Coffee Tao

Have a happy New Year, everyone. There’s still plenty of coffee stuff to talk about (there always is, which is part of the fun) but let’s all take the day off, eh? I leave you with an excellent Photoshop I ran across on Flickr, made by the talented “jon-e“:

If you make espresso at home, here’s a tip I ran across courtesy of World Barista Championship runner-up Pete Licata. It’s called the “PT flip”, named for PT’s Coffee Company in Topeka, KS, where Pete works.
Essentially it’s just pulling your shot into a pre-heated shot glass, then pouring (”flipping”) it into another demitasse, causing […]

(This is Part 3 of a 4-part series called “The Four ‘M’s of Perfect Coffee”, in which we’ll talk about the four elements of making great espresso-based drinks at home: Machine, Mill, Mix (blend), and Method.)
The Fourth “M”: Method
So you’ve found an espresso machine with the right features, you’ve got a grinder that can smash […]

I promise I’ll get to the fourth “M”, Method, tomorrow or Saturday, but I’m afraid I’ve come down with something and I’m sick as a dog. I’m going to take some more medicine and head to bed asap. Apologies for the brief break. Hopefully I’ll be back on my feet and swinging […]

(This is Part 3 of a 4-part series called “The Four ‘M’s of Perfect Coffee”, in which we’ll talk about the four elements of making great espresso-based drinks at home: Machine, Mill, Mix (blend), and Method.)
The Third “M”: Mix
The trouble with pinning down a good mix, or espresso blend, is two-fold. The first, clearly, […]

(This is Part 2 of a 4-part series called “The Four ‘M’s of Perfect Coffee”, in which we’ll talk about the four elements of making great espresso-based drinks at home: Machine, Mill, Mix (blend), and Method.)
The Second “M”: Mill
Unlike shopping for an espresso machine, which can require quite a bit of research and forethought, […]

(This is Part 1 of a 4-part series called “The Four ‘M’s of Perfect Coffee”, in which we’ll talk about the four elements of making great espresso-based drinks at home: Machine, Mill, Mix (blend), and Method.)

The First “M”: Machine
If you want to make great espresso at home, you should be aware that a good […]

The Worldwide Gourmet has a pretty useful mnemonic for those seeking to get ideal coffee at home: called the “four Ms”, they posit that making great coffee requires a good machine, a good mill, a good mix (blend), and a good method.
I think that’s a nifty way of organizing it, but unfortunately the article […]

Like the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, this is one holiday tradition you see every year but can’t imagine skipping.
The idea behind the egg nog latte is simple–replace the milk in a regular latte with egg nog–but there are two key variants that might affect how you’ll make your latte. First, whether you’re using real […]

Despite its color, coffee is basically 95% water. You might guess as a result that water quality is critically important to whether an otherwise fine coffee tastes great or just okay–and you’d be right.
Recently Klaus Thomsen of the Coffee Collective felt that the city line water in his native Copenhagen was negatively affecting the […]