The Sprudge Report - Spring Drinks, Strikes, and the Sweet 16
Plus loads of coffee stories from Japan and some good news for the caffeine sensitive.
The Ultimate Coffee Bracket Challenge comes to an end next week
How Sweet (and Elite) it has been! We started the week with 16 teams and now we are down to just four. The Final Four. Giants have been felled, Cinderella stories have been (mostly) written, now it’s time to see who is going to win it all. Follow along with us all next week on the Sprudge Instagram Stories as the 2023 Ultimate Coffee Bracket Challenge comes to its thrilling conclusion!
Finally, some good news for the caffeine sensitive
It’s tough out there for the coffee-loving slow caffeine metabolizers of the world. You want to drink lots and lot of coffee, but your body disagrees on a fundamental, genetic level. But a new study gives reason for them to push through. Slow caffeine metabolizers that regularly consumed coffee were found to have lower instances of Type 2 Diabetes. And scientists believe it is because of all that extra caffeine in their bloodstream.
Japan!
There was a lot of coffee news coming from the east Asian country this week. We kicked things off with a tour of new cafes for 2023 in Tokyo with five coffee stops adding to the city’s already expansive coffee scene that can’t be missed. Then, in a sort of international coffee exchange program, we checked in with the Bay Area’s Blue Bottle Coffee as they continue their expansion in Kyoto as well as Japanese-based green coffee platform Typica, whose first New York City outpost is being celebrated with a week of cuppings.
A delicious spring drink
Houston’s BlendIn Coffee Club has quietly been waving the flag of high-end, high-concept coffee in America for five years. When they are not bringing in some of the most expensive and sought-after microlots, they are creating super inventive signature drinks. Their latest concoction is the Florals for Spring, a mix of shaken double espresso sweetened with lavender syrup, a splash of oat milk and topped with a house made strawberry-hibiscus infused oat whip cream, and garnished with a blend of freshly ground hibiscus flower and sugar in the raw.
Starbucks on strike
Over 100 US locations of Starbucks went on strike on Wednesday “to demand an end to Starbucks' illegal union-busting campaign.” The protest could place in advance of Thursday’s annual shareholders meeting, where a vote on an assessment of worker’s rights would take place.
A coffee bag design with some Moxie
We love a good, minimalist coffee bag design here at Sprudge, so it should be no surprise we are head over heels for the new look of Moxie Coffee Co in Phoenix, Arizona. (Or whatever the understated version of head over heels is. Quietly appreciative? Contemplatively enamored?) It’s a wonderful representation of Moxie’s brand ethos of “design by restraint.”
New job listings from Sprudge Jobs
La Marzocco - Marketing Associate - Seattle, WA
Cropster - Product Marketing Specialist (f/m/d) - Innsbruck or Vienna, Austria
Cropster - Outbound Sales Professional Cafe (f/m/d) - Innsbruck or Vienna, Austria or EU Remote
Bean Box Inc - Assistant Coffee Curator - Seattle, WA
Equator Coffees - Shift Lead - Los Angeles, CA
Verve Coffee Roasters - Bay Area Regional Manager - San Francisco, CA
Verve Coffee Roasters - Cafe Manager - Palo Alto, CA
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.
The Daily Inman Park - Atlanta, GA
Hood Famous Cafe + Bar - Seattle, WA
The Coffee Sprudgecast: The One With Chocolate
On this episode of the Coffee Sprudgecast, hosts Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen make moch-ado about chocolate. They’re talking chocolate chips, mocha, Willy Wonka, and even the oat milk supply chain.
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.