We were heartbroken when we heard that Hario was stopping production of their cloth filters for the Hario V60. We’d fallen in love with the level of cleanness cloth filters produced in the cup. Our palate-driven hearts have, however, now been mended with the discovery of American Coffee Trader’s organic cotton filters. Besides the fact that it buries the issue of pre-wetting your paper filters in an attempt to rid your coffee of that dreaded papery taste, these filters are made from organically grown cotton and American through and through. The cotton that goes into producing these filters is organically grown in Texas, woven in South Carolina, and sewn together with care in Boston, MA.

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Indeed, the rumors are true, we are hiring. If you have barista experience or some serious self-taught coffee and espresso brewing knowledge, we'd love to have you.

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Baratza has announced the release of their newest entry-level home coffee grinder. The Baratza Encore (more on this in a bit) has taken the Maestro Plus’s spot as the baddest entry-level home grinder on the planet. This announcement is bittersweet for me, as this means saying goodbye to the Maestro name. I (Matt) have been the proud owner of a Baratza Maestro for almost two and a half years now. It has been the best coffee investment I’ve made (or rather my wife made on my behalf when she gave it to me as a Christmas present). It has been the perfect home coffee grinder for the ridiculous variety of manual brewing devices I own. For someone who didn’t need a grinder for espresso, the Maestro has been perfect.

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I decided to film a quick video of my morning brewing routine the other day and wanted to post it up here along with a few notes. Every morning I brew coffee for both my wife and myself. I'll switch up the brewing method, but my go-to is the Hario V60. My batches run between 500-600mL (17-20ozs). Before the video started, I had already weighed out 35 grams of coffee and pre-rinsed my filter.

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I (Matt) was fortunate enough to visit family in sunny California this past week and took the opportunity to visit some cafes in the L.A. area. I was fairly unaware of the coffee scene around L.A. before visiting, but came away impressed with a well developed coffee culture. Unfortunately, I coudn't make it around to all the shops I wanted to visit (see the list at the end of the post), but I did make it to four shops: Caffe Luxxe (Santa Monica), Paper or Plastik (L.A.), Intelligentsia (Venice), and Element Coffee (Camarillo). Highlights from these shops were: sensory station at Caffe Luxxe that allowed you to smell the grounds of the three coffees they were offering via pour-over, the option of six different single origin coffees to choose from at Element Cafe, having multiple roasters to choose from at Paper or Plastic, and being served up a tasty capp at one of my all-time favorite coffee bars, Intelligentsia Venice.

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Every trade has its tools, and manual coffee brewing is no exception. One of the most important tools, particularly for pour-over coffee brewing, is a pouring kettle. As the appreciation for culinary coffee continues to grow here in the states, so does the demand for a kettle that meets the needs and demands of the home and professional barista. We have made an effort to offer a limited, accessible offering of kettles that fit various budgets and needs, each kettle bringing different strengths to the plate. We hope you find this overview of our kettle offerings helpful!

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Since we do the whole online sales thing, we couldn't pass up continuing our deals for Cyber Monday. On Monday we will roll four deals for those still searching for the perfect home brewing gift.

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We've been trying to get into the seasonal spirit as best we can, and this week we are adding to the fun. On top of our daily deals we have been announcing via our twitter account, we are adding some new brewing bundles and some sweet Black Friday deals.

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Whether you’re ready for it or not, the holidays are quickly approaching. In an attempt to ease your holiday shopping anxiety, we’ve put together a holiday buying guide for home coffee brewing. In this guide, we've listed three degrees of coffee geekdom to help you choose the best gift selection: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. In addition, we have provided links to the products we’ve recommended for each category; these links takes you to the product listing where you can find more information as well as purchase the item.

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For those that don't know, NYC just so happens to be the place to get good coffee on the east coast. By and large, the east coast has been behind the specialty coffee curve, but things are starting to change.

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