Gotta crush it! Oughta crush it! LIVE to CRUSH IT!!
La Marzocco USA’s live event series is back for an incredible second summer season, and Sprudge Media Network is your official media partner for coverage across five cities. We’re kicked things off in Seattle, the home of LM USA with a truly epic event at Fulcrum Coffee Roasters in SoDo. Now we’re here in San Francisco at Linea Caffe’s luxe new Potrero Hill roasting space for the second round of CTR2.
Expanded into a new day-long format in 2019, Crush The Rush fuses education and advocacy with a fun, informal coffee competition format focused on workflow. Teams compete for to make 8 drinks as fast as they possibly can, fielding extra challenges along the way (up to and including cup stamping and compost digging).
All day time trials took place against a backdrop of talks, snacks, and plenty of La Croix. Returning presenters Nathanael May (Pacific Foods Barista Series) and Scott Callender (La Marzocco USA) talked about cafe sustainability and espresso history, respectively; corrective exercise specialist Lily Luciano led the crowd through a range of foundational exercises; and Rebecca Jones of Counter Culture Coffee broke down the path of water through an espresso machine.
For the SF Crush The Rush, Sprudge helped get in on the presentation action, passing the mic to host Umeko Motoyoshi for an hour-long conversation with Alice Wong (Disability Visibility) and Nabeel Silmi (Grand Coffee). This portion of Crush The Rush was captured for an upcoming episode of the Coffee Sprudgecast, so stay tuned.
Then night fell, and with it the crushing of the rush. Soon we were down to an epic final battle pitting teams from Dune Coffee and Augie’s Coffee against one another in feats of espresso strength. It was neck and neck to the finish line, but the big winner was Augie’s Coffee, led by founder Austin Graham Amento, seen previously winning the US Cup Tasters Championship and padding his shop’s resume with this epic victory in San Francisco.
Next up Crush the Rush advances to New York City, hosted at WeWork (120 E 23rd)—tickets available now. Who will advance to take home the big prize in the Big Apple? We can’t wait to find out.
Get your Crush The Rush NYC, Chicago, and Nashville tickets right here.
Follow @Sprudge on Instagram for much more coverage from Crush The Rush SF & Seattle.
Sprudge is the official media partner of Crush The Rush.
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