Disclaimer

Last updated 12 September 2026. Maintained in English.

This site publishes three kinds of number and they do not carry the same weight. Being clear about which is which is the whole point of the editorial standards, and this page says what follows from it for you.

Grind settings are starting points

A click number is not a specification. Every grinder's dial is arbitrary, its zero point is set at the factory and drifts, and burr alignment varies between individual units of the same model. A setting we publish for your model was true of the machine somebody documented; yours will be near it, not identical to it. Use it to get close, then move a click at a time and taste. Where a figure is the manufacturer's own and where it is ours is marked on every grinder page, and the difference matters most at the ends of a dial.

Brewing figures are recipes, not rules

Ratios, temperatures and times are one good version of each method, not the only correct one. They assume reasonably fresh coffee, drinkable water and equipment in normal working order, and every one of those varies in your kitchen. Water in particular changes the result more than most people expect. If a brew made to our figures tastes wrong to you, your palate is not the thing in error.

Origin data is third-party and dated

Production volumes, shares and harvest windows in the atlas come from published datasets — chiefly the USDA and FAOSTAT — and each origin page states which source backs which figure and for which year. They are estimates compiled by other people, they are revised, and a harvest window is a description of a typical year rather than a forecast of this one. Growing-area markers on maps are indicative, not surveyed farm locations.

Nothing here is health advice

We write about how coffee is made, not about what it does to you. Nothing on this site is medical, dietary or nutritional advice, and caffeine affects people very differently. If you are pregnant, managing a heart condition, taking medication or have been told to limit caffeine, that is a conversation for a doctor rather than a coffee site.

Brewing involves hot water and pressure

Several methods here use water at or near boiling, and a moka pot is a pressure vessel with a safety valve for a reason. Follow the manufacturer's instructions for your own equipment, keep the valve clear, replace perished gaskets, and do not modify a pressurised brewer. We describe how these methods work; we cannot supervise your kitchen.

Tell us when we are wrong

"Help us improve" sits on every page and the first option is Wrong number. Errors that have been found this way are corrected and dated rather than quietly edited — there are worked examples on the editorial standards page, including one where our own filter settings were about twice as fine as the maker's own published table. If your grinder's dial disagrees with ours, that is the report we most want.