Coffee Guides & Tools
Coffee Tools
- Find Your CoffeeFive quick questions, and we match you to a roast. The fastest way in if you're new here.
- Roast ScaleEvery coffee we sell, placed on one scale from lightest to darkest. Useful when you're torn between two.
- Coffee to Water Ratio CalculatorHow much coffee for how much water, by brew method, in grams or tablespoons. Answers in one screen.
Everything we know about coffee that’s worth writing down, in one place. These guides start where you are — picking a bag, dialing in a grind, keeping what you already bought from going stale — rather than assuming you arrived knowing what a 1:16 ratio is.
Three of them are tools rather than reading: the quiz matches you to a roast in five quick questions, the Roast Scale lines up every coffee from lightest to darkest, and the calculator does the coffee-to-water arithmetic for whichever way you brew.
Find Your Coffee
Start here if you're not sure what you want. These take you from "I like coffee" to a specific bag.
- ArticleLight, Medium, or Dark Roast: A Complete Guide to Choosing Your CoffeeWhat roast level actually changes about the cup, and why "dark" doesn't mean "strong."
- ArticleWhat Do Coffee Tasting Notes Actually Mean?Chocolate, citrus, stone fruit: what those words on the bag are describing, and what they aren't.
Grind It and Brew It
The two decisions that change your cup the most, and the ones most worth getting right.
Keep It Fresh
Coffee is at its best about one to three weeks after roasting and stays really good for up to about 60 days. Most of what shortens that is avoidable.
- ArticleHow to Store Coffee Beans to Keep Them Fresh LongerWhere to keep beans, what actually stales them, and why the freezer advice you've heard is half right.
- ArticleWhat Makes Fresh-Roasted Coffee Different From Store-Bought Coffee?What the roast date on the bag is for, and what a grocery-store bag isn't telling you.
Gifts and Seasons
Coffee for someone else, and for the times of year that call for it.
How Your Coffee Gets Made
What happens between the green bean and the bag on your counter.
- ArticleThe Process: Creating a High-Quality Specialty CoffeeSmall batches of 2 to 15 pounds, roasted by hand in Palmyra. What that means in practice.
- GuideHow We RoastThe roaster, the profiles, and the steps a batch goes through here.
- ArticleThe Coffee You Can Count OnWhy a saved roast profile matters if you're pulling shots, and what wholesale gets that retail doesn't.
- ArticleRoasting Coffee at Home: What to Know Before You Try ItThinking about roasting your own? What it takes, from someone who roasts several days a week.
Serving Coffee at Your Business
For cafés, trucks, offices, and shops. Wholesale and bulk orders are roasted the day they're ordered.
- GuideWholesale Fresh-Roasted Specialty CoffeePricing, minimums, and how ordering works for a business account.
- GuideWholesale Coffee Spec SheetOrigins, roast levels, and lot details on one page you can hand to a buyer.
- ArticleWholesale Coffee Beans for a New Coffee Shop: What to Look ForWhat to actually ask a roaster before you commit your shop to their beans.
New Guides Land Here Every Month
There’s a new guide on the first of every month — what the certification labels actually certify, cleaning the gear that quietly ruins good coffee, brewing well away from home. Each one appears on this page by itself the morning it publishes, so this list is never out of date.
If you’d rather read everything as it comes, the blog has all of it in order, and you can subscribe at the bottom of any post. Still stuck on a question none of these answer? Ask us — the person who roasted your coffee is the person who answers.