Fresh Cup

JUL 2012

Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.

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OFF THE WIRE NEWS BRIEFS NOMINEES: Portland's Heart Roasters and Canby, Ore.'s The Place To Be Café are among the shops vying for the Northwest title in America's Best Coffeehouse, a competition created by the Coffee Fest trade show. WHO'S GOT THE BEST CAFÉ STAFF IN AMERICA? The current quality-coffee scene is bursting with competitions that aim to single out the best baristas, the best coffees and the best latte-topping rosettas. Starting this fall, a new event will look to also crown the best cafés—or, more specifically, the best teams of café workers. America's Best Coffeehouse Competition is the latest brainchild from Coffee Fest, the trade show series that started handing out some of the industry's first latte-art prizes 20 years ago. The orga- nization is first focusing on the Northwest and invited interested cafés in the region to submit entry forms during the last two months. Around 20 shops selected by Coffee Fest are now engaged in a round of online fan voting and secret-shopper assessments. (Head to freshcup.com to find out which cafés made the cut.) Eight semifinalist businesses will move on to serve Coffee Fest attendees and judges in a mock café setting at Coffee Fest Seattle, held Sept. 21-23. When it's all over, one shop will be bestowed with the Best Northwest Coffeehouse title, and stores in other parts of the country will vie for similar regional titles at next year's Coffee Fest New York and Coffee Fest Chicago. "We're trying to create a vehicle that will proliferate coffee, drive con- sumption and hopefully help these shops be in good shape for the next decade," says Coffee Fest's David Heilbrunn. "We really tried to focus on making a competition that would be relevant to shop owners." As part of the voting round that got started this month, coffee 18 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com fans can head to coffeefest.com, learn about the entrants (most competing shops submitted three-minute videos to communicate their missions) and voice support for their favorites. Coffee Fest also teamed up with professional shopping services to send secret shoppers into each qualifying store. Those shoppers will have a list of evaluation aspects from Coffee Fest and will grade stores on categories such as service, atmosphere and product. In the semifinal round in Seattle in September, three-person teams from each of the eight shops that move on will have 30 min- utes to serve attendees and judges in a café environment where everything but coffee will be provided. Teams will be expected to serve a range of espresso drinks as well as two manual brew- ing options and a "special of the day." Once customers reach the mock café's register, they'll be handed evaluation forms instead of a bill. The three café teams that score the highest will move on to the final round—consisting of another 30-minute shift at the mock café on the Sunday of Coffee Fest—and a sole winner will be named, scoring a $2,500 prize. That winner's check, though attractive, isn't exactly the driv- ing inspiration for shops that have entered the event. For Heart Roasters, the competition serves more as a chance to highlight the team of baristas that works the company's busy Portland café. Heart opened in October 2009, and its roasted product has quickly gained praise in many specialty circles. Owners Wille and Rebekah Yli-Luoma say it sometimes feels as though the company's café employees are overshadowed by the brand's continued on page 20

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