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One of the most unique espresso makers currently on the market, this is our First Look at the Superkop ratchet lever espresso machine.
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The CoffeeGeekReview Process

We’ve been reviewing products at CoffeeGeek for over two decades now. Our first format for reviews was also the longest – the Detailed Review – and we based this on Digital Photography Review’s (then) groundbreaking, hyper detailed camera reviews that the website was publishing as far back as 2001.

Next came our First Looks, which were in most cases longer than most other websites’ full reviews. These were not intended to be reviews at all. They were supposed to be a “first impression” of a product. The plan was to share some pertinent details, talk about who those machines were designed for, provide some initial specifications, and talk about the very first use of the product. In 20 years, they’ve ballooned into 4,000-6,000 word initial reviews. And we plan to change that (read on!)

Because our Detailed Reviews, at nearly 10,000 words or more and hundreds of photos, were so complex, we launched a third review category in 2004: the Quickshot Review. Our plan was to do very quick (within a month of getting and testing a product) review in the 2,000 to 3,500 word range, with maybe 3 dozen photos and some videos. And just like the First Look, these ballooned into 5,000+ word full reviews with hundreds of photos, videos, charts, graphics, you name it.In order to try and do the quick and fast reviews for smaller and less expensive products, starting in 2021, we introduced the Blog Mini Review. Those are reviews under 1,500 words and contained within a blog post.

In 2024, as we revamp the CoffeeGeek website for the seventh time in its history, the biggest changes to this website are in the Reviews section, and a new addition to our Guides section (we’re finally doing full Featured Guides). For Reviews, we are overhauling and revamping our entire review process. The goal is to get more content to our readers in a timely fashion.

Before we get into the new structure, I want to point out something.

CoffeeGeek isn’t in the business of selling you a product. We’re in the business of informing you, as best and as unbiased as we can, about products you might be spending thousands of dollars on. That was true when we launched the website, and it’s just as true today.

CoffeeGeek Reviews in 2024 and Beyond

Over the decades, our reviews and first looks have evolved, and have allowed us to build up some tried and true testing methods (as well as acquire thousands of dollars worth of testing equipment), that provided us with a very capable evaluation standard we can apply to any product put through a CoffeeGeek evaluation.

Each major category of product we evaluate on CoffeeGeek has its own testing parameters and evaluation checklist that ensures consistency in our evaluations and the confidence to provide an accurate, unbiased score for the products we look at.

No matter the product, our review parameters are rigidly adhered to for every review or first look we publish on this website. This will not change with the new reviews structure.

Product Introduction Posts

Whenever we get a new product that is particularly noteworthy, class leading, or ground breaking, we will do an introduction post about it in the CoffeeGeek Blog. The purpose is just what the title says: introduce the product to you our reader.

We’ve been doing this more informally in the past few years, but it is now becoming a regular modus for any substantial product we review on CoffeeGeek, going forward. 

First Looks

In the past, our First Looks frequently told you more about a product (including evaluations) than most actual “product reviews” you’d find elsewhere on the Internet. They were so complex, most readers and many vendors and manufacturers considered them full blown reviews.

We’ve wanted to change these back to the original modus for First Looks for a long time now, and with the 2024 version of CoffeeGeek, we will be doing exactly that. Going forward, all our new First Looks will be a formal introduction to a product, and kept to under 2,500 words total. Our new First Looks will include:

  • An Introduction of the product and company
  • Out of the Box segment showing the unboxing and what comes with the product
  • Product Design and Function Highlights, detailing some of the product’s notable features
  • First Few Days with the product, that will be a lot more brief than previous First Looks
  • Concluding Thoughts.
 

Our goal is to be able to post a First Look for products after only a week’s initial evaluation of the product. It is not meant to be a review, but an introduction. 

Snapshot Reviews

This is a brand new review category, replacing our “mini-reviews” formerly posted in the Blog, but also harkening back to the original idea behind our Quickshot Reviews. We don’t dedicate the same kind of resources and time for simple products costing $35, vs what we put into evaluating a $2,500 espresso machine. The Snapshot Review section provides us with a new venue to give every product – even those we wouldn’t review in the past – a place for evaluation on CoffeeGeek.

This means reviews for items like tampers, pour over devices, WDT tools, filter papers, and more will be coming to CoffeeGeek soon.

Snapshot Reviews are full reviews, complete with scores and evaluations, but a simpler scale than our Full and Detailed Reviews. We’ll still include lots of visuals, video where beneficial, comparisons to other products, and in some cases, our focus group evaluations. But these will also be short and concise reviews, ranging from 750 to 2,000 words. 

Full Reviews

Full Reviews are replacing our Quickshot Reviews. They are intended for products that represent a sizable investment from home baristas, and a certain level of complexity in operation, maintenance and functionality that demand a proper, full and formal evaluation. These reviews will be single page, but long: as much as 5,000 words or more, with dozens of photographs and multiple videos. They will typically take us about 45-60 days to complete. They will almost always involve our focus group testing, products comparisons, and scientific evaluation.

They will contain the following sections:

  • Pros and Cons based on overall evaluation (never based on the product’s marketing material)
  • Notable Features
  • An Introduction to the product, the company that makes it, and some brief history
  • A Product Gallery
  • Out of the Box unboxing and what comes with the product
  • First Few Days with the product
  • Extended Evaluation and Usability
  • Compared To other products in the same category
  • Conclusion
  • Review Rating and Scores
 

These reviews are very detail rich, so don’t expect to see more than one or two published per month.

The Detailed Review

The detailed review has become a monster; and it’s a monster we stopped feeding for a long, long time. Even back in 2007, Mark Prince wrote about his fear of this monster, and still didn’t do anything about it.

We really want to bring back the Detailed Review, so we’ll be trying again in 2024. Detailed Reviews will be published, and they will be dedicated to products that people spend thousands of dollars. They will be multipage documents. They will be broken down into sections. They will be ranging from 10,000 to 15,000 words and will have hundreds of photos, and many videos as well.

All Detailed Reviews will have the following major sections

  • An Introduction page, which will include some product and company history, as well as the product’s overall pros and cons, notable features and pricing and vendor information.
  • A Specifications page, which will be all properly tested and confirmed by CoffeeGeek.
  • An Unboxing and Initial Thoughts page, including lots of photos and video.
  • A Product Design page that dives deep into the product’s design and function characteristics.
  • A Product Usability page, that gives real world evaluation of how usable and intuitive the product is.
  • A Product Testing page, that shows the tests we do and the results. Lots of tables.
  • A Product Comparison page, where we put the product head to head against competing products.
  • A Product Conclusion and Scoring Page, which again will contain vendor info and where to buy.
 

I’m not going to lie; I fear these, to this day. But it’s also some of the content I’m most proud of from CoffeeGeek’s history. And you, our readers, deserve them. They aren’t five minute YouTube evaluations. These are the real deal.

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