Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchThe Macchiato Decoded: A Waiter's Foam Marker to Perth's Long Mac
Episode 12482
Macchiato means stained or spotted, and the name began as a workflow fix. In busy mid 20th century Italian espresso bars, a plain espresso and one wi…
1 day, 15 hours ago
The Doppio Standard: Lever Arm Limits, Phantom Shots, and Caffeine Swings
Episode 12481
Doppio simply means double, and a standard doppio yields 60 milliliters, about 2.0 US fluid ounces, brewed from twice the ground coffee in a larger p…
1 day, 15 hours ago
The Café Wall Illusion: Münsterberg's 1894 Find and a Bristol Cafe
Episode 12480
The café wall illusion makes perfectly parallel rows of bricks look tilted into wedges. The recipe is exact: alternating dark and light bricks, rows …
1 day, 15 hours ago
Ristretto Explained: Half the Water, Sweeter Shot, Less Caffeine
Episode 12479
Ristretto means shortened in Italian, and the French call it café serré. A standard double espresso uses 14 to 18 grams of finely ground coffee extra…
1 day, 15 hours ago
Sanka's Orange Decaf Pot: A Seized Trademark, Radio Hours, Gertrude Berg
Episode 12478
The orange handle on a diner's decaf pot traces back to Bremen, Germany, in 1903, where coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius developed a commercial decaff…
1 day, 15 hours ago
The French Press Is Italian: Milan's Spring Seal and a Clarinet Factory
Episode 12477
The French press goes by many names: plunger in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, cafetière in the UK and Ireland, and Stempelkanne, or stamp…
1 day, 15 hours ago
The Coffee Table's Short History: Godwin's 1868 Design and the TV Era
Episode 12476
In his 1938 furniture encyclopedia, historian Joseph Aronson defined the coffee table as a low, wide table used before a sofa and noted it had no his…
1 day, 15 hours ago
Coffee Cup Design: Meissen's Tall Cups, Deep Saucers, NASA's Space Cup
Episode 12475
Early European coffee houses of the 17th century served coffee in small handleless bowls of imported Chinese and Japanese porcelain. In the 1710s the…
1 day, 15 hours ago
Ray Oldenburg's Third Places: Penny Universities, MMOs, and Loneliness
Episode 12474
In his 1989 book The Great Good Place, American sociologist Ray Oldenburg split life into the home, the workplace, and a third place where people gat…
1 day, 15 hours ago
The Dallah Coffee Pot: Bedouin Hospitality, Cardamom Brews, Banknotes
Episode 12473
The dallah is the traditional Arabic coffee pot, with a bulbous base, a pinched waist, a flared rim, a tall spire lid, and a long crescent spout. Its…
1 day, 15 hours ago