AeroPress | Coffee, It's a Helluva Drug

The Matty Macchiato 5th Annual Holiday Gift Guide – Part II

*photo: iStock/Svetlana_nsk, via The Wirecutter/NY Times*

Part I of this year’s guide focused on branded swag. Today we’ll try for most everything else.

Here are suggestions on what to get for the person who……..

Wants to make better coffee at home, by any method

I could wax poetically about coffee demigod James Hoffmann and his new book, How to Make the Best Coffee at Home, ($19.99 – available from all major book retailers, though it would be nice of you to support your local independent bookstore), but better to let the man himself tell you all about it.

If you are interested in coffee at all, Hoffmann’s YouTube channel is an absolute treasure ($FREE).

The Matty Macchiato 4th Annual Holiday Gift Guide

This year I’m taking a slightly different approach to my previous gift guides (2018, 2019, and 2020). While some of the models may have been replaced by newer iterations, pretty much all the recommended items in those posts would still make for great gifts. This version, however, is for those of you who just thought, “Oh $#%@!, it’s five days to Christmas and I haven’t ~~written my annual gift guide post~~ finished my shopping yet!”

So if the calendar is not your friend, supply chain worries are making you pull out your hair, and you’ve got a coffee lover in your life, here are a few suggestions.

single scene, take 2

Following my recent dip into single serve pourover pouches, I’ve been trying the Counter Culture singles I received at Christmas.

So far, a success. I’ve found I like the bolder flavor profile of the Big Trouble blend more than Forty-Six, but that’s just a personal preference and both are certainly good. I also like that, unlike pourovers or drip coffee, there’s a much greater depth of flavor and a really nice caffeine jolt. Using the bags is simple, and on whole a much easier portable process than the pourover pouches or using the aeroPress.

Matty’s 2019 holiday gift guide

Ah, that time of year has come yet again. Kindly consider this an update to my holiday gift guide from 2018; all the items there are still recommended. I’ll try to add a few more suggestions, including add-ons to last year, to help you delight the coffee nerd in your life. Just a disclaimer, I’m not getting any kind of click-through payments or other compensation from anyone on these; just my own opinions, for whatever they are or are not worth.

on (or possibly off?) the rails

For various and sundry reasons I am taking a 12 1/2 hour train ride today from Essex Junction, VT to Washington, DC, on Amtrak train 55 The Vermonter.

survival instincts

I’m at an industry conference in the convention center of a large hotel/resort in central Florida. Long days of programming that I’m enjoying, but no access to coffee other than an on-site outlet of the evil empire and urns of questionable industrial drip coffee. Not ideal for an espresso addicted coffee snob.

Here’s how I’m making it through:

revisiting the AeroPress

The recent mention of the AeroPress movie got me thinking that I should give handmade coffee another whirl, as I’d been using only my espresso machine for the past several months.

AeroPress………

………the movie? Really?

Yup! AeroPress the Movie.

I’ve been meaning to get mine out, use it again and write a review. Guess I’ve just found some inspiration to do so.

the confessional

I occasionally do things that are, for lack of a more elegant description, weird.

No different when it comes to coffee. Here’s an example.

Continue reading the confessional