Colombia, 2025

Coffeehouse Stories, Part 3: The Snakeman

Coffeehouse Stories, Part 2: fight for survival

Coffeehouse Stories, Part 1: Ed's Study Aid

REVOLUTIONARY NEW SHOWER SCREENS

  




Decent Espresso has done it again. This time, they’ve revolutionized shower screens. 
The new “dimples” a...

The twin myths of “easier to extract” and “overextraction”

ADVANCED HOOPING

A Deep Dive into Cup of Excellence

My sincere thanks to Peter Jones of Idle Hands Roasting and Trident Cafe, and to Benjamin Paz of Beneficio San Vicente, for their help with this post....

Color Measurement: Best Practices

  



Given that coffee color is the best predictor of flavor, color measurement is a useful tool in roasting quality contro...

Introducing the Ceado Hoop

Pros and cons of various roast-control systems

There are currently a few ways to control roasts; from most common to least common are: 

gas valve % (power settings)
inlet tempera...

Viva Colombia

The Bias Against Blends

The names “holiday blend” and “house blend” don’t exactly get the pulses of third-wave consumers racing. Blending has tremendous potential to mold or...

How the Decent evolved to make delicious espresso easier

 



Disclaimer: I’ve worked with Decent Espresso from the start, helping to plan and design the DE1. I may be biased, but e...

Prodigal QC Protocols

Quakers and Optical Sorting

When we started Prodigal, I took a leap of faith on an optical sorter from Alibaba. I don’t think I have to tell you the rest of that story 🤕.  After...

How to approach brewing different coffees

Each week at Prodigal we get a few messages along the lines of “how should I brew x coffee?” These messages imply some confusion about coffee brewing....

New! Prodigal Monthly Subscription

Coffee and happiness

2023 Holiday Coffee-Gift Guide

What I've learned from no-bypass brewing

Lessons from Pulsar and Filter3

A few years ago, Jonathan Gagné coined the term “no-bypass brewing.” The phrase refers to brewers that fo...

WHAT CHANGED IN COFFEE OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS?

When I was in Rotterdam in August, I had coffee with my friend Han. She asked me two interesting questions when I told her I had been in coffee for 30...

Consistency in Roasting

NextLevel Pulsar Recipes and Recommendations

The happy medium amount of fines 

In the past few years, several well-known coffee experts, scientists, and grinder manufacturers have measured and publicly discussed grind particle-si...

Preventing Workplace Injury as a Barista: a guide

A while back, Kody reached out to me to discuss workplace injuries among baristi. He offered to write this guest post to hopefully help baristi avoid...

My two-week espresso education on the road

Serving coffee at Sweet Spot Kaffee in Munich
I recently spent two weeks with John and Bugs from Decent Espresso, doing demonstrations of the DE...

Demystifying Water for Coffee

RESTING ROASTS: IS FRESHER BETTER? 

“Resting” coffee after roasting is a hot topic, and apparently a confusing one at that. Around the time the Loring became popular and more third-wave...

A Comparison of IMF vs Loring

Sample Roasting

Photo courtesy of Dear Coffee Buyer by Ryan Brown
Since starting Prodigal, I’ve been thinking a lot about sample roasting. Sample roasting is...

HOW TO BE A BETTER CUPPER

Ahead of the launch of Prodigal, Mark and I cupped for a minimum of one hour each morning. Having such a routine allowed us to calibrate well after cu...

Prodigal Update: month two and a discussion of roast quality vs roast style

Lessons from the first month
We received multiples more inquiries than we had coffee available. Some of that was due to us deciding some of our...

Prodigal week one: lessons and confessions

“Transparency,” like “sustainability,” is a word thrown around too often. Let’s face it, very little in modern society is truly sustainable. Likewise,...

HOLIDAY COFFEE GIFT GUIDE

LOTUS WATER DROPS: How to use them, and a great hack to find the best water for your coffee

Score inflation, and my failed quest to find 88s

Last month I posted a request on Instagram for 88-point coffees, with the promise to promote any samples that I (and a Q-Grader friend) scored 88 in a...

WHY ROASTER AUTOMATION IS NOT YET A SUCCESS

Many people wonder why roaster automation is not better or easier. I’d like to discuss the current state of automation and the difficulty of creating...

Misguided Maillard Mania

One challenge in roasting is when a roaster makes a single change from batch to batch, tastes a difference, and then declares that one aspect of that...

MacGyver is Alive and Well

I’ve had access to an old Probat electric sample roaster recently at a friend’s roastery. The machine is a bit of a dinosaur, and needed some serious...