This Week in Coffee; Tuesday 5th of September '23
Good morning good people, and welcome to new subscribers over the past week.
We have an updated and more contextualised format. That means more top-line articles each with a summary so you don't need to click in to to find out more.
As for everything else, you can still expect an opinionated summary of the coffee news from the week, plus occasionally poems, essays, and short stories when the moment takes me.
Whilst this sounds horrible cliché and I wince with every word - over the coming months this newsletter will evolve into a community of people who love coffee, cafes, and adventure. As we go, I've got ideas on how we can start to introduce more subscriber-to-subscriber conversations.
September is a time for a new cycle, and I hope many of you will be part of this little washing-machine-of-a-newsletter over the next 12 months.
And now, the news.
The Big Three
DiFluid release The Omni
The Omni is a coffee analysis tool that is, presumably, aimed at the very top of the home enthusiast market and the very bottom of the professional roaster market. It allows for two types of analysis: colour and grind fineness.
I can see that for a certain type of home coffee zealot who values understanding the consistency of various beans or the grind from a grinder. Likewise, a start-up home roaster may use the Omni for QA.
Honestly, the best thing about this was the discord server they host where there's a long-running and expletive-ridden "discussion" about whether or not their readout matches the SCA extraction map. Very heated.
It seems that this product has been out for a few months and it passed me by in the meantime. Still relatively recent and pretty cool.
La Marzocco teases a new line of home grinders
After the launch of the Linear Micro, it seems that Marzocco is leaning hard into the luxury home espresso market. Simultaneous launches on Youtube and Instagram of a pretty snazzy video is, I'll admit, pretty tempting. Consider me teased.
The truth is that the home grinder market is competitive up and down the price range and Marzocco and you might think that Marzocco would struggle to carve out its own space.
I think that's wrong for two reasons.
One, this isn't a single-dose grinder and almost every other high-end grinder is. That means that Marzocco can go after a slightly different person in the market (more aesthetic, less interested in switching beans etc.) and call on its strong cafe heritage.
Second, this will be a looker I'm sure. Current players in the home market aren't known for their beauty beyond form-follows-function brutalism and Marzocco will not go down that path. People have to live in their kitchens (as do their long-suffering partners) and will appreciate an independently beautiful piece of equipment on the counter-top.
SCA announces Board of Directors Candidates
The SCA board has put forth its four suggested candidates to fill the four open roles at the top of the organisation. From the little I can understand on the website, all four seem like great choices although there's little to no independent information available.
I didn't want to read through gushing marketing material put out by the SCA about how wonderful these four people are so instead I asked ChatGPT to summarise the four candidates in the style of Greek Lyrical Poetry. You can read that if you like.
In lands afar, where coffee's fragrance blooms,
Four souls emerge from varied earthly rooms.
Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian, her mission grand,
Promotes Burundi's coffee, a global strand.
Giovanni Fucili, in sales expertise thrives,
Advocates for minors, their dreams he revives.
Jiyoon Han, the coffee world she does adorn,
Her words on gender equity, like Athena's dawn.
Rob Stephen's thirty years in coffee's embrace,
Covoya's guardian, a seasoned grace.
Now hear their stories, a chorus we recite,
In coffee's kingdom, they shine so bright.
Everything else
Jessica Easto's new book How to Taste Coffee goes live for pre-orders. Link to Amazon.
Applications open for Roaster Competition at Manchester Coffee Festival
Funk Coffee looks for UK Master Franchise Partner via World Coffee Forum
PJ's Coffee has a new store every five days in 2023 via World Coffee Forum
McDonald's to temporarily stop serving coffee at all Hong Kong outlets via Time Out