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Coffee
Coffee is the one thing I've had in nearly every country I've ever set foot in, and it was never the same drink twice — espresso standing at a bar in Italy, sweet condensed milk dripping through a phin in Vietnam, a whipped-sugar cafecito handed through a window in Miami. It's a fruit seed that we set on fire on purpose and then extract with hot water, and every step from the mountainside to the mug changes what lands on your tongue. This is the whole thing: where it came from, how it grows, how it's roasted — including roasting it yourself — every way I know to brew it, everything people put in it, and how to cook with it.
I started on coffee in earnest around 1990, when I lived in Beaufort, South Carolina, and bought my first business: a coffee shop and ice cream shop in one, where I also baked the desserts and cookies and made sandwiches. Back then almost all of the coffee I sold was ground on site and brewed in French presses. Who knew it would go this far.
Understand it
13 pagesWhere coffee comes from, what it is, what it costs and what it does to you.
The History of Coffee From a goat-herd legend in Ethiopia to Sufi monasteries, Ottoman coffeehouses, smuggled seedlings and the empires built on them — how a bitter red cherry conquered the world. Explore →
Coffeehouses in History From Mecca's 1511 ban to Vienna's cafés: Istanbul's first coffeehouses, Oxford and London, Lloyd's and the Stock Exchange, Charles II's failed suppression, Le Procope, Bach's Coffee Cantata, and the legends that do not survive the sources. Explore →
The Bean It isn't a bean at all — it's the seed of a fruit. Arabica vs. robusta, the cherry's anatomy, the cultivars worth knowing, and why processing decides so much of the flavor. Explore →
Origins, Regions & Climate Why coffee only grows in a belt around the equator, what altitude actually does to a bean, and an honest tour of what to expect from Ethiopia, Kenya, Colombia, Brazil, Sumatra and the rest. Explore →
How Coffee Is Processed Washed, natural, honey and wet-hulled, and the new anaerobic and co-fermented lots: what each does to the cup, why the seed itself is the reason, what it costs in water, and how to taste the difference. Explore →
Beyond Arabica and Robusta: Stenophylla, Liberica, Excelsa and the New Varieties The rediscovered West African coffee that tastes like arabica in robusta's heat, why excelsa became its own species in 2025, the F1 hybrids, and what a home roaster can actually buy. Explore →
Coffee Leaf Rust and Climate Change The fungus that turned Ceylon to tea in 1869 and swept Central America in 2012, resistant varieties and whether they taste worse, Hawaii's arrival in 2020, and what the climate models really say. Explore →
The Coffee Market: the C Price, the 2024–25 Spike and What a Farmer Is Paid How green coffee is priced, why arabica passed $4 a pound in 2025 and where it stands now, the tariffs and the EU deforestation rule, and who gets what from a $17 bag and a $4 cup. Explore →
Labels and Certifications: What Fair Trade, Organic and the Rest Actually Promise Organic, Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, Bird Friendly, direct trade, Kona and the rest: who sets each one, what the farmer gets, what a small roaster must pay to print it, and the label words the law still polices. Explore →
The International Coffee Agreements When governments set the price of coffee: Brazil burning its surplus, the 1940 quotas on the US market, the 1962–1989 treaty that stamped every bag, why the US joined and left twice, and the 2022 agreement still waiting for votes. Explore →
Caffeine and Health: What the Evidence Says How much caffeine is in each cup, how long it stays, who should drink less, why unfiltered coffee raises cholesterol and paper does not, and where decaf solvents stand in October 2026. Explore →
Coffee Myths and Corrections Dancing goats, a baptising pope, dark roast's caffeine, cold brew's acid, the freezer and fair trade's price: the popular claims, what the evidence says, and where to read more. Explore →
A Coffee Glossary Every term of art the Coffee pages use, from first crack and channeling to the C price and a Transitory Food Unit, each in a sentence or two with a link to the full story. Explore →
Roast it
4 pagesFrom a popcorn popper to a production drum.
