2020 HOLIDAY COFFEE-GIFT GUIDE - a podcast by Scott Rao

from 2020-12-08T00:39:26

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As we enter the holiday season, I thought it would be nice to make some gift recommendations for the coffee enthusiast in your life. I admire and enjoy all of these items personally, and strongly recommend them. Please note that I have no financial interests in any of these products, other than my own book and the Decent Espresso Machine.

The World Atlas of Coffee by James Hoffmann is simply the best all-around book ever written about coffee. James has recently updated the book’s data for the producing countries he discusses, and he has added sections such as one on home roasting. The book is available in English, German, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Russian, Korean, Japanese, Norwegian, Thai and even Italian!

Barista Hustle Subscription Whether you’re a home barista or work in a cafe, there is no better way, especially during a pandemic, to deepen your barista skills than by taking the Barista Hustle online course. Barista Hustle, led by Matt Perger, is the world leader in making geeky baristas even geekier. If you’re going to learn, learn from the best.

If you’re in Europe and want to order some special beans for a loved one, I recommend the honey-processed Costa Rican Geisha Sumava from one of Europe’s best and most underrated roasters, Doubleshot in Prague. Nothing says “I love you” like a bag of Geisha, right? (But if I send you a bag of natural beans…)

I’ll say it out loud: The Espro Bloom is my new favorite pourover brewer, despite the funny-looking filters ;). The Bloom is the fastest pourover brewer I’ve ever seen, it makes delicious coffee, and is a pleasure to use. I can’t recommend it enough.

The Flair Espresso Maker is a wonderful new manual espresso maker. Just fill it with boiling water, flex your biceps, and in 30 seconds you’ll have cafe-quality espresso. The design is lovely, and it’s fun to challenge yourself to apply pressure smoothly and consistently (if you’re into that sort of thing).

The Peak Water Filter Jug

I use the Peak everyday at home, and it’s revolutionary: the Peak allows me to adjust the amount of ion exchange to target whatever water alkalinity level I prefer for coffee brewing. Given that my tap water at home is quite hard, the Peak has been a godsend and has saved me a bundle on bottled water.

The Decent Espresso Machine Whether you really, really want to make a loved one happy, you’ve got too much cash burning a hole in your pocket, or you just want your significant other to make you extraordinary coffee every morning, the Decent Espresso Machine is the splurge gift of the year. The DE1 pulls beautiful espresso and is easily the world’s most versatile machine. Try the Blooming Espresso, the Allongé, or create your own custom flow and pressure profiles. For the uber-geek in your life, the real-time flow, pressure, and temperature graphs are fascinating to watch while pulling shots. This machine has truly revolutionized espresso, and now it even makes consistent, extraordinary filter coffee.

Coffee Roasting: Best Practices

Call me biased, but I am very happy with my new roasting book. It’s the book I’ve always wanted to write: detailed, prescriptive, and data-driven. I developed the roasting system in the book over many years of offering seminars and consulting for some of the world’s top roasters. Whether one is looking to roast more consistently, manage RORs better, or just avoid ROR crashes, this is the right book. If you have a roasting enthusiast in your life, this would make a great gift.

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