Backpacker Magazine swears by Via, Starbucks' instant coffee. And there is something to be said for pouring crystals into hot water when you're getting ready to climb the mountain.

But there's also something sweet about a pot of French press coffee in the middle of the forest, and about drinking a pour-over while not surrounded by laptops.

Which camp coffee do you think tastes best?

PHOTO: andypowe11 via Flickr

Issaquah-based Coffee Fest, which holds coffee trade shows all over the country including an annual show in Seattle each year, is battling the Specialty Coffee Association of America's plan to hold its annual convention in Seattle most years over the next decade.

Coffee Fest has hosted a show in Seattle every year for the past 19. Last fall, its show included the Northwest Barista Competition, which is sponsored by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA).

Now SCAA says Seattle looks like a sweet resting spot. After rotating its big annual shindig among various cities, it's looking to settle here in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018, and possibly 2020 and 2021.

Why's that? The president of the SCAA, Peter Giuliano of Counter Culture Coffee in North Carolina, wrote last night on the group's Facebook page that Seattle (the convention center and visitors bureau) has made an attractive offer that would free up time and resources.

"The way things stand now, there are only a handful of cities that can handle our show (our show is unusual; we need to roast and brew coffee for example, and we need a very high ratio of classroom space for all of our educational classes). Cities like New York, D.C., Chicago and San Francisco aren't well suited for us, are super expensive, and frankly aren't that attracted to our event," he wrote.

Coffee Fest is fighting back. Its social media expert sent a letter alerting SCAA members.

"While Coffee Fest certainly doesn't own Seattle, we do object to the SCAA's plan to all but permanently locate here and expect that given the details and facts, you may object too," reads the letter, which launched a spirited discussion at BaristaExchange.com.

The shows cannot be held together, Coffee Fest founder Alan Silverman wrote in that string.

"The problem is we share many of the same vendors and if we split the revenue neither of us come out in the black. That is actually the crux of the problem. Vendors will have to choose which show they will exhibit in because it does not make sense for them to come to the same city twice a year and two years in a row," Silverman wrote.

There's a fair bit of discussion on Barista Magazine's Facebook page, too.

All the recent talk about Costco wanting to kill the state's monopoly on booze sales has some folks fantasizing about coffee cocktails. They're not a new concept, but there is a new coffee drink debuting at STIFF -- Seattle's True Independent Film Festival -- on Friday evening, created by Alex Negranza, a barista at Trabant Coffee & Chai.

Negranza will use a hand-held espresso maker called a MyPressi Twist to make espresso with Dry Fly vodka instead of water. The cocktail also includes Trabant's hibiscus-jalapeno simple syrup*, cilantro, lime and pomegranate juices. I believe that could relax you and wake you up at the same time. And there's a picture by Negranza with a bag of beans from 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters, which supplies Trabant and this particular cocktail.

He, coffee consultant Sarah Dooley and Trabant owner Mike Gregory also will serve herbal tea gin infusions at:

STIFF 2010 Opening Night Party
Friday, June 4, 2010
8:00 p.m. - 11:30 p.m.
Location: pun(c)tuation, 705A E. Pike St., Seattle, WA

The party is free, but the cocktails are only for badge holders -- and you can buy a badge there for $50, which will get you into all STIFF events through June 13, said festival director Clint Berquist.

* If you can't make it to the party but like the sound of hibiscus-jalapeno syrup, Trabant makes an Italian soda using that syrup at its University District location, where it's experimenting with making syrups in-store and at the moment also has ginger, vanilla made with blue agave and Hawaiian sea salt caramel flavors.

Here's the party:

View pun(c)tuation, site of STIFF party in a larger map

Here's the Trabant location with house-made simple syrups:

View Trabant, University District in a larger map

And here's Trabant's other location, in Pioneer Square:

View Trabant, Pioneer Square in a larger map

For 12 more hours, Tee Fury is selling a surreal T-shirt with a coffee theme for $9 plus $2 shipping.

And among the espresso machines on Craigslist is a La Marzocco GS/1 being sold by Barry Hill, who does technical work for Espresso Vivace. It once belonged to Vivace owner David Schomer and "played a role in researching and testing the importance of temperature stability during shot extraction." Besides being a big deal in Vivace and Seattle espresso history, the machine was modified to Schomer's specifications. It's been for sale for at least a month, at $4,500.

The La Marzocco GS/3 recently went on sale for $6,400, I learned yesterday from Coffee Geek Mark Prince, who regularly chats about coffee equipment -- and other things coffee -- on his web site and on Twitter. Customers were steamed two years ago when U.S. distributor Franke debuted the machine at $7,500, after promising $4,500 for two years. Franke left Seattle last summer and is no longer the distributor.

