our friends rob & ellen recently sent us a gift box from intelligentsia with a bag of fresh roasted coffee and two mugs! we had never tried intelligentsia before, at least that we are aware of, so we were excited. it was a very tasty, smooth cup of coffee, especially brewed with our chemex. we were quite impressed!

on a related note, we’ve upgraded our coffee brewing setup over the last few months. our electric tea kettle was on the fritz, so we got the new variable temperature kettle from bonavita. it’s the perfect companion for pour-over coffee brewers and tea lovers alike. it has a gooseneck spout for easy pouring and the kettle offers complete temperature control for ideal brewing settings. there is also a hold feature to keep your water hot throughout the brewing process, or if you plan on having another cup of tea. basically, it’s pretty awesome!

for christmas we also upgraded our grinder, which was on its last legs as well. we went with a conical burr style from capresso. it actually grinds the beans instead of chopping them, preserving aroma and flavor. the grinder is also extremely quite and super easy! you just set the fineness (from coarse to turkish fine), turn the knob to the amount of cups you want and it does the rest. for our chemex setup, we stick with a coarse grind, which you can see in the below photo.

– ryan