Better coffee. One cup at a time.

Tag: the brewing coffee manually challenge (Page 1 of 2)

3 Things I Learned From a Year of Writing About Coffee

Tomorrow is November 11, 2015, which marks the one year anniversary of my very first blog post “Getting Started- Drip Brewing 101.” In honor of this milestone, I thought it would be an appropriate time to write a bit about what a year of writing about coffee has brought about.

A summary of the year by the numbers:

3 Things I Learned from a Year of Writing about Coffee

The Best Way to Learn Something Is to Teach it

I have heard the old adage, “The best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else” countless times in my life. However, I have never been as acutely aware of it’s impact until I tried to explain a few coffee concepts on the blog.

For me, the most obvious example of this would have to be three articles I wrote in succession at the beginning of the year (Green Coffee Explained, Coffee Origins- How Geography Relates to Taste and Understanding and Selecting a Great Roasted Coffee). My goal was to write a brief article about each subject as a resource I could point people towards as well as a building block for future discussions.

Continue reading

What I Discovered From a Month of Manual Coffee Brewing

The 31 days of my Brewing Coffee Manually Challenge have come and gone without incident or significant excitement on the coffee front. There were a few introspective early morning brew sessions and times when I thoroughly enjoyed (and abused) my .5 square feet of extra counter space. Many cups of outstanding coffee were had and, overall, I’d say the exercise was a smashing success.

When the smoke had cleared a bit and my filters were restocked, I sat down and tried to dissect what I could take away from it all. Here are a few things I learned by giving up my automatic coffee maker for a month:

I don’t need an automatic coffee maker for day-to-day operations

I will go even further and say, “At this point, I don’t want an automatic coffee maker for my day-to-day operations.” I found that I look forward to brewing my coffee manually in the morning (even really early) and realized how much I dreaded prepping my coffee the night before.

Continue reading

The Bee House Dripper

In light of my Brewing Coffee Manually challenge, I thought I would review my best-loved dripper and long-time manual brewing companion. The Bee House Dripper.

The Bee House is a ceramic dripper made in Japan. It comes in two sizes, large and small, as well as a variety of colors (ten to be precise). It retails for around twenty dollars. The elegant design and wide availability have made it one of the favorite drippers of the manual brewing world.

What I like about the Bee House dripper

It is made of ceramic

Ceramic brewers are an upgrade from the inexpensive plastic Melitta dripper that I often recommended for the manual brewer who is just starting.

Ceramic is better at retaining heat than plastic. If you are preheating your brewer and brewing vessel, the Bee House helps to keep your grounds and water at a fairly consistent temperature while brewing.

Additionally, some people have serious qualms about brewing with plastic. If you don’t relish the idea of pouring 205 degree water over a plastic dripper and then drinking the results, a ceramic brewing may be for you.

Continue reading

« Older posts