Bill McClure

Instagram Image Credits, from top clockwise: @nikkigbigger, @coffeegobel, @coffeeker_photography, @capecoffeebeans, @chrisronak, @mountainbatista, center: @calin.charles A cursory scroll through Aeropress’s Instagram account feels equal parts globe-trotting itinerary as a coffee-making promotion. The array of photo locations with the brewing device in hand is astounding; South African waterfalls, the mountains of China, the Eiffel tower. Deeper into

These are no lightweights, designed for ultralight backpacking or bicycle camping. The Pelican cases and their contents are pretty heavy. The 1400 Pelican measures 34cm long, 29cm deep, and 15.5cm tall, and weighs 2kg with the foam inserts. The 1500 Pelican is more beefy; it’s almost half a meter wide, 36cm deep, 18cm tall and

Camping has seen a massive boost in popularity during the global pandemic, and 2021 will see the trend continue. At CoffeeGeek, our goal is for you to have amazing coffee and to develop the skills needed to deliver it anytime, any place, anywhere. That includes off the grid, while travelling, and while camping. To help

Spring is here and that means the days are getting longer and the temperature is getting warmer.  On days when you just don’t feel like a hot cup (scandalous, I know), the next best thing is a cool and revitalizing cold brew coffee. You know, there’s nothing worse than going to a coffee shop and

At over 5 kilograms, the Apex Grinder is easily the heaviest manual grinder you can buy today. The grinder comes complete with tools and even optional parts for you to really dive into it if you want and make modifications. Doug Garrett even has a bunch of videos on Youtube showing how to take the

Coffee is a matter of serious consideration even for those not invested in specialty coffee. Coffee drinkers, by and large, have strong opinions about their preferred cup, their preferred brewing method, their preferred flavor profile, and whether or not they add various kinds of milk, creams, and sweeteners to it. How someone takes their coffee

We’ve got some new products to showcase today, all of which will be reviewed in our Blog’s Mini Review category. They are from a company called Soulhand, which sells an expanding range of coffee brewing and preparation products. We’ve got three of them to show today and to set up for review. Soulhand 350ml Ice

Polished Immersion Brewing Later in 2015, Intelligentsia Coffee’s Sarah Anderson developed this process in her 2015 US Brewers Cup winning routine. She steeped the coarsely ground coffee for 4-5 minutes in French Press carafes and skimmed the crust, as Prince did. After this, the coffee was run through cone filter brewers with a slow pour

Arabica lovers rejoice with news of the re-discovery of Coffea stenophylla, a coffee species found in the wild in Sierra Leone.  On April 19th, a team of scientists led by Botanist Aaron Davis from the Royal Botanic Gardens published a paper in Nature Plants stating that Stenophylla, the species of coffee rediscovered in the dense

It’s not uncommon for a “coming soon” sign to be off by a few months. But after waiting all of 2019 and not seeing much progress as 2020 rolled in, I was starting to grow skeptical that the coffee shop/wine bar next door to my apartment in the Marina Del Rey area of Los Angeles

Baratza recently introduced the BaratzaGEAR lineup of accessories for some of their grinders. These include: a Single Dose Hopper compatible with most of their grinders (read our review here); accent kits that work with the Encore lineup (and sort of with the Virtuoso grinders); and an Aeropress holder / doser that is compatible (for the

I am a straight coffee and espresso sort of person. If I am being very honest, I rarely try any of the more refined milk drinks on menus these days.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am completely in support of botanical-infused oat milks, but these are just not my thing.  That being said, I am interested in coffee

Baratza recently introduced the BaratzaGEAR lineup of accessories for some of their grinders. These include: a Single Dose Hopper compatible with most of their grinders (except the Sette series); accent kits that work with the Encore lineup (and sort of with the Virtuoso grinders); and an Aeropress holder / doser that is compatible (for the

Obsession can be delicious, and it can keep you awake at night. That’s a pretty accurate way to describe my addiction to coffee and my fascination with all things brewing, though when Mark Prince asked me to write about my experience with coffee and my memories of CoffeeGeek, I was equal parts flattered and terrified. 

