This year’s World Barista Championship and Specialty Coffee (SCAA) conference in Atlanta America was outstanding. I have attended most SCAA conferences since New Orleans in the mid 1990’s. I have attended all WBC finals with the sole exception of Japan and the combination of the SCAA and WBC is always an invigorating alignment of the planets. I really enjoyed the new Symposium which was
Journal
Coffee Review publishes regularly scheduled monthly coffee tasting reports according to our editorial calendar as well 100-point wine-style coffee reviews throughout the month. Our Journal page is where we share news, updates, and general blog posts to keep readers and industry professionals up to date about Coffee Review and other topics of interest to coffee lovers.
Animal-Processed Coffees: The Latest Contender
A favorite question asked by bored party-goers when meeting a coffee cupper for the first time runs like this: "Is it true that there is a coffee that is... uh... eaten by, and, uh ... " "Yes," we respond. "Kopi luwak. The coffee fruit is eaten by an animal and the coffee seeds are excreted (or depending on the crowd, a less Latinate term) collected, dried and sold as the world's most expensive
McDonald’s vs. Starbucks: A Milky Skirmish in the Coffee Wars
The latest front in what the business press likes to call the Coffee Wars is clearly more a battle about frothed milk, whipped cream and syrup than about coffee. McDonald's is rolling out its McCafé line of espresso-based (OK, milk-based) beverages with a national advertising assault of old-fashioned scale and intensity, while Starbucks, the Chain that Brought the Caffè Latte to Main Street (plus
American Espresso Blends: Boutique and Bigger
Specialty espresso is currently in the throes of a creative explosion. I think of it as "post-Italian" espresso, a dynamic community of baristas, blender/roasters and motivated aficionados remaking espresso as a global connoisseur's beverage with passionately contested barista competitions, non-traditional brewing innovations, and freshly conceived blend designs. The goal of this month's
Espresso: Tasting Super-Heroes
I have spent plenty of hours with a cupping spoon in my left hand. This is my first "official" espresso tasting (American Espresso Blends: Boutique and Bigger, Coffee Review, May 2009). Each espresso we tasted was expertly pulled under the exact same parameters: 18g dose, 28 sec, 2 oz double split into 2 one-oz singles, through Nuova Simonelli competition double-baskets. All shots were pulled on
Convenience First: Espresso Pods and Capsules
It is no surprise that over the last decade the more moneyed elements of the coffee industry have been trying to figure out how to simplify espresso brewing to the point that a consumer can produce a properly rich, smooth-tasting espresso shot without struggling through a complicated process that can be as daunting as upgrading to Vista or assembling a glass-fronted display case from Ikea. Given
Single-Origin Espressos 2008
Those new to espresso connoisseurship may be surprised to learn that producing this dense, aromatic beverage from coffee of a single origin rather than from a blend of coffees from different origins is a mildly controversial practice. Traditionalists argue that the espresso system extracts flavor-bearing components from coffee so efficiently that a single coffee from a single origin is not
Italy Seen from America: Nine (Genuine) Italian and Three American Espressos
Italians must both wonder and cringe when they observe the amazing globe-trotting journey of espresso, a beverage system so quintessentially (and once so exclusively) Italian. Setting aside the implied stereotype that associates Italian-Americans with gangsters, the scene in an early episode of The Sopranos in which Silvio encounters a Starbucks-style espresso bar for the first time and wants to
Better Than You Think: Decaffeinated Espressos
The term "decaffeinated espresso" gets even more snickers from coffee insiders than do allusions to ordinary decaffeinated coffee. The assumption seems to be that espresso is such a strong intensification of coffee-ness that drinking a decaffeinated version of it is a particularly perverse contradiction. In fact, decaffeination and espresso can be surprisingly well suited to one another. The
Readers’ Choice Espressos
Well, special readers. The majority of the espressos reviewed this month were nominated by the roasting companies that produced them. I assume that a roaster knows what his best products are, so it also may be logical to expect these espressos to impress. Most did. Of the twenty-eight we tasted, nine scored 90 points or better. Here are reviews of some of the highest rated or most
