Bottom Line Up Front: I listened to a great podcast about coffee that I wanted to share as well as a few other useful coffee resources.
Coffee and Health 101
The podcast is another Chris Kresser gem. You can find get the details and download or listen here. They get into the research on coffee (showing it is very good for you), different considerations for how much coffee to consume, and some potential issues with consuming it. It is easy to understand for most but also geeks out on some science if you are into that.
Roast It Yourself and Brew At Home Better
I wanted to share some resources for brewing better coffee at home. I decided to become a coffee snob one day about 6 months ago. I had a realization that I cared a lot about coffee and enjoyed it, but I wasn’t putting any effort into making it high quality. I decided to spend some money and time to learn how to find better coffee, roast it myself, grind it myself, and brew it better. I will post more on how I home roast and what I have learned later. For now, here are some interesting resources if you are into making better coffee. While it will require more time, you can get the kind of coffee you only get from a coffee house for pennies on the dollar.
- Gear for Making Great Pour-over Coffee. They discuss methods for making it, grinders, and scales. This is the best one-stop shop article for the equipment.
- Getting Started Roasting Coffee at Home. This tutorial discusses what home roasting is about, how to get beans, and how to do it. I buy my green coffee from Sweet Maria’s and roast using a popcorn popper. I thought this was a joke when it was one of the preferred methods, but it is serious. I got one for $20. Now that I have done it for a few months, I can roast a week’s worth of coffee in less than 15 minutes.
Buy Coffee Online
If you do want to buy better coffee and are just looking for somewhere to go, try Caveman Coffee Company. Very cool small business. Their coffee is excellent but a bit expensive, certainly compared to cheap mass coffee. This is what inspired me to roast my own. I enjoyed better coffee once I switched to Caveman Coffee, but the cost was starting to bother me. I am able to get the quality at much (like 1/10th) less cost by roasting my own.
Weekends are a great time to experiment with something like this. Enjoy.