ROASTe Blogs

Chamie’s recent post about beautiful espresso machines got me thinking about what kinds of machines were out there if we just focused on looks.  

http://www.roaste.com/CoffeeBlogs/Chamie/Another-Pretty-Machine

One of the cooler ones I found was the space age looking Saeco Etienne Louis espresso machine.  I do  not think it is made any more, but I bet there is one out there lying about somewhere.  

Today morning, after rushing out of the door, I have done it again! Yes, just a week earlier, I leaved the Pavoni on acidently for an extended amount of time and today, I did that also. Thankfully, no damage was done, the Pavoni was just getting really hot when it time for me tod come home and realize what I have done. I really need to find a way to make sure this does not happen anymore in the future. Any way, what I want to update today is about the lever technique that I use with the Pavoni.

Did you know that green coffee beans are trading near their 16-year high?

 Here's all the gory details in a spreadsheet from the International Coffee Organization.

For instance, in 1998 a blended pound of green beans from around the world purchased on the spot market, containing both Arabica and Robusta, cost $1.08.95

In January 2012 the same blended pound costs $1.89

At least that's lower than the high in April 2011 of $2.31.

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A week and three days ago I sold my grinder expecting to receive its replacement shortly thereafter. Around the same time, unbeknownst to me, Baratza was in the middle of a shortage on the Vario I ordered two weeks prior. The vendor I ordered from has been great, but has had trouble getting an ETA from Baratza. He even let me borrow a grinder because he is so frustrated about the situation. The grinder he let me borrow, a Baratza Maestro Plus, is good, but is not capable of brewing espresso. Serendipitously, I ordered a Hario Skerton right before borrowing the Maestro, which worked out well because I currently don't have access to any brew methods besides espresso. I picked the Skerton because I read it was capable of grinding reasonably well for espresso and it was relatively cheap.

When I first started out my espresso journey, the first coffee that I tasted was a Starbucks brand ground coffee, that was advertised as X-tra bold and smooth. At that times, I thought it was pretty good and it has a certain coffee dry aroma that captivated me. Despite the evidently bitterness and lack of flavor dimension (that I didn’t know exist at that time), I convinced myself it was good.

Storing beans – also known as the poor man’s food saver.

My wife suggested this post because she has a skill that she is very proud of and she is quite good at it.  She is fantastic at vacuum packing things.  Now you may think that what that means is that she has a food saver and she uses it to vacuum pack food, but no that is not the case.  

We wanted to let everyone know that we have finally received our replacement coffee for Deep Cello Black Tie™ Decaf.  And it's really good news!  Start thinking about a genuine Ethiopia Sidamo Natural Process coffee water process decaf.   This is a new base for our Black Tie Decaf.  

It is perhaps the most aromatic decaf we’ve ever tasted.  It’s loaded with that unbeatable Ethiopean taste, body, and Sidamo quality.

It has been a long time since anything was posted, here.  Forgive me, please, faithful readers.  I missed several things worth writing back (like the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival and the new Kona Barista Jam) but I just couldn't make writing about them a priority.  In the last few months, I’ve been writing plenty, though.  If you’re interested in catching up on my words, you can read the Barista Magazine article, the Fresh Cup article, and The Honolulu Weekly article.  I’m also working on a much bigger writing project which has taken up a good chunk of my time.  As it gets closer to completion, I’ll share more information about it.  For now, let's talk cupping competitions.

I live very close to San Franciso just on the other side of bridge almost, and monthly I get 7x7 SF. It's a magazine just highlighting things happening in the city, and since San Francisco has a pretty vibrant coffee scene they tend to have a an article or two about coffee in every issue and the current one was no different.

Roaste.com strikes again with exceptional customer service.

I like blogging about great customer service because it is so rare and makes you feel so good when you get it, and it usually happens exactly when things are not going well and boost is such a refreshing change.  

I have heard that Roaste.com has exceptional customer service and seen a few blog posts about it and posts about it on message boards, but I confess that in some sense before today I had never seen it myself.

For the longest time I remained ignorant of quality coffee found beyond the espresso world. This was my own doing, I had shunned it all because of so many bad experiences at the hands of others. Well, one day at work I asked a barista for my morning cortado. She told me that the espresso was not pulling very well this morning and suggested something else or said I could still have the cortado. I decided to listen to the pro and said make me whatever you feel like.

The "Funky Town" Demo from Presso on Vimeo.

Pretty machines are a weakness of mine, and this one is one pretty machine. I don't know how I've missed seeing the Presso up till now, but I made up for my oversight this morning by checking out as many Presso videos as I could find.

Ahh the morning paper and cup of coffee nothing quite goes together like those two, and to be honest I am surprised at how often coffee turns up in the morning paper these day. Just today I found this on the front page of the Personal Journal section in the WSJ: "The Hot Blonde in the Coffee Shop: A Lighter Roast."

More musings on playing with coffee.  Life has been quite busy, so I have not gotten to play with the T1 ever the way I would like. Pulling shots is really fun for me and I would love to pull shots until I get bored of doing so, experimenting with temperatures, doses, steaming techniques, etc.  Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately because I do love playing with coffee this would require at least several hours in a row before I would want a break and there never seems to be a 3 hour stretch where I can do that.

About three weeks back I posted about ordering the Mypressi Twist V2. I’ve used it for about two and a half of those weeks and wanted to give some preliminary opinions about it.

I read an interesting blog yesterday that has been mulling over in my head for a day now and it just won't escape. It was this Blog about Brew Methods at Jimseven; http://www.jimseven.com/2012/01/28/discussing-brew-methods/

I would suggest giving it a good read, as there is a lot of information there to chew over especially for those like myself that are not totally engaged in coffee at all moments of the day.

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What I am drinking now – Deep Cello Bossa

I ordered some Deep Cello coffee for the first time recently.  I pulled the shots starting earlier than I normally would to since some  coffees mature earlier than others and I quickly got shots that I liked and showed potential, but not shots right off the bat that I loved.  

As I have mentioned in a few past blog posts, I am currently in the middle of an upgrade and this has left me grinderless. I sold my old grinder far more quickly than I expected and am still waiting on the replacement to arrive. At the same time, I just got a new espresso machine. So, for the past week or so, I have had the best espresso machine I could want and no grinder to use it! This means, I have not really been drinking coffee for the past week. The lack of freshly ground coffee has really put my coffee drinking habits into perspective.

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