I have some background as a barista and even as someone who competed in a barista competition (I did very badly), but the cafe I worked at did not use scales. The owner is one of those oldschool guys who thinks the espresso blend should be a generational family secret, that espresso coffee beans should

The Acaia Pearl Scale, the one that started it all for high end, coffee specific scales with a Kickstarter campaign almost 8 years ago, is getting its second major update and overhaul, and most definitely the scale’s biggest update since it’s initial introduction. You may have noticed the Pearl model listed as out of stock

I fill up my coffee mug, set the pot down, and the race is on. I want to savor each sip, yet each passing second brings me closer to despair. I want to move forward in a straight line, yet this race is littered with stops and starts. Go too fast and I’ll get burned.

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

On any given sunny day in Jerusalem, you will find The Bastet in top form. The crowd overflows from the café’s small interior out into the tables arranged on the pavement at its front, cheerful and smiling; there is a pleasant familiarity among the staff itself and between the staff and the regular patrons, who

As most coffee enthusiasts know all too well, drip brewers tend to multiply. You start with a Melittacone and then a kind relative gives you a CHEMEX as a gift. Wedges are great, but what about a flat-bottomed brewer like a Kalita Wave or a NotNeutral Gino Dripper? And you are not really a true

The hills of Silverton teem with a vibrant eccentricity analogous to the hipster epicenters of Brooklyn and Portland. In the midst of counter-cultural eclecticism smack center on Sunset Boulevard is the colorfully welcoming Dayglow coffee. With a minimal, bright aesthetic the shop’s cheery mood is complemented by artisan doughnuts and chipper baristas. Catering to a

A few years ago, Able Brewing Company was bought by some of the people behind Clive Coffee, and the goal was to move the famous Chemex permanent filter maker (amongst other products) forward with new products and continued innovation in the current products. The big change was a complete redesign in the hole pattern on

If you love hearing about the history of coffee, chances are you know about The History of Coffee Podcast series, created by Professor Jonathan Morris, author of Coffee. A Global History and documentary maker James Harper. If you haven’t, get over there and start listening. It’s a fascinating walk through coffee’s history and it dispels

It’s early days yet with regards to our brand new, revitalized website and this core new piece of it: the CoffeeGeek Blog. Already, I’ve gotten some questions and frank talk about the blog, both from our promotional partners, and from a few CoffeeGeek veterans as to the purpose of this new component, and where we

Coffee aficionados might consider it blasphemous to add something to a perfectly good cup of black coffee. Yet the reality is that around two out of three U.S. coffee drinkers mix in ingredients like milk, according to research from professor Ruopeng An while at the University of Illinois.  But what comes around goes around, as

The Coronavirus is responsible for so many horrible things: so many people dying from COVID-19 and so many more suffering the after effects of losing a family member. Those who had COVID and survived sometimes have lingering health issues. On the business side, countless cafes around the world have had to shut their doors, lay

The streets of Sofia, Bulgaria are composed of airily beautiful, albeit a dilapidated mishmash of Post-Soviet, European, and Ottoman architecture. Down a street corner, a few blocks from the bustle of the city center lies one of Europe’s premier coffee roasters: Dabov Speciality Coffee. More akin to a coffee laboratory than a cafe, the flagship

When I first fell in love with espresso and was learning how to make it at home, there were basically four types of machine technologies out there that could make actual espresso (I’m not including stove top boilers and camp espresso devices): Manual Machines, based on levers that would use your hand strength to push

With our new website, we find the need to hire a new Advertising Sales Manager to help our website move forward so we can continue to produce exciting new content, and deliver new features to our readership base. The successful candidate will be a key component in making this website rich, vibrant and successful. The

Before we even get into this, a reminder: this is not a review we’re publishing here. It’s a first look, based on initial impressions and first uses of the machine. Any conclusions or opinion I draw from this early look could completely change by the time we publish our full review on this machine. That