Credit for the cover photo goes to Demon Tea Recordings - despite the proliferation of AI on the internet, this was made by a presumably-cool human at some point in 2001 (I don’t actually know anything about them so if they end up in the Epstein files I’m sorry).
I don’t know about you, but particularly when travelling it’s really difficult to find GOOD coffee shops with good beans and good baristas. Google reviews are not a good proxy for quality, and while heuristics like the food-coffee proportionality principle can help, I often find myself resorting to a mystical process akin to rain dances to assess whether the furniture constitutes strict nordic style or the barista’s dungarees are quite the right colour for someone who makes excellent espresso.
Nothing boils my blood more than trekking through Berlin in the pouring rain to find out that the specialty coffee place you divined only offers the single origin beans for filter and your only espresso option is a brazilian dark roast blend that’s been languishing in a huge hopper for 3 months.
There have been attempts to arrange some of the data around coffee shops like European Coffee Trip, but I’ve still struggled to find the really high quality coffee shops using it and regardless it only lists Europe for now.
To that end, I’m working on a new product to try and solve this problem once and for all. The goal is that users will enter a few brief details about coffees they’ve drunk and where (both enjoyable and not), and some of those details will be displayed to other users to inform their choice on where to seek coffee refuge. The public elements will be focused on factual criteria (e.g. coffee drinks offered, beans available, grind settings used) and not on opinions (e.g. ‘this coffee tasted really nice!’), though users will be able to track their own opinions on coffees for future perusal and to remember what they enjoyed and didn’t enjoy.
I’m working on a simple proof of concept, and if it sounds like an app you’d love to use or have strong opinions on, sign up to get early access using this Google form or reach out to me directly at [email protected] if you’re scared of the Google boogeyman (understandable).