Back in 2024 my friend Jay got me a Field Notes journal pack to keep track of all the coffees I've been drinking. So over the past year and a half I've kept a handwritten coffee journal about every bag of coffee we've brewed at home. We use a Chemex for pour overs and Barista Pro espresso machine.
Just about every bag of coffee that came through our kitchen got an entry: the roaster, origin, tasting notes, grind settings and my thoughts on how it came out.
## The Setup
My set up is a Chemex for pour overs and the mighty Barista Pro espresso machine. Generally during the week we do pour over and on the weekends we do espresso drinks. I use a Baratza Encore burr grinder and note the grind settings for each bag of coffee. There are usually dialing in that happens so I make a note of the grind settings I used and what the outcome of those settings were. This helps me narrow down what works with what type of roast.
The Rating System
Each coffee gets a simple 1-5 star rating. These are how I feel about the roast or how much I enjoyed drinking it. A perfectly roasted, expertly sourced Ethiopian might get 2 stars if I couldn't figure out how to brew it without bitterness. Meanwhile, a straightforward Honduras that made Katie smile every morning gets 5 stars.
The Roasters
Most of my coffee comes from a Verve Single Origin subscription. But I also explored local Minneapolis roasters like Dogwood, Spyhouse, Five Watt, S.K. Coffee and Minimum Wage Tim. There were some out of state roasters like Tandem that came through as well.
What's Ahead
Over the next several posts, I'll share my monthly roundups of every coffee I brewed, what worked, what didn't, and the occasional tangent about cortados or cold brew experiments. If you're into home coffee brewing, I hope you find something useful. If nothing else, maybe you'll discover a roaster worth trying.
I'll come back to this post to update the list as I post the reviews later on. This will serve as a nice table of contents for the year.