Kraft Foods said Starbucks will have to pay if it wants to back out of a partnership in which Kraft distributes the coffee company's packaged coffee and other products to grocery stores.

Their corporate agreement is "perpetual," Kraft said in a release Thursday, and requires Starbucks to pay fair market value and possibly a premium if it backs away. The business has grown to $500 million in annual sales from $50 million 12 years ago, Tim McLevish, Kraft's chief financial officer, told investors during a quarterly conference call with investors, AP reported.

Kraft was responding to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's announcement earlier in the day that the coffee chain is ending its 12-year partnership with Kraft.

"A month ago, we informed Kraft that we plan to discontinue our distribution arrangement," Schultz told analysts during its call with analysts regarding strong fourth-quarter profits (which some take as another sign of economic recovery).

After Kraft's volley, Starbucks issued a release saying Kraft mischaracterized the agreement, including its term. "It has been, and continues to be, our intention to keep these conversations private. There is a specific mechanism within the agreement for the resolution of disputes. As we said in our earnings call, we will ensure that our mutual customers remain well-served," Starbucks said.

In other coffee news, before I disappear on assignment until Thanksgiving:

• Starbucks opened its first Central American coffee shop this week, in El Salvador.
• Synesso said its digital shot timer was a big hit at Coffee Fest. Most cafes use a free-standing timer if their machines don't have a shot-timing system, Synesso's Sandy Schneiter explained to me. A timer that's integrated into the machine, like Synesso's starts and stops when the shot is being pulled.
• Dillanos Coffee Roasters was named macro roaster of the year by Roast Magazine. The Sumner-based company, owned by David Morris, Chris Heyer and Howard Heyer, has 68 employees and roasts more than 3.2 million pounds a year. (Conscious Coffees in Boulder was named micro roaster of the year.)
• Watertown Coffee closed, but no one seems to know the details and I haven't reached the owners. Can anyone shed light on that sad event? They were apparently at Coffee Fest (per this Sprudge.com post), but I missed them. And I miss them.

Coffee Fest's Seattle show opened today and runs through Sunday at the convention center downtown. There are about 300 exhibitors and so far almost 6,000 people registered to attend, organizers said.

The trade show includes lots of coffee beans, syrups and equipment. Here are a few pictures, starting with Zachary Carlsen and Jordan Michelman, who write the mostly indie coffee web site Sprudge.com. When they're not writing hilariously snarky headlines, telling you where the Coffee Fest after-parties are, and reporting on important issues like the questions surrounding a high-scoring entry in this year's Cup of Excellence competition in Colombia, Carlsen works at Four Barrel Coffee in San Francisco, which doesn't allow WiFi and as a result is a boisterous cafe, he said.

"Laptops have killed coffee shops, turned them into libraries," Carlsen said.

"Laptops and smoking bans," added Michelman, a Seattle musician who writes songs and plays guitar in the Mill Kids, and plays sax, keyboards and other instruments for Iji and Megabog.

One of Sprudge.com's sponsors is Espresso Parts in Olympia, which revamps old La Marzocco and other espresso machines. "They're the classic cars of the coffee world," say the Sprudge guys. The Espresso Parts booth had a cool old garage feel:

The booth next door was La Marzocco itself, with a new machine called the Strada. There are two types of Strada -- one that's still in production and this one, the MP, that began shipping a few months ago. The very first MP machine went to Stumptown's newly remodeled store on Division Street in Portland. "It's great," said Stumptown roaster Adam Koehler.