This month, CoffeeGeek.com is donating all the income it generates from links in its holiday gift list to Coffee Kids, a Santa Fe-based non-profit that works with coffee-growing families in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Peru.

CoffeeGeek.com's gift list includes an Aeropress coffee maker ($26), Hario ceramic coffee dripper ($19), Bodum espresso cups (2 for $12.45), Chemex brewer ($28) and David Schomer's book "Espresso Coffee - Professional Techniques" ($45.95).

Seattle-based coffee syrup maker DaVinci Gourmet has contributed more than half a million dollars to Coffee Kids since 2006, making it the Santa Fe-based non-profit's largest annual donor.

Begun in Seattle in 1989, DaVinci was sold in 2003 to a large Ireland-based food and flavoring company called Kerry Group whose U.S. headquarters is in Beloit, Wisc. It still makes its coffee syrups at a 64,000-square-foot facility in South Seattle.

Coffee Kids works with coffee-growing families and says that with support from DaVinci -- along with $100,000 a year from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, plus contributions from award-winning baristas and auctioned espresso machines -- it has expanded its work from eight to 15 partner organizations in five countries (Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Peru).

Highlights of Coffee Kids projects this past year:

• Project to train 2,817 people in Veracruz, Mexico, in aspects of nutrition, herbal medicines and family gardening


• A microcredit and savings project in Nicaragua with 683 people whose savings of $46,660 is used as rotating capital for low-interest loans


• Lessons in chicken production for 177 people in four communities in Chiapas, Mexico; families saved an average of $35 a month eating eggs and meat from their chickens and sold the surplus in local markets


• Building a training center Oaxaca, Mexico, to educate hundreds of families in surrounding coffee communities about sustainable agriculture, growing technologies, and human rights

At Starbucks, they call those Big Hairy Audacious Goals. In this case, the assessment comes from Peter Senge, senior lecturer in the management school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning.

Senge moderated a full-day meeting at Starbucks' headquarters this week of people with the knowledge, interest and (he hopes) means to make enough recyclable paper cups to supply the coffee shop giant, which bought 2.7 billion paper cups last year.

The group of 60 or 70 people included paper pulp and polymer manufacturers, cup makers, academics, NGOs and municipalities, and of course Starbucks officials. The company did not release a list of participants.

"Everybody from Howard Schultz on down acknowledges that this is a huge-stretch goal," Senge said of the chain's intention of having a recyclable cup by 2012. "Frankly, it seems impossible, but that's kind of secondary."

What's more important, he said, is going for it and finding out how much can be achieved.

"In a sense, the cup is an icon," he said. "If Starbucks can do this well, it'll get real attention and build momentum."

There's sun here, which any Seattleite knows is precious this time of year, and I've spent more time near the ocean than looking for good coffee these past couple days.

After a great trip, I'm flying back to Seattle tomorrow. The photo of Redondo Beach kitsch seemed timely after today's pirate news.

MELISSA ALLISON/THE SEATTLE TIMES

Syrups at Inner Chapters Bookstore & Cafe.

There's a bit of middle ground, where even purists fall for Espresso Vivace's Caffe Nico, a sublime 4-ounce mixture of espresso, steamed half and half, orange and vanilla syrups, orange spritz and cinnamon.

Here's a smattering of opinions:

Kent Bakke, CEO of espresso machine maker La Marzocco and co-owner of Claudio Corallo Chocolate in Ballard: "Some people think that milk is already a coffee flavoring.... I personally don't use coffee syrups, but if people are enjoying good coffee with a good syrup, more power to them, because I like people who like coffee. We all start somewhere, and we train our palates for new things."

GREG GILBERT/THE SEATTLE TIMES

Jeff Greiner, Stirling Gourmet Flavors.

Kelli Kirtley, manager of the cafe at Inner Chapters Bookstore & Cafe in Seattle: "It's not what I think about it, but more about what the customers want. Some places carry only vanilla and raspberry."

Ruben Chen, owner of Vince's Coffee Shop in Renton: "The syrup I like the most is white chocolate sauce in a mocha with soy milk. Also peppermint syrup and dark chocolate sauce goes with a breve and is very, very yummy. One more that's new is honey vanilla syrup, and I use that in a honey vanilla macchiato." (I know. I should do a whole post on the Italian versus the Starbucks macchiato.)

Diana Crane, who drinks six cups a day of organic, shade-grown, Fair Trade-certified coffee and works at PCC Natural Markets: "I hardly ever use them because of the calorie content. I see that as just drinking coffee and having it go right to your hips."

Mary Burwell, co-owner of Hammerhead Coffee Roasters in Bellingham: "I put cream or 1 percent milk in drip coffee only. When it comes to lattes and whatnot, I'm a purist.... But if I'm going to have an Italian soda and they have Monin syrups, sign me up."