This Week in Coffee; 21st of Feb '23
Ash Wednesday is upon us, made famous after two thousand years' of hangovers. I have a (small) hangover this morning, just as my forefathers before me had hangovers. T'was ever thus.
And what better to get over a hangover? Coffee...
Equipment
Looks okay. I personally just bought the MoccaMaster one cup which I'm pretty happy with.
Hard to say where the SCA award sits and how it should be received. While the SCA is usually a pretty serious organisation trying to further the drinking of speciality coffee - without knowing the 'scientific standards' they require - it's hard not to see this as an advert with bells on.
Pretty interesting patent here from Starbucks that was originally put together back in the summer, but only became public this week.
The idea behind the invention is that a store can have one of these machines with numerous pumps and dispensers, and a menu with 100s of items made of combinations from the machine. The machine then helps the barista make the drink by lighting up the pumps in order. Apparently, these combinations include flavour, texture and colour (God help us all).
This is part of a wider theme of coffee machine automation in coffee shops all over the world. The success of Blank Street Coffee has proved the model and Pret's shift towards automation is also part of the trend. This is likely driven by a combination of technology improvements and high labour costs.
Industry
Competitions and events
Miscellaneous
Less commentary than usual from me but I didn't feel I had anything useful to add to any of these links.