WTF Is Happening In This Oatly GIF

Can someone please explain what is happening in this gif? Like, we know what it’s depicting: a 1-kilo container of Oatly original oak milk has a steam wand jammed in it, spewing foamy alternative milk everywhere. But what is happening here? The Sprudge team has been scratching their collective heads over the last half hour or so about it, thereby invoking our corporate Slack Rule: if it wastes more than 20 minutes of company time, we must write about it. So here we are.

The incredibly disturbing moving image came to our attention via the Twitter account of Kristina Jackson—creator of the Boston Intersectional Coffee Collective and Intelligentsia shift lead—with the appropriate caption: “WTF is this GIF?”

WTF is this GIF pic.twitter.com/9ISf9Cr9X5

— Kristina Hollie (@Kris_Hollie) October 5, 2018

WTF indeed. Here’s what we know or think we know. Based on the bubbly mess, the foamin’ was foamin’ long before the start of the gif. We believe the machine to be a La Marzocco GB5. There was a bit of internal debate as to whether it was a GB5 or one of those older Nuova Simonelli, early-phase Aurelia-type espresso machines, but the metal attachment on the rounded base under the drip appears like it could say “La Marzocco,” and that’s exactly where it would appear on a GB5.

But what we don’t know—and really the most pressing questions of the day—is who and why? Wasn’t there an Oatly shortage? Who would be so cavalier with such a sought-after commodity? Is this coffee’s version of those beer bros who buy $100 bottles only to film themselves pouring them down the drain to righteously piss off other beer bros? The production quality of the gif is pretty good; is this perhaps a Wendy’s/Moonpie-esque #viral Twitter marketing strategy? “This ain’t your granny’s oat milk,” the ad says, before panning out and it’s actually your specific grandmother. Is this some sort of Infinite Jest-ian samizdat? We can’t stop watching it, so we think it might be. Is it Daniel G?

We don’t know, but we really, really need to. If you have any information about this truly befuddling gif, we implore you to contact us at 1-888-55-SPRUDGE. We must know more.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via Kristina Jackson

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Adult Cafe Not What It Sounds Like

Kids are the worst, am I right? Sure, my almost-two-year-old daughter is the light of my life, each day bringing me a new but exhausting joy, and I love her more than anything else in this world (myself included, a turn of events that even I didn’t see coming), but woof. Well, one new cafe in Ireland has put the kibosh on the kiddos; The Old Barracks Coffee Roastery and Coffeebar in Birdhill has a strict adults-only policy.

Opened in July, The Old Barracks is “the destination for coffee curious adults,” per their website. This means no kids, though the exact age limit does not appear to be posted anywhere online. I know a lot of 20- and 30-year-olds who are very much still children, but I imagine they meet the baseline criteria for entry. According to a press release, owner Alan Andrews’ idea is to “filter out the noise of children” in order for adult-aged patrons to enjoy the “relaxed atmosphere… and the engagement from the baristas on all things coffee.”

“People are just enjoying the space and enjoying their coffee in peace, without distraction from their kids – or other people’s kids. We’re really happy with the response,” Andrews states. And statistics seems to back up that sentiment. TheJournal.ie polled 11,000 people, with a whopping 74% saying they would take advantage of an adults-only cafe like The Old Barracks.

As the press release notes, there have been some negative reviews, calling the experience “pretentious” and “overpriced.” Some have even taken to Facebook and TripAdvisor to express their disappointment with being turned away at the door when they arrived with their children, presumably unaware of the quirky rule.

But the overall public seems to be taking to The Old Barracks, with ratings of 3.7 and 4.0 out of five on Facebook and TripAdvisor, respectively. For a better idea of what The Old Barracks is about (beyond just being kid-free), check out this 25-minute video of The Old Barracks’ Marketing Executive Rachel Leahy interviewing Andrews.

The real question remains: will The Old Barracks serve me, an ostensible adult, a babyccino? What about a babycano for when I’m already feeling a little foamy and bloaty and don’t need the extra milk? My ability to get either of these drastically affects my attendance. And whether or not the babysitter is available.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via The Old Barracks Coffee Roastery and Coffeebar

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SAME CUP Is Diversifying Australia’s Coffee Scene

Australia is widely known as the place for coffee—and if you weren’t aware already, the Melburnians will tell you so. As an American living amongst all this self-proclaimed greatness over the last year, credit where it’s due: the coffee here is consistently sweet and delicious (though I make better filter coffee at home). But when I walk into my neighborhood cafe, or any cafe in Melbourne for that matter, most of the baristas slinging shots are men. When attending cuppings, technical skill trainings, competitions, and panel discussions, they’re majorly attended and led by—you guessed it—men. I’ve had batch brew mansplained to me on multiple occasions.

In a world where equality and equity are increasingly taking precedence—an especially hot topic in the world of coffee—why does Australia look so behind? How does an entrenched dude-bruv masculine coffee culture work towards change? At least one new organization has made this their pointed focus heading into 2019 and beyond. World, meet SAME CUP.

