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Coffee guides

Plain-English guides to grind size, water temperature, bean resting, varietals and processing. What each one does to your cup, backed by coffee science.

Coffee basics

The Best Specialty Coffee Books for Home Brewers

Three coffee books I have read cover to cover, what each one is actually good at, which to buy first, and whether the World Atlas third edition is worth the upgrade.

How to Buy Good Coffee Beans: What to Look For, and Whether Price Matters

How to buy better coffee beans for pour-over, espresso, and lattes: roast dates, origin, process, freshness, defects, whether price tracks quality, and how to track what you like.

Is Coffee Good for You? An Evidence-Based Guide for Coffee Drinkers

What the research actually says about coffee and health, and how brew method, dose, timing, and your own body change the answer.

The Coffee World Cup: Ranking the 2026 World Cup Field by Coffee

A bracket that ranks every 2026 World Cup country by coffee: growing, roasting, and peak cup. Colombia wins our balanced mode, Panama runs the Cinderella story.

Nordic-Style Coffee Explained: Ultra-Light Roasts and How to Brew Them

What Nordic-style and ultra-light roast coffee is, why specialty fans love it, how to brew it well on a V60, and the roasters worth seeking out.

How to Plan a Nordic Coffee Tour: Copenhagen to Oslo

A roaster-first guide to a Nordic coffee tour: which cafés to visit in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Gothenburg, Stockholm, and Oslo, how to travel between them, and what to book ahead.

Coffee and Cholesterol: How Much Your Brew Method Actually Matters

The AHA named unfiltered coffee as an LDL risk. Here is how much cafestol each brew method delivers, what the trials measured, and when the difference is worth acting on.

Chili Crisp Latte: What Happens When You Put Sichuan Chili Oil in Espresso

Espresso, frothed milk, and Fly By Jing chili crisp. What capsaicin and Sichuan pepper do to a latte, why the oil fights the foam, and which cafés already sell one.

Coffee Varieties Explained: Bourbon, Typica, Gesha & More

What coffee varieties are, why they matter, and where the labels mislead. A practical guide to Bourbon, Typica, SL28, Gesha, Pink Bourbon and the rest.

Sudan Rume Coffee, Explained: The Rare Wild Arabica from South Sudan

What Sudan Rume coffee is, why it's so rare and prized, how it compares to Gesha, what it tastes like, where to find it, and how to brew it.

What Is Wush Wush Coffee? A Rare Ethiopian Variety With an Uncertain Identity

What Wush Wush coffee is, the Ethiopian place it is named for, why it is missing from the variety catalog, what it tastes like, and how much of that comes from the plant.

SL28 and SL34 Coffee, Explained: Kenya's Legendary Varieties

What SL28 and SL34 are, how the two Kenyan varieties are alike and different, the other SL selections, why they're so popular, and how to buy and brew them.

Coffee Tasting Notes, Explained: Where They Come From and How to Taste Them

What tasting notes on a coffee bag actually mean, why you sometimes can't taste them, and a practical method for naming what's in your cup.

Coffee and Craft Beer: Does a Taste for One Train You for the Other?

Specialty coffee and hoppy beer feel like they train the same palate. The research says the loop is real but runs on caffeine, alcohol, and habit rather than a shared taste for bitterness.

Coffee Tasting Notes Aren't Ingredients: The Wine Comparison, and What They Say About Quality

How coffee tasting notes work like wine notes and where the analogy breaks, whether a note tells you a coffee is good, and why an intrinsic note is not a flavored syrup.

Coffee Processing Methods Explained: Washed, Natural, Honey & Co-Ferment

How washed, natural, honey, anaerobic, carbonic, and co-fermented processing change coffee flavor, why co-ferments are controversial, and how to brew each one.

Coffee Fermentation Explained: What Anaerobic, Co-Ferment & Carbonic Maceration Actually Mean

A pour-over drinker's guide to what actually happens when coffee ferments: what the microbes do, what anaerobic, SIAF, carbonic maceration, and co-ferment mean, and what the research supports.

Is Infused Coffee Cheating? The Fermentation Fight in Coffee Competitions

Why fermented and infused coffees split the World Barista Championship, Cup of Excellence, and Best of Panama: Cinnamongate, the 2024 rule change, and why taste can't prove infusion.

The Three Waves of Coffee: History, What Defines Each, and What's Next

What the three waves of coffee mean, who coined the term, how specialty coffee fits, the current trends, the best coffee scenes, and whether there's a fourth wave.

Brewing methods & gear

The Best Coffee Brewers for Home: V60, Kalita, Chemex, AeroPress, and More

A practical comparison of specialty coffee brewers: V60, Kalita, Fellow Stagg, AeroPress, Chemex, Clever, French press, and siphon, plus how to pick the right one.

