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Tom's Guide
01-07-2025
- Business
- Tom's Guide
Sage's latest release is the drip coffee maker we've all been waiting for, and it's only £249
Sage is the king of the U.K. coffee scene, and while it's best known for its espresso machines, the brand also offers a number of excellent drip machines which make refined pour-over, and come at a comparatively affordable price. Perhaps Sage's best-known drip coffee maker is the Precision Brewer, and eight years after its initial release, Sage has given it a well-deserved upgrade. Meet The Luxe Brewer. Retailing at £249, the Luxe Brewer features a range of new features including a strong brew and even cold brew concentrate setting, but the feature I'm most excited about is its removable water tank. Users of the original Precision Brewer will know that it can be annoying to have to use a jug to top up your coffee maker, so this simple update will make an instant difference to the user experience. The next generation of Sage's Precision Brewer, the Luxe Brewer features SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) Golden Cup standards and offers versatile brewing options, including Cold Brew and even Custom settings. The Luxe Brewer already launched in the U.S., where it has both a thermal jug and a glass carafe. This U.K. launch is called the Luxe Brewer Thermal, offering a double-walled carafe that will insulate your coffee for four hours without any additional heat. Which is better for flavour, as hot plates can degrade the taste of your brew. Carafe aside, Sage has added a jazzed-up new interface to the Luxe Brewer, which allows you to tweak your bloom volume, bloom time, brew temperature and flow rate for full control of your coffee. There's also a range of pre-set modes: Gold Cup Standard and even Cold Brew. I don't know about you, but it's been a few weeks since I touched a hot coffee, so the addition of a cold brew setting is very welcome! Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. We'll be testing the new Sage Luxe Brewer in the weeks to come, but in the meantime you can buy it direct from Sage for £249. That's actually less than the OG Precision Brewer, which sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
WIRED
28-06-2025
- Business
- WIRED
Breville's Luxe Brews Great Drip Coffee—and Makes Real-Deal Cold Brew
The new Breville Luxe Brewer is designed for hot coffee. It makes excellent, subtle, hot drip coffee. But it also does something that almost no other fancy coffee maker on the market achieves. It makes real cold brew coffee—the sweet and gentle stuff, the cool elixir of smooth summers and milky heaven. The Luxe is part of a new generation of drip coffee makers that has helped transform drip coffee from bitter office fuel into a subject for connoisseurship. The Luxe's predecessor, the Precision Brewer, was one of only a handful certified by the Specialty Coffee Association to brew drip coffee according to narrow benchmarks on temperature and extraction. The Luxe, though not yet certified, brews according to these same exacting criteria. The Luxe achieves this feat through a whole lot of technical sophistication. This means PID temperature controllers, tightly controlled flow rates, programmable algorithms for different water volumes, and the same thermocoil heating technology and pump you'd use to make espresso. But the Luxe makes cold brew, blessedly, by leaving it alone. Real cold brew is made only with coffee, water, and time. Messing with this formula, or hurrying it up, never quite gives you the real thing. The Luxe gives you the real thing—holding room-temp water and coffee grounds in suspension for as long as 24 hours before releasing it into a waiting carafe. In a world of coffee makers desperate to screw up cold brew, leaving it alone amounts to wild innovation. I haven't seen this function in any coffee maker not made by Breville. The device isn't perfect, of course. There are some quirks. But the Luxe is an impressive machine that keeps Breville in the conversation when it comes to the best drip coffee devices out there. The Fast Drip Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Before we return to cold brew, let's talk drip coffee. It's good. The Luxe is a handsome device, and also a big one: It makes 12 cups of coffee in a batch, as big as the biggest office brewers but much more gentle and precise in how it brews big-batch coffee. The device is programmable in most of its particulars. By clicking the settings option, coffee geeks are free to create their own custom criteria, modulating the brew temp to an accuracy of a single degree. Other settings adjust the size and time of a pour-over-style bloom, and the flow rate of coffee through a shower-style brew head. But most people won't bother. If you press the 'brew' button, the device will sense the amount of water in the removable water reservoir and brew accordingly. For small-batch coffee below 20 ounces, you'll use a conical basket insert and conical paper filters. For larger batches, you'll use flat-bottom filters and the default flat-bottom brewing basket.
