Istanbul is truly enormous. It’s so big, it’s hard to measure, though some counts list it as the fourth largest city in the world. As the city sprawled out over the the twentieth century, it engulfed several ancient communities, including the modern district of Kadıköy, known as Chalcedon in ancient times. Today, Kadıköy is the main cultural hub for Istanbul’s Asian half, and is home to a dense array of cafés and coffee roasters, including the new headquarters for Story Coffee….
Archives for May 2019
Miir Launches Kickstarter for New Pourigami Brewer
Does the world need another pour-over dripper? If you asked us yesterday, we would have said no. Between the Kalita Wave (our daily go-to), the Hario V60 (the device that started it all for us), and the million other conical and flat bottom drippers out there, there’s enough brewing devices to keep coffee bloggers such as ourselves gainfully employed writing reviews and tutorials that explore each gloriously subtle difference. And if you, say, wanted to crowd-fund a new pour-over device? Forget it. That shipped sailed years ago.
Well, that’s what we would have said right up until the point we watched the video for the Miir Pourigami, a collapsable brewer currently being crowd-funded on Kickstarter….
Yonder Coffee: Connecting Consumers with Roasters at Origin
Specialty coffee is often compared to wine, although the two beverages might have less in common than many coffee professionals might wish. For one example, the top wines of the world are usually vinified in a cellar located on or near the vineyard where the grapes were grown. Coffee, on the other hand, is usually roasted thousands of miles from the land that produced it. Although practically all specialty coffee drinkers have had coffee from Colombia, Brazil, or Kenya, how many have had coffee from a craft roaster in one of those countries? Yonder Coffee is trying to change that. The rather unconventional coffee subscription program aims to connect specialty coffee consumers with specialty roasters in coffee producing countries. We caught up with Yonder’s founder Caleb Durham to learn more about their new initiative.
You’ve been running a very unique coffee subscription with Yonder Coffee for a while now. How did that come about?
Yeah, it’s been a wild ride so far! I’ll give a little backstory. I’ve been traveling pretty much full-time since 2012. Most of those years, I have worked with a charity that rescues children from different forms of trafficking and abuse and places them in safe homes. My background is in design, video, and storytelling, so for me, working overseas means short, whirlwind trips to gather and tell stories to help raise funds and awareness. I feel really lucky to have gotten to see so much of the world (over 70 countries so far!), but the intensity of the type of work that I do can really get you down. Coffee shops were my space to recenter and process….
