By Iain Evans
Yesterday, while tuning into the Livestream of the W Cape Barista competition, I found myself getting more and more drawn into following the tweets, facebook updates and Instagram posts, which is something I seldom do. You see I'm more a traditionalist when it comes to media - after all, I've been in the magazine game my whole media career, and I find it difficult to cope with the uninformed clutter (and general garbage that people post) on the social media platforms. I do post to facebook every now and again, and I do upload the odd instagram pic, but I'm terrible at twitter.
And then I tumbled head-first down the rabbit hole. And the plunge went something like this:
While watching barista comp on Livestream...
see a tweet on my phone about Livestream...
read the tweet....
see another tweet....
....it's from
@jimseven (James Hoffman, 2007 World Barista Champ from Square Miles Coffee Roastery) ...announcing the launch of his coffee magazine...
...I click the link...
...it's limited edition to a few print copies and a digital version...
...I buy both online...
...I buy a whole lot of other stuff from their online store...
...I get an email confirmation of my order...
...my bank manager phones and asks what the hell I'm doing...
...I tear my eyes from the screen 2 hours after this process kicked in....
...I suffer intense buyers remorse...
Until I read this morning (just 24 hours later) that every copy of the magazine is sold out!
And they said print was dead!
This leads me to draw 2 conclusions:
1. People who love something and are passionate about it, will spend money to get the best quality products, services and information on it - in this case a limited edition journal by a World Champ.
2. Print is not dead, it's just fragmenting into more specialist niches, with richer, deeper content through various digital formats to make it more accessible.
Longberry is a partnership of James Hoffmann, former World Barista Champion and co-founder of Square Mile Coffee; Ben Szobody, a longtime political journalist now in coffee-related development projects; and Jacob Forrest, a graphic designer and coffee hobbyist.
