Coffee News
Coffee Review regularly publishes coffee tasting reports and 100-point wine-style coffee reviews as well as news and updates of interest to coffee lovers and our readers. News, updates, and blog posts below appear in reverse chronological order.
Meet Our New Mascot – Lani
We’re pleased to introduce Coffee Review’s new mascot, Lani. Very sweet but, yes, we resisted suggestions to name her Sugar. Coffee has never tasted as good as it does after 4:30 am wake-up calls for potty training.
Home Roaster Competition 2014: A Long Way from Iron Skillets
Recently Henry Chang, a passionate home coffee roaster (when he’s not pursuing his successful career as an obstetrician/gynecologist), sponsored a contest for his home roaster Internet correspondents. He asked Coffee Review to act as judge. As busy as we were, we agreed, since both my co-cupper Jason Sarley and I are strong supporters of the […]
U.K. Coffee Reviews
In 2013, we reviewed coffees from 12 countries, namely the United States, Canada, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, China, Netherlands, Guatemala, Italy, Slovak Republic, Switzerland, and Sweden. The United Kingdom was noticeably absent from the list. London (and the U.K. in general) has a thriving specialty coffee scene that rivals that of other well known U.S. […]
Melbourne Has the World’s Best Coffee?
According to an article in the Melbourne Herald Sun, Booking.com surveyed more than 1,000 of its users from around the world and determined that Melbourne, Australia has the world’s best coffee. Really? This conclusion merits a little closer look. First, at Coffee Review, we always point out that there is no such thing as a […]
A Tribute to the Life of Wicha Promyong, Doi Chaang Coffee
In 2011 I spent several days at the Doi Chaang coffee cooperative in northern Thailand. There I encountered the extraordinary Wicha Promyong, the inspirational leader of the Doi Chaang coffee cooperative and its sister company, Doi Chaang Coffee. Shockingly and unexpectedly, Khun Wicha succumbed to a heart attack on Thursday, January 23, 2057 (2014) near […]
Where Coffee is Hot: By Country
We’re wrapping up our “Where Coffee is Hot” series by looking at Coffee Review readership by country. In 2013, we hosted readers from 233 countries and territories, which must be just about all of them. We’ll look at our readership three ways: total readers in 2013, per capita readers in 2013, and percentage growth from […]
Where Coffee is Hot: By International City
In 2013, Coffee Review hosted visitors from 223 countries and territories, including countless cities and town around the world. Our readers hail from famous world capitals such as Rome, Italy and Nairobi, Kenya to lesser-known Nuuk, Greenland and Apia, Somoa. However, some cities have more visitors than others and none of the above cities ranked […]
Where Coffee is Hot: By U.S. State
Last summer, we looked at Coffee Review readership by state for the second quarter of 2013. We calculated per capita readership, that is, readers normalized for each state’s population, to get an idea where people are most interested in coffee (at least as measured by Coffee Review readership.) We’ve just re-crunched the data for the […]
Where Coffee is Hot: By U.S. City
Last summer, we took a mid-year look at Coffee Review readership by U.S. city and state. We normalized readership figures to account for population differences and produce a more accurate picture of each locale’s interest in coffee, at least as measured by Coffee Review readers per capita. We normalized for Internet access and literacy too, […]
Seattle Edges San Francisco… In Coffee Anyway
First of all, for anyone who doesn’t follow NFL football, the Seattle Seahawks play the San Francisco 49’ers this weekend in the NFC Championship Game. The winner will be one of two teams that go to the Superbowl. With that as background, for an upcoming piece on online coffee trends, we started crunching the numbers […]
2014 Coffee Review Cupping Calendar
At the beginning of each month, we publish a new feature article with reviews. The planned cupping calendar for 2014 is shown below: January – Top 30 Coffees of 2013 February – Real Blend: Blends Produced from Three or More Origins March – Specialty Coffees of Brazil April – Specialty Coffees of Colombia May – Coffees […]
Arabica Anxiety and Robustas
I’m here in El Salvador for “Let’s Talk Coffee,” a yearly meeting of mostly small-holding coffee producers, roasters, importer and exporters, and development agencies. It’s sponsored by Sustainable Harvest, a long-time pioneering American importer of cooperative and small-producer coffees. I came here in part to deliver a presentation on Robusta coffees. It was part […]
The Top 30 Coffees of 2013
View list of Top 30 Coffees of 2013 Coffee Review introduced 100-point reviews to the specialty coffee industry in 1997. Over the years since then we’ve cupped tens of thousands of samples and produced reviews for nearly 3,500 coffees. We are often asked, “What is the best coffee?” To which we give the obvious answer: […]
Rejoice at Low Coffee Prices? What about Fair Trade?
On Monday, the LA Times ran an article titled Coffee drinkers rejoice: Price of beans hits four-year low. Now, we’re glad that favorable weather conditions are helping increase coffee production. And, you certainly can’t blame consumers (or the LA Times) for welcoming lower prices. However, keep in mind that lower green coffee prices can […]
Preview of October Article and Reviews
In the new world of high-end specialty coffee, botanical variety of the tree has become one of the main ways to differentiate and describe small lots of fine coffee. Grape variety has long been a differentiator in wine, of course, and increasingly dominates description and selling of certain fruits and vegetables. But botanical variety of […]
Agtron Numbers: A Sweet Spot?
An Agtron machine reflects light on a sample of coffee in order to objectively and accurately assign a number to the beans’ roast color. The smaller the number, the darker the roast. If you’re interested in some additional background, refer to a blog we posted in 2010: http://bit.ly/1b7fLNR. The reason that I started thinking about […]
A Morning Cup by Jason Sarley
Many readers ask us about the best way to brew coffee, and the short answer is: whatever way is best for you and your tastes is the surest way. Although there are some worthwhile guidelines that can help even a first-time brewer prepare a good cup of coffee, I follow three fundamental rules: How-Hot, How-Much, […]
Coffee Review Readership in Taiwan Surpasses Australia
Earlier this year, we speculated that Coffee Review readership in Taiwan could exceed that of Australia if traffic growth rates continued. Well, it has happened, at least for September. Visits from Taiwan leapfrogged those from Australia, making Taiwan our fourth largest source of visitors, after only the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. If […]
Guatemala Cupping: Sneak Peek
Sneak peek from the lab… According to Kenneth: “We have cupped about twenty Guatemalas with about ten more to go. We’ve encountered a very wide and impressive range of cup profiles, particularly in the way they reflect the cup tendencies of various botanical varieties of Arabica, from deep, meaty Pacamaras to intense, high-toned, perfumy Geshas. […]
Is Coffee Bad For Your Health?: “Better is More”
This week, the highly respected Mayo Clinic published findings that suggest excess coffee consumption, defined as more than four cups per day every day, increases the likelihood of early death in people under the age of 55. The study concluded, in part: “On the basis of these findings, it seems appropriate to suggest that younger […]
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