Espresso Enthusiasts

[Apple fanboy]

I have half a mind to hand out a thread ban to @Apple fanboy due to the use of the "i" word. He knows its not allowed here and did it anyway therefore he must be trolling us.

Now, now there's no need for all that.
You know your my favourite Mod!

(I think I got away with it @Shrink after your excellent example of being a coffee nose!).

 

[AVBeatMan]

As of 30 seconds ago I am out of coffee!

This is not a problem for today as I don't drink any after 1800 but tomorrow? I'll have to put up with the OK (ish) stuff we have in the office, then I'll have to pop into my local supermarket for some......

 

[Scepticalscribe]

As of 30 seconds ago I am out of coffee!

This is not a problem for today as I don't drink any after 1800 but tomorrow? I'll have to put up with the OK (ish) stuff we have in the office, then I'll have to pop into my local supermarket for some......

Are there any half decent, small, local, roasters near where you are?

If so, might I suggest that this is where you might source some decent coffee.......

Or, failing that, a decent Italian coffee shop; such places often sell fairly good coffee.

I might suggest that citrus juice represents gustatory stimulation of sour taste bud receptors, while coffee can, under some circumstances, be bitter.

Well, I have come to the belated realisation that I a not really a massive fan of excessively bitter coffee.

Today, I enjoyed a late lunch with a colleague with who I have served abroad.

Excellent company, congenial surroundings - a late Georgian house over-looking the river, lovely food, and concluded with a fiercely strong espresso, actually, a fiercely strong espresso macchiato. (Yes, sugar was called for).

 

[Shrink]

Now, now there's no need for all that.
You know your my favourite Mod!

(I think I got away with it @Shrink after your excellent example of being a coffee nose!).

(Ssshhh! I think @SandboxGeneral will buy it.)

He's so temperate, evenhanded and fair in the application of his immense power.😀

(***Kissy...kissy...nose turns even more brown***)

🙄

😵

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I have half a mind to hand out a thread ban to @Apple fanboy due to the use of the "i" word. He knows its not allowed here and did it anyway therefore he must be trolling us.

Yes, the 'i' word is one that we tend to treat with (deserved) disdain.

But then, my friends, fellow denizens of this august space, how do we present the path of caffeine delights that we walk in the most attractively seductive light possible?

Oooh!

Somebody is in big trouble.😱

Take care @Apple fanboy...our thread denizen @SandboxGeneral is a man of infinite power!😎

😛😵

But the secret of such power is 1) not to flaunt it, and 2) to use it wisely.

I try not to flaunt it too much. 😛

Wise man.

(Ssshhh! I think @SandboxGeneral will buy it.)

He's so temperate, evenhanded and fair in the application of his immense power.😀

(***Kissy...kissy...nose turns even more brown***)

🙄

😵

Well, that is one approach to power, one that tends to yield positive dividends.

 

[0388631]

I'm not at all sure how the word highlighted in the post above slipped past the MR Obscenity Filter.

Clearly a hanging is in order.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Clearly a hanging is in order.

Seems a little..........excessive, in the circumstances, not to mention somewhat operatic and over wrought.

Meanwhile, a mild reprimand followed by a forceful - ah, memorable - introduction to the delights of what may constitute real coffee - proper ground coffee from a good local source, preferably recently roasted - might serve our purposes better.

 

[0388631]

A joke. 🙂

I'm willing to knock instant as much as the next one, but it provides some semblance of coffee, no matter how remote that semblance is, when you're in the middle of nowhere. There's a German brand, I think the name was Jakub, decent stuff. Something I picked up at a convenience store many years ago while overseas.

On a trip to the UK in the mid 90s, I tried a coffee I believe named Kenco which was bloody awful, even for instant coffee. The only drinkable American instant I've come across is Yuban, made strong with milk and sugar. It doesn't taste like coffee at all, but it becomes a "dessert" at that point. Mind you there are some instant coffees that come close to the real thing but still fall short. The best regular coffee I've had at a hotel was in 2003. It was at a hotel in Seattle. Starbucks beans of course, what else? French roast, I believe. It was made rather well, so much so that I ordered a few more pots. A terrible choice caffeine wise, of course. It was brewed well, the beans were fresh, and it had a beautiful smooth finish without a burnt taste.

