Pawel, in a recent response to my blog “Boomeranging to Super Light Roasts,” asks whether he should order his favorite coffee, a Sumatra Takengon Gayo Organic from the Aceh region, at “City+” or a somewhat darker “Full City.” He answers his own question, quite correctly I think, by writing that there is only one way [...]
Coffee Review Blogs
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Kenneth Davids' BlogKenneth co-founded the Coffee Review with Ron Walters in 1997. Since then, Kenneth’s articles and reviews have appeared monthly on CoffeeReview.com. He has written for most major industry print magazines, including an ongoing column in Roast Magazine. In 1996 he was awarded a Special Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to Coffee Literature by the Specialty Coffee Association of America.
Boomeranging to Super Light RoastsIt occurred to me again as we were cupping five beautiful single-origin samples from two of the leading new-paradigm roasting companies (call them third wave , fourth wave – whatever wave we’re on now) that some of these exciting, ground-breaking roasting companies may be edging toward, well, too light a roast. Report from Kenya: The Ruiru 11 ControversyAs part of a just completed trip to Kenya, I visited some farms and coops in the classic Kenya growing regions northeast of Nairobi. Before arriving at the coffee, however, we enjoyed a day’s run past giraffes, rhinos and other impossible creatures around Lake Nakuru, a lake particularly famous for the clouds of flamingos that [...] |
Coffee Review Blog ContributorsKenneth Davids - Kenneth has published three books on coffee, including Coffee: A Guide To Buying, Brewing & Enjoying, which has sold more the 250,000 copies. (bio) (posts) Ted Stachura - Ted Stachura has over twenty years experience in the coffee, tea and food service industries, most recently at Peet's Coffee & Tea. (bio) (posts) Instaurator - Instaurator is a coffee and business consultant with a world renowned reputation for his coffee tasting and management expertise. (bio) (posts) R. Miguel Meza - Miguel lives on the Big Island of Hawaii, where he works for Hula Daddy Kona Coffee, roasting coffee and striving to improve quality at the farm level. (bio) (posts) Bruce Milletto - Bruce is President of Bellissimo Coffee InfoGroup, a leading specialty coffee consulting and education company, as well as founder of The American Barista & Coffee School. (bio) (posts) Kevin Sinnott - Kevin, host of consumer DVD “Coffee Brewing Secrets” instructional video, and coffeecompanion.com website, is one of America’s foremost consumer coffee authorities. (bio) (posts) Ron Walters - Ron co-founded the Coffee Review with Kenneth Davids in 1997. He continues to manage CoffeeReview.com as well as day-to-day business for Great Coffees of America. (bio) (posts) Daniele Giovannucci - Daniele is the co-founder of the Committee on Sustainability Assessment. He has received several international awards for his pioneering work in coffee and sustainability. (bio) (posts) |
Industry Issues and NewsIndustry events, news, trends. Opinions, controversies, new products, and more.Coffee Tasting Sheets and the ‘Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle’Recently I was involved in a couple of tasting programs. One was a roasters’ competition for espresso and another was research for a rural industries organization evaluating coffee cherry maturity on taste quality. In both cases it was necessary to use tasting sheets. Cuppers v BaristasThis year’s World Barista Championship and Specialty Coffee (SCAA) conference in Atlanta America was outstanding. I have attended most SCAA conferences since New Orleans in the mid 1990’s. I have attended all WBC finals with the sole exception of Japan and the combination of the SCAA and WBC is always an invigorating alignment of the [...] |
EspressoEspresso brewing, blending, roasting, equipment, styles, drinks, issues, controversies.What’s a Cortado?Recently a Coffee Review reader sent in a request that we post information on our website about cortado, a relatively obscure coffee beverage in North American cafés. I searched the reference pages, thinking some mention of it had to be buried in the “espresso cuisine” section. But no, no cortado was to be found. Porta-filter densationI was talking to Scott Callaghan the Australian barista champion just before he left for London for the World Barista Championship and I mentioned to him about “densation.” It’s a clumsy word but its similar to the principle that occurs with the sorting of green beans in a good dry-mill where you have a ‘densimetric’ [...] |
Green Coffee Origins and IssuesTrends, trips, processing, varieties, discoveries. Cupping room reports, green coffee competitions and issues.Demystifying MokkaOn the Island of Maui a unique cultivar called Mokka is commercially cultivated. I first heard of it perhaps a decade ago and over the years I have heard things like it is a varietal brought from Yemen or Ethiopia; always an air of mystique around its origins. While it’s a wonderfully romantic notion that [...] JamaicaJamaica has long grown coffee, at one time, for a short while, it was one of the world’s largest producers of the crop. Much of the coffee comes from Jamaica’s famed Blue Mountains. Despite its reputation for quality I, like many coffee professionals, cannot remember a time in which it actually was great. I traveled [...] |
Coffee at HomeBuying, brewing, grinding, roasting, equipment, recipes, food pairing, and more.Sowden SoftBrew ReviewWhen I first laid eyes on this brewer, visiting Oren and Nancy Bloostein, I thought it was a teapot. Elegant, it was attractive. Maybe I thought it could serve coffee, but who transfers coffee from the brewer to the server anymore? Oren insisted I take it home and try it out. All the way home [...] Colombia Coffee and Rediscovering “That” Coffee TasteI recently received an email from a self-proclaimed, coffee obsessed reader. The question she asked was a difficult one to answer. It had to do with that feeling many coffee drinkers have had. You know the one, that feeling of coffee being in some way better in the past. It could have been last year or twenty-five [...] |
Coffee Business: Roasting and RetailingRoasting issues, strategies, equipment. Reports from coffee roasting companies, cafes, coffeehouses.Making Sense (or Not Making Sense) of Words for Roast ColorPawel, in a recent response to my blog “Boomeranging to Super Light Roasts,” asks whether he should order his favorite coffee, a Sumatra Takengon Gayo Organic from the Aceh region, at “City+” or a somewhat darker “Full City.” He answers his own question, quite correctly I think, by writing that there is only one way [...] Boomeranging to Super Light RoastsIt occurred to me again as we were cupping five beautiful single-origin samples from two of the leading new-paradigm roasting companies (call them third wave , fourth wave – whatever wave we’re on now) that some of these exciting, ground-breaking roasting companies may be edging toward, well, too light a roast. |
Sustainability and Coffee CausesSustainability, Fair Trade, organic farming, eco and green practices, social causes.World Coffee Conference – New twists at a global meeting of coffee and government leadersDemand has been increasing faster than supply for a number of years now. This is a typical cycle after a disastrous and widely felt historic low. But it seems that this may not be an ordinary cycle and most producers may not be able to recover to meet the rising demand as new and powerful [...] Illy, a leading global coffee company tackles sustainability and stumblesAs more food industry leaders adopt visible sustainable procurement, private firms weigh the value of their own in-house approach versus partnering with existing public initiatives – even competitiveness guru Michael Porter is talking about it. A common groan sounded recently when Andrea Illy, the chief executive of the esteemed Italian coffee roaster (Trieste-based illycaffé S.p.A.) announced [...] |