Tag Archives: Aeropress

TONX Coffee Does a Beautiful Thing

When talking about coffee with friends I often hear two things regarding purchasing good, quality coffee.

(1) What’s good and where do I buy it?

or

(2) It seems too difficult to buy good coffee. I’d rather just buy a can or use kcups.

I acknowledge the positions of anyone who has given or contemplated either of these responses. The truth is, unless you live near a Stumptown or Dawson Taylor it is a chore to get great coffee. Don’t get me wrong – this is a chore that, in my opinion, is well worth the effort (unlike sweeping. Let’s be real here – the floor is just going to get dirty AGAIN). The problem is that for many people ease-of-purchase trumps great taste in the everyday situation. If you can purchase a can or bag of coffee while buying groceries, it makes far more sense to kill two birds with one stone. Right? “Fine – let all these hipster baristas go out of their way to buy marginally better coffee, I’ll stick to my “sub par” brew that tastes just fine, thank you very much.”

I completely understand this attitude. The problem is, you no longer have that excuse.

TONX Coffee solves this “ease-of-purchase” problem by delivering fresh roasted, amazing coffee straight to your door. And not only that, they time it so that as your bag is beginning to run low, a new one is already on the way.

What is Tonx?

Tonx wants you to drink good coffee. We are a small team of coffee fanatics dedicated to becoming your best option for getting the best beans for brewing at your home, your office, or your batcave (if you are Batman). We think coffee can and should be both great and approachable. We sweat the fussy details so that you don’t have to. We aim to always be delightful in your press, aero, cone, chemex, hario, or clever coffee making device.

from http://tonx.org

Tonx has a great system set up. You pay $38 a month, billed every four weeks. You get a 12oz bag of coffee every two weeks (roasts differ from week to week). You can pause at any time. You can cancel at any time. That’s it.

Say goodbye to stale coffee that sits on your shelf or in a can. Tonx mails your coffee right after it’s roasted so that you get the freshest possible cup. And if you’re a regular (or more than regular) coffee drinker like me, 12oz of whole bean coffee is the perfect amount for two weeks.

I recently got the opportunity to try Tonx out for myself, and I was super impressed. Not only was registering incredibly easy, but when it came time for me to pause my subscription, there was absolutely no hassle involved. I logged in to their site, and pressed the “pause” button and I was good to go. But what about the coffee?

I received a Tanzania Mpito roast which was described on the bag as “deep, delicious, cooperative, and delightful.” I found each of these adjectives to be apt descriptions. One of the biggest things that stood out to me as I opened Tonx’s signature rectangular art-influenced packaging was the smell. The coffee had one of the richest smells that I’ve had the pleasure to behold. If you love coffee you know that there’s nothing like the buttery rich smell of fresh roasted coffee, and this was absolutely no exception.

I brewed this coffee mostly using the inverted brew method in my Aeropress. After learning a thing or two at Coffee Common last month, I felt more than equipped to brew a tasty cup of Tonx Coffee. The Tanzania’s description was dead-on: I experienced the coffee as having a dense deep flavor that had elements of both complex brightness and simple clear notes. I enjoyed several cups with homemade biscotti, and this only added to the experience. I also tried the Tanzania Mpito in a mocha with “shots” pulled through my Aeropress. Chocolate proved to give the deep flavor of the Tanzania some great accents, and I enjoyed every last drop.

Tonx sold me from the very beginning: registering on their website was simple and straightforward. Their presentation with the packaging and reading pamphlet that was provided was exemplary. Finally, and most importantly, the coffee was amazing.

For a lot of people, driving to a cafe or roaster that sells great specialty coffee is too much of a hassle. Tonx coffee solves this dilemma by delivering the cafe experience to your front door.

After doing a little bit of math, check out what I discovered:

  • 1lb of coffee (16oz) makes about 30 cups of coffee. This means a 12oz bag of Tonx coffee will make 22 and a half cups, but let’s call it 22 to make it easy.
  • Since Tonx is sending you a 12oz bag every two weeks, and billing you every four weeks, you are paying $38 for about 44 cups of coffee. (That provides you with 1.57 cups of coffee per day, by the way).
  • Divide it out and you’re paying $0.86 per cup of coffee.
  • If you were to buy 44 cups of similar-grade coffee from a quality cafe at $2 per cup (which is a low estimate if you want any espresso drink), you would be paying $88. In this case, Tonx would save you $50 a month.
  • If you were to instead buy a $2 cup of great-tasting specialty coffee every day for four weeks, you would spend $56 a month. In this case, Tonx would save you $18 a month.

No matter how you cut it, Tonx Coffee is doing a beautiful thing. Help them help you and sign up now.

Or, at the very least, like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

The Coffee Guy

Kill the Keurig

“I love coffee! In fact, I use my Keurig every day.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard variations of this statement used by my friends and peers over the past several years.

