The Reading Room

One of things that continues to amaze me is that making good coffee is no secret, and has been known how for a long time. This evening while getting out the recipe from the Joy of Cooking circa 1971 I...

Yesterday,  I had a really close call with my La Pavoni lever espresso machine! What happen was I was in a rush in the morning as I have a really early morning class. I turned on my La Pavoni profesional...

/files/u5804/Aeroshot_front.jpg" width="500" height="373" /> /files/u5804/Aeroshot_unwrapped.jpg" width="373" height="500" /> Talking about caffeine kind of bores me. What I mean is that, while some dark corner of my brain probably recalls that coffee contains caffeine and reflexively craves coffee when I’m dragging...

I have had an interesting experience with this coffee from Paradise Roasters, India Sitara 100% Robusta. I believe this coffee could follow the arch of a good fling you have with someone, starts out great, one nasty incident, then it's...

You have probably seen the shows where they bring in the celebrity guest chef to the little restaurant that is trying to make it and he tries to take what they are doing and make it work.   Well, I...

I am the person who did not start to drink coffee until I was 40+ years old (I am now 53).  I always enjoyed the smell of it but the taste just didn't do it for me.  I drank cold...

I get the Wall Street Journal everyday and have the opportunity to give it a quick read and saw something interesting in it yesterday talking about of Starbucks. It seems like they have had a lot of articles about the...

A number of people have expressed interest in the pressure reducer I need to use to reduce the house’s water pressure before it enters the machine.  It is a spec dictated by Elektra on the machine and it is backed...

We often speak of the "service industry" as containing people selling and serving food, which has always been a bit misleading, to me. I don't disagree that an awful lot of food purveyors, like diners or fast food joints, provide...

http://zpmespresso.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/LogoforWeb1-1024x261.png" title="ZPM Logo" align="middle" height="130" width="512" alt="ZPM Logo" />  A little over two days from now, an ambitious project will be funded through Kickstarter, having reached sixteen times its goal in pledged funding. At almost a third of a million dollars,...

One of the few perks (pun noticed but not intended!) that accrues from being in the coffee business is the opportunity to taste many different coffees.  As many of you know, I've been tasting each of our component coffees individually...

It's a Tuesday after a three day weekend, and this morning I found myself taking the first drink of coffee in the car as I drove off and it was bad... real bad. I had this sneaking impression that it...

Making espresso at home is something that I think you just need to go for and you have to leap not just take a baby step forward. The reason is that the espresso machines you can buy for under a...

Let me introduce to you my new aquisition: /files/u14133/IMG_1077.jpg" width="336" height="448" /> Yes that is right, a state of the art coffee machine that can grind, and then brew a perfect cup of coffee, all done automatically! Let have a...

Syracuse is incredibly deficient when it comes to good coffee. My findings at most coffee purveryors in the area have been that, more often than not, I would have been better off staying home and saving my money. This is...

Today after slugging our way through the Whole Foods parking lot in Berkeley, the wife and I decided to stop into this nice coffee spot on our way home, Philz Coffee. And believe me if you have ever been to...

Breaking in espresso equipment. Some espresso equipment is not as good as new, it is better than new.  In particular it seems to be fairly well accepted that large grinders need to be broken in before they are at their...

A short review by Serious Eats of the new Starbucks Blonde roasts showed up in my feeds today, so I took a gander to see what they found. I'm not always in agreement with SE's coffee articles, and this time...

  /files/u2500/blog_moka_brewing_cold_and_hot.jpg" height="500" width="360" title="Credit: psd’s photostream, Flickr" alt="Credit: psd’s photostream, Flickr" /> Everyone needs a Moka pot. They make delicious coffee in a short time and are relatively inexpensive. Also, you can get creative with it and make even...

I tend to think that I have a pretty high tolerance for caffeine and it's effects. I can drink a few cups of coffee or a couple shots of espresso right before bed and sleep soundly with no ill effects....

I had the pleasure yesterday being able to make another trip to a coffee shop near my in-law's home in Modesto, CA, the Serrano Social Club. I have spoken about it in a past blog and have been there a...