I have two unread messages I can't access, as going to the notifications page results in a 50x error every time.

Has anyone else encountered this, or know of a fix?

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This seems related to having left a comment, that got replied to, on a post that Kbin sees as "deleted_by_author" - after deletion, no comments are visible on the Kbin post.

The original post on Lemmy appears intact, while the version on Kbin is empty. Navigating to my own comment there is a blank result, but if I navigate via the 'reply' function it's still available.

If Kbin is trying to load a reply it also believes does not exist, that may be breaking things - but it leaves my notification box permanently broken because there's no way to 'clear' that paradox post from the listing.

Coffee News from July 2023

#Specialty News & Events

Sprudge: Estimates say $450 Million in Annual Investments needed for coffee’s long-term survival.

This is per this report from World Coffee Research, who are estimating the total costs for successful projects to conserve coffee’s indigenous biodiversity and to support coffee farmers adapting to climate change. Current investment is about $115M, mainly sourced from Public Sector funding.

Roaster of the Year underway

Roast Magazine’s “Roaster of the Year” competition applications closed July 26.

Good luck to all applicants; this is generally the preeminent annual roasting competition for the worlds’ coffee roasters, and competition is stiff each and every year. The race to select 2024’s best roasters should be just as heated.

US Coffee Champs announces qualifier circuit locations for 2024.

Pretty much like the title says - regional qualifier dates & hosts have been announced on the Coffee Championships website. Some big names hosting - and a few hosts in there that I’ve never heard of.

NCA calls for submissions

The National Coffee Association is calling for presenter and program applications for the 2024 NCA Educational Program.

The NCA’s 2024 convention will be taking place March 7 - 9, 2024 in Nashville, TN. This is one of the larger coffee events not strictly within the SCA umbrella, and the 2024 event is themed around “fuelling the future” - a look forward in the industry.

California Energy Commission provides $1.8M grant towards Bellwether Purchases

Per Daily Coffee News, it’s reported that Red Bay and Heirloom coffee received a total of $1.8 million towards the purchase of 24 new Bellwether machines to replace traditional natural gas roasters, as part of incentive programs towards phasing out gas.

Personal commentary - that money would have been far more efficiently spent simply buying conventional electric roasters. Both by the roasters and by the grant organization. Spending money on multiple small-capacity roasters instead of a few large capacity roasters is always inefficient, and Bellwether even more so their whole gimmick is adding a lot of VC techbro bullshit on top of a relatively small-capacity electric roaster.

#Gear

Blue Bottle Kicks

Bit of a stretch as far as “gear,” but New Balance has released Blue Bottle sneakers

Business News

Keurig Dr. Pepper buys minority stake in La Colombe

Like it says on the can, La Colombe is the latest NA Specialty OG to take the bargain with Big Corporate - to the tune of a $300 million cash injection, KDP will own 33% of the company pending regulatory approval. It’s unlikely to be disapproved.

US Coffee Champs qualifier circuit for 2024 has been announced.

Aug 25-27: San Diego, CA, Talitha Coffees – Barista, CIGS
Aug 25-27: Houston, TX, Blendin Coffee Club – Roasters
Sep 1-3: Houston, TX, Luce Coffee Roasters – Barista
Sep 8-10: Tulsa, OK, Origin Coffee Company – Barista, Cup Tasters
Sep 15-17: Newark, NJ, Redhouse Roasters – Latte Art
Sep 29-Oct 1: Kansas City, MO, Messenger Coffee and The Roasterie – Brewers Cup, Roasters, CIGS
Oct 6-8: Raleigh, NC, Black & White Coffee Roasters – Barista, Brewers Cup
Oct 13-15: Essex, VT, Uncommon Coffee – Barista
Oct 13-15: Burlington, VT, Brio Coffeeworks – Cup Tasters
Oct 13-15: Kailua, HI – Hawaii Coffee Association – Brewers Cup, Roasters
Oct 13-15: Dallas, TX, White Rhino Coffee – Latte Art, Cup Tasters
Oct 20-22: Los Angeles, CA, Counter Culture Coffee – Brewers Cup

The Roaster of the Year Award recognizes the top roasters in the world. The competition is fierce and draws applications from every part of the globe.

The competition has two categories:

Micro Roaster Category
Roasters who roast less than 100,000 lbs per year

Macro Roaster Category
Roasters who roast more than 100,000 lbs per year

This is a self-applied competition - roasters interested should apply for and submit themselves, there's not generally a fan write-in category or assessment.