South China Morning Post
23-06-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Coffee revolution brewing to meet Asia's growing demand
When Stuart Wee entered the coffee industry, he did so to fix what he saw as a fatal flaw in speciality coffee shops, mainly, that 'they don't seem very special any more'. Advertisement Today, the co-founder of Singapore's immersive Restaurant Absurdities and its minimalistic Asylum Coffeehouse has adopted a strategy of quality and innovation, going so far as to spend two years developing his own roast using a cutting-edge, low-energy digital roaster from Taiwanese company Rubasse. A barista makes latte art at Singapore's Asylum Coffeehouse. Photo: courtesy Asylum Coffeehouse 'Speciality coffee is still a niche product,' says Wee, 'so the challenge is to get the customer to try new products that aren't just high-volume milk-based ones.' That there's a demand for such innovation in coffee is hardly surprising. Many markets within the Asia-Pacific region are relatively mature, driving demand for new offerings, but the region is also set to become the fastest-growing coffee market in the world over the next few years, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 5.2 per cent, almost twice that of other regions, according to Mordor Intelligence market research. Last year, the Specialty Coffee Association held the inaugural World of Coffee Asia convention in Busan, South Korea, while the second edition took place in Jakarta, Indonesia, last month. Advertisement The Asia-Pacific region is home to a large cohort of young consumers with high disposable incomes, for whom, says Wee, 'coffee is increasingly seen not just as a treat but as an image product that appeals to the region's growing middle and upper-middle classes. This is why there's so much more choice in coffee now'.
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
High-Impact Workshops and Lecture Series Announced for World of Coffee Geneva 2025
Actionable Learning Opportunities Focus on the Specialty Coffee Value Chain GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / / June 16, 2025 / The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is proud to unveil the education program at World of Coffee Geneva, taking place June 26-28, 2025, at Palexpo SA. Over 60 free lectures and 25 hands-on workshops empower professionals across the specialty coffee value chain and provide the tools and knowledge they need to innovate, adapt, and lead in the global coffee industry. "This year's education program is all about practical, forward-thinking learning that meets the moment," said Kim Elena Ionescu, Chief Strategy & Insights Officer at the SCA. "Our Lecture Series, which is free of charge to attendees, is designed to inform, inspire, and connect the global coffee community, while our fee-based workshops offer a deeper dive into key topics and skills that complement SCA's certificate programs."Early registration for the World of Coffee Geneva Workshops is strongly encouraged. The 25, 2.5-3.5 hours workshops include the following: Thursday, June 26, 2025 Crafting Connections: A Market-Readiness Workshop for Green Coffee Producers & Exporters Regenerative Thinking: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Specialty Coffee Crafting Exceptional and Sustainable Coffee Blends Hiring and Training: Building Strong Foundations for a Growing Team Your Coffee Data Made Easy: Build your Business Intelligence Dashboard for Better Decisions Beyond the Beans: How to Craft Stories to Connect with Your Buyer Boost Your Social Ventures: Sustainable Project Funding through Crowdfunding Sensory Training: Unlocking Coffee's Full Potential Friday, June 27, 2025 Mastering Sensory Skills: A Hands-On Approach to Specialty Coffee Evaluation Taste with Your Eyes: How Color Impacts Flavor (and Willingness to Pay?) The Evolution of Coffee Brewing: Geography, Flavor, and Culture Taste, Describe, Create: Applying the CVA Descriptive Form to Coffee Blend Creation Coffee Business Growth Masterclass: Navigating Consolidation with Strategic Action Savoring Diversity: A Workshop on Coffee Species Genetics and Flavor Exploration Building your Own Pricing Impact Assessment to Support Smallholder Livelihoods Where Did That Charge Come From? A Roaster's Guide to Coffee Costs Saturday, June 28, 2025 Fundamentals of Green Coffee Buying Level Up Your Leadership: Management for Multi-Site Operators Infused at Origin: Understanding and Experiencing Infused Coffees The World of Coffee Geneva complimentary Lecture Series will explore urgent and emerging topics across three thematic tracks: Science, Business, and Sustainability. Science sessions include a diverse range of topics exploring chemistry, sensory qualities, and innovations in coffee research. These sessions are: Unraveling Cup Quality of Wild Varieties and Half-Wild Hybrids Conserved at the Coffee Genebank by the Agronomic Institute (IAC) in Brazil; Electrochemical Measurement and Modification of Coffee; Past, Present, and Future of Cupping; Impact of Decaffeination on Coffee Quality - A Chemistry Perspective; Sensory and Chemical Impact of the Presence of Black and Sour Physical Defects; Hot & Cold Value Assessment: Comparative Sensory Profiling of Cold, Hot, and