If you’ve been in or around specialty coffee for any length of time you’ve probably made or have been served espresso from a La Marzocco Linea. The Linea is the quintessential espresso machine and many Baristas first revolutionary espresso experiences have been had behind the wheel of this machine…I know mine was. At the SCAA Expo in Boston this April La Marzocco USA will unveil the next generation Linea, the Line PB. To celebrate this La Marzocco USA has launched The Linea Love Campaign. Linea Love focuses on people sharing their stories of this legendary machine and what the Linea means to them. Here’s our contribution to the Linea Love campaign. You can see all the videos, stories, and pictures for this campaign here: Linea Love
We received a question on Facebook about home roasting and whether or not it’s worth trying. There are lots of options for roasting at home but a popcorn popper is by far the most affordable and readily available so we scored one for thirty dollars and gave it a go.
The Street Smarts video series will be geared towards answering any coffee educational questions we receive through social media. Videos may be simple Q&A or full blown tutorials depending on the topic. If you have a question hit us up on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and we’ll try to get some info to you.
This video was requested in response to our “Getting Started with Home Brewing” video and addresses how to determine your grind setting for a single serve Hario V60. I’m sure we’ll dive into particle size again sometime in the future but this should set you off on the right foot. To watch any of the other Street Smarts series click here: Street Smarts.
We’re incredibly excited to host the SWRBC again this year. The event will take place March 15-17 at the Top of the Ritt (same building as last year) in downtown Santa Cruz just blocks away from our Pacific Avenue Store. For those of you who are interested in competing, judging, or volunteering you can sign up to do so here: SWRBC
In addition to the competition we will be offering several other educational opportunities that week. These include:
-IDP SCAA Instructor Development Program 3/12/13
-BGA Examiners Training 3/13/13
-CP190 BGA Level One Certification Testing 3/15/13
-CP290 BGA Level Two Certification Testing 3/16/13
To sign up for any of these courses click the links above. If you’re a Barista who’s certified to give BGA Level 1 or 2 exams and want to help out, email Alex LittleJohn at alex@vervecoffeeroasters.com. Looking forward to seeing you there!
It’s been an exciting weekend for us at Verve. We were greatly honored to have two winners at this year’s Good Food Awards with our Elida Green-Tip Gesha and Birhanu from Ethiopia. These two coffees were chosen from an entry field of over 1300 products and represent the best of what our industry has to offer. The Elida received special mention as the highest scoring coffee overall.
During the awards ceremony Verve co-owner Colby Barr gave a short keynote speech on how “Good Food is Good Business.” Sprudge has an excellent write up on the awards ceremony and has transcribed Colby’s speech in its entirety. You can read it all here: Sprudge/Good Food Awards
People always ask me how to best brew coffee at home. As a whole people seem to want the best tasting coffee with the least amount of effort involved. I would say that even I fall into this category. Thankfully brewing coffee at home doesn’t have to be that hard or technical at all…with just a few simple tools and some basic brewing fundamentals you can make incredibly delicious coffee at home with relatively little effort. In fact once you do this for about a week it’ll become second nature and you’ll probably be able to do it blindfolded.
This video will take you from start to finish on how I make pour-overs at home…or in this case in a corner of the office!
In this video I used all the tools included in our Complete V60 Kit but the same principles can be applied to any pour-over brewing device. As with any kind of coffee preparation, once you’ve mastered the basics feel free to explore to make the coffee suit your personal tastes.
Special shout out to Oakland’s Tumbleweed Wanderers for the audio track “Take It Back” off their debut album “So Long.” Check out the rest of their catalog here: Tumbleweed Wanderers
Hope this helps you get started out!
There’s quite a bit happening in the coffee world this first month of 2013. Here are a few upcoming events to look out for that we’ll be in the mix with:
Friday January 18th: Good Food Awards Ceremony. We’re honored to be a finalist in the coffee category. Alice Waters will be hosting the awards ceremony for the winners so keep an ear to the streets to see who’s on top of their game.
Saturday January 19th (Morning/Afternoon): Good Food Awards Marketplace. At the Ferry Building from 9am-2pm you can taste examples of the best food and coffee in the country. Tickets are $5 to get in the door. If you love your taste buds there’s no better place to be in the world on the morning of the 19th.
Saturday January 19th (Afternoon/Evening): Barista Nation San Francisco. From 3pm-4:15pm peoples champ Jared Truby and myself will be leading a panel discusion talking about the benefits of impeccable customer service in your cafe. The day includes many other speakers and finishes off with a Latte Art competition and party from 6-9pm with the DJ’ing being hammered out by our friends from Sprudge.
Monday January 21st: To round things off CUESA will be hosting a Coffee and Sustainability Panel Discusion from 6-8pm. Our co-owner and green buyer Colby Barr will be speaking on the panel along with James Freeman of Blue Bottle and Christopher Bacon author of Confronting the Coffee Crisis.
Hopefully some of you can make it to at least one of these gatherings. If you see us out there throw out a high five!
-Baca
