Full Width 
Shortcuts 
Sign Up 
Log In 
Articles 
Reading List More from Maps Mania
Aside from maps, I would say my next biggest obsession is coffee. For the last couple of months, my favourite bean, Finca La Bolsa, has been out of season and unavailable from my local roasters. I've therefore been using the opportunity to experiment with beans from different regions, different taste profiles and different processing methods. For some reason, it has only just dawned on me that there might be some coffee maps I can use to help me discover new beans to add to my coffee repertoire. Map of Coffee Origins & Flavors Lightyear Coffee has produced a number of data visualizations based on data collected from coffee roasters. These include a Map of Coffee Origins & Flavors, which shows the dominant flavour notes associated with beans from different countries. Using the map, you can select an individual country to explore the dominant tasting notes found in its coffee beans, or choose a particular flavour note to discover which countries produce coffees associated with that taste. Multiple Origin Multiple Origin is a personal project by Ahmad Merii that maps the information found on coffee bean packaging. The result is a world map of 318 specialty coffees from Merii's own collection, purchased and consumed between 2018 and 2026. The coffees are categorized by country and region of origin, variety, processing method, altitude, roast date, tasting notes and weight. Using the map, you can search for and filter coffees by roaster, processing method, variety and altitude. You can also explore a gallery of scanned coffee bags, with additional details available for each coffee. BeanMap BeanMap is a free, open-source atlas of specialty coffee that starts with an interactive 3D globe. It currently maps 55 coffee origins across 41 countries, with each origin accompanied by information about its altitude, processing method, harvest season and flavour profile. You can filter the map by region or flavour, or approach the data from the other direction using an interactive SCA flavour wheel. Click on a flavour such as jasmine or blackcurrant and the map filters down to coffees associated with that taste.
More in cartography
In a recent post on Attila Bátorfy's Cabinet of Infographic Curiosities, he highlighted the Czech-born geographer and statistician Anton Leo Hickmann and his early contributions to data visualization. Hickmann’s most influential work, the Geographisch-statistischer Universal-Taschen-Atlas, was published in 1894. You can view it from the Austrian National Library. it’s full of interesting charts and maps but what got my attention was this diagram. I’ve posted before about comparative mountain heights. There’s even a post on the David Rumsey Map Collection showing many different examples of these but this one is new to me. Note that I stitched two atlas pages together to make the image above. The title translated from German is “Idealized view of the most significant highs and lows“. This graphic has two layers, the top one for mountain heights sitting over a layer of sea and ocean depths. The top panel shows Europe in the foreground and from left to right Africa, Asia, South America New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii. Mount Saint Elias (straddling the U.S. and Canada) is the only North America peak shown*, Denali must have been unknown to Hickmann. Here’s a detail with the Balkans in front and Amerika (mostly south and central) in the background. The second layer has the ocean depths with major seas layered on top of them, a clever way of showing many bodies of water in the same illustration. A second grouping underneath mirrors the top ones with a focus on the Alps atop the Mediterranean Sea and its affiliated bodies of water. Here’s a detail from the third and fourth panels with the Mediterranean and Ligurian Seas on the bottom, Bern on the foreground and some of the high peaks of the Alps in the background. *Not counting Hawaii as North America. Also Mt Hooker is a name that appears in many places but none of them are close to 4185 meters. For a deep dive into the rest of Hickmann’s atlas see Atilla’s post.
Adding a hillshade terrain to your basemap can give the map reader incredible amounts of information about the surface of the earth. But it’s also a mechanism for adding visual charm and interest to a map! With emotional resonance and technical merit bound up together in such a way, how can you possibly resist that …
As I often mock the AI-slop maps that I see on X (“Twitter”), my account has apparently responded by sending even more garbage my way. One example recently caught my attention as perhaps the worst map that I had ever seen. Then, several days later, I encountered something even worse. The first map, from the […] The post Is This the Worst Map in Current Circulation? No, It Is This One! appeared first on GeoCurrents.
I would like to direct my readers’ attention to a new Substack publication by Pete Morris called Terra Cognita. Pete is a frequent GeoCurrents commentor and an insightful geographer. His introductory article in Terra Cognita is an excellent overview of the recent history of academic geography in the United States. And as can be seen […] The post Recommending Terra Cognita, a New Geographical Substack Publication appeared first on GeoCurrents.
