Episode 032: The One With The Sprudgie Awards Finalists

We are celebrating the finalists in the 2016 Sprudgie Awards.

Notable Roaster

Each year our readers nominate outstanding coffee roasters around the world for the Notable Roaster Sprudgie Award. Unlike many of the other categories, Notable Roaster nominees need not be brands or products that debuted in 2016; rather, we look to this award as a way for our readers to honor coffee roasting companies, big and small, that turned in an especially notable year of work.

This year’s nominees are:

Counter Culture Coffee (Durham, North Carolina)

 

Koppi (Helsingborg, Sweden)

Colonna Coffee (Bath, United Kingdom)

Market Lane Coffee (Melbourne, Australia)

Populace Coffee (Detroit, Michigan)

Starbucks Reserve (Seattle, Washington) 

Best New Cafe

Cafes are the beating heart of coffee culture, and each year we are delighted to see the cafe form grow and morph in new and exciting ways. Our readers have selected a stunning array of new cafes from around the world for this year’s Sprudgie Awards, each of which opened during the past calendar year.

And the nominees are:

La Marzocco Cafe at KEXP (Seattle, Washington)

 

La Fontaine de Belleville (Paris, France)

Tartine Manufactory (San Francisco, California)

Black Fox Coffee (New York City)

Cat & Cloud Coffee (Santa Cruz, California)

All Day MIA (Miami, Florida) 

Best New Product

New products drive innovation in the coffee world, for both consumers and professionals alike. Some of these products live behind the coffee bar, making your experience more delicious one cup at a time. Others are bold, public-facing products that speak directly to consumers.

The nominees for Best New Product in 2016 are:

La Bodega Coffee (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

 

Sudden Coffee (San Francisco, California)

Ona Coffee Distributor (Canberra, Australia)

Third Wave Water (Cedarville, Ohio)

Baratza Sette Grinder (Bellevue, Washington)

Handground Precision Coffee Grinder (Dallas, Texas)

Best Coffee Video / Film

Coffee is a multimedia platform, inspiring expression across a variety of mediums. Each year we honor an excellent coffee video or film as part of our Sprudgie Awards tradition. This year’s nominees include a feature-length film; short promotional videos; a much-discussed speech delivered at a live speaking event; a body of work across an entire YouTube channel; and a coffee-forward dramedy on Netflix.

And the nominees are:

The Coffee Man — Directed by Jeff Hann, produced by Roland Fraval.

 

Stumptown Coffee x Portland Trail Blazers — Directed by Tim Wenzel

@RealChrisBaca on Youtube — Directed and produced by Chris Baca

Dapper & Wise: “Too Full” — Directed by Grahm Doughty

“Coffee I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” — Talor Browne & Tamper Tantrum

“Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life” — From executive producers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino

Best Coffee Writing

Coffee’s relationship to the written word is ever-changing. From professional blogs with an industry focus to irreverent Twitter accounts and landmark expressions of personal experience, this year’s crop of Best Coffee Writing nominations takes all kinds.

And the nominees are:

Matt Perger for Barista Hustle

 

Scott Rao for ScottRao.com/blog

Andy Newbom & Andrew Russo for Coffee Spanish For Coffee Buyers

@ColdBrew420 on Twitter

James Hoffmann for JimSeven.com

Michelle Johnson for The Chocolate Barista: “The Black Cup of Excellence”

Notable Coffee Producer

Without coffee producers, there would be no coffee. Artisan growers are pushing boundaries every day by creating delicious coffees that express terroir and intent in equal measure. This year’s list of nominees includes some familiar names, plus several first-time noms, including our first-ever nominee from Burundi.

Elkin Guzman for Finca El Mirador (Colombia)

Aida Batlle for Aida Batlle Selection (El Salvador)

Benjamin Paz for Beneficio San Vicente (Honduras)

Gilberto Baraona for Finca Los Pirineos (El Salvador)

Angele Ciza and Consolata Ndayishimye for Kahawa Link Company (Burundi)

Jamison Savage and Leslie H. Freitag for Finca Deborah (Panama) 

Best Coffee Magazine

We are currently in a golden age for print coffee magazines, with gorgeous new glossies rubbing shoulders with established favorites. We predict a tough, close vote for this year’s Sprudgie Award for Best Coffee Magazine.

