Journal

Coffee Review publishes regularly scheduled monthly coffee tasting reports according to our editorial calendar as well 100-point wine-style coffee reviews throughout the month. Our Journal page is where we share news, updates, and general blog posts to keep readers and industry professionals up to date about Coffee Review and other topics of interest to coffee lovers.

CQI Takes on the Robusta Taboo

Recently arrived in the mail is a certificate (suitable for framing) from the Coffee Quality Institute, the non-profit coffee research organization spun off from the better known Specialty Coffee Association of America. That I earned the certificate through some cupping in Uganda is not of much note; of late the American specialty coffee industry has been passing out certificates like cookies to

Typica –No Longer typical

Once upon a time not so long ago most of the coffee planted in the world was from one varietal, Coffea Arabica Var. typica or typical coffee. 100-150 years ago it didn’t mater where in the world your coffee came from Sumatra, India, The Americas the trees were essentially of same variety (exception being coffees from Ethiopia and Yemen and later the island of Reunion). The reason for this lack of

Green Coffee Freshness

It’s a well known fact that roasted coffee has a limited shelf life before it begins losing its flavors. But what about green (un-roasted) coffees? They too don’t last forever. 100 years ago it would have been said that most coffees need a year or 2 of age before they are good to use. However most coffee back then was a quite difficult animal. Wet processing was still in its infancy and fairly

Monsoon Malabar

I head off to attend a friend’s wedding in India. It happens to be at the same time as the beginning of the monsoon season so I can’t resist the temptation of organizing to visit the coffee monsoon processing town of Mangalore on the Malabar coast. It is the only place in the world where this most unique of coffees is processed: Monsoon Malabar I land at the new Bangalore airport which is now

How Strong Should My Coffee Be?

Those of us who’ve ever asked a coffee professional how to brew coffee have likely gotten the following industry recipe: 6 ounces water 10 grams ground coffee 4-6 minutes contact time Water temperature: 195-205º F Extraction target: 18-22% extracted soluble solids by weight This all seems pretty clear. Except, maybe the “extraction target”. But, how many people end up really brewing using

Cuppers versus Baristas

This 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 planets. I really enjoyed the new Symposium which was

Animal-Processed Coffees: The Latest Contender

A favorite question asked by bored party-goers when meeting a coffee cupper for the first time runs like this: "Is it true that there is a coffee that is... uh... eaten by, and, uh ... " "Yes," we respond. "Kopi luwak. The coffee fruit is eaten by an animal and the coffee seeds are excreted (or depending on the crowd, a less Latinate term) collected, dried and sold as the world's most expensive

McDonald’s vs. Starbucks: A Milky Skirmish in the Coffee Wars

The latest front in what the business press likes to call the Coffee Wars is clearly more a battle about frothed milk, whipped cream and syrup than about coffee. McDonald's is rolling out its McCafé line of espresso-based (OK, milk-based) beverages with a national advertising assault of old-fashioned scale and intensity, while Starbucks, the Chain that Brought the Caffè Latte to Main Street (plus

American Espresso Blends: Boutique and Bigger

Specialty espresso is currently in the throes of a creative explosion. I think of it as "post-Italian" espresso, a dynamic community of baristas, blender/roasters and motivated aficionados remaking espresso as a global connoisseur's beverage with passionately contested barista competitions, non-traditional brewing innovations, and freshly conceived blend designs. The goal of this month's

Espresso: Tasting Super-Heroes

I have spent plenty of hours with a cupping spoon in my left hand. This is my first "official" espresso tasting (American Espresso Blends: Boutique and Bigger, Coffee Review, May 2009). Each espresso we tasted was expertly pulled under the exact same parameters: 18g dose, 28 sec, 2 oz double split into 2 one-oz singles, through Nuova Simonelli competition double-baskets. All shots were pulled on

Convenience First: Espresso Pods and Capsules

It is no surprise that over the last decade the more moneyed elements of the coffee industry have been trying to figure out how to simplify espresso brewing to the point that a consumer can produce a properly rich, smooth-tasting espresso shot without struggling through a complicated process that can be as daunting as upgrading to Vista or assembling a glass-fronted display case from Ikea. Given

Single-Origin Espressos 2008

Those new to espresso connoisseurship may be surprised to learn that producing this dense, aromatic beverage from coffee of a single origin rather than from a blend of coffees from different origins is a mildly controversial practice. Traditionalists argue that the espresso system extracts flavor-bearing components from coffee so efficiently that a single coffee from a single origin is not

Italy Seen from America: Nine (Genuine) Italian and Three American Espressos

Italians must both wonder and cringe when they observe the amazing globe-trotting journey of espresso, a beverage system so quintessentially (and once so exclusively) Italian. Setting aside the implied stereotype that associates Italian-Americans with gangsters, the scene in an early episode of The Sopranos in which Silvio encounters a Starbucks-style espresso bar for the first time and wants to

Better Than You Think: Decaffeinated Espressos

The term "decaffeinated espresso" gets even more snickers from coffee insiders than do allusions to ordinary decaffeinated coffee. The assumption seems to be that espresso is such a strong intensification of coffee-ness that drinking a decaffeinated version of it is a particularly perverse contradiction. In fact, decaffeination and espresso can be surprisingly well suited to one another. The

Readers’ Choice Espressos

Well, special readers. The majority of the espressos reviewed this month were nominated by the roasting companies that produced them. I assume that a roaster knows what his best products are, so it also may be logical to expect these espressos to impress. Most did. Of the twenty-eight we tasted, nine scored 90 points or better. Here are reviews of some of the highest rated or most

Better than Ever: Boutique Espressos

What's a boutique espresso? How about a coffee designed for espresso brewing produced by a very small roasting company for local customers ranging from neighbors to nearby cafes and kiosks. In my most rigorously Platonic version of this definition, the people doing the roasting are ex-baristas (professional espresso machine operators) who got fed up with brewing someone else's coffee and

Single-Serve Correction and Reactions: Tassimo and Keurig

The Coffee Review's recent review of single-serve coffees and systems (At What Cost Convenience: Tasting the New Crop of Single-Serve Coffee Systems) provoked some sharp reactions from readers as well as one well-taken correction. Braun/Tassimo Cappuccinos and Caffe Lattes It turns out we were wrong when we dismissed all of the coffee-with-milk drinks produced by the new single-serve coffee

Tasting the New Crop of Single-Serve Coffee Systems

The idea, of course, sounds seductive enough: slip a little paper-covered pod or plastic pouch or capsule in a machine, press a button, and out comes a single serving of terrific, freshly-brewed coffee. No ground coffee on the counter, no arguments about whether to brew dark roast Kenya or decaf French Vanilla, no waste. A pod for everyone. You can brew a cup of pungent, dark-roasted Sumatra, your

Nice Going: Readers’ Choice Espressos

Coffee Review readers appear to have good taste in espressos. Of the fifteen espressos tested for this review, all were nominated by Coffee Review readers. Of those fifteen, seven achieved scores of 90 or over, and two more hovered in the 88/89 range. This success rate is considerably higher than typically achieved when I simply collect samples based on roaster nominations plus a random sweep