Italian astronaut to bring espresso machine into orbit
Naturally. It’s an interesting little article, actually (check out the machine diagram). Brewing science is complicated and finnicky enough on Earth, let alone in the microgravity environment on the International Space Station. Check out the article over on NPR’s blog. Snippet below: Of course, drinking coffee up in space still won’t be the same as...
Roastwatch – A coffee roast logging app for iOS
Check this out – fellow coffee blogger Darren Jennings over at The Coffee Compass has taken up coding and developed an app for home roasters. While many professional-grade coffee roasters come with the ability to use logging software coupled with temperature probes to help manage and re-create roasts batch to batch, home roasters are often...
2014 Reader Survey
Hey! For the new year I’m exploring ideas for the blog and part of that entails getting a better sense of who you are, dear reader. Some of you already keep in touch with me on Twitter or Facebook, but for everyone else, here’s a quick way to introduce yourself so that I know what...
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! 2012 was my first year living back in the US after being abroad since 2008. As you can see above, I had a lot of great coffees while reacquainting myself with American roasters and a specialty coffee industry that has developed a lot over the past few years. Two coffees that stood...
Holiday Gift Guide & Wishlist for Coffee Lovers
If it seems like every week a new coffee brewer is being touted on gadget blogs or hopeful Kickstarter campaigns, you’re not alone. Most of them aren’t worth writing about, which is why you rarely see them here, but with the holidays coming up I’ve assembled a little list of coffee gear and accessories that...
Korean Cafe Interior Design
When I lived in Korea I tried to find all the cafes in Seoul that were focused on high quality coffee (you can find all of them on my global cafe map), but in the process I visited a bunch that were less than stellar. However, even the least palatable coffees in Korea are often...
Highlights from Coffee Fest NY 2012
I paid a visit to Coffee Fest NY yesterday and took a few pictures to share (today is the last day of the show, so if you want to visit you have a few hours left, or pre-register for next year). Trade shows are rather unglamorous, full of syrup manufacturers, smoothie products, and other goods...
Three Aeropresses, One Barista
Carlos Aguirre Gano, an inventive barista championship competitor in El Salvador, used a rig to press 3 Aeropresses at once. I don’t know Spanish, but it’s been suggested that he brewed the same coffee at several roast profiles. If you can translate more, please post in the comments :) Now, watch and be amazed (at...
1960s London Cafes & Thoughts About Cafe Design
I’m loving this old video, shot in documentary style, looking at the wide variety of cafes that had opened up in London in the 1950s and 1960s. Part of its charm lies in its anthropological gaze, spending most of the allotted time on the unglamorous and precarious economic end of the business, while highlighting the...
Video: “Shit Baristas Say”
Don’t take it personally, barista friends. :) At FRSHGRND.com we try to showcase companies and individuals that are passionate without undue pretense or unwanted judgment. Nevertheless, the stereotype is amusing and it’s always good to make sure you’re not crossing the line into self-caricature when you talk about coffee. Video by Sprudge.com, filmed at Four...
Coffee & Cream in High-speed Slow Motion
Modernist Cuisine has put up two videos of cream being poured into black coffee in high-speed slow motion. While most of us probably only combine milk with espresso, preferring to taste brewed coffee in all its unadulterated nuance, the video is pretty mesmerizing. If only they’d done the same thing with a barista pouring latte...
Pardon the mess
So, my blogs got infected by some exploit that’s currently ravaging WordPress based blogs. I had to do a lot of maintenance to get things back to normal and decided to try a new theme in the process. One big change – I’m increasing the photo size throughout the site, so for a while all...
