Sip — Your Weekly Brew of Coffee News
Issue 6
Welcome back to Sip, your weekly pour-over of the five most important, intriguing, or just plain weird things happening in the world of coffee. From Michelin-starred roasters to espresso apps and AI baristas, this week we’re seeing coffee collide with design, tech, and culture in surprising ways. Let’s dive in.
When Noma Enters Coffee, the Whole World Watches
Few names in food carry the cultural clout of Noma. The Copenhagen restaurant, led by René Redzepi, revolutionized fine dining with its hyper-local, foraged approach to ingredients—and now, it’s turning that same obsessive energy toward coffee. Noma Kaffe is a new $65-a-month subscription delivering two 250g bags of meticulously sourced, Nordic-roasted beans. It’s not just another premium offering: it could mark a turning point in how fine dining treats coffee.
With storytelling, transparency, and terroir front and center, Noma is giving coffee the same reverence once reserved for wine. Whether this elevates specialty coffee’s status or nudges it further into luxury territory is still up for debate—but one thing’s certain: Noma’s entrance has everyone paying attention.
This Swiss App Might Just Be Your New Favorite Coffee Tool
Dialing in espresso is equal parts science and sorcery—and remembering the perfect grind setting for each bean is a struggle even seasoned home baristas know too well. Enter ACID, a sleek new web app from Switzerland that helps you log your grind settings, track brew recipes, and discover new roasts with community-powered precision.
Built by Philipp Barth and Rafaela Kalbermatten, ACID isn’t just a digital notepad—it’s a full-fledged coffee companion. Save grinder presets, scan coffee bags with AI, explore curated roasts, and tap into a growing network of fellow espresso obsessives. It’s like having a dial-in diary, brew buddy, and bean concierge in your pocket.
Douglas Weber Just Gave the Internet Something It Desperately Needs
In a world drowning in doomscrolling and algorithm-chasing content, Douglas Weber—designer, innovator, and founder of Weber Workshops—is quietly building something different. Earlier this year, he launched The Journal, a long-form blog tucked away on his company’s website. No outrage, no clickbait—just thoughtful writing on coffee, design, and the creative process.
Weber’s commitment to depth over dopamine hits stands out in an industry that often swings between Pinterest-ready latte shots and overly technical gatekeeping. The Journal carves out a rare middle ground: content that’s smart but not snobbish, slow but not boring. Could this be a blueprint for how coffee brands engage online in the post-social era? Maybe. And honestly, we’re here for it.
Dubai’s Roasters Are on Fire—Here’s the Ultimate Guide
What began as a small ripple has become a full-blown wave—Dubai’s specialty coffee scene is now one of the most dynamic on the planet. From minimalist temples of precision like The Espresso Lab to cozy artisan gems like Grandmother Coffee, the city offers a dizzying range of roasteries focused on traceability, sustainability, and flavor innovation.
This freshly updated 2025 guide highlights the best roasters in Dubai, including pioneers like Specialty Batch, cutting-edge labs like Cypher and RoR, and rising stars like Scarab. Whether you’re craving a bright Ethiopian or a complex anaerobic Colombian, Dubai has a roaster pushing the envelope—and your palate.
This Coffee-Making Robot Could Be the Future of AI
Robots making coffee isn’t new—but this one doesn’t just follow instructions, it thinks. A groundbreaking new study in Nature Machine Intelligence introduces a robot developed by researchers at the University of Edinburgh (in collaboration with MIT and Princeton) that can prepare coffee in a real-world kitchen—navigating drawers it’s never seen before, adapting to unexpected obstacles, and interpreting spoken commands.
This seven-jointed arm, guided by a system called ELLMER, represents a leap in robotic intelligence by combining reasoning, motor skills, and perception—domains that traditionally evolved in isolation. More than a party trick, it’s a glimpse into the next generation of AI: machines that can interact with the physical world as flexibly as humans do.
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