Equipment
Building a home tea and coffee habit
Where to start, what order to buy things in, and how to avoid accumulating equipment you never use.
Hana Morioka
24 articles by Morioka
Tea
Herbal infusions and what they are
Not tea, frequently caffeine-free, and a category worth knowing for the evenings and for anyone reducing caffeine.
Roasting
Cascara, cold foam and the edges of coffee
Byproducts, offshoots and drinks that use the coffee plant in ways the mainstream mostly ignores.
Tea
Tea and health claims, examined
Tea is a pleasant drink with some interesting research attached, and a great deal of the marketing goes well beyond what the evidence supports.
Tea
Tea equipment worth having
Very little is required, a few things transform the experience, and most of it is inexpensive.
Beans & Origin
Coffee and climate
The structural pressure on the crop over the coming decades, and what is being done about it.
Tea
Blending your own tea
Breakfast blends, chai and scented teas are all constructed, and constructing your own is straightforward and cheap.
Tea
Pu-erh and aged tea
The only genuinely fermented tea category, deliberately aged, compressed into cakes, and surrounded by an unusual amount of misinformation.
Beans & Origin
What producers actually get paid
The C price, the specialty premium, and the gap between what a bag costs and what reaches a farm.
Tea
Chinese tea regions and what grows there
The origin of tea and still the most varied producer, across regions with sharply distinct traditions.
Tea
Japanese green tea: sencha, gyokuro and the rest
Steamed rather than pan-fired, which produces a completely different green tea from the Chinese tradition.
Beans & Origin
Indonesia, Vietnam and the Asia-Pacific
A region with distinctive processing traditions, enormous production volume, and profiles that divide opinion sharply.
Beans & Origin
Kenya, Rwanda and East Africa
Some of the most distinctive coffee in the world, produced under structures that differ considerably from origin to origin.
Tea
Caffeine: what it does and how much is in things
A stimulant with reasonably well-understood effects, present in wildly variable amounts depending on preparation.
Tea
Oolong: the most varied category
Partially oxidised tea spanning everything from creamy and floral to dark, roasted and stone-fruited.
Beans & Origin
Colombia, Brazil and the Americas
The largest producing region, spanning everything from commodity volume to some of the most sought-after lots in the world.
Beans & Origin
Ethiopia: the origin of the species
Where arabica comes from, where the genetic diversity still lives, and why the coffees taste unlike anywhere else.
Tea
Iced tea and cold brewing leaves
Two methods, one of which produces something considerably better than the other, and neither involves brewing hot and adding ice.
Tea
Matcha, and what makes it different
Shade-grown leaf stone-ground into powder and whisked into water, which means you consume the leaf rather than an infusion.
Beans & Origin
Reading a coffee bag
What the label tells you, what it should tell you, and which terms are meaningful.
Tea
Brewing tea without ruining it
Temperature and time, mostly — and boiling water on green tea is why so many people think they dislike green tea.
Tea
Tea processing and the six categories
One plant, six broad styles, separated almost entirely by what happens to the leaf after picking.
Beans & Origin
Processing: washed, natural, honey and the rest
What happens to the fruit after picking changes the cup more than almost anything except the roast.
Beans & Origin
Where coffee actually comes from
A fruit seed grown at altitude in a narrow band around the equator, passed through several hands before it reaches a roaster.