How Coffee Is Roasted The same browning chemistry I chase in a smoker, aimed at a seed. Drying, first crack, development, second crack — and what light, medium and dark really trade away. Explore →
Roasting Your Own A skillet, an oven, a popcorn popper or a heat gun and a dog bowl. Green beans cost a fraction of roasted, and your first roast can happen tomorrow — here is exactly how. Explore →
Home Roasting, Step by Step Numbered, follow-along instructions for the popcorn popper, skillet, stovetop crank popper, oven and heat gun, with a color chart of every roast stage from green to Spanish, and what to do when a roast goes wrong. Explore →
Roasting Machines The ladder from a $200 air roaster to a 60 kg production drum — fluid-bed vs. drum, what each rung buys you, and where the money and the ventilation really go. Explore →
Brew it
12 pagesThe kit, the numbers, the water, and what to do when the cup is wrong.
A Home Coffee Kit at Three Budgets: Grinder, Scale, Kettle, Brewer Three kits at about $100, $250 and $700, with current models and the makers' own prices: grinders, scales, gooseneck and temperature kettles, brewers and filters, plus what to buy first, what to skip and what to upgrade first. Explore →
Brewing Pour-over, drip, percolator, French press, moka, siphon, AeroPress, cold brew, phin and ibrik — the physics of extraction, and the honest verdict on each. Explore →
Grinding How much to grind and when, what the dial means, purging a grinder between coffees, and cleaning one — hand grinder, home grinder or shop grinder — from the makers' own manuals, with the places where they contradict each other. Explore →
Ratios Coffee to water, by weight, for every method on these pages: what 1:16 means, the grams for common cups and pots, the cupping dose by bowl size, what an espresso ratio measures, and the ratios that are not coffee to water at all. Explore →
Water The other 98 percent of the cup. What the standards really say, what competitors brew with, how to build brewing water from reverse-osmosis or distilled, what Michigan tap water is like, a shop system that does not drift, and what to tell customers at home. Explore →
Keeping Coffee at Home: Freshness, Storage and the Freezer How long coffee stays fresh, why the bag beats the canister, and the freezer done properly: portioned, airtight, frozen once and ground from frozen. Explore →
Troubleshooting Any Brew: Sour, Bitter, Weak, Flat A symptom table that works for every brewer, the quirks of each method, and how to tell when the problem is the water, the age of the coffee or the beans. Explore →
Cleaning and Descaling: Kettles, Brewers, Presses and Airpots Scale needs an acid and coffee oil needs a detergent. Each device by its maker's own instructions, why makers split on vinegar, and what Michigan's food code asks of a stall. Explore →
Espresso Nine bars, thirty seconds, and more myths than any other brew method. Dose, yield and time; why the grinder matters more than the machine; and what crema really tells you. Explore →
The Espresso Machine: a History, and Espresso Without Power From Moriondo's 1884 steam machine to Gaggia's spring lever and the Faema E61, with the myths corrected; then manual levers and hand presses that make espresso at a market with no outlet, and what they cost in money and minutes. Explore →
Latte Art for Beginners Steaming microfoam, pouring a heart, a tulip and a rosetta, the usual faults and their fixes, practising with soapy water, the right milk and jug, and how Seattle and Italy made it a craft. Explore →
A Drill-Driven Grinder A hand grinder turned by a cordless drill, so a stall grinder runs on swappable tool batteries. What the makers allow, the torque and speed numbers, a cradle to build, and the reasons it might be a bad idea. Explore →
In the cup and the kitchen
8 pagesMilk, sugar, syrups, chicory, and coffee as an ingredient.
