Coffee Break!

As we head into December, I thought I'd provide some potential holiday reading. It will be no surprise to any Financial Modelling Podcast listener that I am a massive coffee fanatic (or snob as my wife calls me). In fact, two Financial Modelling Podcasts are dedicated solely to coffee, one on the coffee journey from bean to cup with David Walstra from seam.coffee, and one on some lockdown brews with Dario Scilipoti from Bluebird Coffee Roastery. In this blog post, I provide some insight into my favourite books of the bean.

Coffee: It's not rocket science: A quick & easy guide to brewing, serving, roasting & tasting coffee

If you’ve watched my appearance on Data Conversations over Coffee you will have seen me whip this book off my bookshelf. This is a fantastic and easy reading book, one that you can pick up on any page on a given day for a quick read on some aspect of coffee – whether its equipment, coffee history or bean origins and flavour notes. Beautifully illustrated, this is a book for those who want a brief overview of every coffee nuance.

The World Atlas of Coffee: From Beans to Brewing -- Coffees Explored, Explained and Enjoyed

A photographic journey through the coffee world and history – from the early espresso machines to industrial coffee roasters. Read about the intricate coffee harvesting processes, the different roasting methods and of course about the coffee fruit (which most regular coffee drinkers may not even recognise!). This book has wonderful pictures capturing the coffee process from bean to cup.

Craft Coffee: A Manual: Brewing a Better Cup at Home

Chemex? V60? AeroPress? If you want to start making quality coffee at home, this book will help you figure out what you enjoy drinking, what you need to buy to make it and how to use your newly purchased equipment. By leveraging a four-pillar methodology assessing cost, time, taste and accessibility, this manual will have you making excellent coffee at home in no time at all. Don’t forget to invite me over to taste!

The Coffee Recipe Book: 50 Coffee and Espresso Drinks to Make at Home

If you enjoy playing with flavours and different coffee-based beverages, this book will introduce you to 50 different recipes to spice up your coffee life (pun intended). This book also covers all espresso-based drinks, including my favourite, the cortado. But its not only for day-time. This book also includes 10 coffee cocktails, from the Espresso Martini to the Nutty Irishman! A fun book for those looking to experiment with coffee-based drinks (not necessarily for the coffee purist).

Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World

While the other books on this list provide a pictorial history of coffee, this book will weave the stories from the introduction of coffee to various territories to the establishment of chains such as Starbucks. Indeed, this book opens with a quote from Jonathan Swift (Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric, died 1745) who said that “Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical.” This should give an indication of the seriousness of this volume. The book also provides a fascinating description of how the speciality coffee movement came into being. A must-read for anyone interested in how people around the globe came to drink and appreciate the nuances behind the coffee bean!