Getting โgoodโ at anything takes practice. And time. And dedication. And Failure. Whatever it is, be it making coffee or some sort of physical activity or instrument or hobby, the path to mastery (or anything approaching it) is paved with mistakes and lessons learned from them. For many, learning comes from tracking prior efforts, figuring out what worked and what didnโt and repeating the efforts to put those theories to the test. Itโs what makes a journal one of the most useful tools in any skill acquisition.
In the world of coffee making, a brewing journal can be a crucial component in understanding the many parameters and how they affect the outcome. Thus is the thinking behind The Coffee Journal, a new daily tracking notebook by ฤrฤmse. With The Coffee Journal, the India-based company provides you with everything you need to record your daily coffee ritual, all in a tactile (and quite fetching!) way. And itโs live on IndieGoGo now!
Created by Namisha and Raghunath Parthasarathy, The Coffee Journal is designed to be an analog record on oneโs brewing journey, with fields for just about everything you need to track your daily routine. Fields include coffee roaster, origin, processing method, brewer, water and coffee weight, water temp, and brew time, with room for more in-the-weeds information like grinder and grind size, roast date, and recipe name. The notes field doubles as place to write down any thoughts on the brew as well as a sort of linear graph to chart the brewing process.
And perhaps the coolest feature is the Airplane mode check box. By having a space where you can check if you were able to disconnect during the coffee making process, the Airplane mode check box is a subtle reminder to take a few minutes and put everything else aside while you enjoy the process of producing that morning (or afternoon) cup of coffee.
Thanks to cover art by Manali Patil, The Coffee Journal is a bit of a statement piece that could easily double as a coffee table book. An Indian artist, Patilโs colorful sketches is evocative of the places where coffee is produced in India, โa rich ecosystem where coffee plants thrive under the shade of the protective forest canopy, amidstย wildlife such as the endangered lion-tailed macaque, black-rumped flameback woodpecker, elephants and butterflies.โ
โThe Coffee Journal is an effort from our side to tell the story about Indian coffee thereby deanonymizing it,โ Namisha Parthasarathy tells Sprudge. โThe artwork is meant to highlight the interconnectedness of biodiversity, fauna, and the final cup. It also questions or makes us think about which brewers come to mind when we think of specialty coffee drinks.ย As for what’s inside, it has all the necessary fields to log and track brews.โ
With just under two weeks left in the campaign, The Coffee Journal has raised ยฃ2,699 ($3,300 USD) of its ยฃ4,000 ($4,892 USD) flex goal. Set to retail for ยฃ25 ($31 USD), backers can pick up a copy of The Coffee Journal for themselves for as little as ยฃ22 ($27 USD). 5% of the proceeds of all sales go to protecting the endangered Asian elephant.
For more information or to purchase a copy for yourself, visit The Coffee Journalโs IndieGoGo campaign page.
Zac Cadwaladerย is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.ย Read more Zac Cadwaladerย on Sprudge.
