I first heard about Drum Coffee via my friend Brandon, a fantastically talented percussionist who happened to stop in at one of their locations while on a road trip. My first reaction to the roaster’s name was, ha, nice pun (since I figured they use a drum roaster to roast their coffee beans). But on […]
Review: Kona Roasted Coffee 100% Hilo (Kona, Hawaii)
Hilo is located on the northeastern end of the big island of Hawaii, and this area experiences one of the highest levels of rainfall of anywhere in the world (around 300 days a year), which makes growing coffee a challenge. The resulting crop is small and rare; this will never be a coffee that will […]
Review: Kona Roasted Coffee Gary & Valerie 100% Kona (Kona, Hawaii)
This offering from Kona Roasted is named for Gary and Valerie, the farmers of this varietal. Gary and Valerie moved from California to Hawaii in 2005 and, with the knowledge they’ve built over the past fifteen years of coffee farming, have cultivated a crop that earned a 92 from Coffee Review in 2020! Whole bean: […]
Review: Kona Roasted Coffee Salvador 100% Kona (Kona, Hawaii)
I’ve had this blog for roughly five years, and I go through phases where I am really active, writing a lot of reviews, and also phases where I go quiet. Around about December of 2019, I started getting a little overwhelmed with life and I somewhat unintentionally took a hiatus from coffee reviews – I […]
Reflections: Philip Glass – Piece in the Shape of a Square
I purchased the sheet music to this piece in 2016, intending it to be a personal project that I would record for fun when I had spare time. Naturally, life got in the way and the score sat largely untouched in my practice room until the coronavirus upended all of our lives. The first week […]
Review: LUME rechargeable travel burr grinder and camp light
This review is wildly overdue, but better late than never! Back in 2017, I backed a Kickstarter project for LUME, which billed itself as “The World’s First Travel Coffee Grinder and Camp Light.” I received the product in late 2017/early 2018, but I never got around to testing out the grinder or writing this review […]
“Felt like the end, but it was just the start…”
As one of my requirements for earning my first-degree black belt in taekwondo, my school asks that we write a short personal statement reflecting on what we have learned since beginning our training. I submitted a 450-word statement to them as my official black belt essay (radio edit) but felt the need to more fully […]
Review: Counter Culture Big Trouble Blend Single-Serve Bags (5 pack)
I had a spontaneous trip to Asheville, North Carolina at the end of September. Since I didn’t have a rental car on this trip, I wasn’t anticipating having much access to craft coffee, but serendipitously, my hotel was around the corner from an Earth Fare market (natural foods grocery store), which had an extensive selection […]
Review: Sudden Coffee Intelligentsia Colombia Tres Santos (4-pack, instant coffee)
Instant coffee is not a new concept; it’s been around for decades. However, over the past few years, there’s been an increased interest amongst craft coffee roasters in making convenient yet high-quality coffee options available to customers. When I’m at home, I always grind and brew fresh, but when I’m traveling, sometimes I would like […]
Review: Blue Bottle Coffee Summer Blend (Oakland, California)
Blue Bottle Coffee offers seasonal blends, and I was fortunate enough to pick up a bag of their Summer Blend while it was still available. I first was alerted about this blend through Blue Bottle’s email list, where Blue Bottle’s quality control director, Ben Brewer (really? Is there a more spot-on surname for someone working […]