Carrboro Coffee Roasters is featured on Local Food Lab’s blog!
Local Food Lab is a website that helps to support the “good food movement.” By allowing freelancers, students, startups, pop-ups, and other food organizations to create portfolios for their work, Local Food Lab is playing a major part in changing the business of food.
Read their Q&A with Scott and more about our mission to change the coffee industry for the better. We’re very excited to be featured on a site that supports collaboration and creativity in the industry.
Carrboro Coffee Roasters has opened a pop-up coffee bar at Golden Belt, 807 E. Main Street, in Downtown Durham. The new location serves brewed coffee, espresso drinks and other non-caffeinated drinks, Monday through Friday, 8am – 2pm. The pop-up coffee bar will also be used for training and outreach for the Roastery, which supplies coffee to cafés, restaurants and retail locations throughout the region.
“We’re excited to be serving our coffees in Golden Belt,” says Carrboro Coffee President, Scott Conary. “The new location provides us a venue to further educational outreach with our clients on that side of the Triangle and to share our Direct Relationship and other limited edition coffees with those in Downtown Durham, who may not have heard of us yet. The goal of the pop-up is to use the space for immediate outreach and coffee service with an eye toward building out the full-service café Golden Belt deserves.”
Gary Keuber, CEO of Scientific Properties, says “We’re thrilled that Carrboro Coffee Roastery, an operator with great experience and a successful track record, has chosen to open at Golden Belt. The quality of the coffee is second-to-none, and we think it’s a great fit for Downtown Durham’s premier creative business and culture destination.”
Former home to the Golden Belt Manufacturing Company, the historic 160,000 square foot, seven-acre LEED Gold campus in downtown Durham consists of 6 architecturally-significant buildings renovated by Scientific Properties in 2008. The creative mixed-use center houses 37 live/work residential lofts, 35 artist studios, Room 100 gallery, the Cotton Room, as well as retail and office space. Carrboro Coffee Roasters joins retailers such as LabourLove Gallery, Dogstar Tattoo, Hot Yoga of Durham and Moshi Moshi salon at Golden Belt.
The Big Eastern will be held at Golden Belt in downtown Durham January 17-19! For those not in the know, the event features the premier baristas from the entire East Coast (including two of our very own), battling it out for regional bragging rights. Competitors are tested on technical skill as well as knowledge and passion for coffee, in a viewer-friendly way. Attendees will get to sample the drinks prepared by skilled baristas similar to the ones prepared in competition. It’s a free event and open to the public.
Carrboro Coffee, Open Eye Cafe and Caffe Driade will play a major role. CCR will host a pop-up Café in the lobby of Golden Belt, which will serve as a “hands-on” environment for baristas to work with various equipment. We want our pop-up Café to be a place to relax for the barista community where they can interact and learn from one another while enjoying a live stream of the competition upstairs.
Our Open Eye Café baristas & Carrboro Coffee Roastery employees will also take part in The Big Eastern competition in a variety of capacities. Two Open Eye Café baristas, Josh Kimbrough and Miles Murray, will be competing in the Brewer’s Cup and will also be making coffee for spectators on Saturday the 18th, 2-3:30pm. Open Eye Café and Carrboro Coffee Roasters has been involved in the Barista Competitions since 2003 and have had many employees garner top finishes regionally and nationally.
Our own Scott Conary will serve as head judge at The Big Eastern this year. Scott serves as Head Judge and Chair of the SCAA Competitions Committee, and plays an active role in World Coffee Events Instructional Design Committee, where he certifies judges and acts as Head Judge at competitions around the world. Scott has been the only Head Judge from the USA at the World Barista Competition for the past 6 years.
We hope you can all make it out to the Big Eastern this month. And don’t forget to check out all of the events planned around the main competition. Visit http://uscoffeechampionships.org to get the full schedule.
Carrboro Coffee is now available at all three Weaver Street Markets! Join us for free tastings and to pick up some coffee for holiday (and beyond) enjoyment:
Hillsborough: December 14th | 11am – 2 pm
Southern Village: December 21st | 11am – 2pm
Carrboro: January 4th | TBA
We look forward to seeing all of you at these tastings.
*The search for Peru’s best barista took place at the third annual Peru National Barista Championship on November 25-29th in Lima, Peru. As the event’s head judge, Scott spent two days before the competition certifying judges from the country and around the world so they were prepared to correctly assess the champion who will go on to represent Peru in the World Barista Championship, to be held in Rimini, Italy this June. Now in its 13th year, the World Barista Championship is considered the most prestigious coffee-making competition in the world and has even been called the “Olympics of Coffee.” For photos of Scott at the Peru National Barista Championship, click here.
*CCR held a special event, the Evening at La Providencia, at Open Eye Cafe last month introducing two products crafted from a new partnership with two great local businesses. The La Providencia Oatmeal Stout from Steel String Brewery and La Providencia Coffee Ice Cream from Tar Heel Creamery are two new, locally sourced products made with CCR’s La Providencia coffee. To introduce the new partnership, the three businesses introduced their creations at Open Eye Cafe and then infused all three to make one tasty adult treat–The Triple Threat Float. Look out for Tar Heel Creamery’s new ice cream this spring and get ready for more CCR coffee in your Steel String beer this season. For photos of the event, click here.
