Huskee Cup Review: the cup made of coffee
Huskee cup: Sustainability refers to any kind of way that keep a resource available for the present and for the future generations. A kind of way that Huskee, a company which is based in Sidney, seems to have found. The idea came from a team of five people: Joshua Jagelman, a coffee grower in Yunnan;…
Wilfa Uniform Coffee Grinder Review
Last week I had the pleasure to test this new fantastic Wilfa Uniform coffee grinder, born from a collaboration between Wilfa and Tim Weldenboe. This is the last and second version. The Uniform is an improvement of the previous version, the WIlfa Svart Grinder. It’s been disegned for both home use and small business. It’s…
Ditting KF-1800 coffee grinder review
A bit of history The Ditting Company was founded by Adolf Ditting in Zurich in 1928. It was firstly a car manufacturing industry and a repair shop. It started then selling meat and slicer in 1944 and after 10 years, producing electric grinders. In 1972 Ditting became a proper corporation, named Ditting AG maintaining the…
Kees Van Der Westen Spirit espresso coffee machine review
Kess Van Der Westen has always had a clear idea about designing his machines from the very beginning; he wanted to bring together the ergonomicity, the usability and the technology in order to deliver consistency shot after shot. They did it firstly in 2001 with the Mirage and then in 2008 with the Speedster. He…
Mazzer ZM Coffee Grinder review
The story of this company began long time ago, specifically in the 1940’s in Scorzè, Venice. The first grinder was produced in 1958 and it was designed just as a grocery mill; it was developed to grind especially for espresso or moka grind size. It was later then (around 60 years), that the company started…
Dalla Corte DC PRO espresso coffee machine review
A bit of history Multi boiler concept is now existing in every machine but we can’t forget to mention the company that first introduced this feature, which is Dalla Corte. This Italian company was founded by Paolo Dalla Corte, his father Bruno and his sister Elsa in 2001. So, back to the system the idea…
Mahlkonig Peak grinder review
Mahlkonig Peak Grinder – A bit of history Mahlkönig or the “Grind King”, translating from German into English, is a German company that makes high quality grinders as its core business. Focusing on promoting quality since the beginning of 1924, Mahlkönig is now one of the world leader for their grinders, from the innovation to…
La Marzocco KB90 espresso coffee machine review
The coffee scene is evolving quickly. Are we still in the third wave or are we enter already the fourth one? Now there’s another reason why we truly need to look at it and that’s the new toy by La Marzocco. On February the 1st the company announced a new coffee machine called LA Marzocco…
Coffee cupping – The ultimate guide
Cupping can be seen as a funny way to evaluate and taste a table of coffee samples by determining their differences and our preferences, but if we look at it from a professional point of view, is more complicated. Key decisions are taken by cupping according to our business, such as checking and improve our…
Consistency really matters about Coffee
Consistency is one of my favourite coffee-related terms and it also sounds great, isn’t it? Consistency is the key and overlooking it, it’s a common mistake that most company does. It doesn’t matter if you are in the specialty business or in the chain one. I’m obviously a specialty coffee lover but what we (specialty…
Aeropress, the Personal Coffee Maker
The aeropress was invented in 2005 by Alan Adler, who is famous for several inventions such as the Aerobie Pro flying ring which holds the Guinness World Record for the longest throw. The aeropress was designed to make a cup at a time. It reminds a syringe with a cylinder that fits inside another one….
Specialty Coffee: what’s behind all this?
I used to drink coffee just as a fuel so it wasn’t a good relationship at all. I used to make it with a moka pot adding sugar after brewed it to cover the unpleasant experience. Just after many years I realised what I was used to drink: a “first wave” coffee, hard to smell…
The harmful role of pesticides and how to minimise their impact
When we refer to pesticides we need to consider a wide range of substances like herbicides, fungicides and insecticides.Unfortunately, coffee is one of the most sprayed crop in the world. The majority of the studies say that up to 250 pounds of fertilizers are sprayed per every single acre of non-organic coffee. Roughly 90% of…
Coffee Producing Countries: Guatemala
Still in America, the trip continues just up north: from Colombia to Guatemala. And yet again, Jesuit priests are supposed to be the ones whom first introduced coffee in Guatemala. Initially, around the mid-1700s it was meant to be just an ornamental plant. After a century, coffee starts replacing indigo and cochineal as synthetic dyes…
Coffee countries are in jeopardy. What’s the coffee industry up to?
I have always believed that we make our own destiny. By better understanding the impact we human beings have on nature, we need to learn the impact we are already causing on climate change. What threatens the production of coffee? Deforesting, farming and burning fossil release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. By doing that, we…
Latte art, what’s the deal?
