Şevval Nida Fetullahoğlu Wins Turkish Brewers Cup by Michael Butterworth Şevval Nida Fetullahoğlu of Tetra N Roastery has won the 2024 Turkish Brewers Cup Championship. The competition was held in Ankara, March 1-3.  For her open service, Fetullahoğlu brewed an anaerobic process, Gesha variety from Colombian coffee producer Jairo Arcila with the Etkin 2-Cup Brewer.  The Brewers Cup competition is a global coffee-brewing competition sanctioned by the Specialty Coffee Association and World Coffee Events. In the competition, brewers must make three filter coffees within 10 minutes ..read more

The Coffee Compass Holiday Gift Guide 2023 by Michael Butterworth We’ve now entered the traditional season for acts of consumerism in late capitalism, and what better way to spend your hard-earned cash than on coffee and coffee-related accessories? After all, nothing says “I love you” like a gift of the world’s most consumed stimulant. So whether you’re shopping for yourself or that special coffee nerd in your life, here is the 2023 edition of the Coffee Compass Holiday Gift Guide. But First, Coffee It may come as a shock to some of our readers, but thecoffeecompass.com is not the world’s fore ..read more

David Beckham Makes Coffee With a La Marzocco Linea Mini by Michael Butterworth The new Netflix docuseries Beckham offers a behind-the-veil look at the life of soccer legend David Beckham. From hiding his relationship with Spice Girl Victoria Adams from the paparazzi to his infamous red card against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup, the series offers a lot of juicy details for any fan of the English footballer.  But for coffee nerds, no tidbit is as juicy as the revelation that Beckham makes his morning coffee with a La Marzocco Linea Mini espresso machine.  At the beginning of episod ..read more

Four Great Cafés in Portland, Oregon by Michael Butterworth Every day at SCA Expo in Portland I faced a conundrum. I knew I would drink far too much coffee on the trade show floor, but I also wanted to visit some of the coffee shops that make Portland, Oregon one of the most exciting coffee destinations in the US. Although we weren’t able to get to every coffee shop on our list, we did drink some fantastic coffee at these four cafés. Heart Coffee Roasters  Here at thecoffeecompass.com we’ve been Heart fanboys for a while. Their meticulous roasting program focuses on the sort of coffee we ..read more

Aeropress Releases New Aeropress Clear by Michael Butterworth One of the most iconic modern coffee makers just got a makeover. Longtime readers of thecoffeecompass.com are no strangers to the Aeropress. In fact, this humble coffee blog has published one of the more popular recipes on the internet. In recent years we’ve seen a more portable version released with the Aeropress Go, and the innovation continues with the new Aeropress Clear. Perhaps we shouldn’t expect anything less from legendary inventor Alan Adler. The Aeropress Clear offers a big upgrade in materials (and price!) from the stand ..read more

Etkin Launches New 2-Cup Dripper on Kickstarter by Guest Istanbul-based coffee design firm Etkin is launching its new 2-cup pour-over dripper on Kickstarter. The campaign builds upon the success of the Etkin 8-cup Dripper, which was fully funded on Kickstarter in 2021 before being released to the general public in 2022. Etkin is co-owned by Coffee Compass cofounder Michael Butterworth. The Etkin 2-cup Dripper’s design elevates the filter with deep ridges, allowing for a faster flow. Like the Etkin 8-cup dripper, the 2-cup dripper is made from Turkish porcelain and features a double-walled cons ..read more

Will the Cafec Abaca Filter Make Your Coffee Taste Better? by Michael Butterworth It might be the one piece of coffee equipment you’re overlooking: the filter. After all: paper is paper right? You throw it away at the end of the brew. Well, it turns out that the filter has a big impact on the way your coffee tastes. Not just because of what it filters out or allows through, but also because of the flow rate, which impacts contact time, channeling, and bypass. As Jonathan Gagne,explains in his seminal book The Physics of Filter Coffee, microscopic pores allow dissolved coffee solids to pass thr ..read more

NanoFoamer PRO Promises Easier Microfoam by Michael Butterworth Everyone wants to be able to pour gorgeous latte art, but that requires immaculate microfoam. Having trained hundreds of baristas how to do that, I can say that it typically requires an expensive espresso machine and hours of practice to get the technique down. But a new Kickstarter project is seeking to bring cafe-quality microfoam to the home barista community. The NanoFoamer PRO is an automatic Hands-Free Microfoam maker that promises to “prepare premium microfoamed milk for your coffee at the touch of a button.” The appliance ..read more

Three Great Coffee Shops in Doha, Qatar by Michael Butterworth In 2022, the world watched as Qatar hosted the World Cup. We got there a little late to see Messi, but a long layover on the way to World of Coffee Dubai gave us a chance to check out the booming coffee scene in Doha. Sadly, we didn’t have enough time to go to every spot on our list, which included Flat White, Frame, and Vulcan. But we did manage to squeeze in these three cafés which did not disappoint. Harvest Our first stop in Doha was Harvest. Offering coffee from Berlin’s Bonanza, Harvest is a gorgeous café with a full kitchen ..read more

Coffee Trends We Hope Go Away in 2023 by Michael Butterworth When we founded this website in 2012, we had a policy: positive reviews only. If we didn’t like something, we simply didn’t write about it. At the time, a lot of coffee journalism felt elitist and nitpicky and we wanted to be a positive voice. Ten years later, we’re decidedly more grumpy. And there’s never been more specialty coffee trends we find annoying. Feel free to disregard this post as “Millenial Barista Yells at Cloud,” but these are the specialty coffee trends we hope will go away in 2023. “Anaerobic” Process Coffees The pro ..read more