The Reading Room

You know, for local consumption in Guatemala City, this may sound like a good strategy.  More places where coffee is served, more possibilities for people to choose the profile they like the most.Guatemala is well known for producing some of...

Some Samoan farmers, recovering from the tsunami of a year ago, are being given hope by newly planted coffee seedlings. Coffee plants are being provided to participating farmers to both help them and to revive the coffee industry begun by...

Need a DIY Christmas gift idea? Lots of folks think making your own gifts is much more meaningful than going to a store and buying something anyone can buy. Joseph Thibodeau wrote about a one-of-a-kind coffee maker that Christian Fingers...

George Howell's Terroir Coffee hosted a cupping this past weekend at Boston University. Here are some insights.By background, George is a legend in the specialty coffee business and one of the pioneers of gourmet coffee in the US. He was...

If 38% of Irish drivers have their wish, Irish highways will soon be sprouting coffee stations. To celebrate the release of Gran Turismo 5, PlayStation 3 conducted a survey recently among Irish drivers. Among the topics on the survey were...

A couple of small American companies have been very progressive in bringing out high-quality metal filters for pourover. Coava in Portland has received a lot of love for their K-one, and they just unrolled a metal filter for Aeropress as...

Down the lane, snow is glistenin’… we’re walking in a winter wonderland…..straight to the local coffee shop. Among coffee shop owners, it’s commonly agreed that the winter chill brings more customers into their shops for hot drinks. Stephen Pytak reported...

This week, Serious Eats writer Erin Meister had chicory on her mind. Café du Monde, a New Orleans coffee, is known for its blend of coffee and chicory. Chicory is similar to endive: its root is used for brewing, while...

They are a veritable parade of beauty. Each is decked out in holiday best. Not a detail has been overlooked in an effort to entice. Come on – it’s only once a year. Are you going to fall for it?...

In 1844 blight spread across Ireland’s white potato crop and destroyed it entirely, within a 1-2 year period. This catastrophe resulted in the death of over a million people due to famine. In the hundred years prior to the Great...

/files/u1508/Drinking_Chocolate.jpg" border="0" width="600" height="400" />If you are looking for something to warm you up, this holiday season, and you enjoy both coffee and chocolate this may be just the beverage for you. Coffee Infused Drinking Chocolate: 1 -  Bag Ghirardelli...

Dedicated Readers of this blog (hahaha...) may recall that I promised that I would devote a post to vac pot brewing. WHERE IS IT, my cherished Readers ask me. Reams, no veritable bales of digital paper have been wasted as...

My interest in hand grinding beans for my coffee has lead me into a land of myth, anecdote and folklore with little hard data to support what, if any, manual grinder is worth owning to use on a daily basis.Most...

What do you do if you are inspired to start a little Facebook club, only to find out that club already exists? If you’re David Del Mundo, you merge with the other group. This week, Del Mundo began a good...

How we love our coffee. Coffee fans can talk coffee all day, and coffee metaphors probably pop up quite often in our talk. We all occasionally say, “Don’t cry over spilled coffee”, or “Don’t spill the (coffee) beans”, or “Wake...

Is your local coffee shop bucking the economic slump or rising above it? A recent article on Florida Today reports that local coffee shops are in a “volatile” business at present. Though just a few short years ago, the coffee...

The holiday season is notorious for overeating and indulging in foods and treats that are high in sugar and fats. It doesn’t have to be that way, if we pick some healthy foods which can also be fixed in festive...

Brewing at home is a comfy experience for me. I've got beans that I like, equipment that I know the quirks of, and various amusement-park mugs with my name on them. That said, I know that I'm not making the...

Many of us have great ideas and visions to do something really outstanding, but how many of us ever follow through? Several coffee news sources covered the heroic November 30th feat of a Starbucks pair who visited all 67 Starbucks...

This school term a Texas high school cleaned out its library of books and replaced the contents with a coffee shop and laptops, and extended its hours of use – from 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM. Instead of books, students...

The area is lush and hilly and filled with exotic fruits, and you can see the Pacific Ocean in the distance. The farm grows organic lychees, longans, avocados and citrus, plus a new addition of coffee trees. The hills provide...