So elegant and design-y that owning one requires you to be comfortable in your masculinity, the Eva Solononetheless makes a mean cup of coffee.
We’ve been playing around with one all week here and I really love it. Of the many brewing methods in our arsenal, nothing comes closer to true cupping (the standard industry […]

Fresh roasted artisan coffee is not easy to come by in many places. Even when you find local roasters, it can be hit or miss as to the quality of their beans or their roasting skill. Some towns have several great options, others have zilch. Often you can find locally roasted coffee […]

I get asked pretty often about home coffee roasting.
There is already quite a lot of good information online about roasting your own and I’ll point you in the right direction rather than trying to encapsulate it all.
The alpha and omega of home roasting on the internet is Tom Owen’s Sweet Marias. Tom sells […]

If you’ve failed to heed my earlier warnings about the challenges of doing real espresso at home and you’re ready to lay out some fat cash and grapple with the steep learning curve - this post is for you.
This guide is by no means a replacement for a thorough reading of the reviews and forums […]

Don’t do it. You’ve got so much to live for. Don’t listen to the chorus of coffee geeks chanting “one of us, one of us”. Note the skeptical look on the face of your significant other: you’ll be seeing it again many more times before you get within reach of your […]

I’ve taken a lot of photos of latte art - the patterns and designs made by pouring properly steamed milk into espresso - but never gotten around to taking video of how its done. I shot this small video today in the kitchen with my barista sidekick Kyle wielding the pitcher (making it look […]

So assuming you’re ready to make the upgrade to only buying fresh roasted whole bean coffee, how do you make heads or tails of various origins, roasts, labels, and blends? What criteria should you use in selecting coffee and where do you begin to explore this new landscape? You’ll get different answers asking […]

For the vast majority of coffee consumers, coffee is first and foremost a form of fuel. It’s not expected to taste very good unless it’s hidden inside several hundred calories of added fat and sugar. At best it’s seen as a warm and comforting fix, a frequent ritual, an addictive excuse to step […]

Some guys invest a lot of time in learning the arts of mixing drinks as a way to impress the ladies. But honestly, women impressed by prowess in handling alcohol are probably too easily impressed to begin with. If you really want to lay the love mojo upon your special overnight guests, its […]

Gird your wallets gentlemen, the time has come for us to talk about grinders.

No single investment in your coffee ritual (outside of the purchase of fresh roasted, ethically-sourced coffees) will have greater impact than the quality of your grinder. Those $9 “coffee mill” whirly-blade grinders just chop your coffee into a dusty mess, cursing […]

A lot of us coffee nerds will tell you with great sincerity that one of the easiest and best ways to brew coffee at home is the presspot or french press. What we don’t say is that its also quite easy to screw it up and few of us have batting averages worth bragging […]

We’ll wade into the deeper waters of espresso later in the week, but for now there are two main brewing methods to discuss: filter brewing and total immersion brewing. I’ll give my propers to my favorite tools for each method this week, but let’s lay some groundwork.
Total immersion brewing is where all the ground […]