• Standard & Poor's Ratings Services upgraded Starbucks' debt to BBB+ from BBB -- which is just below A -- this week, MarketWatch.com reported. S&P expects sustained strength through the end of the year, tempered by weak revenue growth in the sluggish U.S. economy. S&P rates debt, not stock, and did not cover itself in glory in the run-up to the recession, but they're almost all we have.
• The Wall Street Journal takes a look at equipment for making cold coffee.
• The Korea Times goes after Starbucks for using so many disposable cups (it says 4 billion a year; Starbucks has said 3 billion) and not putting calorie counts on its Korean menus. Meanwhile, The New York Times points out the eco-unfriendliness of those single-use coffee pods from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters of Vermont. The pods, also called K-Cups, are neither recyclable nor biodegradable.
• The San Jose company mypressi, which makes a hand-held, manual espresso maker called the mypressi TWIST that's popular with baristas, has created a program through which anyone who buys a $189 TWIST can pay $10 more to donate a TWIST to a coffee farmer. A big problem for some small-scale coffee farmers is that they don't have the equipment to taste their own coffee, and thereby improve it and market it to high-end coffee clients. Mypressi's web site has more information about the "Give One, Get One" program.
• Albert Barrientos, a 65-year veteran of the coffee industry, died in New Orleans last week. He retired in 2005 after a long career with Westfeldt Brothers, which bills itself as the oldest green coffee importer in the U.S. He had been president of the Green Coffee Association of New Orleans, the New Orleans Board of Trade and The Southern Coffee Association, as well as a board member of the National Coffee Association and chairman of its Armed Services Committee (who knew?).
• Finally, StarbucksGossip.com dug up an interesting press release about Starbucks' 2007 effort to partner with Apple in offering iTunes to coffee shop customers across the country. It fizzled, and this fall Starbucks plans to unveil a similar but expanded home-page feature for its WiFi customers in partnership with Yahoo.

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.

Watch live video from usbcscaa on Justin.tvWhoever wins this weekend will represent the U.S. at the World Barista Championship in London in June. The U.S. has yet to win the world championship, which last year went to Gwilym Davies, the London barista whose disloyalty card inspired Sarah Dooley to start one in Seattle.

Preliminary competitions begin today for the U.S. Barista Championship, which is part of an annual coffee trade show by the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Justin.tv and Seattle-based Sprudge.com are covering the show, which typically includes great video of latte art and other barista skills. Winners of regional barista competitions get to skip to the semi-finals, which happen on Saturday, and finals are Sunday. The Northwest regional rep this year is Andrew Milstead of Urban Coffee Lounge in Kirkland (also on the disloyalty card, by the way). He actually took second place in the Northwest this year, but top winner Billy Wilson bowed out. Wilson recently opened a shop in Portland called Barista -- or BARISTA -- where the Northwest's third-place winner, Laila Ghambari, works. She used to be at Urban Coffee Lounge in Kirkland and is competing in Anaheim, too.

Other folks at the coffee show include Seattle-based (but Italy-made) equipment maker La Marzocco, which will let baristas try out its Strada espresso machine, which has not officially launched. The Strada lets baristas adjust water pressure, which sounds like the Seattle-based Slayer to me, but I'll do a longer post later explaining differences.

Coffee Kids, a non-profit based in Santa Fe that works to help coffee-growing families, is holding a contest you can enter online until 5 p.m. Saturday. Entry comes with a donation, and first prize is a Behmor 1600 one-pound coffee roaster donated by Behmor, of Nevada, plus a Mypressi Handheld Espresso Machine -- also known as the Twist from Mypressi -- and $25 worth of free coffee from Visions Espresso Service of Seattle. That's where Sarah Dooley (of the disloyalty card) used to work. Sometimes you need a flow chart to grock the coffee connections.

Update: That video stream is spotty. It cut out this morning just as Ghambari was about to compete. An alternative is Twitter -- folks following it listed here -- although no one appears to be tweeting this morning's event.

Update Sunday: Mike Phillips of Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea -- the guy who paid his own way to last year's U.S. Barista Championship in Portland -- won the U.S. title today for the second year in a row. Three of the six finalists were from Chicago-based Intelligentsia, which resembles the Yankees a lot more than its hometown Cubs.

When VoVito Caffe & Gelato opens at The Bravern in June, it will boast the area's third and fourth Slayer espresso machines. Like a lot of espresso machines, the Slayer is made in Seattle. Unlike a lot of them, it gives baristas more control over water pressure in pulling shots, which means the water can spend more time creating flavor with the coffee grounds.

There are Slayers in New York City and in Canada. But around here, the only Slayers are at Zoka Coffee Roaster & Tea Co. in Kirkland and -- as of last week -- Equal Exchange Espresso in Ballard Market.

