Your Guide for Craft Coffee
Vancouver is widely considered one of the most livable cities on earth. Its wide array of fantastic cafés might have something to do with that. We already wrote about our visit to Nemesis Coffee, but we would be remiss if we didn’t mention five more cafés that have us applying for Canadian citizenship.
Revolver might be the best Beatles album, but it’s also one…
We, like 779 other Kickstarter backers, are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our December Dripper. The adjustable flow rate pour-over device more than tripled its goal, raising a cool $58,251. With an estimated arrival time of late June, we have some time before the December Dripper is making our morning cup, but in the meantime our sponsors at Prima Coffee gave us a chance to take a peek at a pre-ship sample. After a few brews we have a few thoughts on how this new brewing technology might be utilized to produce tastier coffee. …
During my five years on bar I’ve heard some bizarre requests. As a barista, it’s my firm conviction that my responsibility to provide hospitality trumps my own preferences. Would I put two Splendas in my coffee? Never. Will I put two Splendas in your coffee if you prefer? Happily.
That being said, there are a few common orders that are objectively wrong. If you value your reputation or have any common decency, you’ll stop ordering these immediately. I write this not to order-shame anyone, but to improve your life and the lives of baristas everywhere. …
There are few things we enjoy more than traveling. Drinking coffee is one of them. Visiting world-class coffee shops in one of the most exciting cities in the world? That might take the cake. Today we’re living vicariously through guest-contributor Andy Cenci’s recent Tokyo café-crawl. These are Cenci’s top three Tokyo coffee shops you shouldn’t miss:…
Kurt Vonnegut. David Letterman. The Indy 500. President Benjamin Harrison. Indianapolis is home to a lot of famous people and things. Not as famous, but just as noteworthy in our humble opinion, is Indianapolis’s growing specialty coffee community. Although long eclipsed by larger markets in neighboring states, the coffee scene in Indianapolis is refreshingly passionate and non-partisan. The latest addition to this burgeoning community is Coat Check Coffee, a small lobby café already punching well above its weight class.
Located in the actual coat check of the historic Athenaeum building, …
McDonald’s in the United Kingdom released a commercial ribbing specialty coffee shops last week, and a lot of baristas took to social media to voice their anger. The video ridiculed craft coffee shops for having limited hours, being over priced, taking too long, having rewards cards, and frankly just being too precious when it comes to coffee. As voiced by one actor in the commercial, McDonald’s is the place for people who “just want a cup of coffee.”…
You’re probably ignoring the second most important ingredient in your coffee. Although coffee nerds meticulously select their coffee, equipment, and brewing techniques, most just use whatever water comes out of the tap. But water makes up more than 98% of filter coffee, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that water can radically change the way your coffee tastes.
The chemical composition of the water both affects how the soluble coffee particles are extracted and how those flavors are perceived when consumed. For example, softer water will accentuate a coffee’s bright, juicy flavors, while water that is overly-hard will like taste flat and astringent. But it gets more complicated. As Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood and Chris Hendon explain in their seminal book, Water For Coffee, although water hardness is determined by the cumulative ppm of dissolved minerals, it doesn’t tell you what minerals are present. This matters because minerals like calcium and magnesium aid coffee extraction and don’t negatively affect flavor, but other minerals like iron and sodium bicarbonate can have an off-putting affect on coffee flavor. In other words, water matters.
While serious coffee shops spend thousands of dollars on their water filtration systems, for most consumers buying filtered spring water is the only viable option. But different brands and even different bottles of spring water can have very different chemical compositions depending on the source water. This problem bothered a couple of coffee-loving entrepreneurs in Southern Ohio which led them to create a product they call Third Wave Water….
The main area in the hill town of Ubud, Bali, has no more than 2 or 3 large roads. Strangely most tourists bound themselves here. A turn to the narrow streets off the main roads quickly escapes the bustle. It’s on such a quiet pathway that I find something novel—a cafe devoted to one coffee variety from one village.
The shop name, Juria House, takes after the variety. Mind you, the place is small. It only fits a row of sofas and low chairs. The owner, a Japanese transplant named Ryuichi Hirakawa, operates the space almost like his living room. He’d welcome you as you take your shoes off, sit down, and hear the story behind the coffee.
Juria House’s customer space, taking up 2/3 of the shop.
Juria derives from Typica seeds that a Flores native brought home from Sulawesi in 1950. The first trees still thrive today in Colol village, East Manggarai regency. Growing untrimmed to 4 or 5 m, they require a climb during harvest. …
Hang around a coffee shop long enough and you’ll likely hear a barista mention cupping. No, they’re not talking about competitive cup stacking. Cupping is a century-old quality control technique utilized by coffee producers and roasters alike to evaluate coffee. Thanks to a great new educational video from Cafe Imports, you too can learn how to cup coffee. Watch as roasting guru Joe Marrocco walks you through the basics, including water temperature, brewing ratios, and best practices. Cupping spoons and coffee not included.
Kickstarter has been a decidedly mixed bag when it comes to coffee. On one hand, it’s given us success stories like Acaia, whose Bluetooth-ready scales have become a fixture in quality-minded cafés. On the other hand, the failures have been numerous– perhaps none more disastrous than the ZPM espresso machine, which after years of delays failed to come to market. The outcry that followed garnered the attention of the New York Times and even motivated Kickstarter to change their policies. …