Better than Ever: Boutique Espressos
What's a boutique espresso? How about a coffee designed for espresso brewing produced by a very small roasting company for local customers ranging from neighbors to nearby cafes and kiosks. In my most rigorously Platonic version of this definition, the people doing the roasting are ex-baristas (professional espresso machine operators) who got fed up with brewing someone else's coffee and
Single-Serve Correction and Reactions: Tassimo and Keurig
The Coffee Review's recent review of single-serve coffees and systems (At What Cost Convenience: Tasting the New Crop of Single-Serve Coffee Systems) provoked some sharp reactions from readers as well as one well-taken correction. Braun/Tassimo Cappuccinos and Caffe Lattes It turns out we were wrong when we dismissed all of the coffee-with-milk drinks produced by the new single-serve coffee
Tasting the New Crop of Single-Serve Coffee Systems
The idea, of course, sounds seductive enough: slip a little paper-covered pod or plastic pouch or capsule in a machine, press a button, and out comes a single serving of terrific, freshly-brewed coffee. No ground coffee on the counter, no arguments about whether to brew dark roast Kenya or decaf French Vanilla, no waste. A pod for everyone. You can brew a cup of pungent, dark-roasted Sumatra, your
Nice Going: Readers’ Choice Espressos
Coffee Review readers appear to have good taste in espressos. Of the fifteen espressos tested for this review, all were nominated by Coffee Review readers. Of those fifteen, seven achieved scores of 90 or over, and two more hovered in the 88/89 range. This success rate is considerably higher than typically achieved when I simply collect samples based on roaster nominations plus a random sweep
Progressive Crema: Organic and Fair-Trade Espresso Blends
Here are three things you need to understand to fully appreciate the achievement embodied in the exceptional espresso blends reviewed this month: First, the espresso brewing system produces its best results from coffees that are balanced but complex. Typically, it takes a minimum of three different coffees, often as many as five, to produce an espresso blend that is both complete enough and
Raising Coffee Consciousness: The Cup of Excellence and Green Coffee Competitions
Competitions in which international juries of coffee buyers and roasters gather to choose the best green coffees from the latest crop from a given country is not an entirely new idea, but in recent years it has taken on a new importance, bolstered by the capacity of the Internet to provide a medium for competitive bidding for the winning coffees from roasters and dealers worldwide. Cup Of
Fair Trade Amplifications and Corrections
Our last two review articles (Ethiopia and Kenya: The World's Most Distinctive Coffees, October 2004, and The Fair-Trade Cup: Quality and Controversy, September 2004) contained three inaccuracies in regard to Fair-Trade coffees. In the September Fair-Trade article we wrote that in North America Fair-Trade-certified coffees are available from only three non-Latin-American origins: Sumatra, the
Daddy’s Socks or Fancy Cheese: Monsooned Coffees and the Perils of Evaluation
Some foods and beverages that are greatly valued by culture do not respond to the simpler expectations of gustatory pleasure. They offer quirky, ambiguous sensory experiences that typically appeal to those in the middle to late years of life. I still recall the moment, sometime in my early twenties, when I suddenly realized I enjoyed eating major quantities of a particularly fragrant soft-ripened
Boutique Espressos
In the 60s we used to talk about instant karma, meaning one minute you're criticizing someone's taste in bellbottoms and the next you're walking into the adjoining room and finding someone else knocking your flower-print shirt. My current episode of foot-in-the-mouth karma took a month, not quite instant, but definitely a quick turnaround from a karmic perspective. Last issue I noted a trend
The Aficionado’s Pacific Northwest Espressos
If the Pacific Northwest has become identified with coffee generally, it has become even more identified with espresso. Though the espresso machine and its culture first romanced America via the Italian neighborhoods of New York and San Francisco, it only became fully Americanized in the Northwest in the 1980s. The basic Italian vocabulary of frothed milk, well-brewed espresso and a single dash of
