From accounts about coffee people to ones digging into espresso science, these coffee blogs are providing fresh and differentiated content.
BY TANYA NANETTI
SPECIAL TO BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Wandering around coffee blog accounts on Instagram can be redundant at times. You’ll stumble through pages of perfect latte art pictures, the trendiest coffee equipment, or the same recipes shared thousands of times.
But a lot of content out there is personal. Many coffee blogs are out there trying to learn more about the coffee world and the people behind it. Here is just a short list of the many coffee blogs that will let you dig deeper.
Nicole Battefeld
Nicole is a barista, roaster, trainer, coffee competitor, coffee cocktail mastermind, and much more. On her social media accounts and website, she shares about all of it, from the coolest coffee cocktails recipe to the latest episode of her podcast, “She’s the Barista.“ The show is dedicated to exploring the stories and personalities of women in the specialty-coffee world. From technical coffee tutorials to blog posts that cover everything, Nicole showcases what is behind a “simple” cup of coffee.
Bon Vivant Caffé
In Venezuela, coffee is a fundamental part of the daily routine, and it’s here where Bon Vivant Caffé founder (and Barista Magazine Online contributor) Yker Valerio grew up. After visiting the Expo Especiales in Bogotà in 2016, he fell in love with the world of specialty coffee.
Starting his journey into specialty coffee, Iker understood two things early on: that he wanted to know more, and that too often books, websites, and classes about specialty coffee were highly specialized, technical, and sometimes difficult to understand.
This is why Yker initially created Bon Vivant. With his coffee blog, he hopes to create a community that welcomes all coffee lovers and enthusiasts, to ease the path toward brewing a better coffee, and to avoid a difficult technical conversation in the process.
I’M NOT A BARISTA
I’M NOT A BARISTA is a nonprofit whose purpose is to celebrate the coffee community by empowering baristas to reach their full potential. Through different creative projects, from The Brewing Guide to the Tip A Barista campaign and many more, I’M NOT A BARISTA helps to create a tighter coffee community, starting with the barista. Baristas can use the space of I’M NOT A BARISTA to share their unique stories, connect with others, and grow together toward a better professional future.
Socratic Coffee
“We know that we know nothing” is the motto behind Socratic Coffee.
Joe and Jeremy, along with a small group of consultants, created this website with the idea of questioning popular positions and statements in the coffee community. With help from various experts in chemistry, physics, food science, and many other academic subjects, their goal is to provide the community with quality data by evaluating various coffee devices, methods, and claims.
Like Socrates in Plato’s The Apology, the folks at this coffee blog refer to themselves as gadflies, whose questions aim “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.” They hope, through the use of Socratic dialogue, to examine interesting questions methodically.
From comparing the impact of tamping on extraction to looking at burr sharpness and TDS in espresso, every subject is analyzed following a meticulous scientific method that should amaze even the most intellectual coffee geek.
Quantitative Café
The subtitle of the page says it all: “Exploring coffee through measurement.”
If you’re into coffee where it involves mathematics and physics, this is the perfect coffee blog for you. Suggested by Jonathan Gagné of Coffee ad Astra, Michael Cooper created Quantitative Café as a way to formalize some of the exploration he’s been doing in coffee. At the same time, Michael connects with the rest of the community, making possible collaborations that can lead to great achievements.
A mathematician, physicist, and programmer since the age of five, Michael fell in love with coffee when a friend introduced him to espresso. At the time, it was a super-easy coffee extraction on the surface, yet it hid many unanswered questions that were just waiting to be explored and (hopefully) solved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tanya Nanetti (she/her) is a specialty-coffee barista, a traveler, and a dreamer. When she’s not behind the coffee machine (or visiting some hidden corner of the world), she’s busy writing for Coffee Insurrection, a website about specialty coffee that she’s creating along with her boyfriend.
