The Bloom

Is there any more essential tool for the itinerant coffee lover than a good travel mug? We don’t think so. It’s the one thing that can make or break the coffee-on-the-go experience, and all success rides on its superpowers or horrifying lack thereof.  Unfortunately, most travel mugs are meh at best and a cruel practical joke at worst. They leak. They lose heat. They’re hard to clean or add off tastes or won’t fit in your cupholder. Some need two hands for a sip which is really more of a dribble. Others send your precious elixir of life flying by...

  From the recent news that coffee appears to lower the risk of liver cancer to evidence that it may protect the heart, lower inflammation, and even prevent diabetes, the drink of drinks is becoming a bona fide health food, one that’s beneficial to our bodies in all kinds of ways that matter. That’s great news for us coffee fanatics—frankly, we’d have been happy just to find out that all those beans we’ve been brewing don’t come with any serious side effects. But discovering that coffee is actually good for us? That’s icing on the coffee cake. And it’s a...

June is almost here, and with it comes summer or, as we prefer to call it, iced coffee time. With the season’s heat on the rise, we’re craving cold and seeking the kind of caffeinated cool that air conditions both body and soul. For that mission, no ordinary iced coffee will do. Instead, celebrate the arrival of summer by chilling out with our 10 favorite iced coffee hacks: Sweeten with syrup. Sugar doesn’t disperse well in cold drinks but simple syrup mixes instantly. Make yours by heating one cup of sugar in one cup of water until fully dissolved. Keep...

Humanity has been drinking coffee for at least 1,000 years. That’s a lot of time for people to have on their hands, especially in the company of caffeine. Unsurprisingly, the result has been some, shall we say, novel ways of preparing the world’s beverage of choice. We can’t exactly call these our favorites but they definitely display the full range of coffee creativity: Let’s start with Es Alpukat, which mixes espresso, milk, sweetened condensed milk, and… avocado? Indeed. Sometimes served over ice and/or with chocolate syrup, the result is a smoothie-like drink sold from Indonesian street carts that’s part salad,...