Sam Lewontin (pictured pulling a shot at Equal Exchange) said the Slayer takes about 10 seconds longer per shot, but is great to operate and worth the money -- about $14,000 for two groups, according to its makers. Lewontin said it would be costly and complicated to outfit another machine with the same features, which include excellent temperature regulation and "naked" portafilters that allow baristas to see exactly how the shot is pouring.

He also talked about experimenting with Slayer-brewed BREWED coffee, which is very slow like a pour-over but with the finely ground coffee of an espresso shot. The folks at Slayer say that's something VoVito plans to offer.

VoVito, owned by Ariff and Shairose Gulamani, is the coffee shop The Bravern has sought since opening without one last year. "It'll be something very, very special for Bellevue, and very special for The Bravern," said Tom Woodworth, senior investment director for Bravern developer Schnitzer West.

It will occupy 2,444 square feet just off a 110th Avenue entrance near the outdoor fireplace and, as the name implies, sell gelato as well.

More about VoVito later. For now, here's where you can try espresso from the new (and second local) Slayer at Equal Exchange Espresso:

View Equal Exchange Espresso in a larger map

Now that Portland-based Stumptown is roasting coffee in Red Hook and serving it in Manhattan, and Blue Bottle Coffee of San Francisco is getting ready to roast and brew in Williamsburg, doesn't it seem like time for Seattle to represent in the Big Apple?

The city is definitely open to West Coast coffee. New York magazine ran a profile of Stumptown founder Duane Sorenson last year with the headline "The Messiah Hails from Portland."

And today's New York Daily News says, "The anticipation for Blue Bottle was only matched in New York by the excitement surrounding the opening of Stumptown, which imported much of its tattooed staff from its other cafes -- not surprising, since each barista has to go through rigorous training."

Blue Bottle is known for the pour-over, which is essentially hot water hand poured over coffee grounds in a ceramic filter, but involves more technique than it might seem and can produce a great cup of coffee. People have used them on camping trips for ages, and they're a growing trend at upscale coffeehouses.

Thanks to coffee obsessive James Rodewald for the photo from the soon-to-open Blue Bottle in Williamsburg. It's a 1970s La San Marco Leva that will be used for single-origin espressos -- another trend that's developing as coffee drinkers get in closer touch with their beans and the people who grow them.

Any ideas about who from Seattle will be the first to roast in New York?

Seattle architect Bill Fuller contacted me to say that the launch of this area's first coffee cart at the Edmonds Art Festival in 1979 was not the country's first cart, as folks in Seattle had thought.

A year earlier, a cart Fuller designed in southern California began appearing at private parties around Los Angeles. He was a recent architect grad from Cal Poly in 1977, when his friend Arlene Golant, who taught art there, asked him about designing a portable cart for her espresso machine.

"I didn't know what espresso was," he said. But he kept an article about the cart -- called Cafe Express -- that was written by Rochelle Reed, possibly for New York Magazine's "New West" edition.

Via e-mail today, Golant said she learned about espresso from a San Luis Obispo restaurateur who had a 1950s-vintage machine. "Not being a very good cook, I determined I'd learn everything I could about coffee, and the owner of that restaurant helped me." She also visited a friend in Seattle, artist Barbara Noah, who introduced her to some fine coffee around here.

After Golant moved Los Angeles, her restaurateur friend sold her the machine, which she set up in her studio to serve friends. She got the idea of putting wheels on it when she attended the opening of a Charles and Ray Eames show at UCLA where an espresso machine was set up on a table. She sent a year figuring out the mechanics, then Bill designed it.

Back in 1978, Los Angeles "didn't know what to do with a portable espresso bar," Golant wrote. "When I tried to get a health department license they insisted I be in the same category with 'roach coaches,' which was painful. Couldn't make that work, so I decided to use the carts only to do private parties. I worked with all of LA's best caterers and did some pretty amazing events. There are quite a few mentions in the coverage of film openings and celebrity parties."

Eventually, Cafe Express grew to four carts. Golant left the business in the '90s.

