Last week’s coffee-centered gift guide will hopefully come in handy while you do your holiday shopping. But if you’re looking for more affordable gifts, I recommend buying something that every coffee lover really wants: coffee beans! A bag of beans from a third wave or local roaster is an excellent and relatively inexpensive gift—it makes for a great stocking stuffer too. Give the gift of delicious coffee this Winter and support roasters who strive to do right by their coffee farmers/suppliers. Here’s my list of this season’s best coffee to gift:   Boxcar Coffee – the Kenya Gatomboya... Read More

Last week I mentioned how fun it can be to make your own coffee at home. The manual and experimental process involved with using tools like pour-over devices is what allows the final product to be so special. Manual devices allow you to control all the different aspects involved in brewing coffee—from temperature to portion and, most importantly, timing—in a way that automatic machines can’t. The level of control and precision you get with pour-overs or immersion brews let you not only make the exact type of coffee you like but also allows you to fully taste the nuisances of single origin... Read More

The phrase “third wave coffee” sounds inflated but it’s a term that best sums up the current trend that many coffee companies are invested in. Many independent coffee shops care about the nuanced flavors of different regional or varietal beans so they buy beans, or roast their own, from domestic companies which use roasting methods that bring out the distinct flavors of each kind of bean. Most of these companies also care about the ethical and environmental impact their industry has on the globe so they make efforts to do direct or fair trade with organic coffee farmers around the world.... Read More