Announcing The 2017 Sprudgie Awards Finalists

From tens of thousands of votes cast all across the world, nominations poured in for the 2017 Sprudgie Awards, honoring the very best in specialty coffee. These votes have now been calculated, and we revealed the noms on Friday the 8th of December via the Coffee Sprudgecast. Here they are in all their glory, awaiting your deciding vote across 12 categories in the Ninth Annual Sprudgie Awards.

Each group of finalists takes into account the popular vote from our public nominations process. Visit Sprudge.com/vote to vote for your favorite finalist across each category. Voting closes at 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time on Sunday, December 31st.

Here they are, your 2017 Sprudgie Awards Finalists.

Notable Roaster

Each year our readers nominate outstanding coffee roasters around the world for the Notable Roaster Sprudgie Award. Unlike many of the other categories, Notable Roaster nominees need not be brands or products that debuted in 2016; rather, we look to this award as a way for our readers to honor coffee roasting companies, big and small, that turned in an especially notable year of work. This year’s nominees are: Take Flight Coffee (Los Angeles) Onyx Coffee Lab (Fayetteville, AR) Assembly Coffee (London) Colonna Coffee (Bath, UK) Maquina Coffee Roasters (West Chester, PA) Talor & Jørgen (Oslo)

Best New Cafe

Cafes are the beating heart of coffee culture, and each year we are delighted to see the cafe form grow and morph in new and exciting ways. Our readers have selected a stunning array of new cafes from around the world for this year’s Sprudgie Awards, each of which opened during the past calendar year of 2017. And the nominees are: Narrative Coffee (Everett, WA) Cherry Street Public House (Seattle, WA) Love Supreme Portobello (Dublin) Nemesis Coffee (Vancouver, BC) Center Coffee (Seoul) Catalyst Coffee (Auckland, NZ)

Best New Product

New products drive innovation in the coffee world, for both consumers and professionals alike. This year’s range of new products include gear for coffee professionals, equipment for making coffee in the cafe or at home, and a delightful visual representation of where coffee comes from. The nominees for Best New Product in 2016 are: December Dripper, Kruve Sifter, BRO Coffee Maker, Stagg EKG by Fellow Products, Barista Hustle Tamper, and World Specialty Coffee Map by Cafe Imports.

Best Coffee Video/Film

Coffee is a multimedia platform, inspiring expression across a variety of mediums. Each year we honor an excellent coffee video or film as part of our Sprudgie Awards tradition. This year there was no major full-length coffee film released, and so instead our readers voted in a variety of video efforts, including short form comedy, editorial, product tutorial, and several personality driven YouTube channels. And the nominees are: “The Young And The Spoonless” by Cafe Imports, “I Yelp By The Way” by Dapper & Wise Coffee Roasters, “The Race to Save Coffee” by the Washington Post, RealChrisBaca on Youtube, Clive Coffee on Youtube, and James Hoffmann on Youtube.

Best Coffee Writing

Coffee and writing go hand in hand. This year’s crop of nominees includes several full-length books, wide-ranging editorial work from a digital platform, and writing from some of the top freelancers working in coffee today. And the nominees are: “What I Know About Running Coffee Shops” by Colin Harmon, “New York City Coffee: A Caffeinated History” by Erin Meister, Ashley Rodriguez for Barista Magazine Online, Jenn Chen (collected works), RJ Joseph (collected works), and Kelly Stein (collected works).

Notable Coffee Producer

Without coffee producers, there would be no coffee, making this arguably the most important star award in the Sprudgies constellation. This year’s list of nominees includes individual growers—including a two-time past winner—as well as a collective group whose coffees have garnered recent headlines around the world. The nominees are: Jose Gallardo for Finca Nuguo (Panama), Marta Dalton for Coffee Bird (Guatemala), Aida Batlle for Aida Batlle Selection (El Salvador), The Producers of Port of Mokha (Yemen), La Palma y El Tucan (Colombia), and Ernesto Menendez for Fincas Las Brumas, Alaska, La Ilusion and Los Andes (El Salvador).

Best Coffee Magazine

Old trade favorites, hot young glossies, and our first-ever magazine published in Portuguese—this year’s Best Coffee Magazine vote is going to come down the wire. The nominees are: Standart Magazine, Drift, Roast Magazine, Barista Magazine, Caffeine Magazine, and Revista Magazine.

Best Design Packaging

In just its second year, our award for Best Design Packaging continues to sport a competitive field, fusing the worlds of coffee and design together with equal dexterity. Any one of these designs could win—and they all happen to be from brands putting out delicious coffee. That’s a win-win. The nominees are: Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Methodical Coffee, Brandywine Coffee Roasters, Talor & Jørgen, Thou Mayest, and Little Wolf.

Best Coffee Subscription

From an instant coffee game changer to carefully curated box sets from Europe, to roaster / brand collabs highlighting a single company each month, this year’s field of Best Coffee Subscriptions are as different as they are delicious. The nominees are: Department of Brewology “Sequence”, Barista Hustle “Superlatives“, Sudden Coffee, Compelling Coffee, Angel’s Cup, and The Coffeevine.

Best Coffee Podcast

Podcasts continue their march towards cultural primacy, and this year’s list of Sprudgies noms includes new voices, industry trendsetters, and thought-provoking boundary pushers. The nominees are: The Coffee Podcast (Jesse Hartman), Cat & Cloud (Jared Truby and Chris Baca), Boss Barista (Jasper Wilde and Ashley Rodriguez), Keys to the Shop (Chris Deferio), Tamper Tantrum (Stephen Leighton and Colin Harmon, producer Jenn Rugolo), and Racist Sandwich E26 “Coffee Level Over 9000” featuring Nick Cho (Soleil Ho and Zahir Janmohamed, producers Juan Diego Ramirez and Alan Montecillo).

Best Coffee Instagram or Twitter Account

A new category this season, in which our readers are honoring the social media presences that made us laugh, made us think, and made us glad to be alive. Whether posting the  emoji or leaving us *dead*, these are the best coffee social media accounts of 2017. The nominees are: Coldbrew420 [Twitter / Instagram] Letsbrew.coffee [Instagram] Matt Perger [Twitter / Instagram] 3000 Thieves [Instagram] Jenn Chen [Twitter / Instagram] Michelle Johnson [Twitter / Instagram]

Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence

The most important Sprudgie Award is the hardest to define—this award is given to groups or individuals our readers seek to honor for their contribution to the wider coffee culture. Past awards have gone to remarkable coffee producers, game-changing green buyers, important new voices, and even an entire nation’s coffee growers. This year we’re overjoyed at the nominees you’ve selected for our Outstanding Achievement in The Field of Excellence, which include business leaders, top global competitors, resilient cafe owners, and an individual whose work has helped redefine coffee from his homeland. Your nominees are: Miki Suzuki for 2017 World Barista Championship Finals  Mokhtar Alkhanshali for Port of Mokha Department of Brewology for “Filter Coffee Not People” Pamela Chng for Bettr Barista Academy (Singapore) Abner Roldan & Karla Ly Quiñones García for Café Comunión (Puerto Rico) Cole & Aisha Pew for Dovecote Coffee (Baltimore)

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