or measuring cup. Add 1 cup simple syrup. Add mint extract to taste... about 3 Tbsp, but you may not use it all (I always use it all. I like 'em minty and hate to waste bourbon. I guess you could always add the rest to a favorite customer's mocha tomorrow?) Pour finished mix into an empty bottle and stash in the fridge for at least 24 hours to mellow.To serve:Fill each glass half full with crushed ice. Add a mint sprig, then pack full with ice. Put glasses in the freezer until they are good and frosty. Fill with the mix and enjoy.
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I drink coffee, no actually I sip it, I roast it, I smell it to see what it wants to say. It oily. it's hot, really hot when it comes out. I think about the people all over the world who pick the cherries all day meticulously and there life depends on it. We forget about them sometimes.
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Today is a hard day for the espresso and me. Together we try so hard.The grinder broke. Therefore we stopped or went to fast. What trials we've had today. Now it is cold and we don't can't handle all this change at the same time. Weak and weeping, trickle down.
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I am writing my book as a manual, for baristas, so it should include the knowledge about spirits and cocktails.I am learning while I am reading and writing. When I am getting to know it, what do I expect to know about? Should I found the similar situation for this part of the world? Or, it is different.Anyway, let us see and expect.I have got the Bible, in Chinese edition, and it really help. But, the real situation has to be found later.Anybody interested in it?
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29th April.We had barista jam & latteart competiton in Tokyo....There are many baristas from famous cafe in Tokyo (doubletall cafe, Zoka Japan, Paul Bassette, aSuka, ig cafe....)Discussing coffee and competing their latteart technique.it was very enjoyable !!!!I'll upload the photo for another day...
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Posted by Sarah Dooley on April 28, 2008 at 9:21pm
Excited to say I spent the last two days on the "sales side" of the espresso bar at this show. (Only a total of an hour this time making drinks) I always find it amazing to get feedback from the good folks we see once a year. They are the familiar faces of the food and beverage industry that are patient enough to wait among potential customers and coffee fans for a short latte or cap. We surely shine at this show, which is such a great compliment to all the other fabulous vendors providing the exchange of conversation, support and leads. (listen to me, I'm in sales).This week prior to the show I spent some time pulling shots with one of my favorite barista owners Sebastian Simch at Seattle Coffee Works. He is one of the most beautiful coffee people I have had the privilege of meeting in the past few years. We sampled one of his latest creations. The name is escaping me at this early hour but the taste is so memorable. Sebastian has captured lemons, grapefruit, apples, earthy vanilla's and bitters in this SCW recipe. Unbelievable experience, really!I better turn in. I will keep this blog posted for a few beverages I am playing around with...anybody know where I can get some liquid nitrogen?
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Posted by Coffee Kids on April 28, 2008 at 11:21am
Throughout the year of 2008, Coffee Kids will occasionally post comments from important figures in our history and how they helped shape the organization. In this entry, David Abedon, a co-founder of the organization, chronicles the beginning of Coffee Kids when he helped Bill Fishbein plan his trip to Guatemala to visit coffee-farming families in the late '80s. Abedon is a professor in the Natural Resources Science Department in the College of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Rhode Island. He currently serves on Coffee Kids board of directors.
"In the 80s I applied for a sabbatical leave from URI and stayed at Brown University in the School for Portuguese and Brazilian Studies.
"In order to get to Brown, I would walk from my house through Wickendon Street to the east side of Providence to Brown. I would stop at Bill's store, the Coffee Exchange, for some muffins on my way to work and on my way back and that's when we started to discuss coffee and poverty.
"So when Bill told me he was going down to Guatemala, I said, 'What are you going to do when you get there? Who are you going to see?' And Bill said, 'Well, I don't know. I just have to go.' "So we looked at the schedule and started to set things up. "I called up Partners for the Americas and Bill and I figured out a way for him to visit some of these coffee regions and so he came back and said, 'We gotta' do something.'
"I said, 'What?' He said, 'I don't know, what?'
"Sometime along when we were starting to figure things out and we'd started to do some fundraisers, I invited Dean Cycon and he and Bill hit it off and Coffee Kids mushroomed from there."