Introduced in 1998, Keurig’s innovative single cup brewing system lets people brew the perfect cup of gourmet coffee in less than a minute, without having to grind beans, measure coffee, handle filters or clean up. It’s as simple as it gets.

From Keurig.com

Keurig has become synonymous with easy-to-brew idiot-proof coffee that supposedly tastes better than you might get from a normal drip coffee machine. There are several problems with Keurig: first, it is single-handedly ruining people’s perception of what great coffee tastes like. Second, it is operating under the false veil of being “cheaper” than the tools and fresh coffee used in other single-cup brew methods. Third, plastic Keurig K-cups are not recyclable and present an ever-increasing problem as they become more and more popular.

Dear Coffee, I Love You. did a post a on this back in March when the term “Love Keurig?” was a sponsored trending topic on Twitter. DCILY does a great job of communicating what so many of us feel that love coffee, myself included, when it comes to Keurig. More than that, DCILY has facts about Keurig that may surprise or even shock you. They have graciously allowed me to re-post a part of that post: below is the introduction. Click here for the full post.

————————————-

LOVE KEURIG? NOPE.

Love Keurig? Not one bit. But yesterday Twitter was all a-buzz about the machine that brews single-serve coffee pods (K-cups) while they were “promoted” to the top of the trending list. So I tweeted my 140 character dissertation on the topic, simply stating that “Keurig is bad for coffee and bad for the Earth. #killthekcup.” While a few people—145 of them—agreed with me and re-shared the message, not everyone felt the same.

I was quickly contacted by Keurig with a link to their reusable K-cup as if that rectified the issue and put an end to the discussion. Then a few loyal K-cup fans were upset that I criticized their right to never have to wipe coffee off their counter tops, followed by another guy who thought that the billions of non-recyclable plastic cups are not an issue and I should invest my activist angst elsewhere.

The reality, it is a big issue—not just in the coffee industry, but in the bigger ecological picture. When the most important ”R” of conservation is to “reduce,” ignoring the rapid growth of an unnecessary and disposable product like K-cups is far from inconsequential. So, I’ve broken down my issues with this growing coffee trend into four categories: economics, quality, environment and the company behind it all.

Here’s the rest of the post.

Image from DearCoffeeILoveYou.com – Used with permission.

Reblog – Pressing Matters: Tips For Using the Aerobie Aeropress

I’m a huge fan of the Aerobie Aeropress. I haven’t come across a more simple machine that makes anywhere close to the quality of espresso that my Aeropress delivers. A simple Google search reveals that I’m not alone in my praise of the Aeropress.

I came across the blog “We Hunt & Gather” through the writer’s twitter page after he followed me. The title of his most recent post sold me the minute I read it. I asked him if I could reblog it, and he gave me permission. Below you’ll find the entire post, and a link to the original. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

The Coffee Guy

PRESSING MATTERS: TIPS FOR USING THE AEROBIE AEROPRESS

For a month now I’ve been the proud owner of an Aerobie Aeropress, that strange, over-sized syringe like coffee brewer. I had been weighing up buying one ever since the coffee shop I worked in started stocking them, but I couldn’t bring myself to purchase such an ugly piece of plastic. I don’t think it helped that every time I had to demonstrate how they worked to a customer, the penis-enlarger scene from Austin Powers replayed through my mind.

Finally I gave in and with the Aeropress in one hand and a bag of freshly roasted coffee beans in the other I headed home to brew my first cup. Despite the internet being awash with good reviews for the product, and there even being a World Aeropress Championship, I was still surprised at just how good the results were. In fact I think you’d really struggle to brew a bad cup.

I’m not going to give any specific recipes or instructions here, as there are plenty out there, (nods to the internet’s horizon line) and to be honest I change my method pretty much weekly. Besides, being able to experiment with how you brew is half the fun of the Aeropress.

Instead I thought I’d share a few tips that I’ve picked up.

Invert It Brewing with the Aeropress upside down with the plunger in and the filter cap off means that you can have more control over the brew time. You dictate when the coffee starts to drip through the filter, letting you brew for longer.

Brew with Water First Brewing a cup without putting any coffee in heats up the Aeropress, rinses the filter of chemically tastes and heats the mug up – the perfect preparation.

Get the grind right Despite the box saying repeatedly that it makes espresso style coffee, you shouldn’t use coffee ground for an espresso machine. Instead use a grind slightly coarser than filter. A finer grind will result in a stronger brew whilst coarser will give you a weaker one.

Re-use the Filter Each filter can be used several times, just rinse off, place back into the Aeropress and push the plunger down on top, keeping it flat whilst it dries. When you come to use it next you won’t even need to rinse it again.

Source link: http://wehuntandgather.tumblr.com/
View the original post here.