The Reading Room

During my coffee explorations, I’ve noticed that roasters and other coffee pros approach the challenge/chore [some might say necessary evil?] of creating descriptions for their coffees from different angles and with different degrees of tongue-in-cheekness. The variability is truly fascinating...

Today a super fresh Klatch Panama Carmen Estate 1750 Reserve is in my Cup.  The beans are starting to show promise with a bit of spiciness in the dry aroma and a hint of cherry in the wet aroma. at...

Steaming milk is one of the real challenges most new baristas have when they are first trying to learn to make great espresso drinks.   People want to make latte art and wonder why they cannot pour it after watching a...

My favorite technique is what I’ve dubbed the modified tap nutation.  It combines two simple techniques to get a quick easy and reliable distribution.  I expect that it will not work well with cheap grinders, but it works very well...

One more possible distribution technique is the N.S.E.W. (also known as North South East West).  It is a slightly more sophisticated version of the finger swipe. The NSEW technique starts the same as most techniques – you start by filling...

I thought it would be fun to riff on a currently popular blog topic and talk about what’s on my radar screen as far as coffees go. It’s as good an excuse as any to discuss my own coffee “sweet...

When pressure comes up against an immovable force, something has to give. Barista and barista trainer, Erin Meister, met that immovable force while making coffee and recently shared her experience with readers. It’s all because of those fines, those dastardly...

The BeginningI first started drinking coffee at Dunkin Donuts. And I am not sure if that is good, bad or ugly but it was what it was. I drank their coffee and liked it. Though I loaded it up with...

I never thought about this as a blog topic but thanks to another blogger here I see this can be a fun topic.  I finished my bag of Deep Cello Nostromo dark troasted regular coffee that I was fortunate enough...

What I am drinking now Vivace Dolce.  This is a great espresso.  It is not as subtle or fruit forward as many of the newer trendy espressos that are popular today.  It is, however, easy to enjoy.  I did not...

Since this came up in a comment for my last blog entry I thought I'd talk about dosing tools... Dosing tools, these can also help, but they can be costly or home made. The next distribution technique I wanted to...

Fair Trade USA is a non-profit certifier of Fair Trade products in the US, dealing with products from flowers to coffee. They just announced that they are reducing fees in order to increase their coffees’ attractiveness to roasters. They’re also...

This variant on the stockfleths move is (very close to) the one developed by Dan Kehn on home-barista.com that he calls the Stockfleths for dummies.  His original description is located at http://www.home-barista.com/tips/stockfleths-move-for-dummies-t4594.html There is also a video there or directly...

/files/u2252/AT_Brevetti_8.jpg" align="right" height="400" width="227" />From what I gather reading on forums and from my own experience the Tre Spade brand of burrs is pretty high quality.  The company is not exactly a household name even though the company's products have...

Thanks to another coffee lover's desire to upgrade a while back, a La Pavoni PBC Conical Burr Espresso Grinder became available. I had been saving for a Preciso but almost picked up a demo La Pavoni like this one that...

If you have a favorite coffee drink, a favorite coffee shop, or a favorite name in coffee brands, do you know why you chose that particular drink, shop or brand? What prompts a consumer to make his choices and settle...

This is one in a series of posts on how best to distribute coffee in a portafiliter.  The technique is called the  Stockleths distribution technique- or perhaps more aplty the vaunted Stockfleths distribution technique. This is a video that nearly...

The WDT is short for the Weiss Distribution Technique.  It was invented by John Weiss and at first seems a little silly, but you cannot argue with the results.  There is a reason that hundreds or perhaps even thousands of...

One strategy that works surprisingly well, but is not very widely used is what I like to call the “shake and bake.”  It isn’t as good as some of the methods that take more practice (or the WDT that takes...

I have had a chance to play around with Burundi bwayi that I bought a while ago ( bought 10 pounds of green two years actually!!). I roasted it to a variety of roast level from very light city roast...

From building Harleys to designing coffee roasters might seem like a big jump, but to electrical engineer Marty Curtis, it was a natural thing to do. He took his hot rod engineering skills and applied them to the needs of...