Two of the three guys responsible for the first coffee cart in this area -- and, as far as anyone knows, the country -- are now co-owners of espresso machine maker La Marzocco.

After this morning's story about the lack of coffee carts in Seattle, Jack Kuo at La Marzocco e-mailed this photo of the first appearance of the first espresso cart -- at the 1979 Edmonds Arts Festival. Check out the full story for more about the cart and the guys who created it.

Updated 4:35 p.m: Kuo says you can see the espresso machine that was on the cart (a CMA-made Cafetema) and other antique machines at La Marzocco's new space in Ballard: 1553 NW Ballard Way. "Yup, people stop by all the time but, depending on when, people might not necessarily be fully available," he said.

Update 2/24/2010: Seattle architect Bill Fuller contacted me to say he designed a cart that debuted in L.A. in 1978, and the artist who ran it -- Arlene Golant -- gave details.

Taking the holiday to wrap up loose ends, like:

• The New York Times calls the Seattle-built Slayer espresso machine charismatic and beautiful.


• A reader wants to know where she can find a cup -- not a pound -- of Kona coffee around here. Anyone know?


• Mighty-O Donuts hosts free tours on Thursday and Friday (Feb. 18 and 19) at 10 a.m. Sign up at 2110 N. 55th Street (where the tours are), or 206-547-0335, or info@mightyo.com.


• Lincoln Graham represents Seattle with his photo of a Caffe Ladro barista reflected in an espresso machine at PictoryMag.com (scroll to No. 20).


• Sarah Gilbert at Daily Finance considers how blending coffee and turning up the roaster can save money and hurt flavor.


• Starbucks draws attention from the research firm Morningstar, which gave its debt an A-, and TheStreet.com, which says its stock is overpriced.


• A Starbucks customer with Tourette's syndrome sues for alleged discrimination after an outburst, The Palm Beach Post reports.


• And someone actually writes a blog about putting weird things in coffee -- eggs, curry, salmon cream cheese. There are photos.

Some of the guys who make Slayer espresso machines in Georgetown -- those super dialed-in, $14,000-and-up works of art that let you control everything but the weather outside -- are in New York this week checking out their latest shipment at a new coffee shop in Tribeca called RBC NYC and talking to NBC news.

"Surrealistic!" wrote Eric Perkunder (pictured with Dan Urwiler and Devin Walker pulling espresso shots on the Slayer they designed and built.)

The only Slayer at a coffeehouse in our area is at the new Zoka Coffee in Kirkland. For a while Stumptown Coffee was giving the Slayer at whirl in its roasting room basement at 1115 12th Avenue, but it was gone when I dropped by on Friday.

If I hadn't been writing about Taco Del Mar's bankruptcy, I would have stayed for the 3 p.m. public tasting of Stumptown's new line-up (pictured): Peru Capacy, Burundi Bwayi, Burundi Kinyovu, Kenya Gatomboya and Rwanda Muyongwe. Each sells for $12.75 for 12 ounces.

20/20 reported on Friday that an Orange County barista is suing Starbucks for allowing a 24-year-old manager to have sex with her while she was still in high school. Reporter Brian Ross says that Starbucks denies culpability and said the two hid their relationship.

The original report showed part of a deposition by Jana Rutt, a Starbucks human resources executive in southern California, whose comments riled readers of StarbucksGossip.com and other sites. That footage seems not to be online as of early Tuesday afternoon, but I found video comment by Starbucks HR chief Kalen Holmes, who says the company condemns the conduct of the barista's co-worker, who was not her supervisor.

A side note: That was the second report last week (here's the first) referring to Howard Schultz as Starbucks' founder. It's a title the board once bestowed on him and that for a while was on Starbucks' web site -- but no longer. Still, you have to wonder how those references in news reports make real founders Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl feel.

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).

Of course, this creates speculation about how dedicated Starbucks is to the specialty Clover machines, whose Seattle-based manufacturer it bought last year.

Starbucks has been testing the Clover machines in Seattle, San Francisco and Boston (where it still has machines in 26 stores).

