I bought a copy recently and although it was a little on the anorexic side, it was a rather good read.
Love the cafe showcases they have. You can also get back-issues. :)
God Bless and May The Crema Be With You... I am HOTHCOFFEEVAMPIRE; Jedi Knight and Friend of Captain Coffee Bean. I warn you not to underestimate my coffee-sucking powers...
They lost all credibility with me after their domestic machine review. Absolutely clueless.
If I want to spend my hard-earned $4 (or whatever it costs) on something that's 50% advertising, I'll ... well, to tell you the truth, I can't imagine wanting to!
For what it is, it's a good magazine. It's just not a coffee magazine. It's aimed at people who need something to occupy their eyes while they sip their lattes.
If you're looking for more coffee specific mags, try:
BeanScene - it's actually got multiple pages about coffee. They even had an article that talked about the need for proper grinding!
Roast Magazine - a US mag, but for those homeroasting well worth the US $45.
Cafe Culture - hasn't been seen in the wild, yet, but should be worthwhile.
And that's about it, as far as coffee magazines in Aus go.
BTW: if you're in Sydney on Monday 25th Oct check out the Cafe Biz expo & conference. I'll be there, flying the flag for the geek contingent.
It really frustrated me that they were calling themselves a 'coffee culture' magazine and yet they would have a profile of a 'chef' within the first few pages.
So I e-mailed the editor and asked why is it a magazine that calls itself a 'coffee culture' magazine profiles chefs and not baristas?
And they happily replied that they will be profiling baristas as the lead into their (next) summer edition.
So can't wait to see the next edition to see who they profile and how they go about choosing the barista to profile.
As far as crema magazine, I won't read it because it only focuses on Sydney and Melbourne.
I bought one issue of Bean Scene, but I also found it lacking in info specifically about coffee. There were a few articles in there that were interesting but they only made up about a third of the magazine.
How often do they publish? It would be great to have a mag that presented articles on the aus coffee scene from the viewpoint of a cg - someone that actually lives coffee rather than started as a journalist who needed a topic to write about...
ah well...just have to back to rereading cg reviews :)
I bought one issue of Bean Scene, but I also found it lacking in info specifically about coffee. There were a few articles in there that were interesting but they only made up about a third of the magazine.
It feels like "Whenever we get around to it". But I'd guess every 2 or 3 months.
It would be great to have a mag that presented articles on the aus coffee scene from the viewpoint of a cg - someone that actually lives coffee rather than started as a journalist who needed a topic to write about...
Ha. I laugh.
Think of how many advertisers you'd get for a magazine that has a target market in the hundreds. Then subtract 90% of them when they read the first issue containing real opinions of their shiny, new, advertised products.
As with far too many things, it boils down to money. And the lack thereof.
I only recently discovered that a local newsagent sells both Beanscene and Crema magazine. I grabbed both and rushed to the counter to purchase. My initial reaction after flicking through both was that they were thin on content and fairly heavy on advertising. Having said that I will buy any issues I find in the future and am thinking about ordering the back issues of Crema. I think I'm just happy to find anything coffee related, and perhaps in 12 months if both magazines stagnate, I'll give them a miss.
I buy Crema for the Barista profiles etc...The current issue has Paul basset talking about various different coffee and mentions the Sunbeam machines.
Also buy it for the Overseas content on cafe's and the like. Like I said though very thin, very very thin and not the best choice for a big fat coffee read.
I also like looking at the pitures of the different coffees. Never get tired of that. ;)
God Bless and May The Crema Be With You... I am HOTHCOFFEEVAMPIRE; Jedi Knight and Friend of Captain Coffee Bean. I warn you not to underestimate my coffee-sucking powers...
Just a thought i'd check in and try and answer some of the questions/issues raised about Crema...
First things first, we are not a coffee magazine, nor do we pretend to be; Crema is positioned as a 'cafe-lifestyle' magazine (- even says this on the masthead)! For Australian readers, i guess you could think of us as the coffee equivalent of Gourmet Traveller - aimed squarely at the domestic consumer, not a purist industry mag! We usually include a couple of coffee-related stories, however even then, remember they won't usually be 'hard-core' because we are aimed squarely at the consumer. However, having said that, we certainly try to include some useful coffee content - a couple of issues ago we did a fairly thorough coverage of grinding, and before that a hard-hitting piece on 'freshness' - which actually was pretty relevant for the trade. I realise i'm not completely objective, but I beg to differ with Paul on BeanScene - i've found most of their articles pretty light (who is Matthew Gee, their 'specialist'?) and many of their pieces are actually a disguised promo for a company they're trying to get advertising from (eg a recent piece by Phil Pucci from Segafredo) - we may be consumer not 'industry' but we will never compromise our editorial that way. One last thing, we do welcome input from anyone on our website, which is oriented more for Australians who are serious about coffee (check out: www.cremamagazine.com.au >>Forums). We have a general thread called 'have your say' and also one that's more trade oriented, called 'trade page' - feel free to log in and take a look!
Symbols: = New Posts since your last visit = No New Posts since last visit = Newest post
Forum Rules: No profanity, illegal acts or personal attacks will be tolerated in these discussion boards. No commercial posting of any nature will be tolerated; only private sales by private individuals, in the "Buy and Sell" forum. No cross posting allowed - do not post your topic to more than one forum, nor repost a topic to the same forum. Who Can Read The Forum? Anyone can read posts in these discussion boards. Who Can Post New Topics? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post new topics. Who Can Post Replies? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post replies. Can Photos be posted? Anyone can post photos in their new topics or replies. Who can change or delete posts? Any CoffeeGeek member can edit their own posts. Only moderators can delete posts. Probationary Period: If you are a new signup for CoffeeGeek, you cannot promote, endorse, criticise or otherwise post an unsolicited endorsement for any company, product or service in your first five postings.
= No New Posts since last visit 