A Deck of Smart Coffee Cards

First there was the successful Kickstarter Project, raising $88,000. Next there’s the Indigogo Preorder Page, which is up to $90,000 and climbing. These have got to be some very smart playing cards. And they’re all about coffee.

Vincent Lam came up with this idea of a deck of 52 playing cards he calls “Sip to Suit”, all focused on the razor sharp pointy end of specialty coffee. He consulted with barista experts, corresponded with the manufacturers of all the major machine and brewing devices featured on the cards, and even attended Barista school to get everything right, and by the looks of things, he got there with this deck.

The cards are broken down in to various categories and groupings.

Tips and Educational Material: 12 Cards

12 of the cards (all the “Court” cards, Jack through King) cover some basics about coffee: how to store them, basics on extraction ratios, water temperatures, and a lot more. Original art and helpful diagrams complete the package.

The 6 red Court cards are all about helpful tips in making good coffee. The 6 black Court cards are brewing basics.

Drink Recipes: 18 cards

Everything from Caffe Cubano to the basic Cappuccino and everything in between gets a place on 18 cards in the deck: most, if not all, are espresso based drinks. The information presentation is standardized across all 18 recipes, and this may be where the cards are at their weakest point, because of the limited space and standard presentation formula. They feature a visible layered representation of the drink, recommended vessel size, and how much of the individual components (like hot water, espresso, milk, froth etc) make up the drink. There’s no instructions on how to build some of the more complex drinks.

Still, Lam really tries to make these beverages authentic to pure specialty coffee standards (ed.note: indeed, many of them follow CoffeeGeek’s own drink build recommendations!), and I had to smile when the macchiato card said “just a dot” for the foamed milk component.

The drink recipe cards are all the red numbered cards in the deck, and the higher the number, the more “strong” the drink is with espresso.

Brew Methods: 18 cards

The part of the deck that impressed me most was the Brew Methods cards. Lam has managed to jam a lot of useful information onto these cards. Every one of them has a nice “start here” component that varies depending on the brewing method. Espresso machine gets a ratio you should aim for and a starting coffee dose (18g) for example; the Bruer Cold Drip system (also a Kickstarter success story) instead gets tips about no dilution needed, serve over ice, and use milk or sweetener as an option.

All the brew method cards have chart tables for ratio of water to coffee, recommendations on the type of grind to use, temperatures for your water, and brewing times. It’s quite useful information, and the cards also feature really interesting illustrations to help complete the picture.

The method cards are all the black numbered cards, and are sorted in a similar fashion to the drink recipe cards: the higher their face number, the more complex the brewing method. So siphon coffee is a 10 card, whereas a pour over cone is down on a deuce card.

Aces and Other Cards

The aces are all cards talking about four different roast levels. The jokers are unit conversion cards, completing the deck.

Lam has produced some very slick videos highlighting and showcasing the cards. Here’s one of them.

Purchase Options

The decks, in both a standard poker card set and a waterproof deck, are up for pre order on Indigogo. Single deck pricing is a bit steep if you think these are just going to cost the same as your everyday card decks: $15 for one deck of standard cards, and $20 for the waterproof deck. But it doesn’t make sense to think of these as a standard deck of cards because they really are not. They’re quite helpful and informative cheat sheets, all in a nice transportable package to help you make better coffee. For that, $15 seems cheap. $20 seems even cheaper for the waterproof versions. If you want to buy some to share and hand out, they can cost as little as $12 a deck if you’re buying a dozen or more.

One thing I’m sad about is missing out on the uncut sheet of the cards, which was offered up as an option on the (now closed) Kickstarter campaign. That would look completely sweet framed up on the wall in our home cafe!

About the author

Zuzanna travels the world because of her job, and makes it a point to find the best cafes, best coffee, best espresso in every city, town, or village she visits.