Sara Donovan

Founder and Coffee Writer, My Coffee Source

Sara Donovan started drinking coffee seriously in her mid-twenties when a poorly calibrated espresso machine and a bag of single-origin Ethiopian beans sent her down a rabbit hole she has never quite climbed out of. My Coffee Source is the result of roughly a decade of reading, brewing, arguing about grind size, and spending considerably more money on coffee equipment than any rational person would defend.

She built the site because most coffee content online falls into two camps. Either it is written for people who already know everything and are mainly looking for confirmation of their existing preferences, or it is written for people who want to be told what to buy without being told why. Sara writes for the gap between those two audiences: people who are genuinely curious about coffee, want to understand what they are doing and why it matters, and are prepared to read something longer than a listicle to find out.

How she approaches coffee

Sara’s primary interest is in the relationship between process and result. Why does water temperature affect extraction in the way it does. What grind size actually means for different brewing methods and why the same beans behave differently in a cafetiere versus a V60. Why some single-origin coffees taste dramatically better as filter than as espresso, and what that tells you about the bean’s character.

She is not a coffee snob in the sense of dismissing anything that does not cost a significant amount of money. Some of the best cups she has made have come from supermarket beans on a mid-range grinder. Some of the worst have come from expensive equipment used badly. The variable that matters most, in her experience, is understanding what you are doing rather than what you are spending.

What she covers

Coffee Gear Reviews covers equipment at every price point, assessed against what the buyer actually needs rather than what would impress another enthusiast. A budget grinder that produces consistent results for filter brewing is reviewed on those terms, not penalised for not being a commercial-grade burr grinder.

Coffee Bean Origins covers the geography, processing methods, and flavour profiles of beans from different producing regions. This is the area Sara finds most interesting, because it connects the cup to something real: specific farms, specific climates, specific decisions made by producers that determine what ends up in your bag.

Brewing Methods covers technique in depth. The difference between bloom time in pour-over and why it matters. How pressure affects espresso extraction and what that means when something goes wrong. Why cold brew and iced coffee are not the same thing and which is worth making at home.

Coffee Culture covers the broader world of coffee: the history of specific drinks and brewing traditions, how coffee culture differs between countries, the economics of specialty coffee, and the people and places that shape how we drink.

Coffee Recipes covers drinks you can make at home, written with the same attention to technique and reasoning that applies to everything else on the site.

Background

Sara studied food science before spending several years in food and drink journalism. That background shapes how she reads research about coffee and how sceptical she is of claims that cannot be traced to a reliable source. She has completed a Speciality Coffee Association Brewing Foundation course and holds a barista qualification, though she would be the first to tell you that professional qualifications and a good home setup are very different things.

She lives in Edinburgh, drinks too much coffee, and owns more brewing equipment than her kitchen can reasonably accommodate.