With a focus on the Australian specialty coffee industry, SAME CUP “will provide an avenue for networking, personal and professional development, education and increasing the visibility and power of the WHOLE coffee community.” The goal is to not only support women, LGBTQI+, people of color, and other marginalized communities as baristas, but offer training and access to higher-level positions too. Founder and New South Wales Account Manager at Five Senses Coffee, Demelza Jones, pens on their website:

When we don’t diversify our employees at all levels we are missing out on the wealth of knowledge that these people possess and ultimately we are missing out on the ability to genuinely connect with a broader audience.

Not only that, but we can provide marginalised people an opportunity to look up to and be inspired by someone that looks/thinks like them—it’s a win/win.

Founder Demelza Jones (left) and Right-hand Woman, Shirin Demirdag.

SAME CUP also has big plans to bring the popular Cherry Roast competition created by Amethyst Coffee Co’s Elle Jenson to the Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) in 2019. Additionally, they’re raising money to help support future events, and potential corporate sponsors are encouraged to jump on board.

Earlier this year, Australia saw a women-focused event, Barista Connect, come down under during the week of MICE. I see that as a potentially historic event; now we’re seeing its success and intent start to ripple through Australia’s coffee scene, inspiring even more women and non-binary coffee pros take a chance and change the face of coffee here in Australia. If the end result means I taste a little less macho in my morning cup of joey, well, good on ya.

You can learn more about SAME CUP and find out all the ways you can support them on their fresh new website.

Michelle Johnson is a news contributor at Sprudge Media Network, and the founder and publisher of The Chocolate Barista. Read more Michelle Johnson on Sprudge.

Photos by SAME CUP.

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Notas De Sabor: ¿Cómo Ayudar A Los Consumidores A Entenderlas?

Todos hemos visto algún consumidor confundido en una tienda de café: frunce el ceño al leer el menú, inclina la cabeza. Levanta lentamente un empaque en venta tras otro y cuando lo posa, su mirada es incluso más insegura. Tal vez está buscando a un barista que lo ayude; quizás se siente demasiado intimidado hasta para esto.  

Dueños de tiendas de café, lo que confunde a sus clientes son las descripciones de su café, y, en muchos casos, esto se reduce a esas notas de sabor escritas en los empaques.

Es fundamental ayudar a sus clientes a entender estas notas de sabor para que estén satisfechos y se conviertan en clientes fijos. Entonces, ¿por qué algunos clientes se sienten tan confundidos? ¿Y cómo puedes describir el sabor de un café para que te comprendan? Además, ¿cómo les puedes ayudar para que aprecien la variedad completa de notas en un café?

Read this in English: How Can We Help Consumers Understand Coffee Flavour Notes?

Un Yirgacheffe etíope con notas a limón dulce y flores. Crédito: Jmcronald via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Conversando Con Los Expertos en Sabores

Con el fin de encontrar maneras para comunicar mejor las notas de sabor a los consumidores, decidí hablar con dos expertos: Dale Harris, Campeón Mundial de Barismo en 2017 y director de ventas al por mayor en Has Bean Coffee en Stafford, Reino Unido; y con Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, dueño de Colonna Coffee y tres veces campeón del Campeonato de Barismo del Reino Unido y finalista del Campeonato Mundial de Barismo.

Este año, Dale dirige Flavour Pathways (Caminos del Sabor) en Caffè Culture 2018, la 12º edición de esta feria comercial realizada en Londres, Reino Unido. Se realizará del 16 al 17 de octubre y la entrada es gratuita para los comerciantes profesionales (puedes registrarte aquí).

Flavour Pathways será una instalación sensorial interactiva que desarrolla conceptos inspirados en la rutina con la que Dale ganó el Campeonato Mundial de Barismo en 2017. Un “camino” examina cómo el terroir, la variedad, el tueste y el procesamiento inciden en el sabor. Otro explora de qué manera influyen distintos factores en nuestro entendimiento del sabor, desde cómo funcionan nuestras papilas gustativas a las formas de la taza y mucho más.

¿Quién mejor que Dale me puede decir cómo ayudar a los clientes a entender el sabor?

Por otra parte, Maxwell encabezará la Roasters’ Village (Aldea del Tostador) y la Cupping Zone (Zona de Cata) de La Marzocco durante el evento. También es responsable de lanzar Coffee Studies, una serie de presentaciones al estilo de las charlas TED como parte de la iniciativa Talks Programme de Caffè Culture, que se transmitirán en línea. Esta se enfoca en explorar las innovaciones y opiniones a través de historias de negocio reales. En otras palabras, Maxwell es un experto en negocios y cata (además de ser un barista increíble).

Dale y Maxwell me dieron sus mejores consejos para ayudar a los clientes a comprender y apreciar las notas de sabor. Esto es lo que aprendí.

