The Bloom — brewing

  From the recent news that coffee appears to lower the risk of liver cancer to evidence that it may protect the heart, lower inflammation, and even prevent diabetes, the drink of drinks is becoming a bona fide health food, one that’s beneficial to our bodies in all kinds of ways that matter. That’s great news for us coffee fanatics—frankly, we’d have been happy just to find out that all those beans we’ve been brewing don’t come with any serious side effects. But discovering that coffee is actually good for us? That’s icing on the coffee cake. And it’s a...

Humanity has been drinking coffee for at least 1,000 years. That’s a lot of time for people to have on their hands, especially in the company of caffeine. Unsurprisingly, the result has been some, shall we say, novel ways of preparing the world’s beverage of choice. We can’t exactly call these our favorites but they definitely display the full range of coffee creativity: Let’s start with Es Alpukat, which mixes espresso, milk, sweetened condensed milk, and… avocado? Indeed. Sometimes served over ice and/or with chocolate syrup, the result is a smoothie-like drink sold from Indonesian street carts that’s part salad,...

Last time out, we looked at how to set up a proper coffee cupping, the practice of consciously sampling the coffees we love. Now we’re ready for the fun part: actually tasting some! Coffee has three main components: Aroma, taste, and body. In a cupping session, you’ll explore all three. There are whole guides to the process, but here are the basics: Taste several coffees at once. The more you taste, the more comparisons you can make, and the more comparisons you make, the more apparent the differences between individual coffees become. Since it’s these differences that lead us to...

Thankfully, coffee isn’t what it used to be. Gone are the days of horrific gas station cups filled with overheated mud so lifeless we can be forgiven for thinking it came from a pot brewed during the last World War. In their place are magnificent custom roasts carefully curated and treated like the fine wines they resemble, complete with flavor notes that speak of things like berry and nutmeg, hazelnut and hay. For many coffee drinkers, such language is a bit of a mystery. We drink our coffee, and we love it, but rarely do we pause to tease it...