 

[S.B.G]

I'm on my second cup of the morning and its the Barrington Coffee Mezcal blend.

A gram makes a big difference. The first cup I used 19 grams of beans and while the taste was good, there was a discernable amount of bitterness to it. But not enough to make me pour it out, I still enjoyed it.

For the second cup I used 18 grams and that same level of bitterness is gone. The taste is wonderful, deep, rich with notes of chocolate.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I'm on my second cup of the morning and its the Barrington Coffee Mezcal blend.

A gram makes a big difference. The first cup I used 19 grams of beans and while the taste was good, there was a discernable amount of bitterness to it. But not enough to make me pour it out, I still enjoyed it.

For the second cup I used 18 grams and that same level of bitterness is gone. The taste is wonderful, deep, rich with notes of chocolate.

Chocolate? That is the taste (well, 'cocoa') that the substitute carer has said she really loves.

Now, for more blending experiments.........I shall have some fun contemplating what order one shall add beans to the grinder; more pressing still, is the question of what percentage - i.e. how much of each variety of coffee shall I use, and this, in turn, demands that the matter of ratio be taken into consideration.

 

[Shrink]

I'm on my second cup of the morning and its the Barrington Coffee Mezcal blend.

A gram makes a big difference. The first cup I used 19 grams of beans and while the taste was good, there was a discernable amount of bitterness to it. But not enough to make me pour it out, I still enjoyed it.

For the second cup I used 18 grams and that same level of bitterness is gone. The taste is wonderful, deep, rich with notes of chocolate.

It is quite remarkable what a big difference a very small dosage difference makes. When you think that 1Gram is roughly 8-10 coffee beans it is startling what a difference that can make.

Especially when you are making espresso and using a small dosage weight, a whole gram is a substantial percentage of your total weight. Even in making my press coffee, where my dosage is 40 grams, a full gram variance makes a difference there too. That's one reason I have a scale that has a 0.10 gram resolution.

It sounds like your new machine is appropriately dependent upon your skills which, when properly applied, the machine does it's job beautifully.

 

[S.B.G]

It is quite remarkable what a big difference a very small dosage difference makes. When you think that 1Gram is roughly 8-10 coffee beans it is startling what a difference that can make.

Especially when you are making espresso and using a small dosage weight, a whole gram is a substantial percentage of your total weight. Even in making my press coffee, where my dosage is 40 grams, a full gram variance makes a difference there too. That's one reason I have a scale that has a 0.10 gram resolution.

It sounds like your new machine is appropriately dependent upon your skills which, when properly applied, the machine does it's job beautifully.

Indeed I wasn't able to discern some of these tasting differences in previous machines as they all tasted somewhat bitter on differing levels.

Now that I can taste them, I'm able to make more informed micro-decisions on dosing and extraction time. It's quite fun to experiment this way and see what results very small changes make.

I still need to get a better scale and am really just waiting for my Latte Reward points from Whole Latte Love to be applied to my account from the Expobar purchase which I'll use for a scale and possibly other stuff. Apparently it takes up to 60 days from purchase before you get the points. :\

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Well, today's pot of coffee was comprised of approximately (I'm still on dessert spoons, - level, half a level dessertspoonful, not ever heaped, and percentages of a dessert spoon, not scales) two thirds Ethiopian beans, and two thirds of the remaining third was comprised of the Kenyan beans.

That left the Rwandan. So, roughly a third of a third - say, around 10% (11% for those who like their maths), was comprised of Rwandan beans. Now, this is more like it.

A lovely cup of coffee, clean, bright, smooth, slightly sweet, yet with just a bit of borrowed body from the more robust Africans.

 

[Shrink]

Well, today's pot of coffee was comprised of approximately (I'm still on dessert spoons, - level, half a level dessertspoonful, not ever heaped, and percentages of a dessert spoon, not scales) two thirds Ethiopian beans, and two thirds of the remaining third was comprised of the Kenyan beans.

That left the Rwandan. So, roughly a third of a third - say, around 10% (11% for those who like their maths), was comprised of Rwandan beans. Now, this is more like it.

