The Reading Room

How to Brew Pourover the Nick Cho Way
The blogs call him "celebrity coffee bad boy", a D.C. columnist refers to him as a "tax scofflaw" and the D.C. coffee scene knows him as the former owner of the city's Murky Coffee. Nick Cho was forced to shut...
Fair Trade
I came across a comment written by Jon Danzig on a previous post about coffee prices and a little bit on how increased prices can help a coffee farmer, as seen here. What Mr Danzig left in the comment portion...
The (Dis)loyalty Card
We’re all familiar with the idea and concept of a customer loyalty card. You get rewarded by visiting the same shop day after day and eventually earn yourself a free drink. The problem with this concept is that you end...
For the Coffee Lover Who Has Everything: Designer Sleeves
If you’re a coffee loving Jimmy Choo fan, you may be interested in one of his latest creations. The designer who has become famous for his shoe and accessory innovations has turned his attention to coffee items. Well, at least...
The Esatto: first impressions and thoughts on single-dosing
I’ve had an Esatto now for about a month. While it works well paired with my Preciso, I’m in a bit of a love-hate relationship with this grinding combo. at the moment. Here I’ll briefly explain why and make a...
What I'm Drinking today: Costa Rican Fruita as Espresso
/files/u14133/12202011121.jpg" width="375" height="500" />  I was blogging about how much I enjoyed the Costa Rican Fruita De Oro, which is a wet processed coffee as an Aeropress brew here:  http://www.roaste.com/CoffeeBlogs/sontondaman/What-Im-Drinking-Costa-Rican-Fruita-De-Oro . Yesterday and today I have been brewing and drinking this...
A Review - Konitz Coffee Bar Cappucino Cups
If you read some of my previous blogs or that of others you are well aware that there are a lot of things that you can buy to go along with your espresso machine, one of the things that I...
A Silly (yet effective) Aeropress Pressure Method
One of the things that is often overlooked in the Aeropress preparation method is the amount of pressure applied to the device. If you look at several of the methods out there they’ll say things like “slow and consistent” but...
Kenya’s Life and Death Coffee Battle
A battle raging in Kenya between police, farmers, smugglers, business people, and governmental officials demonstrates how corruption and greed become involved as soon as a commodity goes high demand. The stuff of action movies, it’s a drama played out in...
How to Choose a Home Espresso Machine: 4 Key Factors

 Choosing the right home espresso machine comes down to pressure, temperature, machine type, and budget. Here is what to look for before you buy.

In South Korea – Coffee Entertainment R-Us!
Yesterday a new American reality show featuring baristas made the news. Today, from an article on Balita online, we find out that coffee programming is old news in S. Korea. As another Asian country finds its coffee demand skyrocketing, when...
Fool me once...
My parents came to visit recently.  My mother is a camera buff and she brought her camera as always.  I went out to help unload the car.  I confess that this was not a quick process.  They had quite a...
Best Time to Drink Coffee for Energy and Focus

 The best time to drink coffee is not first thing in the morning. Learn how cortisol timing affects your energy and when to drink for peak focus.

What I'm Drinking: Costa Rican Fruita De Oro
it had been about four days already of agony, because I have been having a bad canker sore inside my mouth that made enjoying hot cup of coffee or a hot shot of espresso imposible.  It is a very horrible...
Not-Your-Mother’s Baristas To Be Featured in Upcoming Reality Show
Remember the old TV sitcoms which focused on the 50’s diner setting, in which the waitresses were the stars? Now comes a modern, 21st century version that is no longer the sitcom, but the popular “reality show” genre. The coffee...
High Jump Now Deep Cello's Top Seller
OK, we've all heard about the power of brand; that a brand can change the fortunes of a company or product.  Yeah, kinda sorta so what.Over the last year, the co-founders of Deep Cello have worked fun to create fun...
Technivorm Mocamaster coffee grinder
http://rk.wsimgs.com/wsimgs/rk/images/dp/wcm/201135/0033/img5o.jpg" height="400" width="400" />  Recently I have been interested in buying an autodrip coffee maker because of their convinience and the larger serving size that they produce; I'm interested in this because I would like to sometime bring coffee to...
Temperature management of La Pavoni using OE's Temperature strip
What I'm going to write today about is a product that had really help me to realize the full potential of my espresso machine, the La Pavoni lever espresso machine. It is the Orphan Espresso temperature sensitive strip: http://www.orphanespresso.com/Pennys-Hot-Shot-Group-Strip-Thermometer_p_2133.html http://www.orphanespresso.com/assets/images/faema%206(1).jpg" height="257"...