When you make pour-over coffee, you’re at the mercy of gravity. If grind size is a little off, then you’ll probably get a wasted cup of over- or under-extracted coffee. There’s just not much you can do about it. With the AeroPress, that’s not the case. It’s not just convenient, but an incredibly forgiving design….
If you’re wondering whether to take the plunge (pun totally intended) on an AeroPress, then this is for you. The AeroPress is similar in price to most manual brewing methods, but much cheaper than any good machine. It’s easier to use and clear than most brewing methods, too. The AeroPress brews as consistently as anything,…
If you’re newer to specialty coffee (“the good stuff”), it probably didn’t take long to realize that pour-over brewing is the method of choice. Compared to filling up the old Mr. Coffee, pour-over brewing is cumbersome and finicky. All the gadgets–scales, grinders, and such–can get a little expensive, too. Yet all of us coffee nerds…
Who doesn’t love having plenty of fresh-roasted coffee on hand? Even better is when it’s your own handiwork. Home coffee roasting is a fun and approachable hobby. It’s free or cheap to start, and can be extremely cost-effective in the long run. Think of it as a craft. You can make something right away, then…
The specialty coffee world is all about single-origin beans. Well, perhaps not all, but suffice to say that specific and far-flung origins are core to “third-wave” coffee culture. Some folks even make full-on careers of finding and promoting interesting coffee origins to their connoisseur clientele. It’s like wine or cigars, just less pretentious. Well, usually……
Roasting coffee at home is the best way to keep fresh, delicious beans on hand. It’s cost-effective, and perhaps better yet, it’s a lot of fun. After using different roasters over several years, I’ve found that the Fresh Roast SR800 (available here) is the best home coffee roaster for most of us. It isn’t cheap,…
You can’t always pack up and leave on a trip across the world, but you can take a grand tour through coffee. In fact, discovering unique origins is one of the things that hooked me on specialty coffee in the first place. Just like with wine, the flavor of coffee depends on the environment it…
The best way to enjoy coffee more is to enjoy more coffee. What do I mean by that? Just like good wine, good coffee contains more flavors than perhaps any single person could pick out. There are hit-you-over-the-head obvious flavors, like the chocolates or nutty ones. Then there are subtler flavors like specific berries and…
True or false: making great coffee at home requires either a finicky pour-over coffee set-up or a fancy, expensive automatic brewer? For most people most of the time, the answer is false. That’s good news if you’re just getting into brewing coffee at home, or you’ve struggled to get consistent pour-overs, or your cheap-o coffee…
If there’s anything better than the smell of that first cup of coffee in the morning…mankind has yet to discover it. But if you’re new to brewing coffee at home, then sometimes the flavor doesn’t quite hold up to the aroma. Watery cups, excessively bitter brews, or just totally inconsistent batches are the bane of…