Lee También ¿Deberían ser Más Precisos Los Sabores de Café & Descriptores de Aroma?

Un café de proceso natural de Guerrero, México; con notas de mandarina, frutos del bosque y miel. Crédito: The Fitzroy Espresso Co

El Sabor vs. Las Notas de Sabor: Una Diferencia Importante

Primero que todo, para minimizar la confusión, es fundamental que hagamos una distinción entre los términos “notas de sabor” y “sabores”.

En otras palabras, debemos resaltar la importancia de diferenciar “las notas que escribimos en el empaque de los sabores que alguien podría percibir”, dice Dale. “El sabor es una gama de sensaciones distintas, [mientras que las notas de sabor son] la manera en la que verbalizamos las sensaciones que experimentamos”.

El sabor es la percepción general de las cualidades del café. Abarca todo: desde su aroma hasta la sensación en la boca.

¿Y las notas de sabor? Son “experiencias de sabor comunes que asociamos a cosas que consumimos”, explica Maxwell. “Esto nos ayuda a describir el carácter único de un café en específico”.

¿Por qué es importante esta distinción? Las notas de sabor suelen ser altamente subjetivas dependiendo del catador. “Los sabores que da un individuo son sus interpretaciones de las sensaciones que percibe”, afirma Dale.

Con frecuencia, esto genera una tensión inesperada, en particular cuando todo se reduce a la diferencia entre las papilas gustativas del consumidor y las de los sujetos capacitados de la industria. Puede ser una batalla difícil para ambas partes cuando los consumidores, sin importar el esfuerzo que hagan, no logran percibir los sabores que los baristas les aseguran que existen en un café. A su vez, esto hace que sea mucho más difícil demostrar el valor de ese café.

Vertiendo café en una taza. Crédito: Fernando Pocasangre

¿Por Qué Las Notas de Sabor Constituyen Un Reto Tan Grande?

Cuando un consumidor entra a una tienda, puede creer que hay demasiada información. Con frecuencia, esta llega como un menú de café exhaustivo, uno que fue diseñado para ayudar, pero que en realidad termina intimidando a los potenciales bebedores de café de especialidad.

Recuerda que cuando alguien es nuevo en el café de especialidad, no está habituado a percibir todas estas notas. “Muchos se esfuerzan para definir lo que están saboreando y tienen un conjunto de puntos de referencia más reducido”, dice Dale.

Por otro lado, a veces hay muy poca información. En la actualidad, no es extraño ver una tienda de café con un menú minimalista (tal vez para hacer frente al estereotipo de que las tiendas de café especializadas son innecesariamente demasiado complicadas).

Aunque sin duda es más simple, no brinda información más profunda sobre los cafés que se ofrecen, ¡a menos que el cliente se arme de valor para consultar a un barista, por supuesto! Esto puede causar que para los clientes sea aún más difícil comprender las notas de sabor, cuando sienten curiosidad por lo que están bebiendo.    

Además, los menús no siempre corresponden con la bebida servida. La causa puede ser la calibración de la máquina por parte de un barista inexperto o simplemente la falta de calibración del sabor en la tienda. Si cada día son baristas diferentes quienes manejan los menús, es más probable que un sabor de café varíe con el tiempo.

En cierto sentido, es entusiasmante. Dependiendo de tus gustos, hay un sinfín de características distintas que un barista puede resaltar en un café, y probar estas diferencias puede fascinar a algunos consumidores. Sin embargo, es fácil desconcertar a un consumidor que no entiende por qué el día anterior captó notas diferentes en el mismo café. O incluso peor, ¡por qué lo que se percibe ahora no coincide con las notas de sabor que estaban escritas en la pizarra el día anterior!

Haciendo ejercicios sensoriales para mejorar tu paladar y ampliar tu vocabulario de las notas de sabor. Crédito: Kars Alfrink via Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Las Notas de Sabor Siguen Siendo Una Herramienta Esencial

A pesar de que puede ser difícil comprender las notas de sabor, Maxwell sostiene que estas ayudan a los clientes. De hecho, me cuenta que son una opción mucho mejor que algunas otras maneras de describir un café.

“No necesariamente es más fácil para alguien entender [el sabor de un café] a través de algo como el nombre de la finca, la variedad y el proceso en lugar de usar las notas de sabor…”, dice. “Esto es algo exclusivo. Debes dedicar muchos años a aprender sobre las distintas variedades, las altitudes o hasta comenzar a participar en este tipo de menú. Las notas de sabor no son perfectas, pero son el punto de partida más fácil para algunos”.    

Puede ser incluso más abrumador para el cliente hablar del origen y el proceso, en vez de tratar solamente las notas de sabor. Después de todo, existen tantos factores que influyen en el sabor del café: terroir, origen, variedad del café, métodos de procesamiento, perfiles de tueste, métodos de preparación y recetas…Incluso el agua que se usa para la extracción puede tener un impacto sobre el sabor final en la taza. Por lo tanto, es a menudo difícil explicar por completo una experiencia sensorial durante una interacción breve entre el barista y el cliente en una tienda de café.