Spokesman Alan Hilowitz said that the shift in Boston is part of Starbucks figuring out which shops are best for Clovers. Hopefully they'll talk about what they learned when they figure it out.

Documentarians from the Korean Broadcasting System, a big public broadcasting network in South Korea, are in Seattle and Portland this week visiting coffeehouses and interviewing people about our coffee scene.

They interviewed me at Visions Espresso Service in SoDo this morning, and the questions were interesting: What makes Seattle such a hotbed of coffee? Is it about the coffee or the relationship? What's their inspiration? (Interesting question -- I said they seem to have Italian coffee culture in the backs of their minds but aren't mimicking anybody.)

Field producer Chong Lee said that Korea has long had coffee, but that it's just starting to get fancy coffee lounges serving espresso. They're the sort of place you'd take a date and spend some time, like an intimate bar but without the alcohol.

Keep an eye out for (left to right) Lee, field producer Kang Won Ho, cameraman Kim Won Nam and sound specialist Lee Dong Hee this week.

Not since their hopes were dashed in 2007 have espresso geeks dreamed they could buy La Marzocco GS/3s -- highly coveted home-use espresso machines -- for under $4,500. Yet it's happening at Caffe Lusso Coffee Roasters in Redmond, which has sold a dozen for $4,250 apiece so far -- largely to Microsoft employees -- and hopes to unload another 20 at its GS/3 Night this weekend.

An imbroglio accompanied the machine's debut in late 2007, when its distributor -- Franke Coffee Systems North America -- jacked the price to $7,500 after years of promising the machine would cost $4,500.

Now Franke has left Seattle for Tennessee, and La Marzocco has bought back the distribution rights and is reconsidering the price, said La Marzocco co-owner Joe Monaghan.

Meanwhile, Caffe Lusso owner Philip Meech has the espresso set chattering about his super-low price. He and a few other sellers began offering deals after getting discounts from La Marzocco, which wanted to sell the machines partly to make room for the new GS/3 MP, aka "the GS/3 paddle," which is the home-use version of a highly-anticipated commercial machine that Zoka Coffee Roaster & Tea Co. installed at its new shop in Kirkland (third photo here).

Meech said that GS/3 Night is invitation only, but encourages anyone interested in testing the machine and possibly buying one to contact him.

The home-use paddle machine is expected in mid-September, Monaghan said, after La Marzocco's workers in Italy come back from holiday and move to a new facility.

Coffee connoisseurs say Zoka Coffee Roaster & Tea Co. coined the term, and next week you can see the latest wave in action. Zoka's fourth store is set to open Wednesday.

Unlike Zoka's original Tangletown location -- also known as OZ, for "original Zoka" -- this place is anything but rustic. It's a big, bright space with modern light fixtures and sleek black chairs.

The most noticeable accent is a slice of a giant tree stump -- technically, four maples that grew together -- that will be used as seating (owner Jeff Babcock tries it out in the top photo). A slab from the same tree in Idaho will be a community table, and a woman who grew up on the farm with the tree is sending her memories of it to be posted in the shop.

Two state-of-theart espresso machines are front and center at the bar. Zoka is the first Northwest shop with the raved-about Slayer machine that can do everything except smoke a cigarette.

Zoka owner Jeff Babcock (with the Slayer in the second photo) plans to use it for single-origin roasts, making it the rare Northwest coffeehouse with single-estate espresso. That's tricky, because of the variability in coffee from different countries. The Slayer lets baristas control for pressure, temperature and pull time.

Babcock pulled some of his best baristas from other locations and trained them for days at Slayer's new Georgetown space so they can play the machine properly in Kirkland (you lucky Eastsiders). And, these folks don't have attitude, as Seattle Weekly noted when it named OZ Seattle's best coffeehouse for 2009.

Four coffee grinders away from the Slayer sits another state-of-the-art machine, the newly updated paddle from La Marzocco (third photo).

The new Zoka will brew coffee by the cup three ways: (1) Using a ceramic Melitta pour-over system a la Blue Bottle in San Francisco, (2) using an Eva Solo, and (3) with an automated French press-style machine from La Marzocco that will arrive in a couple weeks.

