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Coffee Product Reviews

The 2019 Coffee Compass Holiday Gift Guide

December 3, 2019 By Michael Leave a Comment

And just like that, it’s December and you’re wondering what to get the coffee addict in your life. Maybe you’re asking yourself, do they really want one more coffee-related gift? And the answer, of course, is yes. After all, what else are you going to give someone on a day you’re  forced to wake up at the crack of dawn to open presents? Lucky for you, we’ve compiled the top coffee related gifts for the holiday season at a variety of price points. Coffee from your favorite roaster not included.

thecoffeecompass.com Travel Mug  

We spent years searching for the best insulated travel mug, and hands down Miir’s tumbler takes the cake. It’s the perfect size, its heat retention is second to none, and, most importantly, the air-tight lid is dribble free. We did a super limited run of matte white, laser-etched 12 oz tumblers, and we couldn’t be happier with them. We use ours almost everyday and so far we’ve only found one flaw: it keeps the coffee too hot….

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Filed Under: Coffee Product Reviews Tagged With: holiday gift guide

How to Make Coffee with a Techivorm Moccamaster

November 11, 2019 By Michael Leave a Comment

If your barista owns a coffee maker, there’s a pretty good chance it’s a Technivorm Moccamaster.

For over four decades, the family-owned Dutch company has been making high end home coffee brewers loved by coffee aficionados. Their popular Moccamaster model is one of a select few that meets the strict standards of the Specialty Coffee Association‘s Certified Home Brewer Program.

Although the Moccamaster is a great coffee maker, it’s not without it’s short comings. Most notably, …

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Filed Under: Coffee Product Reviews Tagged With: autodrip, coffee mater, Technivorm Moccamaster

Gear Review: Marco Bru F45m

March 21, 2019 By Michael Leave a Comment

In the world of coffee brewers, there’s a pretty big gap between SCA-certified home brewers, like the Bonavita 1900 series or the Technivorm Moccamaster, and commercial brewers, which need to be plumbed and sometimes even hardwired. The consumer models tend to max out around a liter capacity, while commercial machines are optimized for brewing 3+ liters of coffee….

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Filed Under: Coffee Product Reviews Tagged With: Marco

Gear Review: Konchero Adjustable Temperature Kettle

February 13, 2019 By Michael Leave a Comment

 

One of the most painful parts of leaving the land of 110 voltage and moving to Europe was saying goodbye to all of my electronic coffee gear. The most beloved item was a well-worn Bonavita Variable Temperature Kettle, a prize from a barista competition with both sentimental and practical value. The kettle was used daily for four years, and was still going strong when I passed it on to a friend. Although there are kettles I prefer for their superior handle or spout, the convenience of automating water temperature wins every time, especially when it comes to that first, sleepy-eyed cup in the morning….

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Filed Under: Coffee Product Reviews Tagged With: kettles, pour-over coffee

The 2018 Coffee Compass Holiday Gift Guide

December 3, 2018 By Michael 1 Comment

Every coffee nerd’s significant other has asked themselves the same question during the holidays: “What was that coffee thing they were droning on and on about?” Lucky for you, we’ve compiled a list of the top presents every coffee lover is not-so-secretly hoping will be under the tree Christmas morning.

The World Atlas of Coffee: Second Edition 

As we recently wrote, we think James Hoffmann’s magnum opus is the single most important book about coffee that’s been published to date. And now The World Atlas of Coffee has a second edition that includes more countries, including Uganda, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Hatfields London Nitropress

Photo courtesy of Prima Coffee

I asked Steve Rhinehart, brand lead at Prima Coffee, for his top holiday gift recommendation, and he came back with the Hatfields London Nitropress. Steve explains, “It’s is one of our premiere products for the year. It’s a compact system for making nitro coffee at home, in a small whipping siphon format. The key is that they use nitrogen gas capsules (rather than nitrous oxide) and have a patented dispensing nozzle that restricts flow rate just like a stout spout, giving you results just like a draft system. It’s legit, you get a proper creamy head rather than a fluffy mound of foam like you would with N2O. It’s a solid option for home brewers, or cafes that want to offer nitro by the cup rather than install a bulky system. Good option for bars that want to do nitro cocktails as well!”