What People Put In It Milk, sugar, salt, butter, cardamom, chicory, condensed milk, an egg, a shot of whiskey — a world tour of everything people add, with no gatekeeping. Explore →
Syrups Simple, rich, honey and sugar-free syrups by weight, with the dose for a cup — and whether glycerine or gum arabic belongs in a coffee syrup. The measured answer: at a normal dose, neither can be felt. Explore →
Flavored and Seasonal Drinks: Mocha, Pumpkin Spice, Cold Foam and More Mocha sauce from cocoa, pumpkin spice (which had no pumpkin in it until 2015), cold foam without a commercial blender, caramel, maple, honey lavender, horchata, eggnog and gingerbread, all by weight, with how long each keeps, where Michigan lets it be made, and why flavoured beans are a different thing. Explore →
Chicory and New Orleans Coffee What chicory is, what the Napoleon and Civil War stories get right and wrong, Café du Monde's 4-to-1 blend, café au lait the Creole way, and roasting the root at home. Explore →
Cooking With Coffee My coffee-marinated steak — plain drip coffee, a ziplock, overnight — plus rubs, red-eye gravy, barbecue sauce, and why espresso makes chocolate taste more like chocolate. Explore →
Growing Oyster Mushrooms on Spent Grounds and Chaff Oyster mushrooms grow on café grounds, best as a third of a straw mix and used within a day. The method, the measured yields, the caffeine left in the mushroom (traces), what chaff is good for, and green mould. Explore →
The Milk Drinks: Latte, Cappuccino, Flat White, Cortado and Macchiato Five drinks from one shot and steamed milk: the cup, ratio and foam depth that separate them, where each name came from, why milk foams, and how to make them without a steam wand or an espresso machine. Explore →
Sugar-Free Sweeteners and Plant Milks Sucralose to allulose, how sweet each is and how it behaves hot, what the erythritol and aspartame headlines actually found, a sugar-free syrup by weight, and why oat and soy milk split in coffee. Explore →
Coffee cultures
5 pagesHow whole countries drink it: the Ethiopian ceremony, Arabic qahwa, the Vietnamese phin, the Cuban cafecito and Hong Kong's yuenyeung.
The Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony Buna step by step: the jebena, the three rounds, incense and grass, who makes it and how often, Oromo butter coffee, and why the Church, the 'half the crop' figure and the UNESCO claim are not what they seem. Explore →
Arabic Coffee: Qahwa and the Dallah Light roast and nearly as much cardamom as coffee: the dallah, the mortar and the cups, the serving rules nobody agrees on, UNESCO's 2015 listing, Saudi coffee in the 2020s, and Dearborn. Explore →
Vietnamese Coffee The phin, robusta and condensed milk: cà phê sữa đá, bạc xỉu, egg coffee from 1946 and salt coffee from 2010, the East German plantations behind the boom, and the New Orleans can in American restaurants. Explore →
Cuban Coffee and the Cafecito Espumita, colada, cortadito and café con leche; the French planters and enslaved workers of the 1820s, the ration book and the peas, Miami's ventanita and Versailles, Tampa, and what the law says about Cuban beans. Explore →
Yuenyeung and Hong Kong Café Coffee Coffee mixed with silk-stocking milk tea: the rival 1950s inventors, the 'official' ratio that isn't, the mandarin duck, how to order in a cha chaan teng, and the caffeine in a cup of milk tea. Explore →
Coffee around the edges
17 pagesCoffee's odd relations: Rhode Island syrup, Brooklyn soda, Algerian glasses, Greek frappés and dalgona, Turkish sand and fortune-telling, monsooned beans, coffee stouts, Battle Creek substitutes, cheese, charcoal, husks and spirits.
