So you decided you want a coffee maker, and chances are this is not the first time. Still, the incredible depth of options and features for drip and single serve coffee makers can send even a savvy coffee drinker on a wild chase. In this guide we will try to make things as easy as possible, because they can be!

The French Press is a good entry point into the world of gourmet coffee. It costs only around $20, it is very simple to use, it gives consistently good results, and it doubles up as a milk frother as well. Can it get any better??

Buying an espresso machine? Is it your first? Second?? Third??? No matter, it can still seem a daunting task going through all this plethora of categories, features, models, and marketing pitches. In this guide I will try to make it very easy to choose, because it can be!

Any milk steaming or milk frothing mechanism you use should work fine as long as you use it correctly and know what your goals are.

Different coffees come from all around the world and are prepared in a variety of ways, offering the drinker a huge choice of flavours and styles – ranging from light to full-bodied, and from very acidic to lightly acidic. The sheer quantity of varieties can be rather overwhelming or confusing for a newcomer to gourmet or speciality coffees. However, just as there is a fairly well defined and widely understood system for appraising wines, so there is a comparable system for coffee.

In an ideal world you would probably buy small amounts of green beans (perhaps from a specialist roaster), roast them yourself, and grind them immediately before you want to make coffee. However, most of us have to buy roasted beans, often in larger quantities than we can use in just a few days.

Like an artist creating a perfectly harmonious canvas by using his paint palette, the roaster produces seductive masterpieces in the cup out of single-origin coffees. As old as coffee itself, blending is a technique that optimizes the body, aroma, and flavors of single-origins in order to create new tastes. The goal of coffee blending is to produce a cup of coffee that is superior to each single component alone.

One coffee cup does not fit all! Did you know that the type of cup used for your daily brew can have a real impact on its flavor? Why put all the effort into selecting a perfect roast, brewing it to perfection, and then put it in a cup that reduces its flavor?

In this article, I’ll describe why shape, material, and history all play into choosing which type of cup goes with which coffee.