Pu’er Coffee

 One cup wakes you up. Two cups keep you going. The bitter, aromatic taste is hard to resist. Among all the things that stimulate the brain and create mild dependence, coffee is arguably one of the healthiest. A morning cup, an afternoon cup, one more before work begins—this is everyday life for countless coffee lovers. But what many people don’t realize is that choosing the wrong coffee—or brewing it the wrong way—can quietly work against your health . Certain types of coffee can actually raise total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels. The hidden culprit? Unfiltered coffee. Let’s start with a quick explanation of LDL cholesterol, often referred to as “bad cholesterol.” Unlike HDL (“good cholesterol”), which helps clear cholesterol from blood vessels, LDL transports cholesterol from the liver throughout the body. When LDL levels are too high, it can penetrate blood vessel walls, become oxidized, trigger inflammation, and gradually form plaques. These plaques narrow arteries ...

 This was my first encounter with Father’s Coffee . Their full name is Father’s Coffee Roastery , a roasting brand founded in 2018 in Ostrava, the third-largest city in the Czech Republic. They are a family-run business—but not in the traditional sense of just parents and children. Instead, they see “family” as a group of coffee lovers brought together by shared values. They place a strong emphasis on coffee quality and freshness, while also deeply caring about transparency in sourcing. Father’s Coffee actively shares the stories behind each coffee, striving to build long-term relationships with producers. This mutual trust allows them to better oversee the entire process—from harvest and processing to export. Since 2023, they’ve also been involved in several projects that directly support coffee-growing regions. One such project funds a professionally equipped quality control lab in the beautiful Mount Elgon area of eastern Uganda. This initiative benefits not only the coffee pr...

 Whenever I get tired of the coffee sitting in my jars, I like to approach those beans in a more creative way. By “reworking” them through blending, I can give familiar coffees completely new flavors and textures—essentially refreshing the entire drinking experience. Many of you have probably guessed it already: this “creative method” is blending . By combining two or more different coffees, you can create an entirely new cup with a distinct personality. For a long time, blending was mainly associated with espresso. Back when espresso dominated the market, roasters relied on blends to ensure consistency over time. But in recent years, it’s easy to see that more and more brands—and even competition-level brewers—are using blended coffees for pour-over, cold brew, and other manual brewing methods. The reason is simple. Blending isn’t just about consistency. As I mentioned earlier, it can also create something entirely new . A new experience might mean novel flavor combinations, or a...

 Cold brew, as the name suggests, is coffee made with cold water at low temperatures. The most common method is to soak ground coffee in room-temperature water, refrigerate it, and wait for the cold water to slowly pull out the flavors. After steeping, simply filter out the grounds and you’re done. But here’s something fun: cold brew doesn’t have to be made with room-temperature water. You can actually make it with ice water —a mix of ice cubes and water brewed together with the coffee grounds. The big question is: Does it taste better? Two Ways to Make Cold Brew For this comparison, I made two batches of cold brew—one with room-temperature water and one with ice water. I kept all other variables as consistent as possible so I could really taste the difference. 1. Room-Temperature Cold Brew I used my Colombian “Big Belly Button” beans, measured out 20g, and ground them to a coarse, sugar-like texture. Using a 20-mesh sieve, the grind had an 80% pass rate. (For reference: EK43s...

 Do you still remember CLR CFF, the colorless, crystal-clear coffee that went viral nearly a decade ago? I was lucky enough to actually try that “internet-famous” product back then. For so long, we all believed coffee could be reddish-brown, brown, or even red—but it never crossed our minds that coffee could exist as something completely transparent. When CLR CFF was first released, it immediately caught the attention of coffee lovers. It became the world’s first colorless coffee drink, and its production process was always described in a vague, mysterious way—“made with methods never used before.” It sounded almost mythical, and no one ever seemed to crack the secret behind it. Today, the brand’s social media accounts have gone silent, its official website is no longer maintained, and similar products have essentially vanished. So how did they manage to make coffee completely clear? Let’s talk about this “mysterious” technology. Simply put, the core idea is to keep the flavor and ...

 “Every time I drink coffee, I have to run to the bathroom within half an hour—it’s like my body has an alarm clock.” “I drink two cups of coffee every day, but I often feel bloated and constipated. Sometimes I even wonder if I should just give up coffee.” On October 16, the hashtag “The first batch of coffee lovers has fallen victim” started trending online. Netizens shared their very different gut reactions to coffee—some experience diarrhea, while others get constipated. Caffeine’s Dual Effect: It Can Both Relieve and Cause Constipation Why can the same cup of coffee produce two completely opposite effects? According to Cui Jun, Chief Dietitian at Beijing Electric Power Hospital, coffee’s impact on digestion is the result of multiple factors—mainly caffeine stimulation and acidic compounds. Caffeine stimulates stomach acid secretion and speeds up intestinal movement. A single intake of 100 mg of caffeine (roughly one espresso) can increase intestinal motility by nearly 3...