About us
Coffee advice that shows its working
CoffeeGearGuides is an independent publication covering coffee equipment and coffee culture for readers in India and the United States. We research in public, we cite what we used, and we correct what we get wrong.
What we publish
- Gear reviews
- Espresso machines, grinders, brewers, and the accessories that decide whether any of them are worth owning.
- Head-to-head comparisons
- Two contenders, the same questions, and one clear recommendation at the end of every page.
- Cafe city guides
- Where to drink well in a given city, compiled from public reviews and local reporting, and re-checked for closures.
Coffee advice travels badly across borders. Voltage differs, prices differ, and what is available in Mumbai is often not what is available in Chicago. Every guide states the market it was written for, links to the right store, and quotes prices in the right currency.
How we research
Four commitments govern every page on this site.
We start with the public record, not a press release
Every gear guide begins with owner reviews read at volume, in both markets we serve. We look for what people still say months after purchase, because the complaints that survive the honeymoon are the ones worth publishing.
We cross-check that against specifications, manuals, and warranty terms, and we verify every retail listing is live before a page ships.
We tell you what we did and did not do
This is a research publication. We do not operate a testing laboratory, and we do not claim hands-on experience we have not had. Where a verdict rests on the reported experience of owners rather than on our own measurements, the page says so.
Our cafe guides follow the same rule. They are built from public customer reviews, published local and trade journalism, and each business’s own website and menu. We do not pretend to have sat in a room we have only researched.
We publish figures we can attribute
Where we cite a rating or a review count, it comes from a named source on a stated date, and it is one source rather than several averaged together. Numbers stitched from different platforms look authoritative and quietly mislead.
When we cannot attribute a figure cleanly, we leave it out and explain the gap instead of filling it.
We keep pages current, and we date them
Prices, hours, specifications, and businesses all change after publication. Every guide carries the date it was last reviewed, and our city guides carry a separate date for when addresses and opening status were last confirmed.
When a recommendation stops being true, we change it rather than letting the page quietly rot.
How we make money, and what it never buys
We participate in the Amazon Associates programs in India and the United States. When you buy through one of our links, Amazon pays us a commission out of its own margin. The price you pay is identical either way.
We also sell advertising: clearly labelled sponsored posts, and marked sponsored entries inside our guides. Advertising buys a place on the page and nothing else. It is always labelled, it is never ranked by the criteria a guide describes, and it never moves, rewrites, or removes anything we chose on merit.
We do not publish unpaid guest posts. Everything on this site is either our own work or a labelled sponsored post.
What money never changes
- Which product wins on merit. Verdicts are settled before any commercial conversation.
- The order of our editorial picks. No fee has ever moved one up a list.
- What we say about a flaw, including an advertiser’s. It stays as the research found it.
- Whether a paid item is labelled. That is automatic and cannot be switched off.
The full terms are in our affiliate disclosure.
Corrections
We would rather be corrected than be wrong in public. If a specification, price, address, or detail on this site is inaccurate, tell us and we will fix it.
This applies with particular force to the businesses we write about. If you own or represent a cafe or roastery covered here and want a detail corrected, a photograph credited differently or removed, or your entry taken down entirely, contact us and we will act on it. You do not need to make a legal case for it.
Disagree with a verdict, or spot something wrong?
Good. Tell us why. Corrections and counter-arguments have improved more pages here than any amount of internal review.