Those are the topics of my two most recent articles. First, the coffee. I spoke with Peter Giuliano of the Specialty Coffee Association about making better coffee at home:

“In our research we’ve been quantifying how much different interventions affect the quality of the beverage,” he says. “What’s really clear is that the biggest impact is the coffee itself. There’s nothing that you can do that will have as big an effect as the quality of the coffee in the first place.”

Then at Slate, I look into the current state of the science on smoking, vaping, and COVID-19:

Are smokers and vapers more likely to die of COVID-19? To judge by news coverage of the topic, the answer is an unequivocal yes. The New York Times, Wired, CNN, Bloomberg, and numerous other publications have run stories warning that smokers and vapers are at higher risk. Anti-tobacco groups are using the pandemic as an opportunity to push for new restrictions on nicotine, ranging from bans on vapor products to the complete prohibition of cigarettes. At least one senator, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, is citing the disease as justification for a national ban on flavored e-cigarettes, while House Democrats are urging the FDA to temporarily ban e-cigarettes entirely. Amid all this alarm, one complication has received relatively little notice: Emerging evidence on the risk factors for COVID-19 is ambiguous with regard to smoking and virtually nonexistent for its relationship to vaping.

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