Las notas de sabor tal vez no sean perfectas, pero son una de las mejores herramientas que tenemos. Y cuanto más se familiaricen los consumidores con los cafés de especialidad, más útiles serán.

“Cuanto más decente sea el café que una persona bebe, mayor será su experiencia o más amplio será su vocabulario”, dice Dale. “Y cuanto mejor comprendan el tipo de café que quieren beber, más estarán enfocados en los matices [de los distintos cafés]. Es la mejor manera de describirlo a otras personas bebedoras de café que comparten la misma experiencia”.

Café recién preparado en una jarra, listo para servir. Crédito: Fernando Pocasangre

¿Cómo Puedes Ayudar A Los Consumidores A Entender Las Notas de Sabor?

La buena noticia es que hay varias maneras para ayudar a los consumidores a comprender las notas de sabor. Por ejemplo, organizar una cata pública puede lograr que los consumidores hablen sobre lo que hace que un café sea excelente. Esta les ayudará a reconocer y describir algunos sabores, fortalecer su paladar mediante la ejercitación y situarlos en una comunidad que, además, está utilizando el mismo vocabulario.

Esta última consideración es importante. Dado que las notas de sabor dependen de puntos de referencia, es útil usar los mismos puntos de referencia todas las veces. Asegúrate de que todo tu personal utilice la misma terminología para minimizar la confusión.

Mantén tu estantería de venta variada y el menú de café simple, pero con algunas notas de sabor orientadoras. Esta es la clave para brindar al consumidor una variedad emocionante de cafés, pero sin abrumarlos con demasiada información.

Llevando a cabo una cata pública para ayudar a los consumidores a entender los sabores y las notas de sabor. Crédito: Has Bean Coffee

Además, tus baristas pueden ayudar a guiar a los consumidores para mejorar su paladar. Según Dale, es bastante sencillo.

“Prueba todas las cosas nuevas que puedas”, dice riendo. “Pruébala una vez. No importa si no te gusta. Aprenderás algo de la experiencia y algo nuevo sobre el sabor. Esto ampliará tu vocabulario y cuerpo o puntos de referencia con formas para describir cosas diferentes”.

“Asimismo, cuando pruebes cosas, piensa de verdad en lo que estás percibiendo. Intenta comprender qué fue lo que causó aquella diferencia en el sabor. [Un catador con experiencia] suele usar un lenguaje más complejo y descriptivo y está más acostumbrado a separar las partes más allá de las sensaciones de sabor básicas. Esto te ayudará a tener mayor experiencia en percibir los alimentos y las bebidas, ser más consciente del sabor y desarrollar la forma en la que te comunicas acerca del sabor”.    

También puedes basar tus eventos de cata en esto. Prepara una mesa llena de frutas, anima a los asistentes a probar la fruta y tomar notas sobre el sabor. Luego, trae algunos cafés afrutados y chispeantes. Si quieres presentar una mayor variedad de cafés, también puedes agregar a la mesa especias, frutos secos e infusiones florales.   

También te puede gustar Ejercicios de Catación para Mejorar tu Paladar

Cata de cafés. Crédito: Fernando Pocasangre

Dueños de tiendas de café, lograr que las notas de sabor sean más accesibles es algo que les debemos a nuestros clientes y a nosotros mismos. Esto mejorará las experiencias de los clientes que beben café y, a su vez, posiblemente los convertirá en clientes satisfechos que volverán a la tienda.

Entonces, recuerda lo que Dale y Maxwell resaltaron: debe ser simple. Brinda alguna información, pero no sobrecargues a tus clientes. Diferencia entre sabores y notas de sabor. Controla el vocabulario de los baristas. Y organiza eventos que lleven a los consumidores a apreciar todos los maravillosos sabores de tu café.

Tal vez te sigan llegando algunos clientes confundidos de vez en cuando, pero descubrirán que toda la ayuda que necesitan está al alcance de la mano.

Escrito por Sierra Burgess-Yeo.

Traducido por Laura Fornero. Traducción editada por María José Parra.

Teen en cuenta: este artículo fue patrocinado por Caffè Culture.

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Raw Cacao & Chocolate: Health Foods or Dangerous Habits?

You may have seen raw cacao nibs on the shelves of your local health food store. Perhaps you’ve read about the benefits of this so-called superfood.

But is raw chocolate really healthy, or could it be a dangerous addition to your diet? Does it have a place in fine chocolate? And is it even raw? Take a look at the expert opinions on raw cacao and chocolate.

You may also like What Can The Coffee & Cacao Industries Learn From Each Other?

Cacao beans cut in half.

How Raw Cacao Is & Isn’t Raw

The term “raw cacao” suggests cacao as it appears in nature. But the reality is a little more complicated. All cacao sold to consumers, in all its forms, is processed.

