Brewing
What Is Crema on Espresso?
Crema is carbon dioxide trapped under pressure by a shot's own oils. It tracks freshness and roast level, not how good the coffee is.
Learn
Notes from the roastery: what we buy, how we roast it, and what we have learned building coffee programs on the Gulf Coast.
Tagged “explainer” · see all of Learn
Taste
What Does Malic Acid Taste Like in Coffee?
Citric acid flashes and fades. Malic acid, the slower acid altitude builds into high-grown lots like Kenya Kiambu, coats the tongue and lingers for up to thirty seconds.
Origins
What Is Yeast Fermentation in Coffee?
Fermenting coffee with wild microbes is the default. A growing number of producers add a chosen yeast strain on purpose, and two peer-reviewed studies measure exactly ...
Taste
What Is a Clean Cup in Coffee?
A clean cup has nothing to do with how sanitary the kitchen is. It's what's left after quakers, broken beans, and fermentation faults get caught before the roast.
Roasting
Does Roast Level Affect Caffeine Content?
A 2024 university study on roast level and caffeine found the real peak sits in medium roasts, not light or dark, and that brewing method moves the needle more than ro...
Origins
What Is Lactic Fermentation in Coffee?
Most explanations credit Lactobacillus for a lactic-processed coffee's creamy tang. A 2019 peer-reviewed study says the real story runs through two different bacteria,...
Taste
Are Coffee Blends Lower Quality Than Single Origin Coffee?
ASCENT, our 50/50 Kenya-Ethiopia blend, cups at 92.3 against Kenya Kiambu's 91.5. Here's what that does, and does not, prove about blends versus single origin coffee.
Taste
Does a Higher Cup Score Mean Better Coffee?
We checked our own shelf: a cup score tracks a trained panel's scorecard, not the price we paid for the green coffee. The two don't move together in either direction.
Origins
What Is Anaerobic Fermentation in Coffee?
A 2022 study found a sealed anaerobic coffee fermentation is dominated by different microbes than the lactic acid bacteria popular coffee writing usually credits for it.
Origins
What Is Monsooned Coffee?
Producers on India's Malabar Coast hold green Arabica and Robusta in humid monsoon air for twelve weeks to six months on purpose, and two academic papers and a governm...
Origins
Does Co-Fermented Coffee Actually Taste Better?
A Colombian lab trial compared pineapple-inoculated and spontaneous coffee fermentation and found real chemical differences, and why one farm, three tasters, and an un...
Taste
What Is Aftertaste in Coffee?
What actually causes a coffee's aftertaste, how the cupping form scores it, and why roast level and brew method change what lingers after you swallow.
Taste
What Is Chlorogenic Acid in Coffee?
Chlorogenic acid makes up a large share of green coffee. Roasting breaks down nearly 90 percent of it into lactones, quinic acid, and bitterness compounds.
