The Reading Room

There seems to be some sort of background discussion on coffee scores happening this week, with Mark Prince weighing in, as well as a few other bloggers and reviewers. Some are saying "simplify the system," others are saying "be more...

The coffee cart has come to a screeching halt!  I am so close to done and yet I can proceed no further.  I have completed all of the hard wood working.  I finished the finger joints that hold the drawers...

While it has been a mild winter throughout the U.S. our thrill seeker- French Roast has had some memorable adventures!  As our most intense roast, French spent the weekend in his typical high octane fashion, tearing up the snowy slopes!...

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...

Bring back the holidays. What I am drinking now is Velton’s holiday blend from Velton’s Coffee Roasting Company.  You may find this odd since the “holidays” does not usually mean Valentine’s day together with President’s day.  You may also find...

As I sit here drinking a cup of americano made from the La Pavoni lever machine using a nicely roasted Rwanda coffee, I can not help but to reflect a little bit about this week. It has been an incrediblely...

 A well-organized home coffee station makes better coffee easier to make every day. Here is how to plan the layout, what equipment to include at every budget level, and how to store your beans and gear for maximum freshness and convenience.

This is a review of my initial impressions of Paradise coffee roasters Espresso Havana.  It is fairly fresh – 3 days post roast, so the taste may change dramatically over the next week or so – possibly for the better. ...

Are we in the Golden Age of Coffee? I have been thinking about this as I was looking to order some coffee today, it seems like we might be at one of those very happy convergence points. For coffee this...

The quality of your ground coffee determines your cup before brewing even starts. Grind size, grind consistency, freshness, storage, and whether you grind whole bean or buy pre-ground all affect the result. These 5 factors explain what separates a great cup from a flat one.

I heard recently that an apple have more caffeine than a cup of coffee.  This struck me as a crazy claim so I decided to investigate.  It turns out that it is indeed a crazy claim.  An apple has no...

Because of the increasing chance for me to work as the Monday afternoon barista (a little more here), I spent a some time getting more training from one of the baristas that work at the shop. While I felt pretty...

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...

Caffeine lingers longer than most people think. How to set a cutoff time before bed, and why the daily limit is a ceiling rather than a goal.

I was curious about the unique flavor of Bossa from Deep Cello Roasters and how they suggested pulling the shots of it, so I wrote to ask.  I was quite pleased to get the following detailed answer from Justin Kagan...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7062/6878940937_f8d51eebeb.jpg" align="left" width="300" vspace="10px" hspace="10px" height="188" alt="coffee bean candle" />Did you forget today is Valentine's Day and find yourself giftless and destined for the doghouse? If you've got coffee beans, a glass jar and a tealight candle in the house,...

/files/u16346/DSC00183.jpg" height="300" align="left" width="225" hspace="10" /> I know there has been a lot of rave reviews about how good Cremina is and how great the shots it makes. You probably don’t need another post to convince you that it is...

So about three weeks ago I posted about the initial impressions I had with the Mypressi. Since then I’ve gotten swamped with work and haven’t had much of a chance to share anything else about it. So I thought I...

What we are drinking now – Chazzano French roast.  I blogged earlier about the Chazzano’s Papau New Guinea coffee that a friend gave me that I quite enjoyed.  She also brought us a bag of their French Roast.  It is...

Guatemalan coffee quality starts with color at harvest. Why pickers take only red cherries, what green fruit costs, and how the wet mill locks flavor in.

In my very first blog post here last May, I focused on Orphan Espresso’s PHAROS as an example of the “pursuit of perfection” in manual coffee grinding. As well-built as the PHAROS appears to be, it was not designed for...