Welcome To SUNDAY Coffee+: Coffee News That Made The Headlines

Each week, Craft Beverage Jobs compiles the top headlines for Craft Coffee News & Information. On Sunday morning we post those headlines in SUNDAY Coffee+ for your reading pleasure. Whether its industry growth, new business, job openings, profiles or human interest, you just never know what will tickle our fancy from week to week. We want to make SUNDAY Coffee+ a part of your Sunday morning coffee experience. Want Sunday Coffee+ delivered via email each weekend? Sign Up Here.

Coffee Crack! 

Roasting good coffee is a learning experience, by Chuck Carlson – Battle Creek Enquirer

Here that? That’s called the first crack. That’s when the beans get a little bigger. Before long, you’ll hear what’s called the second crack.

Matt Blossom is learning. Fast. After the 12-minute process, he opens the roaster lid and the beans, which went in green, spill out a luxurious dark brown. Mission accomplished.

“Coffee beans go from green to yellow to brown to delicious,” Blossom said. “That’s what it’s actually called.”

He looks at his latest batch proudly as a father would look at his child.

“I love to talk about the roasting process,” he said.

It has been little more than a year since Blossom, his wife, Silvia, and son Seth began knocking around an idea to roast and sell their own coffee, first to friends and at local events and then online and one day, maybe, with a shop of their own.

Today, Blossom and Son Roasters have taken up residence in the family home on F Drive and Matt, who by day is a salesman for Hydro-Zone water treatments, at night and on weekends roasts coffee in a room he built off his garage.

The Culture Of Hot Coffee

Hot Coffee Culture in Salt Lake City, by Lucy Burningham – The New York Times

In a place known more for proximity to powdery ski slopes than perfect espresso pulls, it’s easy to assume Salt Lake City couldn’t breed advanced coffee geek culture. Yet the high-desert city has become the kind of town where some cafes sell 12 ounces of roasted coffee beans for $50 and teach customers about the benefits of drinking coffee without cream or sugar.

The current coffee pioneers, who overwhelmingly prefer small-batch, direct-sourced light roasts, are working their trade everywhere from unassuming warehouses in South Salt Lake to one new spacious shrine to modern coffee drinking in downtown’s Central Ninth neighborhood. Some fire up drum roasters — forcing raw, green coffee beans to adopt hues of toffee, caramel and rich earth — while others operate lab-like coffee makers that seem capable of extracting a nuanced flavor from sand.

Coffee roasting isn’t new in this city of more than 191,000 residents; Salt Lake Roasting Company and Millcreek Coffee Roasters have been doing it for decades. But the emerging coffee craze is more closely intertwined with the farm-to-table movement, said Joseph Evans, the tattooed founder of Nobrow Coffee Werks (nobrowcoffee.com). Because of the city’s large Mormon population — the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints forbids members to drink coffee or tea — there’s always been a stereotype that there are not a lot of coffee drinkers, said Mr. Evans, who is no longer affiliated with Nobrow. “But we’re a growing metropolitan area with a strong culture of food,” he said.

Roasting Is The New Brewing In Asheville, NC

Asheville coffee roasters gain steam, by Mackensy Lunsford – Citizen Times

Asheville has long been a creative town. It’s a city where art cars roam the streets, buskers clog sidewalks and art crawls are more frequent than club hops.

That culture of creativity leads to innovation in many sectors — take Asheville’s food and brewery scene, for example. But some say that Asheville is poised to make a name for itself with another brewed beverage: coffee.

Amber Arthur, Battle Cat Cafe owner with Bill Tanner, opened PennyCup Coffee Co. in the River Arts District earlier this year. PennyCup buys unroasted, or “green,” coffee beans from a distributor who buys directly from farms. Tanner and Arthur then roast them for local restaurant clients. The duo are part of a wave of local roasters putting Asheville on the map among coffee connoisseurs.

Roasting is the new brewing

Tanner and Arthur’s roasting company is more of a workshop than anything else, with burlap bags of beans and roasters dominating an unadorned space. All of PennyCup’s accounts are wholesale, and include Hole, West Asheville’s new doughnut shop, and Ben’s Penny Mart, which recently opened adjacent to Ben’s Tune-Up.

Tanner said he and Arthur plan to add a tasting room where people can sip and learn about the roasting effort. Even if that approach is slightly geeky, it stops short of being snobby.

“It’s serious, but not exclusive,” he said. “I would never want our shop to feel like those occasional record stores you go into where you think, ‘If I buy this record, is this guy going to give me a hard time?'”

(This article also includes a listing of the 20+ Coffee Shops & Roasters that call Asheville, NC home.) 

Missouri Innovation Corporation (MIC) Gives Coffee Roaster A Financial Boost

Missouri Innovation Corporation Infuses Funds into Southeast Missouri’s Economy with Program’s First Small Business Loan, – Journal-Banner 

The Missouri Innovation Corporation (MIC) at Southeast Missouri State University announced today the closing of the first business loan under its Intermediary Relending Program (IRP) to recipient Parengo Coffee of Sikeston, Mo., for $25,200.

“This marks the first loan funds to be issued by the Missouri Innovation Corporation,” said Gordon Waller, MIC Board member. “We knew these funds were much needed in our region, and we are excited to see the positive economic impact, such as creating and retaining jobs here, now that these funds are getting into the hands of local business owners.”

Established to help entrepreneurs in the region secure financing for their new or existing small businesses, the IRP is a revolving loan fund program managed by the MIC and funded by a $1 million investment from USDA Rural Development. Microloans are vital to rural economic development as they provide businesses with access to capital needed to start up, expand and stay competitive.

“The Missouri Innovation Corporation program can definitely make a legitimate impact on local and regional, smaller communities like Sikeston,” said Susan Lawrence, MIC Loan Review Committee member. “Where traditional funding opportunities may be exhausted early in the game for startups, this program can be the lifeline those entrepreneurs need to take their business concept to the next level.”

Such is the case for Parengo Coffee, Southeast Missouri’s premiere craft coffee shop and roaster since opening in August 2013.  “We have big plans to expand our small business, and this program will help us do that,” said Parengo Coffee Co-Owner Theda Williams. The family-owned business — Theda’s husband Larry Williams is the other co-owner and their son Colby Williams manages daily operations — completed the loan application and review process with the MIC to use the $25,200 towards opening a new location that will create several new jobs.

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Feature photo credit: Mark Nye, ClubofHumanBeings.com via photopin cc