Is the Chemex Good for Specialty Coffee?

The Chemex is iconic and makes a clean, bright cup, but its thick filter and cone shape are a style choice. Here is when it is the right brewer and when it is not.

Sibarist Filters: Is Faster Better for Pour-Over?

What Sibarist FAST and B3 filters change about flow rate and extraction, when the faster drawdown helps and when it doesn't, and whether they beat a standard Hario or Kalita filter for the money.

Travel Coffee Setup: AeroPress Go, Grinder, and Scale

The travel coffee setup I packed for a long weekend in the San Juan Islands: AeroPress Go, hand grinder, pocket scale, and a modified James Hoffmann AeroPress recipe.

A Pour-Over I Did Not Expect in Friday Harbor

I packed an AeroPress for San Juan Island and then found an excellent hand pour-over at Medio Cafe, the coffee bar inside our own hotel in Friday Harbor.

The Onyx Coffee Advent Calendar, Reviewed

What is inside the Onyx Coffee Lab advent calendar, why the 24-coffee lineup rewards brewing it in pairs, how to avoid the one-door-a-day trap, and who should skip it.

Tetsu Kasuya's 4:6 Method, Explained: How to Adjust the V60 Recipe

How Tetsu Kasuya's 4:6 method works, how to adjust sweetness, acidity, and strength, and when this V60 recipe is worth using.

Tetsu Kasuya's Neo Brew Method: The 2026 Multi-Pour V60 Recipe

Tetsu Kasuya's 2026 Neo Brew method: an extra-coarse, high-temperature V60 recipe with ten small pours, built for sweetness and body. The recipe and how it works.

James Hoffmann's V60 Technique, Explained: Ratio, Pours, Grind, and Fixes

Learn James Hoffmann's V60 method: the 1:16.7 ratio, bloom, pours, grind size, temperature, and how to fix sour, bitter, slow, or hollow cups.

Pour Over vs. Espresso: Two Different Coffee Games

How pour over and espresso differ in taste, technique, gear, and cost, why each is good at different things, and how to choose between them.

How to Cup Coffee at Home: A Side-by-Side Tasting Setup

How to run a comparative coffee cupping at home: the SCA-based recipe, ratio, water temperature, timing, and Fellow Ode Gen 2 and Baratza Encore grind settings.

Cold Brew Concentrate: Ratios, Steep Time, and How to Dilute

How to make cold brew concentrate: the 1:5 ratio, steep time, and exactly how to dilute it, plus storage, grind, troubleshooting, and brighter iced-coffee alternatives.

Dialing in

How Long to Rest Coffee After Roasting

How long to rest coffee for pour-over, why light roasters say 4–6 weeks, whether fresher is better, and how to store and freeze beans. Backed by coffee science.

Coffee Freshness: When to Brew, Freeze, or Buy Less

Roasted coffee follows a curve, not a countdown. Learn when a bag is worth brewing, how many good cups are really in it, when freezing pays off, and how to size your next bag to your pace.

Coffee Grind Size for Pour-Over: Settings for Ode Gen 2, Encore & More

How grind size controls extraction, why light roasts often want a finer grind, and pour-over starting settings for the Fellow Ode Gen 2, Baratza Encore, 1Zpresso, OXO and more.

Coffee Brewing Temperature: The Best Water Temperature for Pour-Over

What temperature to brew coffee for pour-over, what the research actually says, how roast level changes it, and why brew temperature is not the same as drinking temperature.

Coffee Water for Pour-Over: Why Minerals, Hardness, and Alkalinity Matter

Water changes how coffee extracts and how acidity tastes. What TDS, hardness, and alkalinity mean for V60 pour-over and espresso, and how to pick better water.

Extraction & troubleshooting

Why Is My Coffee Sour? How to Fix Under-Extracted Pour-Over

Sour pour-over usually means under-extraction. How to tell sour from bright acidity, the one-at-a-time fix ladder, and a V60 troubleshooting table to fix it fast.

Why Is My Coffee Bitter or Dry? How to Fix Harsh Pour-Over

Bitter and dry coffee are different problems. How to tell bitterness from astringency, why your V60 turns harsh, and a fix ladder plus rescue recipe to repair it.

Coffee Extraction Explained: Over- and Under-Extraction

What coffee extraction means, how to taste over-extraction, under-extraction, and uneven extraction, and how to fix a sour, bitter, or hollow pour-over.

Measuring Extraction Yield: TDS, Refractometers, and the SCA Range

How to measure coffee extraction yield with a refractometer: the TDS formula for filter and espresso, what the SCA 18–22% range means, and how to use the numbers to brew better.