Gustavo Cerna, a Nicaraguan producer, says that the name is confusing. “Raw cacao [the term] has been overutilized. There is much confusion.” So, what is it?

To make cacao into what we recognize as an ingredient in chocolate, the beans are fermented. They are traditionally placed in a wooden box and wrapped in banana leaves to trap heat. Yeast, bacteria, and other microorganisms break down sugars in the beans.

Fermentation happens naturally whether we want it to or not. But in the cacao industry, the process is controlled to add body and change the taste profile of the final product.

Checking cacao beans as they ferment under banana leaves at a farm in El Salvador. Credit: Miguel Regalado

Although the word “raw” just means uncooked, the contemporary raw food movement regards raw foods as whole, unprocessed foods that haven’t been heated above 118°F/48°C.

Robbie Stout, one of the founders of Ritual Chocolate, is clear that during processing, cacao regularly surpasses the raw temperature limit. “Basically, it’s impossible to make cacao taste like chocolate without going over 118°F during fermenting, drying, roasting, or even grinding.”

Greg D’Alessandre, sourcer and co-founder of Dandelion Chocolate, highlights that in actions like grinding and pressing, high temperatures are a natural result of the friction in the procedure.

If cacao were kept below this 118°F/48°C limit, chances are it would be unpalatable. Cacao has high levels of tannins that are broken down during fermentation. Without this process, you’d be left with a bitter product that you wouldn’t want to eat or use in chocolate.

Learn more: A Step-by-Step Explanation of Cacao Harvesting & Processing

De-shelled, unroasted cacao.

Unroasted, But Not Unprocessed

Put simply, what most people call raw cacao is not unprocessed, but is unroasted.

Greg says, “I’m going to differentiate between raw and unroasted beans. Unroasted beans are fermented and dried cacao beans that are processed without roasting. Unfermented beans are totally raw cacao beans.”

What is being sold as “raw cacao” is either not roasted at all or roasted below 118°F/48°C. But it is fermented. Some manufacturers also use adapted methods of grinding, pressing, and milling to keep temperatures as low as possible at each step.

Raw chocolate is made using this unroasted cacao, with the addition of other ingredients that are minimally processed and unheated.

The intention of unroasted cacao is to preserve natural nutrients, which raw food advocates feel have health benefits.

Yet Greg is skeptical about how unroasted cacao relates to the raw food movement. “One of the goals of fermentation is to kill the seed. Once you’ve fermented them, these are not viable seeds. You can’t sprout them. There is nothing raw about a fermented cacao bean.”

Learn more in Sweet Treats: How Is Fine Chocolate Made?

Roasted cacao crushed into nibs.

The Dangers of Unroasted Cacao

During fermentation, heat encourages the growth of bacteria. This is the intention of fermentation, because these microorganisms change the flavor of the beans to what we recognize as a chocolate flavor.

In traditional chocolate processing, most of this bacteria and any pathogens that have developed are killed in roasting. But without the high roasting temperatures, are we risking our health with raw cacao?

It has long been understood that beans will be steam-cleaned and roasted at the manufacturing plant. This means that there has not traditionally been a particular care to minimize exposure to pathogens on cacao farms. So a chocolate manufacturer should assume that the beans they receive could contain Salmonella, Listeria, E. Coli, Staphylococcus, and other potentially harmful bacteria.

Cacao nibs and an open cacao pod.

Emily Stone, one of the founders of Uncommon Cacao, talks me through daily life on a cacao farm.

“We’re cracking open fruits and eating that raw… getting to know and understand flavors and the fruit itself. During the fermentation and drying process we’re not really tasting beans off the deck, but we’re certainly handling them a lot.

“We’re pulling beans during the fermentation process, cutting them open to evaluate physically… and during the drying, we’re constantly raking the beans, we’re also doing cut tests on the drying deck… And then the beans are hand-sorted so we’re handling the beans then. Then they get blended into their lot and packed into sacks for export.”

It’s clear that cacao passes through many hands before it gets to the chocolate manufacturer.

“Is cacao a raw product?” Emily muses. “It is. Until the cacao makes it to the hands of the chocolate maker, there typically hasn’t been any form of sterilization or control of what could potentially be around it in the environment.”

The sanitary conditions during harvest and processing can vary from farm to farm. This highlights the importance, for the fine cacao industry, of reliable sourcers and frequent visits to farms.

Inspecting a cut test to analyze the cacao quality during the drying process. Credit: Miguel Regalado

How Raw Cacao Is Evaluated

Greg tells me that the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute (FCCI) and the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) are together trying to establish a raw bean evaluation methodology to create consistency in quality. He highlights why a new model is needed for the fine chocolate industry.

Discover more! Read How to Evaluate Cacao & Chocolate

“The specialty cacao industry is very young and immature. In the commercial cacao industry, the cut test is the industry standard for quality. What they’re looking for is fermentation percentage as well as number of defects (insects, mold, under-fermentation). The fermentation percentage is a way of seeing how well the beans have been treated.

