The Sprudge Report - Return of the Roaster Spotlight
Plus a raffle, a ready-to-drink cold brew, and robusta!
Sip & Sonder & Spotlight
Sip & Sonder has been making moves in the Los Angeles coffee scene for four years now. We first visited them back at the end of 2020, and they have since grown to include a three cafes and a roasting operation. So who better to kick off the new-look Roaster Spotlight series? For our first spotlight, we sit down with Sip & Sonder founders Amanda-Jane Thomas and Shanita Nicholas to learn more about what they’ve been up to these past four years and their approach to roasting.
What-otoxins?
Mycotoxins are poisonous substances produced by mold and microfungi. They thrive in warm, humid conditions and can find their ways into our food. And potentially our coffee. But how worried should we be about them really? Associated Editor Liz Clayton talks with folks on both sides of the debate about mycotoxins in coffee to find out.
If you build it, it is no dream
The Build-Outs of Coffee, our globetrotting summer series on new cafes in all shapes rolls on. This week we’re going bicoastal, starting off with a look at Heavy Water Coffee Roasters in Los Angeles. Started by a Handsome Coffee alum, Heavy Water just opened at the beginning of this month in Echo Park. Then, on the other side of the country in New Hartford, Connecticut, Those Guys Coffee Roasters opened their brand new roasting space. On the exact same day at Heavy Water, no less. Twinsies!
It may beanless, but it ain’t penniless
Another day, another beanless coffee tech brand gets paid. This time, it’s Minus Coffee née Compound Foods in San Francisco, who have received an undisclosed amount of funding from Amplifica Capital, a Mexico City venture capital investment firm. Add that to the $4.5 million Minus raised in 2021 and you’ve got… a lot of money.
The robusta boom
This ain’t your parents’ robusta. The days of bad robusta, or exclusively bad robusta, are in the rearview, and now there are options, specialty-grade options, for all to enjoy. So many options in fact that Hawaii’s Paradise Coffee Roasters has put together an entire subscription service of high-quality robusta. And not just from Thailand and Brazil, but Ecuador, Vietnam, Indonesia, India and more!
In other news
Lots of new new news came down the PR pipeline this week. Goodboybob hires industry veteran Marcus Young as their VP to oversee coffee buying and sale. Elsewhere, Grounds for Health has received help from Royal Coffee, Royal NY, and BNT Industry & Trading in reaching their $100,000 goal as part of their summer #wheresheis campaign. And finally, Bellwether has received a $1.8 million grant from the California Energy Commission’s Food Production and Investment program.
The cost of coffee’s future
It’s no secret that coffee is in dire straits. Between the shifting Coffee Belt, increasingly unpredictable weather, and a volatile commodities market, coffee production is beset on all sides. And it’s future is dependent upon serious investment. In a recent report by World Coffee Research, that investment comes to $450 million a year. And now, we’re not close.
A fresh look for summer
Brooklyn’s Partners Coffee is heading into summer with a whole new look. Along with a refresh for all their single origin offerings, Partners has put out an all new seasonal release, the Block Party. To learn more about the updates, we spoke with team at Partners to get all the deets.
A raffle for Veronica Pearl & Julien Langevin
Veronica Pearl and Julien Langevin are two of the leading trans voices in the specialty coffee industry, and they both have recently been affected by mental health issues. To aid with the financial burden these have posed to them, Glitter Cat and Go Fund Bean have teamed up for Hot Medicated Summer. The raffle features handfuls of prizes from some of the biggest names in coffee, with the proceeds going to Pearl and Langevin.
Cold brew that’s not a drag, but also it is?
In this week’s installment of Ready To Drink, we are checking in with San Francisco’s Ritual Coffee Roasters and their new SoMa Star canned cold brew. For their latest RTD offering, they have teamed up with iconic San Francisco drag performer Juanita MORE!, who not only graces the image on the can but helped select the charity, the non-profit Queer LifeSpaces, sales of SoMa Star go to benefit.
New job listings from Sprudge Jobs
Joe Coffee - Espresso Equipment Technician - New York, NY
Gold Mountain Coffee Growers - Finance/Logistics Assistant - Washington, DC
Tradecraft Outfitters - Program Manager, Specialty Coffee & Tea - West Coast, USA
Dona - NYC Sales Manager - Brooklyn, NY
New cafes on Sprudge Maps
Here are new cafes discoverable on our global cafe portal Sprudge Maps. Register your cafe for free—thanks to the support of La Marzocco and Pacific Barista Series.
Skratch Labs Cafe - Boulder, CO
Do you have a news tip? Feedback? A funny joke? Send us an e-mail, use the contact form on Sprudge, leave a message at 1-888-55-SPRUDGE, or send us a letter at P.O. Box 3943 Portland, OR 97218.