The Reading Room

Have you ever stood at the counter in a coffee shop staring at the chalked menu and wondering if you should order a macchiato, a lungo or a breve? You’re not alone. Given the considerable variety of espresso drinks available...

Coffee seems deceptively simple to prepare. Simply soak ground coffee beans in hot water and, voilà, you have coffee – or something that approximates it. However, coffee is remarkably delicate and finicky, both as a plant and as a beverage....

Pacamara. Catuai. Bourbon. SL-28. Geisha. If you’re a fan of specialty coffee, chances are you’ve seen at least a few of those names on coffee labels or menus. Until recently, though, few people outside of farms and labs paid much...

Coffee accolades fall into three basic categories: certifications, awards and label designations. Understanding what each of these designations means can help you make responsible decisions when you’re buying specialty coffee. Certifications A number of the labels that you’ll encounter signify...

If you’re confused about how to discuss or interpret coffee roast levels, you’re not alone. In fact, there are so many competing scales and lists of terminology that some experts are left shaking their heads. And let’s not even get...

It’s a term that has invaded coffee culture and permeated it completely: Third Wave. Anyone in the specialty coffee industry has an opinion about what it means. Often the term relates to coffee as an artisanal beverage, independently procured and...

The Italian mice were right. A little over a year ago we reported on a study that showed mice lost weight when given green coffee bean extract. Now articles all over the web are reporting on a recent study which...

A new study has brought to light a long-sought answer to the question of what makes Joe Rat more productive. Rats who like to work become more relaxed and less driven after their mid-day coffee, while slacker rats work harder...

Writer Rachel Tepper confessed that she does not like coffee. Yet she yearned to “get herself hooked.” After all, the benefits looked good: boosted energy levels, more regulated digestion, reduced risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia….. and feeling more a part of...

Koreans love their caffeine, whether it comes in coffee, cola or chocolate. A lot of the growth in popularity of coffee occurred in the last twenty years, since the arrival of the international coffee chains to Korea. Another development has...

You may have heard the story of how Irish coffee was invented to calm a planeload of passengers waiting out rough weather on a runway in Shannon, Ireland. After all, the press has been full of Irish coffee stories for...

With tongue in cheek, writer Allysia Finley has publicly requested that President Obama include real health-promoting benefits - such as coffee - in his Obamacare. While not the only health-boosting suggestion she makes, she does highlight coffee in the title...

Finca Rosa Blanca isn’t just any coffee farm, but an organic coffee plantation located outside beautiful San Jose, Costa Rica. A coffee plantation with an inn, (a new trend?) it beckons coffee lovers who want a hands-on lesson in coffee...

It’s not so much the weather that is causing problems for Jamaican coffee growers, but the economic climate in other countries, paired with an increase in the costs of coffee farming. The higher expenses and lower demand are squeezing some...

As hard as it may be to believe, Bolivian farmers in the Yungas Valley are switching from the very lucrative coca plant (cocaine) to the coffee bean. Because of US government aid, the farmers are finding it more profitable to...

Coffee shops are becoming too pretentious, according to writer Rebecca Flint Marx. In New York, pretentious doesn’t sell, so the Third Wave Coffee movement that has hit the west coast is not catching on that quickly in the Big Apple....

Get ready to enter the “Caffeine Zone”. Yep, someone by the name of Frank Ritter has come up with an iPhone app that can keep you within the Zone, where you stay at an even level of caffeinated bliss. Scien-tifically...

Imagine the expectation: An Indian marketing firm spent some time working on devising a technique that would enable newspaper copy to smell like the featured item. Last weekend they debuted their beautiful ad for Bru Gold coffee in the Sunday...

Is one ever too young to enjoy the coffee shop environment? Do kids belong in the café? Is the babycino too cute? Whatever you might think of kids in the coffee shop, a controversy of sorts developed recently in Australia...

Like it or not, the Italian-inspired Starbucks started a coffee revolution in the US. The changes introduced there have been brought to cafes almost everywhere, in fifty countries from the Americas to the Middle East and Africa. This week writer...

Twenty years ago the Philippines ranked third in world coffee production. Currently they sit at 76th in rank, quite a big slippage. The government is responding and seeks to hang a national economic recovery on the revival of the coffee...