The Reading Room

Making vacuum pot easy
I've sung the praises before of the vertiginous glories of cloth-filtered vacuum pots. The cloth allows a little bit of insolubles through, which really accentuates the aroma of the coffee and contributes to a lush mouth-feel.  However, I'm now an apostate...
Coffee and Blood Sugar: What Research Really Shows

Research on coffee and blood sugar can produce confusing headlines. Here is how to understand short-term glucose findings alongside longer-term coffee research.

Wake Up and FEEL the Coffee
By the number of media outlets carrying a certain piece of information this week, it seems a substantial number of Americans are curious about how desperate housewife Eva Longoria achieves such a gorgeous complexion. Whether or not you're one of...
This Wi-Fi Too Shall Pass
We all share the frustration or disappointment of schlepping our laptops to our favorite coffee shop/rent-free office to multi-task while eating breakfast or other meal and all the outlets and/or chairs are already taken by other laptop users. Or maybe...
What's Driving Brazilians To Drink?
The USA is the leading consumer of coffee in the world, but watch out. Brazil is fast becoming a heavier consumer and if a Reuters article is correct, may overtake the US in consumption of the brew by 2012. Brazil...
Writer Sees Red in Non-Green Contest
This week Marie King wrote of her displeasure concerning last month’s contest promoted by a coffee chain popular in Canada and the eastern US. She asks why the 25-year old contest can’t “evolve to meet our ever-increasing environmental concerns?” Writing...
Balancing Scales
It seems to me that scales can inspire varied reactions among coffee drinkers or even within one. In certain moods I'm of the school that weighing seems rather fussy. It is, after all, only coffee and if one is off...
ROASTe Gears Up for the WBC
ROASTe Partners with the World Barista ChampionshipOk so it’s now official – ROASTe has partnered up with the World Barista Championship (WBC) and we’re getting ready for the upcoming events in New York, between April 7-10. So get your party...
Hot Coffee Hurts Like a Broken Heart
It’s weird coffee news day. No, this is not about a new country western hit. Monday an article by Elizabeth Lopatto reported on a brain study that compared rejection to the pain from spilling hot coffee on your arm. The...
Putting Your Money Where Your Coffee Is
What do banks have in common with bike shops, bookstores and clothing shops? If you said coffee, or café, you’re coffee culture savvy. Then the question becomes: What do banks have to do with coffee? We’ll get to this later....
Coffee Waves: 3 Stages That Changed Coffee Culture

Coffee waves explain how coffee evolved from a basic commodity into a craft-focused experience. Learn what each wave changed.

Coffee Farming? There's an App For That
There seems to be an App for everything these days. Now coffee farmers in remote parts of Mexico, Peru and Tanzania are enjoying a variety of video lessons on their co-op’s iPads that will help them in planting and managing...
World Barista Championship Partners with ROASTe
If you’re anything like me your coffee standards are high. You have your favorite coffee drink, your favorite coffee shop, and more importantly, your favorite coffee baristas. Don’t you agree that your baristas are the best? And wouldn’t you like...
Moka Pot Gasket Guide: Find the Right Size and Replace It

Moka pot leaking? It almost always needs a new gasket. Find the right size for Bialetti and generic stovetop espresso makers, plus how to replace the gasket and clean the pot.

What We Have Here Is a Coffee Culture Clash
Writer Emily Orrson is a student who recently wrote about her experience with a Philadelphia upscale - third wave – coffee shop which is based on the real thing in Italy. Carrying such treats as gelato and real coffee without...
If You Want Your Coffee and Good Sleep Too….
If you have trouble sleeping six to eight hours a night, some advice from nutritionist Jane Schwartz might be just what you need. She recently posted an article on how eating a balanced diet can aid good sleep. The main...
Flavored Coffee: Trendy Maybe... But Really...
Is there no limit to the lengths some coffee companies will go to in order to make sales? Are there no boundaries of good taste? Writer Ian Froeb reveals one odd flavor spotted out on one of America’s highways in...
White Coffee, the Roast
For many, “White Coffee” means the opposite of black coffee - a coffee drink with lots of milk. For others, it’s coffee made from beans that were barely roasted – roasted only to a tan color. In fact, this is...
Blaming Climate Change Won't Help Costa Rica Coffee
There have been more than a few articles on the Costa Rican coffee farms vs the weather. In recent post, Melissa Allison shows that neither the experts nor the farmers seem to be able to agree on the correct causes...
Of Coffee, Verbs and Waves
A few days ago, Kathleen O’Brien wrote a very humorous perspective on the current coffee scene. She describes the upgrading of coffee since the diner days to the current age of fancy schmancy brew methods and coffee types. If you’re...
Which Coffee Wave Are You Riding?
The coffee culture is fluid in the US, never really standing still. The intense competition between coffee shops creates the need to rise higher, do more, source better beans, provide more ambiance…in a never-ending coffee war. Several articles in the...