Review: Folly Coffee x Hippo Campus Medium Blend (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

This isn’t the first time I’ve tried and reviewed coffee connected to indie musicians (Tim Peaks/Tim Burgess; Drum Coffee/John Wicks, Fitz and the Tantrums), but this was the first time I’ve ever seen whole bean coffee at a merch table! I went to the Bomb Factory in Dallas last night to catch Hippo Campus, a […]

Review: Cherry Coffee Co. Hang Around Espresso Blend (Fort Worth, Texas)

I attended the inaugural Dallas Coffee Festival earlier this month and had a good time exploring the booths of many local roasters, about half of which I’d not yet heard of. Novel Coffee Roasters is a Dallas-area roaster I’ve enjoyed many times, and I was intrigued to see they were sharing their booth with a […]

Review: Ceremony Coffee Roasters Synthesis Blend (Annapolis, Maryland)

I’ve had the pleasure of trying coffee from Ceremony Coffee Roasters before; in addition to their single-origins, they offer blends with nerdy names, and I had made a mental note that someday, I wanted to try their Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis blends. The packaging makes it appear that the Thesis is light, Antithesis is dark, […]

Review: Devoción Coffee Honey House Blend (Brooklyn, New York)

Early on in my specialty coffee journey, I learned about the “rule of 15s”: for best flavor, use ground coffee within 15 minutes, roasted whole bean coffee within 15 days, and green coffee within 15 months. If this rule of thumb holds true across the industry, that means many coffee roasters could be working with […]

Review: Tweed Coffee Two-Step Decaf, Sugarcane Process (Dallas, Texas)

Most of the time when I’m doing coffee tastings, I have to evaluate the coffee first thing in the morning because caffeine lingers so long in my system, I can’t sleep properly if I consume caffeine later in the day. It can be a little hard to properly enjoy the coffee if I’m bleary-eyed from […]

Review: Roseline Coffee Oro Seasonal Blend (Portland, Oregon)

Every now and then, I come across a coffee that I feel like virtually everyone will like, that will please a wide variety of palates and make folks happy to drink every morning. This is one of those coffees! On their website, Roseline has this description for this blend: When coffee has been processed and […]

Review: Roseline Coffee First Flowers Spring Blend (Portland, Oregon)

Roseline Coffee is one of my favorite roasters to order from when I’m in the mood for something special. I follow them on Instagram and when I saw this coffee pop up on my feed, I knew I had to try it. It’s one of the prettiest bags of coffee I’ve seen in a while, […]

Review: Simple Beans Guatemala Jovenes (La Jolla, California)

Chocolate lovers, you’re gonna want to check this out! I will sometimes get asked by friends for help with finding a new coffee. For those people that really enjoy chocolaty, nutty, sweet black coffees, I usually think that grabbing a medium-roasted Guatemalan, Brazilian, or Mexican coffee is a good place to start (just check the […]

Review: Intelligentsia Coffee Black Cat Analog Espresso (Chicago, Illinois)

The first time I tried Intelligentsia’s Black Cat Analog Espresso was in a coffee shop. I was in Northern California for work back in 2015 and had a beautifully pulled shot at Vero’s Coffee Bar in San Jose. I enjoyed it so much, I use the photo of it that I took as an example […]

Review: 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters Old School Espresso (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

Of the seven bags of coffee I purchased during my time in Vancouver, I’d say this bag from 49th Parallel was the only one specifically marketed as espresso (the Matchstick Catalogue No. 39 was described as being fine for both espresso and coffee), so I was pretty excited to see what it would be like […]