Posted by Jason Haeger on April 28, 2008 at 5:30am
Time and time again, when I talk to people about coffee business strategy it seems the top priority is speed. "I want the customer to be able to be in and out in 90 seconds or less," and the like seem to have somehow become the goal to strive for in regards to customer service.Fine. Good. Quick service is hard to look down on, but is that all there is to it? Of course not!Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that speed isn't a noble practice. I'm saying that it shouldn't take a back seat to quality.I know, I know. This is said time and time again. "The horse is not only dead, it ceases to exist." Yes, right. I know. Hear me out.You have to start with one or the other. Yeah, sure, you can have fast quality, but they are never equals. I don't care what the business plan or mission statement says. I don't care what the manager or CEO says. They are NEVER equals.Imagine, if you will, a store that wants to franchise. They want to serve the best quality possible. For this reason, they are installing super automatic espresso machines. Counter-intuitive? Why? This means that service will be fast, and the quality will be consistent.. right?Well... yes and no. Already, we've seen another variable enter into the equation. Consistency.So now we have to choose between: Speed. Quality. Consistency.Yes, those three little words that are cause for much planning, much strategy, and much debate over their importance.The thing is, people always say, "well, they're all important", and the more advanced version, "Quality is the most important, but the others are definitely high on our list." That last one sounds great... on paper.The problem is that too many times people will say things like that, but when push comes to shove, if there is a bottleneck line out the door, and the shot didn't come out quite right, a lot of people will serve it anyway. It'll be covered in milk anyway, right?Herein lies the dilemma. We need more than a mantra. We need more than a concept. We need a philosophical framework for how to implement these words accurately and correctly in a cognitive manner.Actions follow thought, so in order to perform right action, we must first practice right thought. As we've already seen, words tend to be kind of cheap. Mantras and slogans show their age and get stale. They are impermanent solutions to a fundamental philosophical problem within our industry as a whole.As it is, time and time again I hear and preach that one should focus on a few things, and do those few things well. Time and time again, the word comes up with great emphasis. Focus.Just as we must crawl before we can walk (and walk before we can run), we must begin begin by focusing on only one element before we can learn to successfully implement the others.I propose the same thing than any reader of this blog would state to be their primary focus of the three priorities listed. Focus on Quality.Start by perfecting espresso preparation and milk frothing techniques. Back to basics. Practice. Taste. Analyze. Troubleshoot. Repeat. Do this time and time again until the analysis yields consistent results, and troubleshooting becomes unnecessary.And there, we've made our first adaptational merger of priorities. We began with quality. Now, we have adapted consistency to the primary objective.They are not equals. Consistency is an add on. Like a six-speed transmission on a base model coupe.It's nice, but not the core of what you intend.Now that the fundamental skill set is in place, how do we beat the clock to get from point A to point B in our slightly improved automobile? We speed it up.Now, speeding things up doesn't mean dropping the transmission. You certainly can't speed up with no fundamental with which to increase your speed. If you sacrifice the primary objective, the entire structure falls apart, and we are no longer in the upper echelon of product prestige.Imagine the quickness not as a physical speed, but as an efficiency. We're going to replace the conventional oil with full-on synthetic. We're going to replace the air filter for easier breathing(inhale). We're going to use some GM Syncromesh in the gearbox, and we're going to (slightly) increase the diameter of our exhaust tubing, again, for easier breathing (exhale).We have not added anything. We have only removed obstacles that make existing power more easily accessible. We haven't sped things up. We've only made the work flow more efficient. The result, as the car will attest to, is better efficiency, and more speed(power)."Work smarter, not harder".. again. We don't need mantras. However, if you were to take the analogy just given and condense it into one sentence, that would be it. I just feel that such verbalizations are too general and really don't drive the point home effectively enough.So now we have adapted NOTHING to our Primary Objective other than consistency(from earlier). We've just streamlined the operations a bit. Simple. This is not in the hands of the barista. This is in the hands of the general manager, bar manager, shop owner, whoever is solely responsible for the general layout of things behind the bar.Now that everything is primed, this little sporty coupe is ready to hit the Autobahn.It doesn't take much effort to speed things up a bit at this point. If it's truly challenging, then I would suspect that you didn't succeed in optimizing your work station's work flow efficiency.(Maybe you used the wrong sized exhaust tubing. Maybe your air filter is dirty. Maybe you're still trying to cheap out by using conventional oil.)In skilled hands, speeding up the pace means just doing the normal tasks in a slightly accelerated pace. Generally, this is more related to efficiency than actual velocity and acceleration of physical movements.And thus, we have adapted Speed to the Primary Objective.If you'll notice, neither consistency nor speed will stand on their own if quality truly is the high priority. Both are merely an adaptation to what is already present: a concentrated and intense focus on quality.But if a bad shot is pulled, you don't ditch the foundation. You don't throw away the car. You throw away the offensive shot and start over. Just like making a U-turn under the highway overpass.Think of it as a molecule. Quality has a couple of smaller atoms. The first one is consistency. Consistency has a smaller atom attached to it as well. It's called speed.Originally found at CoffeeAspirations.
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I tried, I really did. I tried to be the cool independent coffeehouse that turned the other cheek when someone came in and used my free wifi for HOURS without buying a single item. I'm not sure if it's the current economic situation or what but recently there have been tons of freeloaders coming in and just taking up space that paying customers would normally use. So I've finally decided to put a password on net usage so only customers can use it for free. Anyone know of a good software package or anything else that might help set this up? Thanks and keep rockn' bx.
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Posted by Mike Spence on April 24, 2008 at 11:48am
There are some exciting things happening over here at SelbySoft with our SP-1 For Coffee Point of Sale System!We just released Version 7.10 of our software. Version 7.10 incorporates two exciting new features.Our latest F.A.S.T. order system has been implemented and is released in version 7.10. Fast Access Screen Technology is the latest innovation to make your life easier when using the SP-1 For Coffee POS System.Basically, we know that customers never order the same drink the same way. Now you have the ability to ring the order up in the same way that the customer says it. For instance, customers could order:Soy latte with vanilla – make it a 16ozOR16oz soy latte with vanillaORSoy vanilla 16oz latteThis new technology lets you simply press the buttons that match what the customer needs.The second part of this is the improved color grouping of modifiers. Now, on top of having a photo quality picture for your modifiers (milks, extra shot, etc.), you can highlight those different groups with colors – For example, all the milks can be highlighted one color and the sugar free syrups in another color. This helps with finding that right item on the fly.
McDonalds is now promoting latte art on their new site ... but if you click on the images of the drinks, you will see a latte like one might expect from the fast food giant.
- Matt
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"In the 80s I applied for a sabbatical leave from URI and stayed at Brown University in the School for Portuguese and Brazilian Studies.