Review: Porch Culture Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Natural (Tyler, Texas)

Music is my mood-altering substance of choice, even moreso than coffee. It encompasses nearly every waking moment of my day… I am constantly listening to music, making music, imagining and striving for an unattainable perfection in music. The kind of music I gravitate to depends on my mood, the time of day, and what I […]

Review: Octane Coffee Costa Rica El Higueron (Atlanta, Georgia)

A recent interview I heard on the Sound Opinions podcast was discussing the music listening habits of Spotify users, and the featured guest stated that their internal research indicated that most people who use the Spotify streaming service stopped listening to popular/current music at an average age of 33, and that people maintain a lifetime affection for music of […]

Advice: Anatomy of a “good” espresso shot

A friend recently purchased an espresso machine and asked me to help teach him how to use it, as he does not know what “good” espresso is supposed to taste like. This got me thinking about how to describe the taste of a properly pulled shot of espresso to someone that has never had one. Let’s talk about orange […]

Review: Heart Coffee Roasters Kenya Kiangoi (Portland, Oregon)

After my lovely experience reviewing Heart Coffee Roasters Stereo Blend, I was very much looking forward to visiting a Heart cafe location while in Portland and picking up some of their single-origin beans. There were multiple locations in Portland and I don’t think I ended up at the biggest one, but the smallish location I visited […]

Review: Sterling Coffee Roasters Kenya Nyeri Gachatha AA (Portland, Oregon)

This post begins a streak of 5 reviews of Portland-based roasters, and I couldn’t be happier about it! My trip to Oregon was sheer delight; I enjoyed gorgeous sunny weather with a nice cool breeze, mouth-watering food, and of course superb coffee. I’m starting with Sterling partly because it’s the “oldest” coffee in the bunch […]

Review: Ascension Brazil Rainha Farms (Dallas, Texas)

Sometimes, when I talk to people about the flavors in coffee, they get confused and think that I drink flavored coffees… you know, stuff like Pumpkin Spice Lattes, Peppermint Mochas, Red Velvet Frappuccinos. I admit that I enjoyed some vanilla lattes in my youth, but I haven’t had a “flavored” coffee in quite some time. You […]

Review: Counter Culture Kenya Kamavindi (Durham, North Carolina)

In the 6 months thus far that this blog has been around, the coffee review with the most page views has been the Counter Culture Hologram Espresso. I figured it was high time I revisit Counter Culture’s offerings, but this time I opted to try a single-origin versus one of their blends. Kenyan coffee has […]

Review: Rook Coffee Roasters Costa Rica (Ocean, New Jersey)

I heard about Rook thanks to a tip from my friend Max. Founded in 2010, this relative newcomer to the specialty coffee world has gotten attention from sources ranging from The New York Times and PBS to BuzzFeed and Maxim. In addition to brewing their freshly roasted coffee in eight cafe locations and selling their beans online, Rook […]

Coffee Destination: Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room (Seattle, Washington)

I’m back from my hiatus! And trust me when I say I will definitely be making up for lost time. I picked up 5 different coffees from 5 different roasters during my time in New York and Seattle and I can’t wait to review them all. BUT FIRST…. I have not talked about Starbucks very […]

Review: Heart Coffee Roasters Stereo Blend (Portland, Oregon)

I will be taking a hiatus from tasting coffees for the next couple of weeks, so I wanted my last coffee (for now) to be a great one. Luckily for me, I was able to snag this bag of Heart Coffee from Oak Lawn Coffee in Dallas. Pro tip: They receive shipments from Heart on Fridays, so if […]