Why Coffee Rings exists
Because espresso is a learning process with a terrible memory.
The real problem
Making espresso at home is not a single action. It is a sequence of small experiments.
You change the grind slightly. You adjust the dose. You stop the shot earlier or later. You taste, form an opinion, and move on.
A few days later, you try again, and most of what you learned is gone.
Not because you were careless, but because human memory is bad at storing multi-variable experiments, especially when those experiments happen before breakfast.
So people repeat the same adjustments, draw new conclusions from old mistakes, and slowly convince themselves that espresso is either random or unforgiving.
It is neither; it is simply undocumented.
Why advice usually falls short
Most espresso advice is technically correct and practically incomplete.
You hear advice like “Grind finer,” “Change one variable at a time,” or “Aim for a 1:2 ratio.”
All of this only works if it is connected to what you did last time.
Without context, advice becomes noise; without history, even good recommendations feel generic; without memory, learning resets to zero.
Forums, videos, and books help in their own ways, but none of them remember your last five shots.
What Coffee Rings deliberately does not do
Coffee Rings is intentionally limited.
It does not promise perfect espresso, automate taste, replace intuition or experience, or require accounts, subscriptions, or constant cloud access.
It does not tell you what to like.
Instead, it helps you remember what you did, why you did it, and what happened as a result.
That is the entire premise.
Who this app is for
Coffee Rings is for people who:
- Enjoy improving, not chasing one-click perfection
- Want repeatable results without overthinking every morning
- Care about understanding cause and effect
- Are curious enough to log a shot and reflect on it
It is not for people who:
- Want instant café-level results
- Never want to write anything down
- Prefer changing equipment over changing decisions
Both approaches are valid, and this app unapologetically serves just one of them.
The idea in one sentence
Coffee Rings exists to help you make better decisions tomorrow than you made today, not by forcing you to guess less but by helping you remember more.
