The 20th Annual SCAA Conference & Exhibition

Who is going?  The SCAA United States Barista Championship will be held at the same time.

The talent present this year is absolutely astounding.  As the CI blog mentioned, there will be 3 previous national champions in the mix, as well as Chris Baca who scored an amazing 798 points in the WRBC.  Absolutely stunning.

Patric Pierce, Clancy Rose, and Ashlind McAshan will be competing.  (the Texas trio?)

Patric Pierce is the reigning South Central Regional Champ.
Clancy pulled a 2nd place finish in the same competition.
Ashlind was working for Starbucks when she competed in the SCRBC, and I don’t remember her final placing.  She’s competed a few times out of region since then, and I expect she has improved much over the past year.

Also going on is the Roasters Guild Coffee of the Year Competition

“The Coffee of the Year is an event intended to evaluate exceptional coffees utilizing Q-Graders, SCAA Certified Cuppers and other industry cupping experts as selected by the competition’s organizers. Coffees will be ranked after the competition based on the scores provided by the participating cuppers.  more…“

I am sorry that I am unable to go.  I’ve been asked by a lot of people, and I hate to tell them that no, we don’t be able to meet, grab a drink, shake hands, etc.. at the show.  I won’t be there.

For those going, have a GREAT time!  And Tell us all about it when you get back.

If you don’t, I’ll source the information elsewhere and blog it anyway.

Oh yeah, and there is a ton of live-blogging scheduled for this year’s conference.
Apparently, according to Mr. Nick Cho, we will be able to find it RIGHT HERE. (where Mark Innman’s face is)

Texas Coffee People: Now Straight to your Email Inbox

Ladies and Gentlemen, we now offer Email subscription service.

Lord knows I have a hard time keeping up with everything I mean to read.  I stay busy, and love it when I can get updates via email.  It makes it easier to keep up with things when I seem to be too busy to remember to check for updates.

I thought, why don’t we offer this for Texas Coffee People readers?

Why not indeed.

Well, now we do.  Just click the orange email feed icon.

Or, just Click Here.

Enjoy the hot juicy succulent content fresh to your Inbox once a week.

Email updates sent every Sunday evening, so you can read them first thing Monday morning.

What a way to start your week off right:  with a cup of coffee reading about coffee.

It just doesn’t get any better than that.

Coffee N Cream: McKinney, TX

I received an email from John Ennen, who owns a shop in McKinney called Coffee N Cream.

Coffee N Cream sent one of their baristas to compete in the 2007 SCAA South Central Regional Barista Competition, which might be something worth mentioning.  Usually shops don’t sponsor such things unless they care a bit about quality.

They serve coffee and ice cream as well. (in case you couldn’t tell by the logo)
The combination seems to be a growing concept.  Slowly, but surely, I see more popping up here and there.

John has this to say,

We are an upscale coffee shop, with 2 locations in Collin County…one in McKinney, in historic Downtown McKinney, and the other in Allen.  We are opening a third shop in Allen this fall, and have plans for two more in Dallas in ‘09.

We feature some of the finest TX roasted coffee that can be found. We serve it with exacting standards and engaged baristas.  Our menu of food items is unparalleled in the industry, with food sales more than twice the national average as a percentage of sales.

We cater to those who wish to “get away”, not “drive thru”.  Those who want a place to come to, “N”-joy, relax and “N”-dulge themselves.

Come visit us sometime soon.  Thanks!!

It is not known which roaster they source their coffee from.  Has anyone been there, or tried it out?

http://www.mycoffeencream.com/

WBC on Espresso Bar: Tracking Industry Competitions and Events

This is a great new probject from a gentleman named Mads-Ole Bak who lives in Denmark.  The concept is to have all information about all national competitions all over the country consolidated into just one easy to find and navigate location.  Brilliant!

He had this to say:

The purpose of the site is to make a thorough coverage of all the competitions that will be going on during the SCAE Wonderful Coffee exhibition in Copenhagen this summer.

We will have access to the competitions and SCAE have agreed to cooperate with us during the event, so we (hopefully) can make a very interesting site for everyone who would like to follow the competitions but are not able to be in Copenhagen.

In addition to the World championships, we would also like to collect a lot of information about all the national competitions. It has proven pretty difficult to find out who won the national championship. So we hope that some of you would like to help us if you know anything about national competitions that we should bring on WBConEspressoBar.

Please feel free to visit the site, register in our forum and post any information you might have in the “National Chapters” forum

We hope that you will find our site interesting and that we will be able to bring you a lot of good stuff during the competitions in June.

For some reason, national coffee associations have a hard time making competition information as easy to find as it could be.

It’s high time something like this came along.

Check it out, and sign up to join by visiting: WBConEspressoBar

Coffee Kisses: a novel idea

I received an email from a Mr. Robert Keller who happens to make and sell an interesting product.

Robert writes,

Hello Texas,

I want to be a friend of TCP. I have a coffee related product. I created a plug, learned how to manufacture it and now make them in California. True I am not a Texan but I do have friends and family that are Texan.

Kind Regards

Robert Keller
AttPlay Solutions

He calls them Coffee Kisses, but they look an awful lot like other products I’ve seen in the past.

The only real difference I can see is that these look to be a lot lower profile than other varieties I’ve seen.

Straight from the website:

A Simple Plug Designed to Fit Snug in
the Sip Hole of Your Travel Plug Lids.Less Mess  $$$     Saves Time  $$$
Protects your customers and baristas $$$
Gives a GREAT Coffee Experience !!!
Increases Customer Loayalty !!!
Makes You Money $$$

Designed To Fit Travel Cup Lids By:
Solo…
Sweatheart…
Insulair…
IMx…
Graphicup…
Dopaco…
Karat…
Chinet…
and Others.

You can also buy online from packs of 2, all the way up to packs of 1,000.  In packs of 600 or more the plugs are only $.01 each.  Such a simple investment for that extra bit of customer satisfaction.

http://mycoffeekisses.com