Welcome to the February + March 2016 Issue of Barista Magazine!

We’re pleased as party punch to debut the February + March issue of Barista Magazine, featuring the legendary Aaron Ultimo on the cover

We couldn’t be happier to be introducing you to the new issue of Barista Magazine, February + March 2016, which is out today! Of course, we post our magazine content in full to view for free online here, so anyone and everyone can go read it right now. Or, you subscribers who prefer the feel of the paper magazine in your hands should be receiving your copies in the next few days.

To order a copy of the February+March 2016 issue of Barista Magazine, go here.

And if you’ll be at the USBC Qualifying Event in Kansas City this week, you can snag a hot-off-the-presses copy! Sarah will be in attendance giving them away.

Having Aaron Ultimo on the cover of Barista Magazine and in a feature article is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time. Aaron co-opwns Ultimo Coffee in Philadelphia with his wife, Elizabeth, and consistently runs out some of the city’s best coffee and service. Aaron is also a longtime USBC judge, as well as former competitor, so the timing was perfect to showcase his interesting story of a barista-turned-cafe-owner in our pages, since the USBC Qualifying Event was upon us.

We have tons of other interested stories in this issue that we hope you’re just as excited about as we are! They include, but are not limited to:

PROGRESSIVE BREWING TECHNIQUES
Super techy story by Andrew Bettis about pushing the boundaries of what you think you know about your favorite manual brew methods.

The article, "Progressive Brewing Techniques" offers a host of tricks of the trade to take your manual brew methods to the next level. — The article, “Progressive Brewing Techniques” offers a host of tricks of the trade to take your manual brew methods to the next level.

FIELD REPORT: CATIE IN COSTA RICA
Hanna Neuschwander of World Coffee Research chronicles her journey to Costa Rica’s Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center, or CATIE, a regional research center focused on agriculture and sustainable land management.

The World Coffee Research team's visit to CATIE in Costa Rica is chronicled in a Field Report, describing the experience of seeing the largest collection of Coffea arabica genetic material outside of the wild coffee forests of Ethiopia. — The World Coffee Research team’s visit to CATIE in Costa Rica is chronicled in a Field Report, describing the experience of seeing the largest collection of Coffea arabica genetic material outside of the wild coffee forests of Ethiopia.

FIELD REPORT: LET’S TALK COFFEE IN RWANDA
Devorah Fralach details her life-changing trip to Rwanda where she assisted with cafe service at the Let’s Talk Coffee event in Kigali, and met producer partners for the very first time.

THE DARK ARTS
This story by Sarah Richmond explores how specialty roasters are responding to customer demand for darker coffees not by burning the beans, but by finding methods in which to darken while maintaining the coffee’s integrity.

Though light roast is the darling a specialty, more craft roasters are responding to consumer demand for darker coffees while maintaining all the quality of their beans.

COFFEE COCKTAILS
Both a Coffee In Good Spirits Champion and a Brewers Cup Champion in the U.K., Gordon Howell discusses how to create exceptional cocktails using cold-brew coffee, in the most recent installment of our ongoing series, “New Adventures in Cold Brew.”

Just as making signature drinks for the cafe using cold-brew coffee are all the rage, so are explorations of alcoholic cold-brew creations.

E-COMMERCE EXPLAINED
Our Tech Support columnist Andy Freivogel delves into the world of online sales and how cafe owners can best utilize the web to increase their bottom line.

INTERVIEW WITH GEOFF WATTS
Readers will devour this involving and fascinating interview with Intelligentsia‘s Geoff Watts, legendary coffee buyer and industry trend setter. The interview was so great, in fact, that we’ll be publishing what we couldn’t fit into the magazine on our blog in a series in the second week of February.

An interview with one of the industry's most fascinating, kind, and intelligent men. — An interview with one of the industry’s most fascinating, kind, and intelligent men.

There’s much, much more in this latest issue of Barista Magazine. To subscribe for just $30 per year, go here! And you can also read the magazine online by following this link.

We hope you enjoy it!