Notices by CoffeeGeek (coffeegeek@flipboard.social), page 3

Lance Hedricks shares a video on bias, companies giving machines for reviews, and the small crowd on reddit / forums who think if a machine is provided for review, there must be bias. I have some thoughts.

cc @espresso @coffee

/1

https://youtu.be/Y8T5ARpvnhk?si=eGgwiXB-rAPoURU8

I have published very critical reviews of equipment, as well as very complimentary reviews when the product warrants it.

What's interesting is what happens after the reviews. Some equipment (usually provided by a vendor) reviews resulted in those vendors ending any advertising or other relationship with CoffeeGeek, because we very fairly criticized a bad product. These companies expected kudos for advertising + product supply, and got honesty.

/3

We don't have a patreon account for CoffeeGeek. for 18 of our 21 years online, we did not solicit any "tips" or fund requests from our readers. We don't have an active income source from any social media account (youtube, instagram, etc).

About 80% of our income is from ads we sell direct to the coffee industry. It's enough to a) pay our bloggers / site admin, b) pay hosting, c) provide about $2K a month income to me.

It's not enough to buy equipment to review, and never has been.

/5

Also a few manufacturers have done the same, after we posted some criticisms of their machines. One I will mention - La Marzocco - ended interaction and involvement with CoffeeGeek after I did the First Look on the La Marzocco Linea Mini. They didn't like that I criticised the paddle group for being just a facsimile of LM's paddle group, instead of a real one.

That said, many manufacturers, and some vendors feel us doing unbiased reviews is a good thing, even if their products rank poorly.

/4

Anyway, a bit of a ramble. Lance is obviously hearing and feeling calls against him for "bias" and posted his video today to address it.

I've heard "bias" thrown my way for 2 decades, though to be honest, a lot more of it in the last 3 years than the previous 17 combined. People just don't seem to trust any longer. They automatically assume that if you're given a product, you are beholden to the company or there's some kind of back room cash handshake going on.

/8

We still operate under those terms today.

Some equipment I do buy; especially from the cottage industry, small scale makers who don't have a Breville or La Marzocco budget. In those cases, I ask to pay factory cost / wholesale for equipment. If the small, batch-built manufacturer cannot meet that term, I usually don't acquire that gear for review, because we can't afford to do so.

/7

Even at its peak, the entire income per month at CoffeeGeek was around $7,000 a month. Back then, expenditures were around $6,000 a month. Still not enough to buy equipment for reviews. So we came up with a contract for anyone providing equipment for review. It clearly stated the supplier had no input into the editorial content, and there are no guarantees the product reviews positively.

Vendors got a) exclusive URL links, and b) 3 mentions in review. That was it. Manufacturers, even less.

/6

/cont

On Mastodon, people are generally more engaged, and if I can be honest a bit, more educated too about a wide variety of topics. Probably because of the #nerd kinda vibe here (no insult!) and the heavy #tech adopter audience, but a lot of people here know good #coffee already, and like engaging on the topic. I love that.

There's been very few bad vibes here too, at least from my experience so far. A few cranky folks here and there, but by and large, everyone's into pleasant convos.

/2

So a bit of a look back on going all in on the #fediverse when deciding to quit Tweeter on 10 October, 2023, after scaling back participation on that social media site for the six months prior.

In short, it's been fantastic. One of the things I LOVE to do is help people discover better #coffee and #espresso. That requires 2 direction engagment. Tweeter used to be like that, back in the early 2010s. It hasn't been that way in a long time.

Engagement and discussion is excellent on Mastodon.

/1

/cont

So with only 3 serious months participating here in the #fediverse (I signed on in April 2023, but only really started participating in October), I have to say it's been very enjoyable, and brings me back to the things I loved about a young social media environment back in 2008-2012.

Also big shoutout to @Flipboard and @mike for providing this instance, which works really well, and one I'm happy to be part of.

Happy new year, all!

Coffee roasters who have a big stake in selling K-Cups for Keurig coffee makers are not specialty coffee companies. Nor do they care about the environment.

You should avoid any coffee roaster that packages any of their coffees in k-cups.

Specifically looking at Colombe, but there are others.

#Keurig #coffee @coffee

#NCP

Remember all those reports about how bad Bluetooth was on the Mac Mini M1 boxes?

It's also bad on the Mac Mini M2s. At least on mine. My keyboard and mouse stay connected, but other devices (like my bluetooth speakers) drop all the time, random times, mid songs, etc.

I'm a bit pissed cuz all the "zero day" reviewers of Mac stuff claimed the problem was fixed. It is not.

I have to remind myself that zero-day reviews are basically useless for any tech.

#macmini #bluetooth

I didn't announce this yesterday because I wanted to spend my day on Mastodon promoting #givingtuesday and #Food4Farmers

But we got the last of our main #HolidayGiftLists up - the compendium piece that presents all our lists this year in one place.

If you're shopping for a #coffee or #espresso gift for someone this holiday season, we have suggestions for you, from $10 to $600. Check it out:

https://www.coffeegeek.com/opinions/ideal-gifts-for-coffee-lovers-at-every-budget/

@ironchamber We have a general how to guide, but I've been thinking about updating it to really focus on the no-bypass benefits and advanced pour guides.

https://www.coffeegeek.com/guides/chemexhowto/

I'm a big fan of capitalism.

I am not a big fan of capitalism gone amok.

I accept that I am "the product" when I use free services like gmail, google docs, facebook (I'm not on facebook because of this), twitter (ditto), etc.

But when you take my money, I am not the product. I am the customer.

Amazon takes our money for goods and services, but still treats us like a product. That's the deeper message of this story at @verge

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/10/23955934/apple-amazon-deal-search-product-pages-ads

A look at the history and development of the specialty coffee industry in El Salvador, part of a series on Central American coffeelands.

#coffeehistory #coffee #elsalvador

https://www.coffeegeek.com/farming/specialty-coffee-in-el-salvador/

@derekbrauders @pilhofer I've had "garbage water" even at specialty #coffee trade shows, so mate, NEVER be ashamed of travelling with your own gear.

It can really be as simple as a travel grinder, a fold-flat ultralight brewer ("Expedition Brewer"), and relying on your travel destination to provide the hot water.

Speaking of #coffee and #espresso history,

This is the FIRST EVER photo of a "chopped" portafilter espresso shot posted online (2004). The first time people saw, visually, how espresso extracted directly out of the bottom of a filter basket.

For context, two baristas from Zoka Coffee in Seattle blogged about drilling the bottom off a PF to see the shot. Alistair Durie (reflection) at Elysian in Vancouver read the post, did it too, invited me down to check it out. I did, and snapped this photo.

We're working on removing all Twitter integration from CoffeeGeek.com, starting tomorrow. There's a lot to do.

I have a long thread, a "call to action" to the remaining #coffee community on Twitter, ready to post on October 10th, my last day on that platform.

If it entices any companies, services, charitable organizations, brands, or individuals in the specialty coffee sphere to make the leap here, I know many of you will welcome them with open arms.

Stay tuned! :)

The irony is, CoffeeGeek.com gets nearly the same traffic (visiting readers) from this Mastodon account (with the 447 followers) for new content we write on CoffeeGeek, as I do from our Twitter posts of the same content links (supposedly 27.4K followers over there).

In fact, we get more traffic in a day from our Flipboard Magazine than we do in 2 weeks from Twitter.

That platform was dying long before Elon. He's just speeding it up.