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How your iPhone can help you find the best coffee

Geoffrey Goetz
GigaOm
  • Starbucks app lets users manage loyalty points
  • CoffeeHunter app has a collection of 7%2C000 independent coffee houses
  • Coffee Art app teachers users the art of making a perfect cup

Once you taste a good cup of coffee, you will most certainly want to find it again. Remembering your own favorite coffee recipe is hard enough, but try remembering it for someone else, or a whole group of people; forget it.

A Starbucks in Coral Gables, Fla.

Fortunately there are several apps that can help you manage your coffee addiction. Buying, browsing, or brewing, the following guide will help turn any iPad or iPhone into your own personal barista.

Buying coffee, one friend or two

Starbucks (Free, iPhone) With the Starbucks app, you can make payments and manage your loyalty points directly from within the app or using the iOS Passbook. You can even keep track of you and your friends' favorite recipes. One shortcoming of the app is that it does not manage the Starbucks Treat Receipt promotion, you still have to get a paper receipt in order to return to the store for a discounted cold drink later that day.

Dunkin' Donuts (Free, iPhone) Similar to Starbucks, the Dunkin Donuts app also turns your iPhone into a mobile payment device. Integrated with Passbook on iOS, you can pay for your coffee and donuts without pulling out your wallet. It also shares common features with the other coffee franchise buying apps like finding store locations, listing promotional offers, and sending gift cards to your friends. There is however no recipe management for favorite coffee or donuts.

TimmyMe (Free, Universal) Tim Hortons' app focuses more on the social aspects of a coffee run than making purchases directly from your iPhone. Called a TimmyRun, you can send an alert to your TimmyMe friends indicating that you are ready to head over to a local Tim Hortons to grab a cup of coffee. While you cannot use the app to make purchases directly from your iPhone, you can manage multiple Tim Cards transactions and view there balances.

Coffee Order ($0.99, iPhone) Not affiliated with any coffee shop directly, Coffee Order helps you manage all of the different coffee combinations for times when you are heading out to buy coffee for a group of your closest coffee loving friends. With over 5 million different coffee combinations, you will be hard pressed to find a coffee drink you cannot manage.

Browsing coffee, try something new

Coffee Guru ($1.99, iPhone) Every local coffee house cannot have a dedicated app or electronic loyalty card to manage transactions, but some of these coffee houses have the best coffee to offer. Fortunately Coffee Guru has a database of over 7,000 independent coffee houses to choose from. Awarding social reviews with badges, you can submit and read reviews from coffee lovers that have actually sampled a cup from across the U.S., U.K., Canada and Ireland.

Beanhunter (Free, iPhone) With more of a following in Australia and Asia, Beanhunter is another popular social coffee-house review app managing coffee houses located around the world. When you are traveling outside the range of Coffee Guru, you should defiantly give Beanhunter a try. You can read and write your own reviews as well as view and post your own images of your favorite coffee art.

New York's Best Coffee ($0.99, Universal) Focused on locating coffee houses in New York City, New York's Best Coffee manages a listing of local coffee houses that are frequented by the app development team themselves. By focusing on local flavors, more professional editorial reviews are offered up to patrons of the app. You can even use the app to see where certain coffee houses get their beans from, in case you want to try brewing a cup of your favorite brew at home. There is also an app by the same developer focusing on London.

Brewing coffee, the perfect cup

Barista ($2.99, iPhone) Featuring step by step instructions for making the most common espresso drinks, Barista will help you select, store and grind your beans to help maximize the best flavor possible. With a glossary of terms you can use to understand the art of espresso making, the instructional videos only complement this coffee learning app.

Intelligentsia Coffee (Free, iPhone) Listing current offerings from its online store, Intelligentsia Coffee can help you decide which particular roast is best for you. Offering up how-tos for different brewing techniques like cupping, pourover and chemex, Intelligentsia Coffee will help turn anyone into a coffee expert.

Coffee Art ($2.99, iPhone) Sometimes it is all about presentation. With movies that show off the art of pouring, etching and fudge art, this app will help turn just about anyone into a coffee artisan.

This story originally appeared on GigaOm.

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