When I started roasting coffee, I became more concerned than ever with a mountain of details related to brewing. After all, how could I judge the quality of my roasts if I couldn’t be assured that I was brewing coffee under optimum conditions? This wasn’t a question for me previously, since I was only brewing […]
I often have people ask me for coffee recommendations and they tend to say one of two things, either “I like dark roasts” or “I like coffee that doesn’t have acidity”. As a roaster, I find this really interesting because the current trend of “Third Wave” coffee is all about emphasizing the uniqueness of coffee […]
This is one of the most frequent questions that I get when talking to people who are interested in learning more about artisan coffees. My answer is often ambiguous, and here’s why.
My friend Ahmed (who happens to be a barista at Honey Dew Coffee) surprised me with a gift yesterday, a serving of Blue Bottle Coffee’s new “perfectly ground” pre-ground coffee pack. This is their Bella Donovan Blend, ground for pour-over. If you haven’t heard of Blue Bottle’s pre-ground coffee, don’t fret. Blue Bottle, an icon […]
There’s espresso and then there’s Espresso! Seriously, anybody can learn to pull a shot from an espresso machine, but that doesn’t mean the beverage being pulled would put a smile on the face of Signore Americano. It is an easy beverage to get wrong, and that is even more likely now that the urban American […]
Donut Bank is an Evansville institution, established nearly 50 years ago. Of course, coffee and donuts go together like bacon and eggs, so they serve my favorite beverage by the gallon on a daily basis. However, I had never tried Donut Bank coffee, and since I broke my donut habit that one college summer when […]
As a longtime coffee enthusiast, I tend to connect with and encourage other coffee aficionados like myself, so when Zac Parsons told me he was planning to open a coffeehouse, I invited him to join me in some exercises that would help sharpen our senses and coffee knowledge. There is nothing complex about what we’re […]
I am learning to develop a “slow pour” technique, as an alternative to my old standby, Espresso Americano. As a coffee brewing technique, slow pour has much in common with espresso, because you are controlling the coffee extraction process through water temperature, the grind, and time. Espresso is precisely controlled. My machine is designed to […]