“The challenge is this: the fermentation percentage does not tell you what it will taste like… If you’re buying cacao and want to make sure it has been fermented, the cut test is a good way. Whether it’s 70% or 80% fermented, in large bulk, buyers are not concerned about what the cacao tastes like.

“Because specialty cacao is a new industry, people are starting to come around to not thinking about it as a commodity but rather like specialty coffee. Each individual lot of beans will taste different, based on the genetics of the tree and the environment where it is grown and how it is fermented and how it’s dried.”

The ICCO’s current policy is that there should be at least a standardized amount of cut tests conducted. This is a visual inspection of 300 beans per ton to check for quality. The number of beans that are visibly mouldy, slaty, insect damaged, germinated, or flat is recorded.

But the focus in a cut test is on evaluating the quality of processing by eye, not on testing for potentially harmful bacteria.

Yogurt parfait with cacao nibs.

Does Raw Cacao Have Health Benefits?

Some brands choose to use unroasted cacao in their chocolate for the flavor profiles it creates. Many highlight the health benefits of minimally processed cacao. The theory is that keeping the cacao below 118°F/48°C allows more nutrients to be preserved than in traditional processing. But what are these nutrients?

Proponents of the health benefits of cacao point out that it contains high levels of polyphenols, which have antioxidant properties. Antioxidants are compounds that have been reported to be beneficial to our long-term health by delaying cell damage.

Cacao has been found to have anti-inflammatory properties and may reduce risk of diabetes. Raw cacao contains magnesium, calcium, iron, zinc, copper, potassium, and manganese.

But some findings suggest that roasting may not destroy these components and could even make the beneficial ones more easily absorbed. Greg D’Alessandre steered me towards a study from Pennsylvania State University. It found that manipulating the temperature and length of time that cacao beans are roasted can preserve and even boost the potency of some compounds.

So, perhaps the healthiest cacao beans are the roasted ones.

Cacao beans and cacao pods. 

It’s true that cacao has numerous health benefits, and some believe these are even more potent when consumed “raw.” For example, in its unroasted state, cacao contains both caffeine and theobromine, which are both stimulants. Some studies have indicated that theobromine may help with coughs – although this is in the form of medicinal theobromine, rather than raw cacao. Theobromine-enriched cocoa has also been demonstrated to have an impact on blood pressure.

But eating raw cacao in excess could also be dangerous. Theobromine poisoning has been reported to cause heart failure, seizures, acute kidney damage and dehydration.

Eating 50 to 100 g of cacao in one day has been associated with sweating, trembling, and severe headaches. People like Emily sample raw beans to test for quality, but given that they are extremely bitter, it is unlikely anyone would eat a dangerous amount.

Emily tells me that she hasn’t experienced any side effects from eating raw cacao. “I am usually eating a fair amount of cacao when I’m on the farm. Eating raw cacao, fruit off the tree, eating beans off the decks, constantly tasting… I feel it can replace my coffee some days but I probably don’t eat so much of it that I get wild or get extreme effects.”

A split cacao pod.

There are many myths and misunderstandings about raw cacao and whether it has any health benefits. But it’s important to understand what the manufacturer really means when they say “raw” – and whether or not that’s something you want to consume.

Enjoyed this? Check out Understanding The Ingredients List on Your Fine Chocolate Bar

Written by Miguel Regalado.

PDG Cacao

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Firm That Invested In Stumptown Now Has Minority Stake In Dutch Bros

Dutch Bros Coffee, the largest privately held drive-thru coffee chain in America, has just secured funding from TSG Consumer Partners. According to the press release, the total amount paid by TSG remains undisclosed but does give the company a minority stake in the business.

For those in the coffee world, the name TSG Consumer Partners may ring a bell; the firm invested in Stumptown, the funding heard round the world that kicked off a string funding announcements and acquisitions from big name specialty coffee roasters. And now TSG has turned their sights to another Oregon coffee company: Dutch Bros. Per the press release, the Grants Pass-based chain boasts 300 locations across seven states, and with the help of TSG, the brand has plans to increase that number to 800 in the next five years.

In the statement, Dutch Bros cofounder and CEO Travis Boersma had this to say:

TSG understands the vision of Dutch Bros and values our unique company culture and dedication to our people, customers and local communities. We’re continuing to invest in our people first, helping those who are determined and hungry design their lives and live their dreams. We have set ambitious growth and expansion goals, and we trust TSG to help us build on this momentum in the most strategic way possible.

Along with Stumptown, Dutch Bros now joins other beverage companies in the TSG portfolio including: Pabst Blue Ribbon, SweetWater Brewing Company, Brewdog, Vitamin Water, Voss, and Duckhorn Vineyards.