Today It’s time to kick-off with the “Latte Art” section. I start with a question. Does latte art really matter? It’s not precisely define who invented latte art and when he/she did it. There were two guys that were practicing latte art around 1980s and 1990s: David Schomer, owner of Espresso Vivace coffee shop in…
The Modbar AV ABR coffee machine review
Not so long time ago I wrote down something about La Marzocco, one of the world most famous company of high-end espresso machines that every coffee lover knows. You can have a look here . Today it’s the turn of the Modbar AV ABR or Automatic Volumetric Auto Brew Ratio. I’m not sure if we can…
The evolution of the coffee waves
Coffe comes in waves. Waves are like trends, a step to do to keep up with the evolution. Actually, coffee started before any of these trends; in the 15th centuries coffee became famous in the coffee houses of the middle east and after a couple of centuries it was popular in Europe as well. The…
The Syphon Coffee Maker
Around 1830s it was invented the coolest way to brew coffee thanks to a German called Loeff. I’m talking about the Syphon, the syphon coffee maker. Ten years after a Scottish marine engineer called James R. Napier, designed another syphon brewer named Napier coffee pot. But it was a French woman called Marie Fanny Amelie…
Coffee Producing Countries – Colombia
It is about time to go on with the coffee producer section: today it’s the turn of Colombia. There are some legends in which first coffee seeds arrived in Colombia. It is believed that in 1723 a Jesuit priest brought the coffee from the East of the country (possibly from Guyana where the French already…
Instant Coffee – Can it be your new Best Friend?
Coffee! I love it and who does not? Every day I wake up in the morning, the first thing I look for is a cup of coffee. My day seems to be incomplete without it. A cup of coffee just makes us feel fresh and get going. Many of you guys like coffee, some of…
Causes and consequences of channelling and how to prevent it
Taring, grinding, weighting, levelling, tamping. I previously wrote about how important is to focus on every single action we took when making shots. Minimising any mistake help us improving our consistency, maintaining high standard of quality for our customers. If we don’t, we are going to have a neverending fight against channelling that we cannot…
Fiorenzato F64E grinder review
Fiorenzato is a company that was founded in 1936 by Pietro Fiorenzato. At that time, he already had the knowledge to make grinders, but since he opened his own company, he put all his energies in order to improve both quality and innovation. But during the Second World War, a bombing destroyed his factory. Without…
Why we should avoid take away cups
The demand of any reusable cup that are plastic free is increasing a lot in London, especially in the last few months. When we talk about reusable cups, we refer to any take away cups made by glass, bamboo, cork, china etc. etc. But why people are avoiding plastic cups? Plastic cups are harmful cause…
The decaffeination of the coffee beans
In 1820, a German chemist called Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, discovered how to extract the caffeine from the coffee beans. Then, in 1905, the German Ludwig Roselius invented the first process for decaffeinating coffee. His method used benzene, a highly flammable liquid that nowadays is been replaced with non-toxic solvent. Is it safe to drink decaf…
The impact of water on coffee taste
Planting, harvesting, processing, exporting, roasting, grinding, brewing. These are some of the steps that we need to stick with if we want to obtain a cup of coffee. But when it comes to quality, people often overlooked the part played by the water. In fact, water has to be considered one of the element that…
Climpson’s and Sons Café – My Review
In the East of London, far enough from the buzz of the city but still in zone 2, there is a magical area called Broadway Market. Located in the heart of Borough of Hackney between Regent’s Canal and London Fields, Broadway Market is a shopping street full of artisan shops, restaurants, pubs and coffee shops….
Iced coffee, cold brew or nitro one? Which is the best?
It is summer (even in London) and we are facing with hot temperature. And what better way to cool off than with cold coffee instead of hot one? Today I am writing about the difference between iced coffee, cold brew and nitro one. I am pretty sure that we cannot say there is one of…
Coffee and Health: debunking the harmful myths
Coffee is the second consumed drink in the world after water with millions and millions of cups of coffee served every day. It’s always been into the eye of the storm for its harmful effects (blamed for causing many diseases), even after thousands and thousands of scientific proofs. Acrylamide and more… about the Cons Last…
8 differences between arabica and robusta coffee
The shape of the bean: arabica bean is oval with a sinuous groove; robusta bean is more circular with a straight groove; arabica is also lighter in color than robusta; The chromosomes: arabica has 44 chromosomes, robusta has 22; Pollination: arabica plant is a self-pollinating plant that means that there will be less mutations and…