The Coffee Compass

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Brewista Announces Limited Edition Kettle to Benefit Ukraine

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Coffee equipment manufacturer Brewista has announced a new limited edition version of their popular gooseneck kettle to benefit Ukraine.  According to the press release,

The kettle features an ombre design with Ukraine’s colors and a hand drawn heart. 100% of proceeds from the kettle will be donated to World Central Kitchen and World Vision Ukraine Crisis Response who are on the ground supporting families in Ukraine and neighboring countries.

The Brewista kettle features an ergonomic handle, variable temperature control, and a “flash boil” setting. It’s set to ship Summer of 2022.

Coffee Compass Founder Launches New Company, Kickstarter Campaign

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Coffee Compass cofounder Michael Butterworth is launching a new company. Etkin Design is a new Istanbul-based firm designing and manufacturing porcelain coffee makers and accessories. Its first product is the Etkin Dripper– a large format coffee dripper optimized to make up to a liter of coffee. The dripper is a collaboration with Selim Caner Eldeniz of the Istanbul design studio Modesign.

The product is now live on Kickstarter, where the start-up is trying to raise $10,000 to help cover the initial production run of Etkin Drippers. Backers will be amongst the first in the world to receive the new brewing device. The product recently debuted at the SCA Expo in New Orleans to an enthusiastic reception.

“Most pour-over drippers tend to clog at larger brew volumes, causing brew times to go too long. This produces more bitterness in the cup. Our design produces a sweeter cup with less bitterness,” says Butterworth.

The dripper is made from the highest quality Turkish porcelain in Kütahya— Turkey’s porcelain capital. The inspiration for the Etkin Dripper was born out of sheltering in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Like most of us, I spent much of 2020 lock-downed at home. More than ever, brewing coffee by hand became an important ritual each day. But since my wife and I can drink a lot of coffee I often was brewing 3-4 pour-overs a day,” says Butterworth. “I looked for a larger format coffee dripper, but was disappointed I couldn’t find a flat-bottom one.”

The Etkin dripper is compatible with 8-12 cup basket filters, though the company is also developing their own custom filters, along with mugs and a carafe.

Baratza Announces Acquisition by Breville Group

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For years, when it’s come to consumer coffee grinders and espresso machines, we’ve had one recommendation in both categories: Baratza and Breville respectively. Perhaps it’s fitting that Baratza has announced its acquisition by Breville Group, a publically-traded Australian company that manufactures appliances like the Breville Precision Brewer. In a blog post, Baratza CEO and cofounder Kyra Kennedy announced Baratza will continue as its own brand with its existing West Coast-based team.

Baratza’s range of electric burr grinders have long filled a niche for specialty coffee lovers looking for café-quality coffee at home. Whether it’s their entry-level Encore or high-end Forté, we’ve used most of their grinders, bought them as presents, and tested them against their competitors. Does this new consolidation mean we’ll see an integrated Sette + BES870XL combo? A Precision Brewer that somehow synchronizes with the Baratza Vario’s grind-by-weight feature?

Time will only tell.

Fellow Smashes Fundraising Goal for New Ode Brew Grinder

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Fellow Ode Brew Grinder
San Francisco-based coffee design company Fellow has already smashed their fundraising goal for their new Ode Brew Grinder. The Kickstarter campaign more than tripled its $200,000 target in the first few days. The Ode Brew represents Fellow’s first foray into designing a consumer grinder. The company is perhaps best known for the Stagg Kettle….

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Oddly Specific Valentines From Quills Coffee

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Sometimes, checking up on an old workplace feels a little bit like running into an ex. In my case, Quills Coffee is the ex you’ll always have a special place in your heart for and would consider hooking up with again if your spouse died in a fiery plane crash. Perhaps it’s fitting that this Valentines Day Quills has a variety of oddly specific Valentine messages, which somehow feel universally relatable in our modern times….

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How to Help Volcano Victims in Guatemala

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The rich volcanic soils of Antigua, Guatemala have a lot to do with its coffee’s distinct terroir, but Antigua’s picturesque Fuego volcano is active and tragedy struck this week in what experts are calling the country’s worst eruption since 1974 (pictured).  Over 200 people are missing and thousands more, including many coffee farmers, have been displaced and face potentially extensive damage to their farms.

Anacafé, Guatemala’s national coffee agency, is using their headquarters as a makeshift relief center, in partnership with the Red Cross and other disaster relief organizations. According to their press release:

Those affected need non-perishables, canned food, clean water, blankets and clothes in good condition. We also need medication for eye and skin burns, saline solution to wash burns, oral saline solutions and dressings. All donations will be distributed by our staff in collaboration with CONRED (The National Coordination for Disaster Reduction).

For more information about how you can help those affected by Fuego volcano disaster, read their full press release here.

 

 

Scientists Sequence Coffea Arabica Genome

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Scientists at The University of California Davis have successfully sequenced coffea arabica‘s genome. The findings have been posted to the public database Phytozome.net so the breeders and researchers around the globe can have access to the data.  The project, which was funded by the Japanese beverage corporation Suntory, was complicated by the fact coffea arabica has four sets of genomes, twice as many as most plants, including other species of coffee. Researchers chose to sequence UCG-17 Geisha’s genome, an heirloom coffee variety indigenous to Ethiopia but now being grown commercially in California. Geisha varieties are known for disease resistant qualities and researchers hope their finding will help coffee producers fight leaf rust and other diseases. Watch a video and read about the the findings from actual scientists here.

Populace Coffee is Giving Away Another Mahlkönig Grinder

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slideshow_1Last year Michigan’s Populace Coffee turned heads when they gave away a Mahlkönig EK43 in their Flight of Fancy contest. The competition entailed correctly identifying four coffees in a blind tasting. Out of hundreds of entries only two people got all four correct (unfortunately, to our great sensory humiliation, we were not one of them). This year, Populace is at it again but has raised the stakes with Mahlkönig’s latest espresso grinder, The Peak.

peak_grande

With five more days left in the purchasing window, there’s still time for you to enter. Worst cast scenario you’re left with four bags of wonderfully roasted specialty coffee.

Make Coffee Like a Champion with Gwilym Davies

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Gwilym DaviesIf your New Year’s Resolution is learning how to make coffee from a world barista champion, you’re in luck. A new video series from Gwilym Davies and European Coffee Trip offers just that opportunity. Davies is the 2009 World Barista Champion and co-founder of London’s Prufrock Coffee. These days Davies is running a barista training center outside of Prague, which doubles as a film studio for this series of instructional videos.  Over the course of the series, Gwilym breaks down the fundamentals of espresso preparation, including dosing, tamping, and equipment maintenance. The series is being released in installments, so be sure to sign up for notifications for when each video is released. With more and more resources like this becoming available for baristas worldwide, we can only expect 2015 to be the best year for specialty coffee yet.