#specialty-coffee

#specialty-coffee

While semi-automatic lever-operated dynamometric tampers have existed since the early 2000s, the 2015 launch of the Puq Press proved transformative in helping to bring auto-tamping mainstream. Puq has since diversified its product portfolio and added features to the flagship machines as the standalone auto-tamper category overall has gained steam with competing machines from Compak and Cinoart, among others.

We knew it'd be a greater challenge for our second shop to be on the other side of the country. But we reached consensus that the time felt right. We've known for years we want to open in New York.

We like to choose coffees based on feedback. We love listening to what our customers are excited about, and we will bring in other roasters so that we can all try them together. We all have slightly different palates.

We feel a deep personal connection to the region. Being able to return today through our work with coffee gives us a meaningful opportunity to reconnect with the community and contribute with a larger purpose. - Claudia Campos, co-founder

Owners and married couple Justin Choi and Janis Ahn, who previously ran roastery Hanok Coffee from 2021 to 2023, source both matcha and hojicha from Chinatown's Archives of Us, while the generally fruit-forward espresso beans come from the likes of Hydrangea (Berkeley), Flower Child (Oakland), Ilse (Connecticut's New Canaan) and locally based Moim Coffee.

Each brand in this collective has built something extraordinary. My job is to protect each brand's unique identity while strengthening our work together as a collective.

Allpress has announced it's opening a new site in Farringdon in early April. Expect the same high-class brews and beans from the cafe's other outposts, including signature blends alongside rotating single-origin coffees. As for food, the obligatory pastry selection and in-house cakes will also make a daily appearance.

Black Sheep Coffee is preparing a major push in the United States through a 20-unit franchise agreement for North Texas with one of its existing UK franchisees, Yoloways Ltd. The new agreement proposes adding at least 20 stores over the next five years across the Metroplex, including confirmed locations in Bedford, Plano, Rowlett and Grapevine.

Daydreamer, named after the brand's signature house coffee, has opened at Cornerhouse on Rye Lane (which is home to Market Workspace as well as Forza Wine, Tonkotsu, and Nativo), with the full range of Elsewhere's specialty brews, all roasted locally in SE London. They're joined by carefully sourced house favourites and a rotating line-up of single origin coffees, alongside a thoughtful selection of baked goods and some retail products from the Elsewhere range so you can stock up.

In a move that challenges both quality control and marketing norms in specialty coffee, Pennsylvania-based roaster Passenger Coffee is releasing a high-end coffee harvested 10 years ago. The company described this week's release of a Kenya Kiriani Peaberry from the 2016 harvest - frozen as green coffee at peak freshness - as "proof of concept" for its long-term green coffee freezing program.

As the beverage we all know and love, coffee is beautifully fleeting, reflecting seasonality and the specific work of many hands from seed to cup. Yet as an industry, coffee has advanced to become the stuff of institutional archival preservation. On the latter front, the UC Davis Library says it has received three major coffee-related collections adding to its existing coffee-focused archives.

In recent years, across New York, modern Filipino spots have emerged: Naks by the Unapologetic Foods team and the now-closed Tadhana, both on the Lower East Side, and Barkada Social Club in Astoria. And now, Bukas Cafe, which continues that wave by presenting a menu so different from the traditional fare at longstanding pioneers like Renee's and Ihawan in Woodside's Little Manila.

When Harun Coffee reopened on Friday, January 9, after closing in 2023, it marked the return of a Leimert Park institution. The newest Harun iteration transforms the South Los Angeles cafe into a community hangout that operates as a daytime coffee destination and a nighttime lounge in a vibrant section of Leimert Park. Harun opened in 2019 and closed its doors in 2023 due to operational challenges during a difficult time for Los Angeles businesses amid the pandemic.

"This coffee's quite special. It's grown in Yunnan, China, and it's processed with a special yeast to give it a peachy, kind of osmanthus-y flavor," he says.

"A lot of the people from [that] mountain range live around the area, so it's really great to point out, 'this is your mountain,' and they can point out where their family's at," Marcos Garcia told Daily Coffee News. "They really love to tell stories about the different people that they know in the different towns. It used to be a very big Oaxacan immigrant community here. It still is, but not as much as before."

"The lineup will stay consistently diverse, from origin to processing method to roaster," Potter and Boulanger told Daily Coffee News via email. "We want our customers to be able to taste and experience coffees from roasters and producers from around the world."

Southern hospitality is meeting modern coffee in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, at the Sweetspire Coffee and Bakery, where offerings include fresh brews, biscuits and belonging. Guests entering the 2,500-square-foot space in Williamsport's historic Old City neighborhood are immediately drawn to a light hickory and maple-topped bar with a white Sanremo D8 espresso machine and SR84 grinder. Origami manual pourover stands ready to showcase coffees roasted on-site by certified Q Grader Brittney Gross.

Acclaimed Bay Area author Dave Eggers' plans to transform the long-vacant Pier 29 into a hub for artists have now expanded to include coffee. Art + Water, a new arts nonprofit from Eggers and San Francisco artist JD Beltran, is expected to create free studio space for artists, a gallery space and a pop-up cafe from roaster Mokhtar Alkhanshali in the sprawling warehouse, Eggers shared in a post on McSweeney's.

Coffee blended with fruits and flowers and tea drinks topped with clouds are some of the fun offerings at a new cafe in Oakland, Olivia Coffee & Flower. The walk-by-quick-and-you'll-miss-it spot opened this fall in the city's Pill Hill neighborhood, amid plentiful clinics and medical buildings. Tired workers looking for a pick-me-up will find espresso drinks, matcha and pour-over coffee, plus sandwiches and Asian-inspired snacks like kimchi toast with garlic-butter-chive spread ($8) and Korean melon and green-grape burrata salad ($13).

While virtually all cocoa stakeholders, including industry, seemed to be aligned on the need for coordinated action on both sustainability and improving the incomes of the weakest players in the supply chain, a political shift to the right has caused fact-free pushback against the regulatory environment, denying the fundamental truth that a resilient and sustainable supply chain is a competitive one.

"My space is a place for activism. My space is a place for women of color to feel safe," Arana told Daily Coffee News. "It's a place for the Latino community to feel seen and represented, and just a safe space for anybody."

NPR: What Lies in Coffee's Future? An NPR story this week explored the mounting challenges facing coffee growers, including rising temperatures, shrinking arable land, droughts driven by climate change, financial pressures, generational labor shortages, international market volatility and over-reliance on arabica production. "Most immediately, the Trump administration's tariffs, which threaten their sales, add to the ongoing challenges of pests and diseases for coffee production," the piece states. "In the longer term, experts say the coffee industry can't continue with business as usual."

Last year, the New York Times crowned Rose Pizzeria one of the best pizza spots in the United States. Now, the team behind the celebrated Berkeley staple has opened the doors to a new venture, Cafe Brusco, right down the street from the pizzeria. The all-day cafe features house-made bagels baked in the sister restaurant's pizza ovens along with coffee and pastries from other local vendors, including Good Luck Bakery. Cafe Brusco will also begin offering wine in the near future.

Klatch Coffee will expand its partnership with Sprouts Farmers Market, opening 20 new cafes inside its stores, according to a news release from the Rancho Cucamonga chain. The expansion will include Klatch's first location in San Diego County and more than double the number of its cafes. It currently has 12 in San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange and Los Angeles counties, the farthest from home being in Redondo Beach.