Babcock buys much of his coffee directly and expects a shipment shortly from Nicaragua, where he visited recently. The coffee he most wanted -- "it's so sweet it's like honey," he said -- went to a Norwegian roaster before he placed his order. "I was too late," he lamented. "Next year."

He also recently judged for Cup of Excellence coffees in Costa Rica and Colombia, and will be a judge in Bolivia later this year.

When Babcock buys coffee by the container -- also known as the semi-truckload -- he buys directly from coffee farms or cooperatives. For smaller orders, he uses a handful of importers.

Slayer's folks were there today putting the new machine through its motions, and co-owner Eric Perkunder stopped rhapsodizing about the new Zoka (who could blame him?) long enough to promise he'll let me know when more Slayers show up in the area.

Until then, here's where you can find it and the new Zoka, at the old Triple J Cafe spot in Kirkland:

View Zoka Coffee Roaster & Tea Co. in a larger map

With Bellevue-based Concordia Coffee Systems charging $40,000 for the world's most expensive espresso machine -- but, its president reminds me, the world's least expensive cafe -- and Seattle Coffee Gear starting the bidding at $1,799 for one of five espresso machines it's auctioning for charity, it begs the question: How much does a good coffee maker cost?

Some people leave espresso making to the pros and drink drip coffee at home in filter machines that cost anywhere from $25 to $150.

Others swear by manual drip coffee systems, which cost $16 or less and can be used on camping trips ('tis the season). Folks line up outside Blue Bottle Coffee's kiosk in Hayes Valley, San Francisco, (pictured) for its yummy drip coffee made with single-cup ceramic drip systems.

The first of five weekly auctions on eBay starts Friday, and the URL will be linked at www.seattlecoffeegear.com/auction. As of this writing, they were not sure exactly what time it would start.

The Seattle importer is auctioning Rocket Espresso's limited edition Giro d'Italia Giotto semi-automatic espresso machines to benefit Coffee Kids, a nonprofit that helps families in coffee-growing communities.

Rocket Espresso of Milan, Italy, made only 100 of these machines, to celebrate 100 years of one of the world's major cycling races, the Giro d'Italia. U.S. cycling star Lance Armstrong participated for the first time last month in preparation for his upcoming return to the Tour de France. The winner was Denis Menchov of Russia.

The machines have pink manometers (to measure pressure), inspired by the pink jersey worn by Giro d'Italia winners, and are engraved with the names of all the race's winners. Each machine comes with a copy of the June 1, 2009, edition of the pink Italian daily sports newspaper that started the race, La Gazzetta dello Sport. And like fine art, each piece is numbered.

Kat Oak, head of marketing for Seattle Coffee Gear, says the non-limited edition counterpart to the machine -- without the pink features and engraving -- retails for $1,799.

COURTESY OF SEATTLE COFFEE GEAR AND ROCKET ESPRESSO

Starbucks has received three reports of hand lacerations when the product -- sold as Starbucks Barista Blade Grinder and Seattle's Best Coffee Blade Grinder -- turned on unexpectedly during cleaning. The company has received 176 reports altogether of the grinder failing to turn off or turning on unexpectedly.

The coffee chain giant and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the voluntary recall of about 530,000 of the grinders. They were made by Tsann Kuen (Zhangzhou) Enterprise Ltd. of China.

They were sold at Starbucks and Seattle's Best Coffee stores nationwide from March 2002 through March 2009 for about $30.

Consumers should immediately stop using the grinders and contact Starbucks for a free replacement grinder at 866-276-2950 or here, where there's also a list of all the grinder colors and SKU (stockkeeping unit) numbers that were affected.

MELISSA ALLISON/THE SEATTLE TIMES

CEO David Isett bought Concordia five years ago with a group of investors.

At about $10,000 to $40,000 apiece, the machines grind and brew coffee, steam milk and add flavored syrups for customers including Seattle's Best Coffee, United Airlines, Harvard University and the Mayo Clinic.

The idea is to replace other machines, not baristas, Isett said. "We don't draw a leaf in the foam and dust it with chocolate."

