Recommendations you can check.
Coffee consultant and author of books on espresso, roasting and brewing; writes at scottrao.com.
4 things
Ceado HoopHardware Ceado
The Hoop may be the perfect manual brewer for cafes, as baristas can simply pour and walk away, knowing that four minutes later, the Hoop will deliver an excellent extraction.
Rao explains why he took on the Ceado Hoop manual brewer, which he now sells through his own site.
2024-09-15·scottrao.com ↗
Decent DE1Hardware Decent Espresso
In the early days, the DE1 was considered "unforgiving" by many. I didn't mind, as the DE1's ability to control shot parameters more than made up for its early challenges.
Nine-year retrospective on the Decent DE1 espresso machine; Rao opens by disclosing he helped plan and design it.
2024-05-23·scottrao.com ↗
Niche ZeroHardware Niche
High quality, budget grinders were rare at the time. The Niche Zero and other new grinders changed that, and helped make it easier to pull good shots.
Aside in his Decent retrospective crediting the Niche Zero with making good home espresso grinders affordable.
2024-05-23·scottrao.com ↗
Decent Espresso dimples and freckles shower screensHardware Decent Espresso
Decent Espresso has done it again. This time, they've revolutionized shower screens.
Post explaining why Decent's new 58mm shower screens improve water distribution; Rao has worked with Decent Espresso since the DE1's design.
2025-03-12·scottrao.com ↗
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.