Bonavita 8 Metropolitan Coffee Brewer

For years, we’ve recommended the Bonavita 1900 (and, more recently, the Bonavita 1901) as our favorite consumer coffee pot. Even though the value compared to price is incredible, we recognize a lot of consumers aren’t going to spend more than $100 on a coffee pot, which is why we were ecstatic when Bonavita released the 1901PW Metropolitan model. By scaling back on some of the more high-end features, Bonavita is able to sell the Metropolitan for $82 without sacrificing coffee quality. We have one in our kitchen and it’s become a regular part of our coffee routine.

Fellow Stagg EKG Kettle 

The Stagg EKG Kettle has become a fixture in design-conscious cafés and kitchens everywhere, and the new matte white colorway, available exclusively from Fellow and our partners at Prima Coffee for the holiday season– has never looked better. You won’t find a kettle that gives you more control– over the temperature or your pouring technique. We just wish it came in European voltages too.

Buy it from Prima before December 9th with the code WHITESTAGGMAS to save ten percent.

Decent DE1+ Espresso Machine 

Decent Espresso MachineThis one is probably wishful thinking for most of our readers, but we know there’s got to be a few whales out there, or at least someone with a rich uncle (and while you’re at it, mind putting in a word for us?). The DE1+ is Decent Espresso’s home model, but make no mistake, this is a serious machine. The tablet display allows the barista to track certain metrics in real time, giving the user access to unprecedented data. Sadly, we haven’t gotten our hands on one, so this doesn’t amount to an endorsement, but the initial reviews have been great.

Quills Coffee Sweatshirt

Photo by Quills Coffee

I worked at Quills Coffee for almost six years, so I’m a little biased, but when I saw their pullover sweatshirt, I immediately regretted not having an employee discount anymore.  It looks cool. It keeps you warm. What more do you want in a sweatshirt? This isn’t a sponsored post, but Quills, if you’re reading this, it could be.

Where the Wild Coffee Grows 

Where the Wild Coffee Grows

Yes, there’s a lot of books on our list this year, but 2018 might have been the best year for coffee books ever, thanks in part to Where the Wild Coffee Grows. Author Jeff Koehler takes a deep dive into the wild origins of coffee in the forests of Southwest Ethiopia, and traces it’s expansion around the world. We learned a lot from this fascinating book, but it was Koehler’s beautiful prose that kept us turning the pages.

Cafiza

Cafiza

Photo by Matt Stevenson

Don’t be fooled by the name. Cafiza isn’t just for cleaning espresso machines. It’s for cleaning anything that’s got coffee oil stains: your ceramic Hario V60, your travel mug, your canvas sneakers. Not convinced? Read our post “Nine Reasons You Need Some Cafiza in Your Life.”

Bonus Stocking Stuffer: Coffee Filters 

Yes. This has been on our holiday gift guide before, but your coffee lover probably still needs more filters. We know we do.

Filed Under: Coffee Product Reviews

A New Angle on Brewing: The Fellow Stagg Pour-over Dripper

November 20, 2018 By Michael 3 Comments

Does the world need another pour-over dripper? There’s never been more options available, most of which, when properly used, do a pretty decent job of making a cup of coffee.  But sometimes it’s not so important to reinvent the wheel as it is to make incremental improvements, which is what Fellow has set out to do with their Stagg Pour-over Dripper. We recently got our hands on the X and XF models and enjoyed putting the devices through their paces.

