Welcome To SUNDAY Coffee+: Coffee News That Made The Headlines
Each week, Craft Beverage Jobs compiles the top headlines for Craft Coffee News & Information. On Sunday morning we post those headlines in SUNDAY Coffee+ for your reading pleasure. Whether its industry growth, new business, job openings, profiles or human interest, you just never know what will tickle our fancy from week to week. We want to make SUNDAY Coffee+ a part of your Sunday morning coffee experience. Want Sunday Coffee+ delivered via email each weekend? Sign Up Here.
The Controversy Of Coffee
Philip Di Bella, controversial coffee crusader, by Jane Cadzow – The Sydney Morning Herald
The journey from barista to BRW Young Rich list is no mean feat, but a few feathers are bound to get ruffled along the way. Jane Cadzow talks to the exuberant coffee entrepreneur Phillip Di Bella.
Di Bella, 39, is the most controversial figure in the booming Australian coffee industry. A former barista, he has spent the past 12 years building a highly successful wholesaling business: he imports beans, roasts them and supplies them to cafes around the country, where, he claims, “three million cups of Di Bella Coffee are consumed each week”. According to the latest BRW Young Rich list, he has amassed a personal fortune of $100 million, up from $83 million last year.
Along the way, though, he has put plenty of people offside. Serge Infanti, managing director of the franchise group Foodco, which sells coffee through its Jamaica Blue and Muffin Break stores, describes Di Bella as “a very boisterous egomaniac”. A respected coffee consultant tells me he saw Di Bella involved in a physical altercation at a party after a coffee competition in Melbourne. “I’ve been involved in a lot of competitions and trade events with him,” the consultant says, “and I can understand why someone would throw a punch at him. All he does is talk about himself. Then he’ll stop and say, ‘Sorry, I’ve been talking about myself. What do you think of me?’ That’s the sort of person you’re dealing with. Absolutely ego-driven.”
Denver’s First Female-Owned Roasting Company
Copper Door Coffee: Denver’s First Female-Owned Roasting Co., by Brittany Werges – 303 Magazine.com
With new shops popping up every day, it seems that locally roasted coffee could become the new norm in Denver. For every handful of Starbucks locations, there’s probably a neighborhood shop close by where you can get a cup of coffee made from natively cooked beans. There’s even a whole subculture too embodied in the barista community – young, dapper looking males will usually greet you at most coffee shop counters. Walk into any coffee shop within urban Denver and you’re likely to see what we mean. But beyond the recent openings and a cultish culture, how do we know that this movement is here to stay? Is it just a fad or will others adopt it too? Because mustaches and button-ups won’t always be cool. Enter Hannah Ulbrich of Copper Door Coffee; one sign that the craft coffee scene might stick around longer than we think.
There’s definitely a craft industry. More and more people are taking risks. – Hannah Ulbrich
Ulbrich, a young woman with a shade of hair that reflects the name of the company, is the only woman in Denver to solely own a roasting operation. She explained that most roasters are men or married couples. “There’s not a lot of female roasters on the back-end and none of them own their own company.” Ulbrich stated with pride.
Black: It’s The Only Way To Drink It
Black: It’s the only way to drink it, says Prescott Valley roaster, by Sue Tone – Prescott Valley Tribune
Where does one find a cup of coffee in Prescott Valley made with the freshest roasted beans? In the kitchen of Jim Lowman, of course.
He serves up a tasty cuppa’ Joe, but don’t expect to be offered sugar or cream.
“Black is the only way to drink it,” a horrified Lowman said recently after making two “pour over” cups of freshly ground coffee from Ethiopia and Guatemala, both roasted a few days prior.
Lowman operates one of two kinds of roasters in his backyard. The smaller looks like a popcorn popper and takes about eight minutes by heating the beans from underneath and blowing air that tumbles the beans for even cooking. It costs about $160.
His youngest son took up coffee roasting a few years ago, and Lowman bought the small machine for him. When the son moved on to a larger model, he gave it back to his father.
I’ve used it for a long time, and I’m happy with it. I just wanted more control.
He listens for the “first crack” – a sound like popcorn popping – and continues roasting for a few minutes more. Any longer and the coffee turns dark and oily – rather like a popular coffee house brews, he said.
He keeps a logbook of the date, type of bean, temperature, time of the first crack, and total length of roasting time. Sometimes there’s a comment after he’s brewed and tasted a cup, such as “good, but bright” or very good.”
Two Computer Geeks Join The Coffee Biz
Citizen Food: Two Computer Guys Deliver Boutique Beans to Your Door, by Jason Price – Seattle Weekly
What do two local software guys who have a passion for coffee and aspire to work in an industry with more tangible personal impact do? They create a company focused on bringing coffee roasted here in Seattle to your home—one box at a time.
Meet the Bean Box boys: Co-founders Ryan Fritzky and Matthew Berk bucked the trend of launching yet another technology startup by focusing on common ground (literally)—coffee. They realized the links that coffee made for them in both their professional and personal lives; whether talking to customers about products, engineers about software design, or friends about new experiences, these conversations were always held over a cup of joe. Buying holiday gifts for customers, they’d always go to ETG in Fremont. All the dots were connecting—and that’s when the idea struck for Bean Box.
I met Fritzky and Berk at one of my favorite cafes in Seattle, Milstead and Co., to talk coffee beans. Asked how they were making the coffee-of-the-month-club concept different, their answer was simple: Seattle roasters all have interesting personal stories and unique roasting processes. They don’t follow a generic methodology, using the same green beans to create the same roast. Each roaster has a different style, just as a cabernet from adjacent vineyards can taste completely different once a winemaker has plied his trade. Roasting is a nuanced process that evokes varying flavors from a bean based on technique. Fritzky says, “We want to bring people in, help them appreciate the art of roasting, and make these different styles accessible to customers.”
Their mission with Bean Box centers on three key concepts: discovery (helping people find great coffee and changing the culture of coffee as a convenience and habit for most), freshness (as a rule in the U.S., coffee isn’t fresh; all roasters have a window when their product is fresh, and often what we drink is past its flavor peak), and accessibility (helping people explore what we take for granted in Seattle).
Aharon Coffee: Cup Of Joy
A cup of joy at Aharon Coffee,by Jessica Ritz – Jewish Journal
Although Aharon Vaknin is relatively new to the business of coffee, he is long familiar with its rituals and traditions. “My first cup of coffee I ever made was when I was 8 years old,” he recalled. “One time, my cousin came to visit, and nobody was there except me, so Moroccan hospitality [means] asking if you want to drink something. My cousin wanted a coffee, so I just made it.”
Since opening Aharon Coffee & Roasting Co. on a side street just west of South Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills in September, Vaknin, with his wife, BatSheva, has professionalized this particular lifelong passion.
Formerly a general contractor by trade, Vaknin’s gateway into the complex world of coffee came unexpectedly when he was shopping for what seemed like a simple household product: a grinder. Reading about the differences between blade (more widely accessible but bad) and burr (more expensive and yet essential to any hard-core coffee connoisseur), he went into deep research mode — watching endless hours of YouTube instructional videos, immersing himself in online discussion boards and experimenting with the product itself at home. These initial steps were “enticing me, and it was an amazing experience to educate myself.”
Featured photo credit: Neil. Moralee via photopin cc