This Week in Coffee; 15th of Feb '23
Happy Valentine's Day lovely people. I like my coffee how I like my relationships - literally I will settle for anything.
Equipment
VA are doing God's work and putting out some really gorgeous interesting machines at the moment and the Eagle Tempo genuinely does come at the end of a run of releases.
The Eagle Tempo is focused on restaurants looking for consistent coffee without a highly trained barista. This segment of the industry has existed for year but was sometimes neglected and seen as outside of 'speciality' coffee.
The automation and relative simplicity will be appreciated but my-lord-in-heaven is this thing beautiful. Personally I'd crawl belly-down over a road made of broken glass just to look at photocopy of that trellised body. Coffee could be rubbish and I might forgive them.
I can't speak to the effectiveness of this method but it's got an interesting history. The technique was introduced by Australian Barista Champion Hugh Kelly in 2021 having been pioneered at Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW).
The Paragon is also a little confusing. I can find quite a bit of evidence of its existence since mid 2022, but no evidence of any sales. This week it started to come down the wire as 'released' which is why it's included here. Perhaps the dark arts of product launches?
I can now find it on sale in the UK, to be delivered this week, so I'd say that's 'released'.
Industry
The survey was totally US-focused so it's worth keeping that in mind when looking at the results but they're interesting nonetheless.
The good news is that salaried employees are overwhelming beginning their career in coffee and people are being promoted from within.
The bad, and quite predictable, news is that baristas are still very poorly paid on average. Even salaried roasters and managers are making less than the US average.
If any of you are a coffee business owners, firstly - sponsor my newsletter, secondly, it's worth filling out these surveys always.
Events
Miscellaneous
I'm very torn about which way to go with this. Like sports, coffee should easily transcend language and speak for itself. However, the WBC has established a tradition of baristas explaining their process and ingredients to judges. It's as practical as it is principled to change this now.
The calls to include Spanish are well-meaning and understandable but they won't be in the end, and perhaps nor should they be. Although Spanish is the main language spoken in many coffee producing countries, Portuguese would certainly have to be included.
This would be further complicated by deaf and HOH competitors sign sign languages differ globally.
In order to accommodate other languages, the WBC would need to substantially change its format. Personally, that seems like the most reasonable approach for the longevity and success of the tournament. If competitors are allowed to submit explanations in advance which are translated for judges, then performances are done without commentary - let the coffee speak for itself.
Also, I'm not sure 'explaining your process' is really a core barista skill that I've seen in any cafe.