Gentle Brewed Coffees Using Descriptive Techniques; An Exploration of Coffee Brewing Habits Through Netnography and Means-End Chain Analysis; Exploring the Impact of Nitrogen Injection on Cold Brew Quality: Extraction Levels, Caffeine, and Chlorogenic Acid Concentration; and Exploring Coffee Acidity: A Flavoromics Perspective. Business sessions include a variety of topics that address both the current landscape and future direction of the specialty coffee industry. These sessions are: What is Specialty Coffee?; Coffee Consolidations: Smart Strategies for Small Companies to Scale Up (ver. 2.0); Staying Ahead of the Curve: Leveraging Coffee Industry Trends for Success; The Great Coffee Price Breakaway; Building Customer Loyalty: Lessons From Scaling Nairobi's First Specialty Coffee Subscription Service; Global Coffee Supply Chain: Overcoming Logistics Disruptions; Global Trends in Specialty Coffee: How Shops Around the World Engage Consumers Through Design, Experience, and Communication; and The Evolution of Coffee Culture in Ukraine: Challenges, Adaptation, and Future Prospects. Sustainable sessions include a range of impactful topics focused on environmental responsibility, social equity, and collaborative strategies within the coffee industry. These sessions are: Results from the Latin America Coffee Carbon Footprint Baseline Study and the Impact of Industry-Wide Collaboration for Carbon Footprint Baselining; Circular Economy and Regenerative Agriculture: Toward Living and Prosperous Incomes; The Role of Women in the Sustainable Development of the Coffee Industry: The Case of Rebuild Women's Hope Cooperative in the Democratic Republic of Congo; Carbon Footprint in Brazilian Coffee: Measurement and Reduction Strategies; Toward Equitable Compliance: Making Mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence Work for All; Closing the Living Income Gap: Collaborating on Prices, Efficiency, and Value Distribution in the Honduran Coffee Sector; and Agroforestry Coffee and Participatory Guarantee Systems Initiatives: How the Slow Food Coffee Coalition Members Build an International Network Based on Biodiversity, Transparency, and Collaboration. To view the full education schedule and register, visit of Coffee Geneva is Europe's largest international specialty coffee trade show, anticipating approximately 13,000 professionals from 160+ countries. With approximately 450 exhibiting companies, the event offers unparalleled opportunities to showcase products, network with industry leaders, and access qualified global coffee buyers-25% of whom plan to invest over $1 million this year. Event sponsors include Host Sponsor: BWT water+more; Platinum Sponsor: Barista Attitude; Diamond Sponsor: Nestlé Professional; and Gold Sponsor: Alpro. The Portrait Country: Café de Colombia, will feature exclusive cultural activations and a pop-up café experience Registration for World of Coffee Geneva 2025 is now open at SCA members receive exclusive registration discounts. Interested in exhibiting or sponsorship? Contact Margaret Andreucetti at margareta@ or sponsorships@ Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is the largest global coffee trade association dedicated to making coffee better by fostering a global coffee community and supporting initiatives that drive specialty coffee as a thriving, equitable, and sustainable industry. Through collaboration and progressive approaches, the SCA supports the industry through research, standards, education, and events. Working worldwide, the SCA elevates coffee quality standards while connecting a growing global community. Learn more at or follow @specialtycoffeeassociation on social media. # # # For further information, contact:Amy Riemer, Communications Director978-502-4895 (mobile)amy@ SOURCE: World of Coffee View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Mint
29-04-2025
- Health
- Mint
The Bengaluru coffee brand serving an environment-friendly cuppa
Of all the factors that have contributed to Dr Arshiya Bose's most recent achievement, a bout of allergy might seem the most bizarre. Bose, 42, is the founder of Black Baza Coffee Co., a grassroots organisation with biodiversity-friendly brews that benefit the producers and the environment. Earlier this month, the Bengaluru-based company won the prestigious Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) Sustainability Award in the for-profit category—the first Indian coffee company to do so. Based in California, USA, SCA is considered the largest global coffee trade association and encourages sustainable practices across the speciality coffee value chain. To think none of this would have happened if a brutal allergy attack hadn't changed the trajectory of Bose's PhD research. In the summer of 2010, Bose was a PhD candidate at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, looking to explore community-based conservation efforts in Spiti Valley, Himachal Pradesh. But one morning, she woke up with a swollen throat in the throes of an allergy attack that required immediate medical attention. "I needed to be ten minutes away from a hospital in case this happened again," shares Bose. She said goodbye to the high altitudes of Spiti and changed her research topic altogether. As a