The Reading Room

This article is the first in a series of four discussing the process of brewing coffee. Please enjoy! Making a great cup of coffee is no accident. It requires at least a basic understanding of coffee, and its extraction. The...

If you’re reading this post, you probably already have seen the results of Hawai‘i’s second statewide cupping competition.  If not, the top 10 list can be found at the blog of Andrew Hetzel (Cafemakers), notable industry consultant, friend, and colleague. ...

In my opinion the best coffee comes from a method using a full immersion technique.   There are a few options out there, but today I'm going to talk about the French Press also known as a Press Pot. So what...

One would think that living in Los Angeles, it would not be very hard to find some good coffee houses. Wrong! While serving in the United States Navy, I was stationed in Bangor Washington, just across the way from Seattle....

Using different water sources for my coffee In the past couple of weeks we have gotten major storms. Inches of rain in a very short time (flooding, streets closed - all that fun stuff). I got the idea to collect...

My first cup of really fresh, unique, and delicious coffee was a French roast blend brewed in a French press, (oui, oui). That distinctive dark, bittersweet, slightly charred taste served as my benchmark for all that was good and right...

I grew up drinking Turkish coffee...rich flavorful, not very sophisticated. As years went by (and so did my hair) I developed a taste for espresso. Don't get me wrong, I've had espresso before, but I am talking about really, really...

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Here is my little espresso piece of heaven: 

I finally upgraded my Gaggia Baby to a Quickmill Anita. What a difference! Anita is a heat exchanger machine (compared to a single boiler Gaggia) with a E61 brewing group. I am now able to produce better shots with more...

  Decaffeination Unplugged     There are two people groups in the world - the Cafs, and the Caf-nots. The Cafs love their caffeine and the buzz it provides. To the Caf-nots, the buzz is anywhere from annoying to debilitating...

When does a glass of iced coffee equal one and a half pots of hot coffee and a full pitcher of iced coffee? Let me tell you about it.... Last night before going to bed I made a batch of...

Not many people have the possibility of knowing the details of growing coffee and even less the chance to visit a coffee plantation. My blog has been about some of the people involved in the delicate -and strenuous- chores of...

EZ-Cup adapter for Keurig Brewers Review The manufacturer ARM Industries offers their latest product - the EZ-Cup for Keurig brewers.  One of the reasons for using this device is to enjoy good coffee not available in K-Cup format. For this review...

/files/k-cup_cross_section.gif" title="extraction method" alt="extraction method" align="left" />If you read my first blog post you know I spoke about automatic drip brewers as a way of coffee extraction. Another option in this method is a single cup brewer. The Keurig system...