Overview

Fellow has made a name for themselves in specialty coffee circles for their widely-embraced Stagg Kettle. Now with a variable temperature model on the market, it’s become an instant classic– a standard fixture of design-conscious cafés and kitchens around the globe. The Stagg dripper is clearly a companion piece to the Kettle, with the same textured finish over stainless steel….

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Filed Under: Coffee Product Reviews Tagged With: Fellow, pour-over coffee, pour-over drippers

The Baratza Forte: The Holy Grail of Home Grinders

July 31, 2018 By Michael 3 Comments

When it comes to home coffee grinders, there is one Holy Grail. The white whale we’ve been chasing for years. One grinder to rule them all, and in the dark roast bind them. That coffee grinder, of course, is the Baratza Forté.  With a touch screen, built-in scale, micro-adjust, and particle size distribution that puts a lot of more expensive commercial grinders to shame, the Forté has been the leading “prosumer” grinder in the industry since debuting at SCAA five years ago. You can see it on some of the best brew bars in the world. And after a few years of scheming and scrimping, we finally snagged one. And after putting it through its paces, we have some thoughts about this grinder and who’s it for….

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Filed Under: Coffee Product Reviews

Every Baratza Coffee Grinder, Ranked

November 27, 2017 By Michael 2 Comments

Baratza

When it comes to consumer coffee grinders, Baratza is the only manufacturer we recommend across the board without hesitation. The company has a wide array of grinders that are loved by coffee professionals and home enthusiasts alike. We’ve been lucky enough to get our hands on all of their products (minus their newest version of the Sette, the 30 AP), and we ranked each grinder based on its features, grind quality, and price….

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Filed Under: Coffee Product Reviews Tagged With: Baratza, burr grinders, consumer grinders

The Only Iced Coffee Maker You’ll Ever Need

July 15, 2017 By Michael 4 Comments

Let’s be honest, iced coffee is usually disappointing. Sure, enough cream and sugar makes anything tolerable, but iced coffee often lacks the sweetness and complexity we expect from a really great coffee. The disappointment transcends categories.

The Problem

Iced coffee typically falls into one of three camps: cold brew, iced Americano, and Japanese iced coffee. For the purpose of home brewing, we can rule out iced Americanos. There are some solid consumer espresso machines on the market, but for most coffee nerds home espresso remains a dream. (And to be perfectly honest, even the best iced Americanos we’ve tasted have a certain aftertaste we just can’t shake.) Cold brew, perhaps the most divisive beverage in specialty coffee, is easy to make, but lacks the refreshing acidity most specialty coffee consumers crave. Japanese iced coffee, made by brewing double strength hot coffee over ice, is high in acidity, but the lower extraction lacks the complex sweetness of the best cups of coffee.

Is it even possible to enjoy an iced coffee that has the same complexity as the best cups of hot coffee? Until recently, many coffee professionals would have said no. Aside from a few mostly unsuccessful attempts at appropriating wort chillers to make iced coffee, most iced coffee makers simply embraced one of the short comings above.

Riding the Coldwave

That was, until the Coldwave Coffee Chiller came out this summer. While technically not a coffee maker, the Coldwave makes hot coffee cold without diluting your brew. It preserves the complexity of hot coffee while providing the refreshing coolness of iced. Perhaps most ingeniously, it works with any type of filter coffee, be it pour-over, Aeropress, or autodrip. …

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Filed Under: Coffee Product Reviews Tagged With: cold brew, Coldwave, iced coffee

Will the December Dripper be the Best Coffee Brewer Ever?

April 11, 2017 By Michael 7 Comments

December Dripper
I’m going to be honest, if you asked me last week whether the world needs another coffee dripper my answer would have been a resounding no. Between the Hario V60, Kalita Wave, Beehive, Melita, and even this collapsable silicon thingy, there’s more than enough products on the market. But then I saw this Kickstarter campaign and realized how wrong I was. …

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Filed Under: Coffee Product Reviews Tagged With: December Dripper, manual brewing, Nick Cho

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