Our Approach to Building Tools: A Note on Open Sourcing

Specialty coffee is passionate and rigorous, built on genuine expertise and care. But it's also become really good at making itself inaccessible.

The gatekeeping happens in layers. First, there's the knowledge barrier. Someone asks a question and gets back fifteen technical terms they don't understand. They leave thinking they're not smart enough to be part of this world.

Then there's the tools layer. Want to dial in espresso? You need a grinder that costs a fortune. Want to understand coffee? You need to know cupping notes written by specialists. Want to rest coffee properly? You need to understand CO2 degassing. Want to use coffee in cocktails? You need to understand flavor compounds well enough to know why it works.

Most people just want a good cup of coffee. Or a good coffee cocktail. They shouldn't have to be coffee scientists for that.

We built the Acid calculator because we discovered something: cordials made from coffee work in cocktails. But to make them work, you need to do a lot of math. Acids, fruit structures, calculations. We built a tool to handle it, and realized others might find it helpful. So we open sourced it.

The resting calculator came from a different problem. Every roaster is different. Their roast curves, degassing profiles, and timing are all roaster-specific. We compiled knowledge from roasters we trusted and compared it against peer-reviewed science on degassing. We built a model that combines real-world knowledge with actual data.

Both tools took significant time and effort. They represent real work. And we decided to put them out there for free.

In a traditional business model, these are proprietary advantage. We could charge for them. We could keep them as "secret sauce."

That's not what we want.

If we lock these tools up, we help only the people who can work with us directly. That's fine as a business. But it's not the problem we're trying to solve.

We want to change the assumption that coffee is too complicated. Cocktails are too complicated. When you combine them, people assume it's impossible unless you're an expert. The way to change that at scale isn't by keeping knowledge exclusive. It's by sharing it. It's by building tools that make the complicated accessible.

Let's be honest: this won't change the world. These tools are for a specific crowd: bartenders who care about coffee, coffee professionals who want to explore cocktails, and the curious people in between. It's niche. It's nerdy. That's fine.

We don't need a grandiose vision. We just want to help people who genuinely find this interesting. If you get excited about flavor compounds and the intersection of two worlds most people see as separate, maybe our tools save you time. Maybe they help you build something you're proud of. That's enough.

I don't want to be the coffee cocktail guy. I want to be known as someone who helped build community and got more people involved. I want bartenders and coffee professionals to have shared language and tools.

That only happens by building in public. Here's what we know, here's what we built, please use it and make it better. Please share what you learn. Please build on top of it.

Specialty coffee got where it is because people shared knowledge, not because anyone kept secrets. That's what we're trying to do here. Within the circle of people who care enough to use these calculators, there shouldn't be gatekeeping. These tools should exist and be free. That's more than enough.