His pitch is that a Concordia machine is smaller and more efficient for fast-casual restaurants and convenience stores than having separate coffee brewers, hot chocolate, hot water and milk dispensers and syrups. And they can make espresso drinks and chai lattes, not just the drip coffee that used to come from self-serve coffee machines.

MELISSA ALLISON/THE SEATTLE TIMES

Concordia's "self-serve espresso bar" costs almost $40,000.

The new machine debuted more than a year ago, and "we're proud to say it's the most expensive espresso machine in the world," Isett said. They've sold about 1,000 worldwide, including about 100 to Seattle's Best.

The self-serve bar is to a coffeehouse what ATMs are to banks, Isett said. It makes 165 different drinks, accepts cash and debit cards and comes with a "bat phone" for customers who need help. Isett, who ran the company for four years before buying it, is thinking big: "Think every fifth gate at the airport," he said.

MELISSA ALLISON/THE SEATTLE TIMES

Concordia's factory in Bellevue.

With about 40 employees, Concordia didn't really have a shot at supplying McDonald's with the espresso machines for its McCafe rollout, Isett said. That business went to the much bigger Franke Coffee Systems North America, which is moving its base from Seattle to near Nashville.

Isett tries not to worry about that too much. "McDonald's is selling dessert," he says of the burger chain's new espresso drinks. How does he figure that? "They have whipped cream on them."

The idea came about through serendipity, when Mokas lead barista Alex Negranza was doing a coffee tasting -- known as a cupping -- years ago, and the electricity went out.

He found that by candlelight, the cupping was both surreal and more focused, and he's doing it again tonight at Mokas Cafe & Coffee Bar at 329 Fairview Avenue North in South Lake Union.

The event, which is free and open to the public, begins at 8:30 p.m. with a showing of art work; the cupping of more than a dozen coffees will happen around 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., when it's dark enough outside.

It's co-sponsored by Visions Espresso Service, whose owners, Dawn and Pat Loraas, also own Mokas and a slice of equipment maker La Marzocco. Visions -- an espresso equipment seller and servicer -- is creating a coffee school called the Coffee Enhancement Lounge for baristas, roasters and all other coffee folks. Sarah Dooley of Visions will teach some of the classes, and she's recruiting others to teach classes there as well.

MELISSA ALLISON/THE SEATTLE TIMES

Eric Perkunder, Dan Urwiler and Devin Walker pull espresso shots on the Slayer they designed and built.

Seattleites will be able to see and taste the Slayer in action at the new Zoka Coffee & Tea set to open next month on Lake Washington Boulevard in Kirkland.

Zoka owner Jeff Babcock is psyched about the Slayer, which he'll use for single-origin espresso -- a very big deal that coffeehouses rarely, if ever, offer -- and two new machines he's getting from La Marzocco, which is based in Seattle but makes its machines in Italy. One of those machines makes a single cup of drip coffee, a la Clover, but has the temperature and other controls of an espresso machine.

"I covered all my bases," Babcock said. "[The Slayer] creates a drastically different drink. It changes everything."

MELISSA ALLISON/THE SEATTLE TIMES

The Slayer is made at the old Sicks Rainier Brewing bottling building.

Most espresso machines produce high pressure that never varies. The guys who created the Slayer -- Eric Perkunder, Dan Urwiler and Devin Walker -- think that traditional machines push water through the espresso grounds with such force that not all of the flavor is captured.

The Slayer lets the water spend a little more time with the grounds, pulling a shot in 30 to 35 seconds -- compared with 18 to 23 seconds for your average espresso machine.

They think the sweet spot is a combination of pressure that begins around five bars of pressure, moves up to the nine bars that most espresso machines use, then pulls back to five bars. They're not sure why that combination works. "Everybody is working out their own hackneyed theories," said Perkunder. "Who knows?"

MELISSA ALLISON/THE SEATTLE TIMES

Close-up of a Slayer group with pressure gauge.

They and Walker teamed with investor Jason Prefontaine to crack the pressure code with the Slayer, which they blog about here.

