Tag: specialty coffee

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Welcome to Miami

Miami Beach Coast, Florida

Meet the pioneers transforming Miami’s coffee industry.

Known for sun, fun, and rhythm, one thing Miami was not known for was specialty coffee. Until recently.

Since 2010, specialty coffee has spread across Miami. Through customer education and a focus on service and quality, a handful of pioneers have transformed the city’s coffee industry.

PANTHER COFFEE

Jump-starting Miami’s specialty scene wasn’t the idea when Joel and Leticia Pollock dreamed of creating their own coffee company. Joel had worked in coffee in Portland, Oregon; Leticia had worked in Portland and her native Brazil. Together, they wanted to do coffee their way—they just didn’t know where. While vacationing in Miami, they saw their opportunity.

Read the full article at Fresh Cup.

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12 Ways to Brew Coffee at Home

chemexAre you the type of person who only drinks coffee as a matter of sheer survival, or do you enjoy the ritual of brewing a fresh pot? Do you want coffee brewing while you sleep or do you schedule 30 minutes for grinding, brewing, sipping and savoring as part of your morning routine?

We’re not here to judge. Whatever your coffee personality, there’s a brew method (or two) just for you. Brewing at home is a great way to save money and avoid coffee line rage. Whether you’re a down and dirty coffee drinker or you’re just sick of getting to work late every morning because of your coffee obsession, it might be time to shake up your routine. Here are 12 ways to brew coffee at home, based on your personality type.

Read the full article at Paste.

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Coffee Education Programs for the Public: To Do or Not Do

This article looks at the challenges and benefits for coffee shops and roasters that want to host public education programs to boost customers’ coffee knowledge. 

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At Counter Culture Coffee, education is an integral part of business. The Durham, North Carolina–based company has wholesale partners across the country, but no cafés of their own; providing resources to ensure proper brewing by clients and customers is critical to their growth and success.

The company’s Counter Intelligence Professional Development series caters to clients and staff, but they wanted an educational offering for curious customers, too. To reach casual coffee enthusiasts, the company began opening their training centers to the public.

For several years, Counter Culture has hosted coffee tastings open to the public every Friday morning at its eleven regional training centers. These cuppings, dubbed “Tastings at Ten,” provide an opportunity for outreach, consumer education, and product storytelling. Attendees learn more about coffee origins and have a platform to discuss various coffees with staff as they taste.

Counter Culture developed courses catering to coffee consumers in response to growing demand from home baristas. In the past, the public could join coffee pros in the same training classes, but the mix of enthusiasts and professionals just didn’t work. Wholesale clients had difficulty getting into classes, and it was clear that most home baristas didn’t have the same learning needs as professionals, or those with professional-grade equipment in their homes.

Read the full article at Fresh Cup.

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Tasting 5 Top Shelf Coffees from Dillanos Roasters

dcr-coffeeDillanos Coffee Roasters from Sumner, Washington, is taking specialty coffee to a new level. Dillanos offers well-rounded blends and special seasonal offerings from small farms in Africa and Latin America. The DCR line is a well-curated menu of coffees that include limited release micro-lots and single origins that are meant to be ground and consumed as soon as they arrive in the mail. They’re that fresh.

Read the full article.

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5 Coffees We Love From Coava Coffee

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image courtesy Coava

Portland’s Coava Coffee Roasters has gained a reputation as a local favorite around town, and even launched into the national scene when their coffee shop featured on Jerry Seinfeld’s endearing series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. During the episode, Seinfeld took Portlandia star Fred Armisen to this quintessentially Portland café for a little coffee talk.

How good is their coffee? Really, really good. Coava’s sustainably grown coffees come from Latin America and Africa and are produced and processed with care. Whether you visit their two locations in Portland, or buy beans online, here are five of the best Coava coffees to check out.

Read the full article at Paste.

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Take 5: Coffee in Downtown Toronto

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Toronto is a vibrant, multicultural city full of art and adventure. There’s a lot to see, but exploring a new city can be hard work. Sometimes, all you want to do is chill by a window and sip a cup of coffee. Do it. You can take in the sights with some of the city’s best coffee at these downtown cafes. From west to east, here are five specialty coffee spots to check out.

Read the full article at Paste.

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9 Coffee Subscription Services for the Home Barista

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Turntable Kitchen’s coffee and record subscription

Do you want amazing coffee in your mailbox? I certainly do. Several excellent specialty coffee roasters can make this dream a reality. There are a lot of good options out there, but which companies offer the best value, variety and home brewing experience?

Here are nine specialty coffee subscription services that will deliver delicious coffee and also help you step up your home barista skills. From single origin coffees to blends, I tried them all. The services range in price and frequency but quality is the key across the board.

Read the reviews at Paste magazine.

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Portola Coffee Lab

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Image courtesy Portola

Voted 2015 Micro Roaster of the Year by Roast magazine, Portola Coffee Lab is an Orange County, California, coffee pioneer. Since opening their first retail location five years ago in Costa Mesa, Christa and Jeff Duggan have continued to expand across the county.

Portola has coffee shops in Orange, Tustin and Santa Ana, with locations opening soon in Huntington Beach and Mission Viejo. The flagship Costa Mesa shop includes the roastery and the coffee concept bar, Theorem. We talked with founder Christa Duggan about creativity and cocktail-inspired coffee.

Read the full article at Paste.

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5 Questions About Coffee: Revelator Coffee

The first Revelator Coffee opened in Birmingham, AL, in 2014. Next came shops in Chattanooga, New Orleans, Nashville and Atlanta. Just last year, the company opened its 15,000 sq. ft. roastery in Birmingham.

In this interview with Paste, Meredith Singer, Executive Director of Marketing, and Sarah Kluth, Executive Director of Coffee, discuss sourcing specialty coffee and Revelator’s special brand of Southern hospitality.

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photo by Mountainside Photo Co.

Paste: What issues matter to you when sourcing beans for Revelator?

Sarah: Number one, I want the relationship to be mutually beneficial. For some of our coffee growers, what’s most valuable to them is knowing that I’m available to talk about experiments they’re doing on their farm. They get to brainstorm with me because I’ve been on their farm and I see what they want to accomplish and we can work together towards that.

The second thing is looking for high quality coffee. No one who knows agriculture can tell you that you can achieve quality without sustainability. What the soil requires; what the trees require; what the fruit requires — to produce truly beautiful quality, you cannot achieve that without sustainability; you cannot achieve that without loving the Earth and loving the process because if you don’t you’re not going to get good quality.

Then, whatever country we’re sourcing from, we look at the history, and we look at the context and we look at the sense of place. Every place is individual with the soil, with the types of coffee trees, with the types of processing and that all will be expressed in the cup.

Read the full article at Paste.