trained human geographer with a keen interest in community-based conservation, Bose then chose to focus on understanding how incentivising conservation efforts encourages better practices for land use. Zooming in on coffee farms in Kodagu, Karnataka, for her research, Bose compared farms that obtained the Rainforest Alliance (RA) Certification, a global environmental certification program for sustainability in agriculture, with farms that were not certified. Her goal was to understand if the certification process benefited farmers and led to on-ground biodiversity conservation measures. "Coffee provides the right canvas to examine these intricacies. It's widely consumed, but it is also a premium product like chocolate, and there is a growing interest in where the coffee is coming from and how it's grown," she says. Her research revealed that such certification programs are often designed with large coffee producing countries, like Brazil and Colombia, in mind. 'India's coffee comes from farms that are ecologically different. Thus, conservation approaches as well as certifications need to be relevant to our farms," says Bose. 'As we don't have rain throughout the year, coffee was largely grown under the shade of trees with their canopies protecting these crops from hot and dry conditions," shares Bose. Chennai's M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation discovered when British colonisers cleared forests to plant coffee for commercial consumption, it encouraged monocropping and increased yields by growing it under the sun. Bose realised not only did this impact coffee quality, but also depleted biodiversity. To counter this and fill the gap between certifications tailored for the West and on-ground production practices unique to India, she set up Black Baza Coffee Co. in 2016. Single-origin, roasted in small batches and grown in the shade of native trees, like Ficus, Jamun and Terminalia, without pesticides and chemical inputs, a cup of coffee from Black Baza is many things. Bose primarily works with smallholder farmers who cultivate coffee on the edge of forests. 'The average land holding is anywhere between half an acre to two acres of land," she shares. In the Biligirirangana Hills (BR Hills), Karnataka, they work with the indigenous Soliga community to source their coffee. In Nilgiris, the company partners with Aadhimalai Pazhangudiyinar Producer Company Limited, which sources forest and agricultural products from indigenous communities in the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve. In Tamil Nadu's Palani Hills, Black Baza sources coffee from a group of smallholder, marginal farmers. They continuously monitor the biodiversity in these farms, documenting the avian, mammal and other species that frequent them. "For example, in the Palani Hills, having gaurs in and around the farmlands is a good indicator of a healthy ecosystem, whereas in the BR Hills, they look for smaller creatures like bees, earthworms and termites," explains Bose. The enterprise features nine high-altitude Arabicas, two mid and low-elevation Robustas and two Arabica-Robusta blends from 650 smallholder and marginal farmers across the Western Ghats of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala on its website, The Galaxy Frog, for example, is a medium roast arabica that tastes of molasses, green grapes and lemon zest and the Luna is a sun-dried robusta with notes of dark chocolate, spice and tobacco. Annually, Indians consume about 91,000 tonnes of coffee, as per the Ministry of Commerce. With an emphasis on terroir and unique flavour profiles, consumers are now zooming in on where the beans come from. Increasing demand for specialty coffee is a key trend shaping India's coffee industry, notes the market research organisation, Custom Market Insights. Additionally, with increasing pressures of climate change, regenerative methods of cultivating coffee are gaining attention across farms. 'But for many smallholder farmers, these practices are a part of their processes for generations," shares Bose. In India, coffee growers like Balmaadi in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, cultivate it under the canopy of native trees. Specialty coffee company ARAKU Coffee also focuses on regenerative cultivation methods and empowering smallholder, indigenous farmers in Araku Valley, Andhra Pradesh. Founder & President of Bengaluru-based coffee consulting laboratory Coffeelab Ltd., Sunalini Menon, shares that the award is a special moment for India's coffee landscape. Menon was recently appointed to the SCA Board of Directors, the first time that a coffee expert from the country has joined the Board. She says, 'India's signature feature is coffee grown under the shade of trees. I have been to so many countries and have never seen the extent of plant diversity one observes on Indian coffee farms. It's not just the trees; so many floral and faunal species co-exist with coffee plants, and all of these add value to the environment and the coffee beans. Sustainability and biodiversity are an integral part of India's coffee-growing culture, and an Indian company receiving this award is extremely valid. We deserve it." Sharmila Vaidyanathan is a freelance writer from Bengaluru.