*CCR was proud to host the eighth annual Carrboro Film Festival’s after-party at Open Eye Cafe. Filmmakers and attendees gathered to celebrate another successful year. This year’s festival hosted more than 700 people and screened a record 73 short and feature-length movies.
*Carrboro Coffee was a featured partner at the Elaine’s Bastianich Winery dinner earlier this month. We got lots of great feedback and plan on working more with Chef Bret and his restaurant in the future.
*Look out for Carrboro Coffee at the Farm to Fork Meat Learning Center grand opening on November 9th from 10 am -1 pm. Enjoy a sampling of our coffees along with local meat, fruits, veggies and other farm products and learn more about how to have these items delivered to your home regularly. For more information, visit www.farmtoforkmeat.com.
*We’ve provided a Rwanda field report for Barista Magazine! Be sure to pick us up in their October/November issue.
*We’re pleased to announce our new partnership with Tar Heel Creamery in Hillsborough! Look out for Carrboro Coffee in their ice cream soon.
Scott Conary, Green Coffee Buyer for Carrboro Coffee Roasters, is in Minas Gerais, Brasil for International Coffee Week. Minas Gerais is the largest coffee producing state in Brasil (25% of coffee consumed worldwide) and is hosting the event at the Expominas Convention Center in Belo Horizonte from September 9-12. The event will house the 50th Anniversary Reunion of the International Coffee Organization (ICO), as well as Espaço Café Brasil, which is the largest coffee event in Latin America. Scott will be attending conferences, barista competitions, lectures, workshops and seminars throughout the week.
As a green coffee buyer, Scott will also connect with farmers to develop the micro-lot focus in the country in order to obtain the best quality coffees. As a WCE Head Judge and Instructor, Scott will be there to work with Q Instructor and WCE National Bodies Coordinator Roukiat Delrue, as well as 2012 WBC Champion Raul Rodas from Guatemala, to coordinate and oversee the Brasil National Barista & Brewers Cup Competitions.
The ICO’s member countries are responsible for 97% of the global production, and for more than 80% of coffee consumption. Ambassadors, ministers, agriculture secretaries, and association representatives from different countries will discuss emerging market trends, improvement of coffee quality, relevant technology for the industry, and financial instruments in order to improve planting and working conditions, among other subjects.
As Latin America’s largest coffee trade fair, Espaço Café Brasil will attract more than 6500 visitors to see more than 100 exhibiting companies presenting new product launches and market trends.We are excited to hear about Scott’s adventures in Brasil and will share the stories with you when he gets back.
In the News:Carrboro Coffee Roasters popped up in several publications this month. Congrats to our award-winning roasters and Open Eye Cafe for getting so much attention around the world!
*Following up our second place win at the Karnataka Plantation Indian Coffee Challenge, ROAST Magazine profiled CCR. We learned a lot at this contest and are excited to bring the new knowledge back to our community here in Carrboro.
CCR Around the World:CCR is roaming the globe to pick up all the knowledge we can about new coffee sources. We’re participating and judging a couple of contests in the coming months and are excited to share stories from our recent travels.
*CCR headed to Guatemala to check out new coffee sourcing and we built some new relationships along the way.
*In Rwanda, we judged the Cup of Excellence and looked into some potential new coffee sources. Great country, great coffee, and great people.
*We’re heading to Brazil this September for a micro-lot convention and a barista competition. Wish us luck! We can’t wait to share the adventure.
CCR at Home:We may be busy traveling but that doesn’t mean we’re not busy at home. Here are some things you can look forward to this fall.
*Carrboro Coffee Roasters Single origin coffee (La Buena, Nicaragua) as espresso and pour over at Open Eye Cafe.
*Named as one of the “10 Southern Food Festivals You Need to Taste” by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the TerraVITA Festival is back for a fourth season and kicks off on October 10th. You can catch us at the festivities! For more details and tickets, visit the TerraVITA website.
* We were just notified that we came in a close 2nd place in the 2013 India Karnataka Coffee Challenge! Credit goes to James Barbour and the staff for making this happen. Nice to have outside proof of good roasting happening! We are looking forward to sharing some of the 2nd place “coffee prize” with everyone!
* We are partnering with local label Yep Roc to offer coffee to those who pre-order the new Mandolin Orange release This Side of Jordan ! Support local music and your local roaster. For more information and to order, click here.
* Some incredible workshops and events this month. Click away for details…
* Open Eye Cafe got a shout out in a recent Fodor’s travel story, Four Perfect Southern Summer Itineraries. Click here to read it.
Carrboro Coffee Roasters has opened a pop-up coffee bar at Golden Belt, 807 E. Main Street, in Downtown Durham. The new location serves brewed coffee, espresso drinks and other non-caffeinated drinks, Monday through Friday, 8am – 2pm. The pop-up coffee bar will also be used for training and outreach for the Roastery, which supplies coffee to cafés, restaurants and retail locations throughout the region.
Gary Keuber, CEO of Scientific Properties, says “We’re thrilled that Carrboro Coffee Roastery, an operator with great experience and a successful track record, has chosen to open at Golden Belt. The quality of the coffee is second-to-none, and we think it’s a great fit for Downtown Durham’s premier creative business and culture destination.”
* We were just notified that we came in a close 2nd place in the 2013 India Karnataka Coffee Challenge! Credit goes to James Barbour and the staff for making this happen. Nice to have outside proof of good roasting happening! We are looking forward to sharing some of the 2nd place “coffee prize” with everyone!