Standart Magazine (Nitra, Slovakia)

Drift (New York, NY)

Barista Magazine (Portland, OR)

Fresh Cup (Portland, OR)

Caffeine Magazine (London, UK)

Brygg (Oslo, Norway) 

Nicest Package

Design and packaging have never been more important to the coffee experience. Each week we feature coffee branding from around the world as part of our Nice Package feature series on Sprudge. This year we’re honoring packaging with the coveted Sprudgie Award for Nicest Package.

Parlor Coffee (Brooklyn, NYC)

Five Elephant (Berlin)

La Cabra (Aarhus, Denmark)

Playground Coffee (Hamburg)

(via Dribble)

Methodical Coffee (Greenville, SC)

(via Packaging of the World)

Square Mile Coffee (London)

Best Coffee Subscription

Each year the field for coffee subscription services becomes more and more crowded, making this particular field of Sprudgie Award noms increasingly essential. Only one of the nominated services can win, but each of the finalists you selected are doing exemplary work for happy subscribers worldwide.

Kaffebox (Oslo, Norway)

 

Mistobox (Phoenix, Arizona)

The Coffeevine (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Barista Hustle Superlatives (Melbourne, Australia)

Collected Coffee (New York, NY)

Bean Portal (Gothenburg, Sweden) 

Best Coffee Podcast

It’s never been a better time to be a coffee podcast lover, with long-running series and newcomers alike vying for ear time on your drive home. That’s why we added this new category to the 2016 Sprudgie Awards. For the first time, here are your nominees for Best Coffee Podcast:

Cat & Cloud Coffee Podcast — Jared Truby and Chris Baca

 

Tamper Tantrum — Stephen Leighton and Colin Harmon, produced by Jenn Rugolo

I Brew My Own Coffee — Brian Beyke and Bryan Schiele

Opposites Extract — Joe Marrocco and Meister, produced by Andy Reiland

Unpacking Coffee — Raymond and Kandace Brigleb

Coffee Awesome —Bjørg Brend Laird

Finest Coffee Event

Another new category for the 2016 Sprudgies, this is an opportunity for our readers to honor unique coffee events around the world. From long-running international affairs to plucky brand new indie fairs, our first-ever field of nominees in this category run the gamut of event experiences. The first set of nominees for Finest Coffee Event are: 

The 2016 SCAA Event — Produced by the Specialty Coffee Association of America

The 2016 London Coffee Festival — Produced by Allegra Events

The 2016 Mid-Atlantic Northeast Coffee Conference (MANE) — produced by Rik Kleinfeldt and New Harvest Coffee Roasters

The 2016 Berlin Coffee Festival —Produced by Cory Andreen and The Berlin Coffee Festival

The 2016 Tokyo Coffee Festival — Produced by Yuji Otsuki and the Tokyo Coffee Festival

Barista Connect London — Produced by Sonja Zweidick and Barista Connect

Outstanding Achievement in The Field of Excellence

The most important Sprudgie Award is the hardest to define—this award is given to groups or individuals our readers seek to honor for their contribution to the wider coffee culture. Past awards have gone to remarkable coffee producers, game-changing green buyers, globe-spanning event organizers, and even an entire nation’s coffee growers. This year we’re overjoyed at the nominees you’ve selected for our Outstanding Achievement in The Field of Excellence. Your nominees are:

Michelle Johnson for The Chocolate Barista

 

Jenn Chen for collected 2016 works

Helen Russell & Brooke McDonald for Equator Coffees

Laila Wilbur and Tracy Ging for The Coffeewoman

Sonja Zweidick for Barista Connect

Erna Knutsen for lifetime contributions to specialty coffee

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