All guides

Every guide explains the reasoning, so you can decide for yourself.

Comparisons

• AeroPress vs French press for one person
  Two cheap, forgiving brewers with very different cups. Here's how they compare on taste, cleanup, capacity and cost, and which one suits your mornings. · 4 min

Buying guides

• The best coffee subscriptions for home brewers
  Fresh beans on a schedule is the easiest upgrade in coffee. Here's how the main subscription styles differ, and which suits you. · 5 min
• The best coffee grinders under $200
  Four burr grinders worth your money at different budgets: what each does well, where each falls short, and who should buy it. · 4 min
• The $150 starter kit that beats a café
  A grinder, a scale, a brewer and filters: the minimum setup for café-quality filter coffee at home, and how fast it pays for itself. · 4 min

Grinders

• Burr vs blade grinders: why it matters
  The grinder shapes your coffee more than the brewer does. Here's what burrs do that blades can't, and how much you need to spend. · 4 min

Brewing basics

• Coffee-to-water ratio explained
  What 1:16 means, the right ratio for each brew method, and how to convert scoops and cups to grams. · 4 min

Troubleshooting

• Dialing in: fix sour or bitter coffee
  Sour means under-extracted and bitter means over-extracted. Here's how to tell which you have, and which single change fixes it. · 4 min

Beans

• How to read a bag of specialty coffee
  Roast date, origin, process, variety, altitude, tasting notes: what each label means and which ones actually predict what's in your cup. · 4 min
• How to store coffee beans so they stay fresh
  Air, light, heat and moisture ruin coffee. Here's where to keep beans, whether to freeze them, and how long they really last. · 4 min

Pour-over

• Your first V60: a 3-minute recipe
  A simple, repeatable Hario V60 recipe with exact grams, temperatures and timings, plus what to change when the cup isn't right. · 5 min