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In 2025 we published over 200 news stories here at Sprudge. 228 to be exact. I should know. I wrote them. (It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me.)
2025 was a frankly bizarre year for coffee. The biggest stories by any objective metric were the American tariffs pushing the entire coffee industry toward a global reorg if not full blown collapse as well as the continued unionizing efforts sweeping the nation (and the anti-union efforts in response). Sprinkle in some research stories about the healthfulness of coffee and news about ways folks are attempting to safeguard the future of coffee against climate uncertainty, and you’d have a pretty good picture of the state of coffee in 2025.
But these aren’t the stories I care about, at least as far as a year-end wrap-up goes. The stories I gravitate to express a different side of specialty coffee. Often silly and maybe a little wheels off, they remind me of a rambunctious time in coffee, before “specialty” became a common adjective. Back when specialty coffee felt like the underdog and we’d all thumb our noses at the establishment. Some of these articles stay true to that (Hi, Starbucks, thanks for reading).
The rest, though, attenuate to the same frequency but in a different way. These articles are about being a Coffee Person©. They are about seeing the larger insane world through the lens of specialty coffee. Because that’s what happens when you love something so much that it bleeds into every part of your life. That’s what these stories are. They are about coffee being fun, because coffee is fun. It’s also gravely serious and affects the lives of millions, if not billions. But it is also fun. It can be both.
There will be time in 2026 for coffee to get serious again. I’m certain it will whether we want it to or not. But at the end of 2025, I’m choosing to look back at the stories that made me the happiest. The ones that I had the most fun writing and that I hope you enjoyed reading just as equally.
There will be more like this next year, because I’m chronically unable to take myself or the things that have come to define me too seriously. Here are some of my favorite news stories from 2025.
The Crowka Pot
There was perhaps no story more popular this year than the Crowka Pot. It’s a moka pot, shaped like a crow. It’s a silly little pun that frankly had no reason to be as big of a hit as it was. Except that it was flawlessly executed. 2025 was the Year of the Moka Pot, and the Crowka Pot was the It Girl.
Serving Espresso Macchiato at Eurovision
Please Listen Immediately To “Espresso Macchiato,” Estonia’s Official Entry For Eurovision 2025
As a Coffee Person, I get excited when coffee words get used on an international stage (it’s pretty much the only reason I wrote about Sabrina Carpenter as many times as I did). So when Estonian singer and rapper Tommy Cash brought Espresso Macchiato to Eurovision, the most viewed non-sporting event in the world, it was a big deal. It helps that the song is hypnotically bizarre, with an equally weird video to boot.
Coffee on The Bear
“The Bear” Now Features A Coffee Program (And We Have Questions)
Speaking of coffee in the larger zeitgeist. Season four of the hit FX series The Bear premiered earlier this year and it found Carmie et al trying not to crumble under the weight of running a fine dining establishment. One addition to The Bear the restaurant was an espresso machine. And let’s just say, as a show praised for its realistic portrayal of restaurant life, The Bear perfectly nails the unevenness of coffee service in fine dining. Whether that was intentional or not, who knows.
There’s no wrong way to Fufu
We see a lot of silly coffee gadgets here at Sprudge. (See: The Crowka Pot.) And the easiest way for an arguably unnecessary invention to catch our attention is by being supremely cute. Which is what Nékojita Fufu is. Couldn’t I just blow on my coffee myself if it needed to be cooled? Of course I could, but then I would have a cute little pal to hang on my cup.
The Starbucksing of Things
The term “Columbusing” describes when a person claims to have discovered something that has existed for years. There’s a coffee variant of Columbusing, when a large corporation “discovers” something and proceeds to make it objectively worse. It’s called Starbucksing. They did it with the cortado, which they say is an 8-ounce beverage. They did it with comfy couches and the whole 90’s coffee shop vibe, secret menus, and even barista competitions. And this was just from this year.
A 101-Year-Old Barista
My two absolute favorite stories of the year occurred within two days of each other. The first was Anna Possi turning 101 years young. Possi is the owner of Bar Centrale in the northern Italian town of Nebbiuno, where she has worked since the 1950s. She’s still there pulling shots with no plans of slowing down anytime soon. We could all be so lucky.
Let the Bird Have a Little Coffee
The other story is about this guy, a a Yellow-crowned Amazon parrot who allegedly stole coffee from alleged customers at a coffee shop in Seoul. Allegedly. There are a handful of questions about how he stole the coffee (allegedly) and what the coffee was, but the largest question is this: who narced? Mind your business. Let my boy wet his beak.
Tori Amos, Pumpkin Spice Latte Creator?
Did Tori Amos Invent The Pumpkin Spice Latte? An Investigation
I thought I knew all there was to know about the Pumpkin Spice Latte. As much as I wanted to know at least. Then an article from a Seattle alt weekly magazine from the 90s reemerged, providing concrete proof that Tori Amos, the singer, was the progenitor of the PSL. Over 10 years before Starbucks introduced it (another Starbucksing).
One Last Time for David Lynch
David Lynch passed away at the beginning of the year. He was an iconic auteur of television and film and a coffee fanatic (with not one but two GS3 espresso machines). He was the first celebrity coffee nut, and he left an indelible mark of many of the individuals in the world of specialty coffee. There were a lot of articles written about Lynch after his passing, and instead of joining in the eulogizing, we dug deep into the Sprudge archives for some of our reporting of him during his life. In that way, we hopefully were able to show how meaningful Lynch and his work was to those in the coffee world, not just after his passing but in real-time.
Thanks for tuning in with Sprudge and following along with the stories in coffee large and small. It was much like the world in which it occurred: weird and uncertain and generally chaotic. But hopefully it was also at times fun. We’ll see you in 2026 to keep reporting on the coffee stories that matter, and hopefully also the ones that don’t. That’s where the good stuff is anyway.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
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