Bonus Episode: The Christmas Gift Guide 2025
Struggling to choose a Christmas gift for the coffee lover in your life? In this festive bonus episode, I share my top ideas for 2025 from brewing gear worth the money to flavourful gift sets that help your giftee explore the wide world of coffee.
We’ll also cover the best time to buy beans so they taste great on Christmas morning plus key tips on how to buy coffee for someone else to ensure your coffee gift will truly be appreciated.
And in this week’s FACQ I have a thoughtful solution to the knotty question of what to get for the coffee lover who has everything? And of course I have to mention my puzzle book, Wordsearch for the Coffee Curious - the perfect stocking filler for anyone who loves coffee and a good brain teaser.
Whether you’re buying for a friend, a family member or quietly building your own wish list this episode will help you gift with confidence.
Buy my puzzle book ‘Wordsearch For The Coffee Curious’ on Amazon:
amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.nl, amazon.pl, amazon.se, amazon.co.jp, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.com.br
Making coffee breaks better, one wordsearch at a time!
For more gift ideas listen to these episodes:
Coffee Gifts Worth Spending Money On
Taking The Stress Out Of Gifting Coffee
Other gift ideas mentioned:
1zpresso hand burr coffee grinder https://1zpresso.coffee
Dualit electric burr coffee grinder https://www.dualit.com/products/ccg3-burr-coffee-grinder
Hario Switch brewer https://www.hario.co.uk/collections/hario-v60-immersion-drippers
Get in touch!
Please note that although I read all texts, I don’t have the facility to reply to them, but you can also get in touch via Instagram and email.
Email: thecoffeedrinkersguide@gmail.com
Instagram: @thecoffeedrinkersguide
Lusona Publishing and Media Limited website: https://www.lusonapub.co.uk
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Hello and welcome to The Coffee Drinker’s Guide, a podcast for the coffee curious where I explore and explain the world of specialty coffee to make your daily coffee better and more satisfying.
I’m Angela Holder a coffee roaster and writer on a mission to fight back against bad coffee by giving you the knowledge you need to help you get good coffee and a happier (coffee) life in coffee-break sized episodes. So grab your coffee, pull up a chair and take a break…
In this special bonus episode I am back with some suggestions on what to buy a coffee loving friend or relative for Christmas this year …and later I have a suggestion in answer to the knotty question of what to give the coffee lover who has everything, so stay tuned for that…
By far the most popular episode of the show to date has been the one on Coffee Gifts Worth Spending Money On. Clearly this was an episode that resonated with people, especially as there is so much coffee related stuff out there to choose from. So as we begin this year’s gift buying season here are my Christmas 2025 ideas to help you navigate your way to a coffee gift that will be truly appreciated - or one that you can put on someone else’s list for yourself …
So firstly coffee gifts and the brew
It’s a lovely idea to buy the coffee lover in your life a new piece of brewing kit - especially if it’s at the pricey end of the gift giving spectrum - but the sheer range of brewing methods and kit available at all price points can be daunting to choose from. This is where some sneaky research into your giftee’s coffee life will pay dividends and will gain you many brownie points. If someone has been into coffee for a while they are honestly likely to have everything they need - in which case I point you to my next segment on The Taste. But one thing that they may not have and would appreciate is a good burr grinder. It is something that people can get by without but having one really will elevate their coffee experience. Affordable options are the 1zpresso hand grinder or the Dualit electric burr grinder. Something that I have been using this year and have very much enjoyed brewing with is a brewer called a Hario Switch. It is an almost foolproof brewing method that consistently results in a good coffee. It looks like a filter cone, works like a cafetière and produces clean tasting, well brewed coffee. What’s not to love? And, for the record, none of the brands mentioned have sponsored any part of this episode - they are simply things that I have used and like. For more gift ideas that are worth spending your hard earned cash on - and others that are definitely not! - listen to my episodes on ‘Coffee Gifts Worth Spending Money On’ and ‘Taking The Stress Out Of Gifting Coffee’. I will put the links to both episodes in the show notes and I highly recommend listening to both before you open the laptop and get the credit card out!
