Coffee Journal vs Blooming Grounds
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Coffee Journal
Log your coffee beans, track brewing parameters, and discover new recipes with AI assistance. This app helps you organize your coffee journey, from bean origin to tasting notes, and even generate recipes from web links.
- AI-powered coffee bean logging
- Track grind settings and resting time
- Organize beans with multiple views
- Generate recipes from web links
- Explore recipes from top baristas
- Chat with a coffee expert AI
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BeanBook is a free coffee app for specialty coffee lovers. Keep a coffee journal, organize your beans with a coffee tracker, explore coffee recipes, and follow the coffee world in the Coffee Feed. Remember what made each cup great. Save your photos, tasting notes, grind settings and brewing details together, from your morning pour-over to a memorable café visit. YOUR COFFEE LIBRARY - Beans, Brews, Recipes and Gear live in one library, a swipe apart. - One + button adds a bag, brew, recipe or gear from any page. - View, sort and filter each page from one menu next to search. - Open My Coffee Wrapped, your coffee year, in one tap (Pro). THE COFFEE FEED - Read facts and real voices from the coffee community on new beans and gear, daily, each with its sources, quotes and key notes. - See what coffee people are arguing about in Hot takes, and vote in the Daily Poll. - Catch new coffee drops and deals from roasters in your region. - Save stories to read later. YOUR COFFEE JOURNAL - Record home brews and café visits with photos, notes and ratings. - Track dose, ratio, grind, water temperature and brew time. - Log the water and mineral drops you brewed with. - Send Brew Calculator's ratio, water and pours straight into a Brew Log. - Attach beans, Gear and recipes to each Brew Log. - Save a setup as a template (gear, recipe, numbers and steps) and start your next brews from it (Pro). - Customize sections and backgrounds to make the journal your own. - Changes save as you edit. - Revisit your cups in list or grid view, see every brew on a check-in calendar and every café on a map. YOUR COFFEE TRACKER - Scan coffee bags with AI to fill in the roaster, origin, process and tasting notes. - Track roast dates, resting time and how each bag is aging. - Pause the roast clock while a bag is frozen. - See how much coffee is left in each bag as you brew. - Match your beans to jars with numbered or custom container labels. - Remember your favorite coffees and keep a history of finished bags. EXPLORE COFFEE RECIPES - Discover brewing methods and save your own coffee recipes. - Keep dose, ratio, grind settings and temperature ready for your next brew. - Start a Brew Log from a saved recipe. - Calculate water amounts for two to five pours with Brew Calculator. - Follow your brew with the built-in timer. Find recipes for Hario V60, AeroPress, Hario Switch, OXO Rapid Brewer, V60 NEO, NextLevel Pulsar, Deep27, Origami, Orea, Chemex, French Press and Cezve. Explore recipes from coffee professionals including James Hoffmann, Tetsu Kasuya, Lance Hedrick, Scott Rao, The Coffee Chronicler, April Coffee Roasters and World Brewers Cup champions. YOUR COFFEE GEAR - Organize grinders, brewers, kettles and scales with photos, notes and ratings. - Save grinder settings for the coffees you brew. - Find related Brew Logs on bean and Gear pages. - Keep a wish list for your next setup. BEANBOOK AI - Scan bags to spend less time entering coffee details. - Ask about origins, processing, flavor notes and brewing techniques. - Get suggestions for grind size, temperature, resting time and extraction. FREE TO START BeanBook is a free coffee app with optional Pro features. Keep up to 10 fully unlocked Brew Logs on the free plan, plus unlimited basic logs with photos, notes, beans, locations and overall ratings. BeanBook Pro unlocks unlimited beans, recipes and Gear, plus advanced Brew Log features beyond the free allowance. Brew, taste, remember. Keep your coffee journey in BeanBook. Terms of Service: https://beanbook.app/terms-of-service Privacy Policy: https://beanbook.app/policy
Blooming Grounds
This app helps coffee enthusiasts meticulously track their coffee beans and brew pour-over coffee with precision. It offers on-device AI for personalized brew guides and tasting notes, with data synced via iCloud across Apple devices.
