OC Coffee News from June 2023
A summary of some major high points; not comprehensive - but the stories that seemed particularly important.
Specialty Events & News
World of Coffee Athens ran June 22-24; in (unsurprisingly) Athens, Greece.
Winners of Coffee Champs Athens decided
Boram Um of Brazil became the 23rd World Barista Champion - congrats to him! Second ever from South America. 4 days of competition across 127 competitors, the National champions of each participating nation.
Carlos Medina of Chile took the top spot in the World Brewers Cup Championship; Young Baek of Australia is the new World Cup Tasters champion; and Pierre de Chanterac of France won the 2023 Cezve/Ibrik title.
World of Coffee confirms 2024 Dates
Copenhagen, Denmark from 27 to 29 June 2024, Dubai, United Arab Emirates from 21 to 23 January 2024, Busan, Korea from 1 to 4 May 2024.
SCA Expo 2024 booked for Chicago Thu Apr 11th - Sun 14th
The tool itself was launched in April at Expo Portland, but I think this overview of how the tool functions and some of the intent behind it is a valuable exploration of how and why this works.
New Goods
Cropster BrewBeacon + Cafe
https://www.cropster.com/products/brewbeacon/ & https://www.cropster.com/products/cafe/
Seems like cropster is moving it's tools into brewing spaces; the BrewBeacon is the tool, Cafe is the service - they're both aimed at providing the same analytics and data to a cafe brewing setting as Cropster offers to roasting. Not sure if the payoff is really there, but time will tell.
Fellow Tally / Store page
Scale that auto-calcs ratio and offers several different brewing modes. Ships 7/10. Launched completely normally and without crowdfunding, thankfully.
Aeropress has finally launched the XL, the large version everyone really wanted like five years ago. It has unfortunately got negligible press and seems like it’s probably missed the hype window for this launch to do numbers.
Rancilio announces launch of Rancilio Bond, a commercial grinder that aims to try and cover some of the hassle of dialling in, their first grind-by-weight machine. The sensor and adjustment system is also set up to auto-adjust based on metrics from Rancilio espresso machines with similar sensor and communications systems. Ideally it seems to offer limited auto-dial, if you purchase the package deal.
General News
[Starbucks faces strike over forced removal of pride-related decorations.]
(https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/23/starbucks-strike-pride-decorations-ban)
This winds up being kind of a no-win for Corporate, in that they’re going to get complaints for having pride decor, but get complaints for not having pride decor - but beyond that, like seen in this story, they also need to keep in mind that their staff will overwhelmingly trend in one specific direction on the issue.
Specialty Coffee OG Anodyne bought by FairWave collective, terms seem to include a part-ownership clause for Anodyne leadership as well as assuring autonomy.
Collectivization like this may be a solid way for Specialty companies to compete against the economies of scale that larger chains can muster - but it’s also a step into the Beer direction, where the majority of “independent” small breweries are actually semi-independent subsidiaries of the Big Three of AB InBev, SAB Miller, MolsonCoors.
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