Next coffee gifts and the taste
Giving - or receiving - a gift that helps you to explore flavours in coffee is always a winner. To that end, instead of one bag of a super expensive coffee how about buying three small bags that would help your giftee experience the wide range of flavours available in coffee. At the entry level for a new coffee enthusiast this would be coffees from different coffee growing countries or origins, the classic combo being Africa, South America and Southeast Asia - such as Kenya, Brasil and Indonesia. For someone who has been into coffee for a while they’d probably appreciate a combo of less well known origins such as Tanzania, Peru and China; while your super-enthusiast is more likely to be excited by a set that showcases coffee varieties or green coffee processing methods. Thankfully this is a deep, and extremely interesting, rabbit hole that you could fling yourself down for quite a while, so that could be this particular giftee’s Christmas sorted for years to come!
Finally coffee gifts and the bean
If you have listened to the show for a while you will know that to experience the best flavours in coffee it should be freshly roasted and freshly ground for brewing - so the knotty question is, when is the best time to buy coffee beans as a gift to have them taste great on Christmas morning? Early to mid December is a good time to buy coffee from a specialty roaster. Roasters will be busy, so their stock is going to be fresh and the coffee should be at its prime on Christmas Day, having rested after roasting. Buy whole beans from the beginning of December but leave buying ground coffee until as close to the day as you dare since coffee stales faster when it is ground. If you are buying coffee as a gift its useful to know what style of coffee the recipient likes, how they brew their coffee and whether they have a grinder. It’s a real stumper to have gone to the trouble of selecting a great coffee only to not know whether the beans should be whole or ground, which the server will ask you - and if ground, ground for what method? Not knowing the answers to those two simple questions can derail the whole idea, so be prepared!
And now its time for a Frequently Asked Coffee Question…
And this episode’s question is…
What should you buy for the coffee lover who has everything?
If the person you are buying for really does have everything, many specialty roasters offer coffee subscriptions. So you could buy them a subscription from their favourite roaster, a gift that will keep on giving well into the New Year!
And now for a shameless plug, if they also love puzzle books they will love my puzzle book ‘Wordsearch for the Coffee Curious’, which makes the perfect stocking filler! It has 26 wordsearch puzzles entirely focused on coffee brewing, tasting and the bean. Each puzzle has a little snippet of coffee information, so as well as immersing yourself in the language of coffee you find out some fun coffee stuff too. It’s available to buy on Amazon now and I will put the link in the show notes.
But if you happen to be in London you can now buy copies at the Saint Espresso cafe and roastery at Here East in the Olympic Park near Hackney Wick and Stratford, just around the corner from the new V&A Storehouse that opened earlier this year.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coffee Drinker’s Guide and that was my Christmas gift guide for 2025. I hope that this has helped you if you were stumped for gift ideas. If you are a regular listener you will know that the show has been on a break since the summer - but - drumroll please! - I will be back with new episodes early next year so be sure to hit follow so that you don’t miss them, if you haven’t already. For a final - and free - gift idea, if you have a coffee friend who you think would find this interesting you could give them the gift of a podcast by telling them about the show. And as ever it really helps the show to grow if you would rate and review this podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts to help other coffee curious people find the show too. As always, you can get in touch @thecoffeedrinkersguide, email me at thecoffeedrinkersguide@gmail.com or leave me a text message using the link in the show notes. Thanks to my executive producer Viel Richardson at Lusona Publishing and Media Limited. You can find him at lusonapub.co.uk. Until next time I’m Angela Holder thanks for taking your coffee break with me - the best way to tackle life is one coffee at a time and here’s to better coffee!
The Coffee Drinker’s Guide is a Blue Sky Coffee Project