MELISSA ALLISON/THE SEATTLE TIMES

An old-time lever espresso machine, possibly from Italy.

Right now, the space is about half filled with parts, a couple of Slayer demos and an old-fashioned lever espresso machine that might date to 1950s Italy, which is fitting for a company that some espresso-heads think has created an automated version of that.

COURTESY OF ROMAN GAUS

Roman Gaus, Franke Coffee Systems North America

About 30 people in Seattle will lose their jobs because of the move, which happens in July.

"They're a bigger company and have built a marvelous facility where there's space and opportunity for us," Roman Gaus, president of Franke Coffee Systems North America, said of its Foodservice sister. Their parent is a family-owned Swiss company also called Franke.

The Seattle (for now) distributor has been busy lately supplying coffee machines to McDonald's for the national rollout of its McCafes. That has pushed another equipment maker to consider distributing its own machines in the U.S. rather than having Franke do it.

"It requires so much of Franke's time and energy and resources," said Joe Monaghan, U.S. president of La Marzocco. "And the client base is so different. La Marzocco caters mostly to smaller independent coffeehouses, really the opposite of McDonald's. It's difficult for anybody to try to do [distribute] both and do it well."

La Marzocco -- whose owners are mostly Seattleites but whose machines are made in Florence, Italy -- planned to take over its own distribution at the end of the year. Now Monaghan hopes the distribution switch will coincide with Franke's move to Tennessee.

To bring the story full circle: When La Marzocco starts distributing for itself, it will be under roughly the same group of people who owned Espresso Specialists. They used to distribute Franke machines in the U.S. before Franke bought them out.

In case you're wondering what Franke is trading Seattle for, here's Smyrna, Tennessee:

View Smyrna, Tennessee in a larger map

COURTESY OF SLAYER ESPRESSO

The Slayer espresso machine debuts this weekend in Atlanta.

It's the Slayer, an espresso machine that lets you manually control brewing pressure. At least that's what I think it does. The Slayer makers blogged about it extensively, so you can decide for yourself.

Slayer has been the talk of the espresso chat world the past few months, for example here, here and (a roaster tests it) here.

It's a hometown phenom. The machines at SCAA in Atlanta this weekend were "made at Slayer's Queen Anne-Interbay lair -- our hangout for the last eighteen months," the blog says. Production moves to new digs in Georgetown this month.

Two of Slayer's creators, Dan Urwiler and Eric Perkunder, also worked on the Treuh espresso machine a few years ago that wildly impressed David Schomer, the notoriously exacting owner of Espresso Vivace.

The third guy on the Slayer is Jason Prefontaine.

I'm still trying to figure out how much this slick thing costs.

Update from Eric Perkunder: "We have pre-sold about a month's production at $18,000 /
$14,000 (3 group / 2 group)."

PHOTO COURTESY OF SEATTLE COFFEE GEAR

Saeco super-automatic espresso machine.

The Lynnwood-based equipment and repair shop has launched a program for trading and recycling espresso machines and grinders, something it has done informally for years.

It usually pays $200 to $300 for a trade-in, but has offered up to $500 for a Saeco super-automatic espresso machine that retailed for around $1,000 a few years ago, said president and co-owner Victor Gehlen.

For machines that are too battered to be refurbished and resold, Seattle Coffee Gear will recycle the metal and some plastics, keeping as much as possible out of landfills.

The program is available nationally, with customers shipping their machines to Lynnwood, just like they would for repairs. Details here.

ERIKA SCHULTZ/THE SEATTLE TIMES

A Clover cup of coffee at Starbucks.

So don't miss Tyrone Beason's elegant spotlight on Clover in today's Pacific Northwest magazine.

The Clover is a drip coffee machine so expensive ($11,000) and highly specialized that fewer than 250 Clovers were delivered in the two years before Starbucks bought the company.

Starbucks never said how many it planned to crank out each year, but a spokeswoman assured StarbucksGossip.com last week that the project is "alive and well." She also gave an updated count of Starbucks stores with Clovers: Seattle (10 stores), Boston (33 stores), and San Francisco (9 stores).