03 Oct 2026Thirty-Six Aromas in a Box
Most people assume a nose is issued, not built: you are either someone who catches the apricot in a coffee or you are not, and no amount of effort ...
Read the setupBrewing
Notes on coffee, the objects it is made with, and what we will not sell you.
24 Sep 2026Quakers: The Blond Bean You Should Pick Out
Somewhere in the last bag of naturally processed coffee you bought, there was probably a bean the colour of milky tea sitting in a crowd of brown o...
Read the setup
22 Sep 2026Kopi Luwak: Don't
A cup of kopi luwak in New York was selling for around $30 as of 2019, and the bagged coffee for upwards of $100 a pound, figures Jonathan Morris r...
Read the setup
19 Sep 2026Are You a Supertaster, and Does It Matter?
Roughly one person in four is wired to experience certain bitter compounds at an intensity the rest of the table never receives, and a sizeable sha...
Read the setup
08 Sep 2026Rehabilitating the Lungo
A lungo costs you the back half of the extraction, and that is where the bitter, drying, papery compounds live. Pull one carelessly and you get a b...
Read the setup
29 Aug 2026Turkish Coffee: The Only Method With No Filter at All
A pot, a heat source, a cup. No paper, no plunger, no basket, no pump, no pressure. That is the shortest equipment list in coffee and it is the rea...
Read the setup
27 Aug 2026Sixty Degrees: The Milk Temperature Argument, Settled
The person asking for their latte extra hot is not being difficult and is not ignorant. They have a real complaint, which is that the drink they pa...
Read the setup
25 Aug 2026Nine Bar, and Why Your Machine Advertises Fifteen
The number on the box is not a lie. It is a measurement of something that never happens while you are making coffee. Fifteen bar, eighteen bar, twe...
Read the setup
25 Aug 2026Scoop the Crema Off Your Americano
You pull a shot that tastes good on its own. Sweet at the front, a little bright, nothing harsh about it. Then you add hot water and the drink that...
Read the setup
13 Aug 2026Bleached vs Unbleached: A Paper Taste Test
The brown filter costs about the same as the white one and looks like the more responsible purchase sitting in the cupboard. It is also the one mor...
Read the setup
11 Aug 2026The Cafetière Deserves Better Than It Gets
The press has two genuine costs and almost nobody objects to either of them. It puts oil and fine sediment into the cup, which some people do not w...
Read the setup
08 Aug 2026Why Grinder Numbers Are Meaningless Between Machines
Somebody posts a recipe with a grind setting in it. Twenty on the Encore. Two and a half on the hand grinder. It gets copied into a comment, then i...
Read the setup