by Coffee Kevin | Oct 31, 2010 |
Coffee growing, purchasing, certification practices, roasting, packaging, blends-versus-single-origin and preparation methods (this last one particularly interests me), as well as consumer education played out with big coffee industry players over a three-hour period in New York City this past week. The players included Illy’s Andrea Illy, Intelligentsia’s Doug Zell, Blue Bottle Coffee’s James Freeman, Gillies Coffee’s Donald Schoenholt and Bunn’s Karalynn McDermott, and an assortment of food service industry professionals. (more…)
by Coffee Kevin | Oct 27, 2010 |
Coffee must be ground to be brewed. Grinding breaks the coffee into smaller particles. The smaller the particles, the more oils can be extracted within a set period of time. If two same weight portions of ground coffee are brewed, the finer ground portion will offer more flavor. When coffee is ground, it exposes surface area. The finer the grind, the more surface area is exposed. In this way, grind is simple.
But is it simple? The basics of grinding are simple and straightforward. In reality, grind is a complex subject because (more…)
by Coffee Kevin | Sep 9, 2010 |
People keep telling me that they can’t afford a Technivorm, Capresso, Bunn or any decent long-term automatic drip maker. Meanwhile, pod machine one-cups encourage you to buy
prepackaged brands, hardly a key to thrift in these times.
One-cup brewers like this (more…)
by Coffee Kevin | Aug 8, 2010 |
Several years ago, when George Howell re-entered the coffee roasting business after his required post-Starbucks sale of the Coffee Connection, George sent me some of his first roasts. As usual, they were the model of top selected green beans. But, the first thing I noticed that was different, and frankly, disappointing was (more…)
by Coffee Kevin | Jul 7, 2010 |
I just bought 5 pounds of Sumatran coffee from Paradise Roasters. This is currently one hot roaster. They seem to get all A’s from Coffee Review’s editor, Kenneth Davids. This particular coffee is rated a 94. Frankly, I’m undecided about grades – after all, I was a pretty lowly student in high school.
Yesterday, after the coffee arrived, I couldn’t wait (more…)