The full statement from Dutch Bros Coffee can be found here.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via Dutch Bros Coffee

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Cell Phones! Robots! Frozen Espresso! At Ada’s Discovery Cafe

In the future—not long from now, surely—each and every telecom data replenishment node will sport a far-out high-end cyber modified coffee experience. But here in 2018 there is Ada’s Discovery Cafe, a first-of-its-kind high-flying collaboration between Seattle local indie Ada’s Technical Books and multinational telecommunications conglomerate AT&T, open now at Broadway and East Thomas.

It’s a match made in Seattle, or at least the Seattle of today, where rising rents and influx of new money tech culture make successful cafe/bookstore/event space/coworking hybrids like Ada’s so very important. Founded in 2010—roughly an eon ago in the Seattle time scheme—Ada’s is the work of Danielle and David Hulton, an enterprising couple with deep connections in the international informations security and cryptoanalysis scenes. David co-founded a leading information security conference, ToorCon, in 1998, and sold his company Pico Computing to a larger technology firm in 2015. Danielle is a Seattle Pacific University graduate in the field of electrical engineering and manages day to day for Ada’s growing team including bookstore, events, co-working, and cafe staff.

Those operations now include Ada’s Discovery Cafe, opened in late September a block from the iconic Broadway strip running north-south through the heart of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Once synonymous with the city’s bohemian music scene and LGBTQ community, not to mention coffee culture, today it’s a neighborhood in flux, with construction everywhere and a rapidly changing social milieu. (Walking to the cafe I passed a gentleman in skin-tight neoprene gym clothes and wraparound sunglasses, hitting his Juul vape and checking his iPhone, balanced atop a Segway MiniPro just so.) The Hultons are ardent advocates for Capitol Hill: they’ve lived here for 15 years and owned a business there for around half that time. “We’re passionate about the neighborhood,” says Danielle, and they see the newly opened Discovery Cafe as a way to further serve it.

I asked Danielle Hulton how it happened in the first place, that Ada’s would come to partner with AT&T, and the story is something like a corporate meet-cute. “They contacted us out of the blue,” she tells me, “and at first our event coordinator met with them—he meets with everyone—but very quickly he realized this was something more.” From there Ada’s had the opportunity to pitch their vision to the team at AT&T, and they swung for the fences. “We pitched this really ambitious concept,” says Hulton, “with coffee robots, super high-end third wave coffee, and a focus on being approachable to customers using storytelling. It was a two-page pitch with a few pictures, and a month later they called us back and said yes.”

Ada’s co-founder Danielle Hulton.

The end result feels fresh, new, highly enterprising, and still very much in the early stages of determining the optimal outcome (as they say in tech, one imagines). The hybrid relationship—is this a cafe? is this an AT&T store? is it both?—was still very much in public beta during our visit, which meant being greeted semi-aggressively by a small team of AT&T staff upon entering the cafe’s east entrance, imploring us to sign up for an app and get a discount on the day’s coffee. The app itself requires multiple intrusive permissions and repeated opt-ins; it also controls multiple massive televisions displaying DirectTV (tuned to Food Network during our visit). The store does offer a hands-off locker program to access AT&T purchases, as well as a self-serve kiosk to purchase further products, so the greeter-led fancy AT&T store vibe is still very much being dialed in. “They’re still learning the neighborhood,” Danielle Hulton offers. “They just want it to be a relaxed space.”

But your coffee purchase—indeed, the totality of your coffee interaction—have not been AT&T app-ified, and it’s very much Ada’s own staff, own menu choices, and own expression of playful, geeky coffee culture on exhibit here at the pop-up. That’s the key compound word here, “pop-up,” as Discovery Cafe is officially a three-year commitment in which Ada’s has complete creative control over the bar space. “We control everything from here”—pointing to the bookshelf, stacked with titles by Ursula Le Guin, Roxane Gay, and Cordelia Fine—”to here,” says Danielle, gesturing to the end of the coffee bar. Over the next three years, one presumes that AT&T’s hopes the space, a kind of ur-millennial New Seattle tech denizen AT&T store on steroids (or rather, nootropics), can make waves and shift units on Capitol Hill. In the meantime, we’ve got a very ambitious little coffee bar to enjoy.

Overseeing the insertion order for said ambition is Cole McBride, the 2018 United States Barista Champion and a career competition barista. The Hulton’s relationship with McBride extends back the better part of a decade, when McBride—in a previous capacity with Seattle’s Visions Espresso coffee supply and consultancy—helped train and set-up the couple’s first coffee bar, at the Ada’s Technical Books flagship store (at 425 15th Ave E, a few blocks straight up the hill). At the new Ada’s Discovery Cafe McBride has been given what appears to be free reign to design a challenging, surprising, playfully geeky take on the coffee bar menu in 2018, chockablock with flourishes from frozen espressos to cocktail riffs like the “Cannon Iced Coffee” made with Scrappy’s lime bitters (an ode to the drink’s creator, Pacific Northwest coffee professional Mike Cannon) to a series of drinks brewed on co-founder David Hulton’s own line of KYOTOBOT robotic coffee brewers.