Coffee Milk and Coffee Syrup: Rhode Island's State Drink Autocrat, Eclipse, Coffee Time and the rest: the syrup Rhode Island stirs into cold milk, the 1993 fight with Del's Lemonade, the coffee cabinet, cooking with it, making it at home, and coffee's other odd cousins. Explore →
Camp Coffee: Scotland's Coffee and Chicory Essence The Glasgow essence that was Britain's instant coffee before instant coffee: what is in the bottle, the army story and the label redrawn twice, baking a coffee and walnut cake, and its forgotten rivals. Explore →
Manhattan Special and Coffee Sodas Brooklyn's espresso soda since 1895, Calabria's gazzosa al caffè, the coffee colas Pepsi and Coca-Cola dropped, the espresso tonic, and making a coffee soda at home. Explore →
Mazagran: Coffee in a Glass Named after an 1840 siege in Algeria: black coffee and water in a French café, iced with lemon in Portugal, with rum in Vienna, and a fizzy Starbucks test in 1995. What the legend gets wrong, and three ways to make it. Explore →
Iced and Whipped Coffees Greece's shaken frappé and freddo, Italy's shakerato, the whipped coffee the internet called dalgona and its older Macau and Indian versions, why only instant coffee foams, and the iced cousins from Hanoi to Germany. Explore →
Kopi Luwak and Animal-Processed Coffees Civet coffee from the record: Java in 1866, what the gut does to a bean, a blind cupping in Michigan, caged civets and unverifiable "wild" labels, and the elephant, bird and monkey coffees that followed. Explore →
Turkish Coffee in Sand, and Reading the Cup Kum kahvesi, the sand tray that is newer than it looks (the older way was hot ash), the UNESCO listing, kahve falı and reading the grounds, and a sand coffee you can make at home. Explore →
Monsooned Malabar and the Aged Coffees Indian beans swollen and paled by a monsoon season in open warehouses, the sailing-ship voyages they imitate, aged Java and Sumatra, the protected names, and how to roast and brew them. Explore →
Coffee Liqueurs, Irish Coffee and Coffee Cocktails Irish coffee's Foynes legend and its 1945 print record, the Pharisäer's court case, flaming Rüdesheimer, café brûlot and Spanish coffee, Kahlúa to Mr Black, the Russians and the Espresso Martini, and a homemade coffee liqueur. Explore →
Coffee Beer and Coffee Stouts From Redhook's 1995 Double Black Stout to Founders Breakfast Stout and KBS in Grand Rapids: how brewers add the coffee, how little caffeine ends up in the glass, the law, and a cold-brew addition for a homebrewed stout. Explore →
Kopi Joss: Yogyakarta's Charcoal Coffee Black coffee with a glowing coal dropped in, at a night street stall by Tugu station: the family behind it, what the one lab study found, why Malaysia banned it, and the angkringan table. Explore →
Qishr: Yemen's Coffee-Husk Drink The ginger-spiced drink Yemenis brewed from coffee husks while the beans went abroad from Mocha, as 1716 and 1760s travellers saw it; Ethiopia's hashara and kuti; coffee flour; and where to buy husks in Dearborn. Explore →
Kaffeost: Cheese in Coffee Squares of baked bread cheese softened in hot coffee and eaten with a spoon, from Finland and Swedish Lapland to Michigan's Upper Peninsula: why it began, the 2025 EU protection, the guksi cup, and a colostrum correction. Explore →
Café HAG, Sanka and the Story of Decaf Ludwig Roselius's 1906 benzene process, the red lifebuoy, Sanka in Paris and New York, the orange decaf pot, the Böttcherstraße and an awkward Nazi record, and what decaf still contains. Explore →
Postum and Coffee Substitutes C. W. Post's Battle Creek grain drink and its war on coffee, German malt coffee and Muckefuck, Italian barley coffee, Confederate okra seed, dandelion root from the lawn, and what is in them. Explore →
Dandelion Root Coffee Digging the lawn's taproots in autumn (not spring), where Michigan law lets you dig, scrubbing, drying, roasting and brewing them, what roasting does to the inulin, and who should not drink it. Explore →
Acorn Coffee Michigan's white and red oaks, the float test and weevils, leaching out the tannins the way Native Californians did, roasting and brewing, and why Confederates tried it once. Explore →
Taste it, learn it, travel for it
5 pagesCupping, tastings, competitions, classes and the farms.
Cupping How the trade tastes coffee — the real numbers, the 2023 system that replaced the old 100-point form, where you can go to a public cupping, and how to run one at home with friends. Explore →
Hosting a Tasting Seven tastings that change one thing at a time: one coffee brewed five ways, one coffee roasted five ways, origins, a honey flight, the triangle game, hot against cold, and coffee with something to eat. Explore →
Competitions The six U.S. championships and how the 2027 season works, the world finals, the AeroPress championship anyone can enter, competitions a roaster enters by post, and how to watch or volunteer. Explore →
Where to Learn Free cuppings and online lessons, roasting classes with their prices, the trade association's courses, and the trade shows — with Chicago in June 2027 the one within a drive of Michigan. Explore →
Coffee Travel Planning a trip to see coffee grown, processed and tasted at origin: going at harvest, the no-passport options in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, reading travel advisories region by region, and a checklist for finding a safe, beautiful farm. Explore →
Sell it
1 pageEverything about turning coffee into a business, from a market table to a shop.
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