- Log and organize coffee bean collection
- Guided pour-over brew sessions
- On-device AI for brew guides and tasting notes
- iCloud sync across Apple devices
- Live Activity and Dynamic Island integration
- Siri and Shortcuts integration
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Blooming Grounds — Coffee Bean Tracker Track every bean. Brew every cup with intention. Blooming Grounds is the pour-over companion built for coffee enthusiasts who care about what's in their cup. Log your beans, dial in your ratios, and let on-device AI help you get the most out of every roast — no account required, no third-party data sharing, ever. Brew Sessions Start a guided pour-over session from any bean. Blooming Grounds walks you through bloom, pouring, and drawdown phases with a live timer and water amounts tailored to your bean's ratio and coffee weight. Track your brew from the Lock Screen via Live Activity, at a glance from the Dynamic Island, or on your Apple Watch — which receives your session automatically and provides haptic feedback at each phase transition. Your Collection, Everywhere. Your bean collection syncs automatically across all your Apple devices through iCloud. Add a bean on your iPhone, brew with it on your iPad. Your data lives in your iCloud account — owned by you, protected by Apple. Now on iPad. Blooming Grounds features a native multi-column layout on iPad. Browse your collection in the sidebar, run the calculator in the center, and get AI-generated tasting notes and brew guides — all visible at once. Smarter On-Device AI. Tasting note suggestions, personalized brew guides, and bean recommendations are powered by Apple's FoundationModels framework. Brew guides are saved to each bean and automatically regenerate when you adjust your ratio or coffee amount. Your prompts and responses are processed entirely on your device and never transmitted to an external server. Siri and Shortcuts, Built In. Ask Siri to add a bean, calculate your pour over ratio, find your top-rated coffees, or open a specific bean — all without opening the app. Blooming Grounds is built on App Intents, which means every core action is available in Shortcuts, Spotlight, and the Action button. Core Features Log and organize your coffee bean collection with roast type, tasting notes, pour over ratio, and a personal rating. Each bean stores its own coffee weight, so switching between beans remembers your preferred dose. The built-in calculator gives you precise water measurements for any coffee weight and ratio. On-device AI suggests tasting notes and generates step-by-step brew guides tailored to each bean's roast level. Privacy. Your personal coffee data is stored in your own iCloud account and never sold or shared with third parties. AI features run entirely on-device. Blooming Grounds collects anonymous usage analytics to help improve the app — no personal information is included.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Blooming Grounds at none against Coffee Journal's 4. Blooming Grounds also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 91%). Coffee Journal's advantage is ratings volume (30 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 26.0). On price, rating, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Coffee Journal sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $7.90 per month. Blooming Grounds asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Coffee Journal against 5.0 for Blooming Grounds. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Coffee Journal has 30 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 91% of Coffee Journal's written reviews are positive against 100% of Blooming Grounds's.
Coffee Journal ships an update every 5 days, Blooming Grounds every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Coffee Journal | Blooming Grounds |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (30 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 90.9% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 30 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 103 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bitlever, LLC | Ryan Lindsey |
Customer experience
Coffee Journal
Blooming Grounds
In-app purchases
Coffee Journal
- BeanBook Pro Monthly$7.901 Month
- BeanBook Pro1 Month trial$35.901 Year
- BeanBook Pro1 Month trial$49.901 Year
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- BeanBook Pro1 Year trial$49.901 Year
Blooming Grounds
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Coffee Journal free?
Is Blooming Grounds free?
Which has better reviews, Coffee Journal or Blooming Grounds?
Do Coffee Journal or Blooming Grounds have ads?
Which is updated more often, Coffee Journal or Blooming Grounds?
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