Edited for correction: this is the 2024 competition year, not the 2023. The 2023 competition was decided in December 2022, and chose Rabbit Hole Roasters for micro scale, and Cafe Kreyol for macro scale.

Specialty coffee has it's own wild suite of dogmas and rules; there's all sorts of things we're "supposed" to do - or not. Many of these have all sorts of very good reasons and even some have scientific backing.

But we all have one or two we absolutely deviate from, despite all that. What's yours?

Having just clocked out of a meeting and sprinted like four blocks to go buy a bag of coffee; it got me wondering ... Good coffee can be hard to come by and I'll take for granted a detour that most of the world would see as hilariously unreasonable. Who else?

How far - time or distance - have you gone out of your way just to get that specific cuppa or to pick up beans from a specific company?

Video Description: Just a little fun exploring the unknown (to me, anyway) world of coffee creamers. When did it get so weird?! No links to products on this one, but many thank...

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Our lad James explores coffee creamers.

A summary of some major high points; not comprehensive - but the stories that seemed particularly important.

Specialty Events & News

World of Coffee Athens ran June 22-24; in (unsurprisingly) Athens, Greece.

Winners of Coffee Champs Athens decided

Boram Um of Brazil became the 23rd World Barista Champion - congrats to him! Second ever from South America. 4 days of competition across 127 competitors, the National champions of each participating nation.

Carlos Medina of Chile took the top spot in the World Brewers Cup Championship; Young Baek of Australia is the new World Cup Tasters champion; and Pierre de Chanterac of France won the 2023 Cezve/Ibrik title.

World of Coffee confirms 2024 Dates

Copenhagen, Denmark from 27 to 29 June 2024, Dubai, United Arab Emirates from 21 to 23 January 2024, Busan, Korea from 1 to 4 May 2024.

SCA Expo 2024 booked for Chicago Thu Apr 11th - Sun 14th

https://sprudge.com/coffee-value-assessment-exploring-the-scas-new-tool-for-coffee-evaluation-209528.html

The tool itself was launched in April at Expo Portland, but I think this overview of how the tool functions and some of the intent behind it is a valuable exploration of how and why this works.

New Goods

Cropster BrewBeacon + Cafe

https://www.cropster.com/products/brewbeacon/ & https://www.cropster.com/products/cafe/

Seems like cropster is moving it's tools into brewing spaces; the BrewBeacon is the tool, Cafe is the service - they're both aimed at providing the same analytics and data to a cafe brewing setting as Cropster offers to roasting. Not sure if the payoff is really there, but time will tell.

Fellow Tally / Store page
Scale that auto-calcs ratio and offers several different brewing modes. Ships 7/10. Launched completely normally and without crowdfunding, thankfully.

Aeropress Huge

Aeropress has finally launched the XL, the large version everyone really wanted like five years ago. It has unfortunately got negligible press and seems like it’s probably missed the hype window for this launch to do numbers.

Rancilio Bond Announced

Rancilio announces launch of Rancilio Bond, a commercial grinder that aims to try and cover some of the hassle of dialling in, their first grind-by-weight machine. The sensor and adjustment system is also set up to auto-adjust based on metrics from Rancilio espresso machines with similar sensor and communications systems. Ideally it seems to offer limited auto-dial, if you purchase the package deal.

General News

[Starbucks faces strike over forced removal of pride-related decorations.]
(https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/23/starbucks-strike-pride-decorations-ban)

This winds up being kind of a no-win for Corporate, in that they’re going to get complaints for having pride decor, but get complaints for not having pride decor - but beyond that, like seen in this story, they also need to keep in mind that their staff will overwhelmingly trend in one specific direction on the issue.

Specialty Coffee OG Anodyne bought by FairWave collective, terms seem to include a part-ownership clause for Anodyne leadership as well as assuring autonomy.

Collectivization like this may be a solid way for Specialty companies to compete against the economies of scale that larger chains can muster - but it’s also a step into the Beer direction, where the majority of “independent” small breweries are actually semi-independent subsidiaries of the Big Three of AB InBev, SAB Miller, MolsonCoors.

Where are you located, and who are your go-to success roasters within the area?

What do you like about them - and are there any stand-out offerings you'd recommend?