Cole McBride with KYOTOBOT.

Shots drop into frozen espresso cups.

That frozen espresso? With its Igloo cooler full of billowing dry ice? It works. Made on my visit with Verve Coffee‘s Ethiopia Sakara, the shot offers loads of warm-cold contrast upon first sip (expect an icy lip mark on your cup), melding into a lovely sort of melted chocolate orange thing for the back half of the shot. It’s the drink we tried at Ada’s I could most see myself coming back for, as a civilian coffee enjoyer, to drink for fun on future visits to the neighborhood.

“Cole taught David and I everything we know about coffee,” says Danielle, “and through the years we stayed in touch online and we’ve followed his journey. He’s a really great fit for the space and for what we’re trying to do for accessibility, and we’re excited and proud to have him onboard.”

There’s that word again—accessibility—and so I asked Hulton to help dial it in. The menu at Ada’s Discovery Cafe is a lot of things: exciting, challenging, unabashedly weird, and oddly reverent to the coffee styles of yesteryear, with options like dry and iced cappuccinos and shakeratos. But I’m not sure the word I’d use is “accessible“, or at least not in the same way as, say, the massive hulking Starbucks Reserve store a few blocks down the road, whose presence at five years in now looms over any other new coffee project on the Hill. I feel like David and Danielle Hulton understand the question well.

Ada’s co-founder David Hulton.

“Accessible, in this context, refers to our approach,” Danielle tells me. “We own a technical bookstore, you know, and we want that to be accessible, but we sell books about quantum mechanics! The idea is, this is something anyone can get into, and we will make it really friendly for you without being snobby, and the same thing extends to coffee. The whole point of our brand is to be curious.”

That’s all well and good, and this notion of democratizing specialty coffee for the curious is something we’re hearing more and more of from new cafes around the world. Snobbishness, it turns out, isn’t great for business. Making delicious coffee accessible, however, more assuredly is. Where frozen espressos and siphon robots fit into the equation, I’m not totally sure (quantum mechanics is not my field), but I do know that the menu at Ada’s is unabashedly fun, and frequently surprising, in a kind of “nerds take over the cafeteria” sort of way.

“In the last few days of this soft opening we’ve had executives come in here from AT&T, and they don’t know much about the coffee industry,” Danielle Hulton tells me, by way of example. “One of the executives ordered a latte, and she was just…blown away. I mean, she went out of her way to say it was the best latte she’d ever had. That’s just quality beans and quality milk. No extra flourish, just quality—and that’s cool for me. This space can introduce people who would maybe never go into a third wave shop for what coffee could be.”

“They see the value of what we’re doing as small brand trying to innovate in the coffee scene,” she continues candidly. “They could have easily partnered with someone like Starbucks or Tully’s.”

But they did not, in fact, partner with Tully’s or Starbucks, or any other multi-national coffee conglomerate. Instead, they partnered with Ada’s, a small business whose co-founders seem to be swaddling their new creation into the world like loving parents of a second child, with lots of lessons learned and hopes and dreams for the future and also some quite natural concerns. The interior design vibe, controlled entirely by AT&T, feels like what you’d find in the common room event space of a fancy new condo building. The TV’s are big and garish and have been widely derided by commenters in the local press. The footprint for books and magazines, while well-curated, is far too small—with all that space, and all that expertise from the team at Ada’s, it could easily be expanded to include more titles.

I guess I just want more Ada’s in the Ada’s Discovery Cafe experience at AT&T Lounge, but therein lies the devil’s bargain of big brand/small brand collaboration. It is rarely ever perfect, but it has the capacity to create experiences that get people talking and pique their fascination, and on that front the Ada’s + AT&T project has been a roaring success out the gate. People want to see and experience this thing for themselves, and in today’s ever-crowded new cafe market, that’s saying something.

And so for at least the next three years we get Ada’s Discovery Cafe, which means more dry ice espressos, more highball iced cappuccinos, more coffee cocktail riffs from morning ’til afternoon, and more from our new friend KYOTOBOT. Maybe this really is the future, in which enormous brands partner with tiny brands to help create a version of both for more people to enjoy. Perhaps we, as a society, can requisition further nodes of collaborative dispensation betwixt large corporations (with money and vision) and indie companies (with good ideas/delicious products/etc) so that exciting and interesting things have the backing and platform to capture popular imagination at scale. This is how a lot of great literature and film and music is made, after all—as a collaboration of art and industry.

More good ideas, more tasty coffee, more books, and maybe, you know, if you need it, some more GB for your data plan. This is… not capitalism, exactly, or at least not any sort of zero-sum straight-line version of it. But in 2018 it feels very much like Capitol Hill.

Ada's Discovery Cafe is located at 800 E Thomas St, Seattle. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Jordan Michelman (@suitcasewine) is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network, a contributor to Portland Monthly and Willamette Week, and co-author of The New Rules of Coffee. Read more Jordan Michelman on Sprudge. 

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