The Reading Room

The standard brewing guidelines say that your water temperature should be between 195-205. Home automatic drip brewers are often chided for not reaching that temperature range, but there are plenty of home drip makers that do. The Technivorm and Bonavita...

Even if you don’t get the South Park reference in the title of this post, you might be intrigued by the lists of prizes that the winners of the U.S. and World AeroPress Championships received last weekend at SCAA 2012....

Sure, the 2012 USBC Champion, Katie Carguilo, is a New Yorker, but Maryland also did pretty well in competitions at SCAA. To have two winners whose home bases/cafés are within 30 miles of each other (and me here in Baltimore)...

Slight change of subject.Take a look at these vintage movies (1925 and 1936) about some regions of Colombia. They show Manizales and a coffee farm, Cali, Bogota and several other cities.The country around Cali and its sugar cane plantations and industry,...

Tiamo is a Taiwanese-based company that specializes in knock-offs of more expensive Hario and Kalita gear. I'm not aware of any reviews of Tiamo drippers, so I thought it might prove useful to somebody if I were to provide one.I...

Orphan Espresso is a husband-and-wife team located in Troy, Idaho. They're well-known for their espresso-machine restorations, and their specialization in hand grinders--Zassenhaus, PeDe, Peugeot and the like. Over the past year or so, they've taken what they've learned from hand-grinder...

Now we move north. More or less in the mid-western part of the country, smack in the Central Cordillera (the central range that splits the country South to North), with the Cauca river between the Western and the Central ranges,...

Hello folks!I just wanted to point people's attention to this great ROASTe review of Deep Cello Nostromo by Barking Burrito! We really appreciate it when someone understands exactly what Deep Cello is about and is doing. We spent six months convincing...

I’m back! I was away for a few days, but here I am again telling you more about the persons who strive to supply good coffee to the world.FINCA LOMA SECA (Dry Hill), Chilcal Bajo township in the La Unión...

This one's been long overdue.I've had the good fortune to have tried three excellent coffees, both at home and at work--with my wife, with my coworkers, on my CafeSolo, my Softbrew, and on my Trifecta.  As I sampled and shared...

I don't have a specific link/quote in mind, but I've noticed here and there that people often differ with respect to what methods they consider easier, or (alternatively) more hassle-free.Take the Aeropress, which I’ve been using quite a bit of...

I love using my slow cooker. Over the weekend my dad had a craving for pulled pork. So early Sunday morning I put a five pound piece of pork loin into the slow cooker. To that I added two cups...

Following up on the coffee industry's big annual event--and the associated barista and brewing competitions--I thought it would be appropriate if I wrote a bit about brewing. I, along with many others, sometimes fetishize brewing technique. I'll sometimes think to...

This past weekend was the annual Speciatly Coffee Association of America Expo in Portland OR. This event is the annual event where there is a convergence of information for mainly shop owners and cafes, which includes everything from classes about...

I read a ROASTe blog post on "Desserts and  Coffee" earlier today and, duly inspired by that, I made the appropriately journalistic move of exploring further. There's a great pie shop near my house--Petsi's Pies, if you're ever in Cambridge...

Well, its official, I am addicted to all things coffee. Not so much of the drinks with milk and flavor syrups, they are good, but I am talking about straight coffee. Black. Single origins, blends, natural processed, chemical processed. I...

I receive a variety of magazines in the mail and have lately been quite amazed with the amount of coffee in them. Whether it's a little article in Sunset about a coffee shop to go to while out or in...

Well, look what we have here!Yes, I went a little crazy ordering blends. I blame PT’s B-Ville House Drip, which despite appearances is almost gone. When I pulled the trigger on it originally, I’d needed a break from light-and-bright single-origins,...

When it comes to drinking, I have two vices. One is coffee. The other is Pepsi. A new study published in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" strongly suggests that I should quit drinking one and continue enjoying the other....

My steamed milk has always lacked the fine texture of my local coffee shop's.  For ages, I've wondered why this has been the case.  Using a two hole tip on my espresso machine's steam wand (which reduces steam pressure and exposure to heat), I had achieved...

I recently modded my Mazzer Major with a funnel.  Along with all of the convenience of no longer having to deal with a doser, I am also experiencing the torment of a new sort of problem- static.  To sum up...