Getting permission from the TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) to serve beer and wine to all you thirsty coworkers is no small task. Thankfully, our own Tina Rosenzweig is not only a maven of all things coffee, she’s also adept a navigating the labyrinthine rules and regulations of the permitting process. Here she is proudly [...]

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Finally we learned how to turn espresso into a cappuccino or a latte. Or a machiato, which is really hard, and my new all-time favorite coffee drink.
So the espresso machine builds up kinds of steam during the extraction process, which is a nice convenient way to heat and froth the milk. Dan explained that, while [...]

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Hands on is always the fun part and so, after our lessons and lectures, we got down and dirty with the espresso machine. Cuvee uses a La Marzocco, which is tagged the “holy grail” of espresso machines in many commercial reviews. In the hands of a skilled barista, they make excellent espresso. They’re also quite [...]

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During the actual barista training, we learned about beans, tamping, extraction, steaming and stretching milk, and how, if prepared correctly, a perfect latte could have even a sugar-lover skipping the sweetener.
Here are some facts we uncovered about beans and brewing:

Coffee changes from year to year and crop to crop. Ethiopian coffee, for example, comes in [...]

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Earlier this month five of us set out on a road trip to learn about coffee — what constitutes the best beans, the best way to roast those beans, and how to turn those beans into the best cup of coffee. Yes, that’s right, the whole team from CEO to designers to café manager took [...]

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Well, sometimes we have difficult tasks but we do what we can to tackle them. And so it was with empty bellies and discerning palates the LaunchPad Coworking team sat down one day to try out a gut-busting number of potential menu items for the café.The experience was filling and not just physically. We got [...]

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I’ve had plenty of experience with startups of the virtual variety. Now, with LaunchPad Coworking, I’m looking at a project that combines bricks, mortar, food, and code.
Being a fan of puzzles of all kinds, I’m enjoying figuring out how to best put together a project that includes pieces running the gamut from how crusty should [...]

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We’re about to have our first menu testing. We’ve got a great menu designer (in the gastronomic sense, not the graphic sense) whipping up a bunch of sandwiches and a couple of salads for us to taste and critique. Just looking at this receipt makes me hungry. Click on that teensy little receipt over on [...]

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