A lovely cup of coffee, clean, bright, smooth, slightly sweet, yet with just a bit of borrowed body from the more robust Africans.

It sounds like you are having not only an enjoyable time doing the blending, but also a very successful time with your blends as your description of the flavor certainly sounds delightful.

I'll be doing some blending this morning, but simply because I have two different bean blends with not enough beans in any one blend to make up my requisite 40 grams. So I'll be blending the two Atomic Cafe blends... Black Velvet blend and Diesel blend for my late morning cup. I have done that before and it usually comes out pretty well.

Once I've used up those beans I can open the bags of recently delivered Atomic Cafe beans… a repeat of the Diesel blend and a first try at their French Roast blend.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Personally, I really liked today's blend - roughly two thirds Ethiopian, and two thirds of one third Kenyan, and the remainder the Rwandan, - it was smooth, slightly sweet, clean and bright - but the substitute carer (who thought it was lovely) still prefers the 'cocoa' flavour she had from a pot of pure Ethiopian beans (although, that, too, was a blend of two different types of Ethiopian beans).

 

[S.B.G]

Here is an interesting video on the differences between coffee and espresso.

 

[Shrink]

Here is an interesting video on the differences between coffee and espresso.

Interesting video...thanks @SandboxGeneral for putting it up.

I would agree that adding perhaps 5% Robusta beans to an Arabica will produce much more crema that is thick and long lasting, but I also agree that too much of these very low quality beans will mask the flavor of the Arabica beans with a nasty, burnt rubber flavor.

 

[Shrink]

I just finished my first cup of coffee and realized that there had been a topic of discussion absent from this thread... the names of the serving sizes of coffee.

For example, there is Starbucks. They have their phony baloney names for their cup sizes. Things like Venti, Shmenti, and Plenti. Total nonsense but far from the worst thing one has to cope with at Starbucks… there's always the coffee.

Then there are the names for sizes of espresso. Those with a desperate need to appear knowledgeable and Italian might refer to a particular size of a cup of espresso as doppio (you know who you are!). Of course, those without the self-esteem problems simply call it a double espresso.

Since I am no longer drinking espresso (one of life's hysterical little ironies) I am now drinking a big cup (10 ounces) of press coffee. Few but the cognoscenti, the true insiders, know that there are special names for this big cup.

It is called a Bih Gasse cup of coffee, or sometimes simply BFC.

I thought it my responsibility to share this insider information with all of those denizens of this thread who have a special interest in all things coffee.


😛🙄

 

[S.B.G]

Good morning,

I'm already on my secondo doppio espresso della mattina and its quite lovely. Both cups were of the Sweet Maria's blend and I messed up the first doppio but it turned out quite well. On the first one, I totally forgot to tare the scale and ended up just dumping two scoops into the grinder and instead of just wasting the coffee because I didn't weigh it, I just went with it. Two scoops, from the scooper generally speaking comes out to 18 grams, give or take a gram, so it was still within normal limits for me. In the end it tasted quite well.

Oh, was @Shrink saying something?

 

[Scepticalscribe]

'Double espresso' suits me fine.

Even in Italy, there will be little need to order a 'doppio'; several lovely, little single espressos, exquisitely severed, will usually suffice instead.....

Now, as to the other, no, I did not know that.

A Bih Gasse? Crikey.

And, as for the terminology of Starbucks, well, this is one language where I never troubled to try to acquire any degree of fluency.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

And, this morning, a mug of pure Ethiopian coffee beckoned. And - you know what?

It was just lovely.

 

[mobilehaathi]

Enjoying my newly roasted Ethiopian Agaro beans, yum. It is sweet and smooth with relatively low acidity. Quite delicious in fact!
[doublepost=1469630473][/doublepost]

'Double espresso' suits me fine.

Even in Italy, there will be little need to order a 'doppio'; several lovely, little single espressos, exquisitely severed, will usually suffice instead.....

Now, as to the other, no, I did not know that.

A Bih Gasse? Crikey.

And, as for the terminology of Starbucks, well, this is one language where I never troubled to try to acquire any degree of fluency.

I had read at some point that while pondering a store opening in Italy, Starbucks has had to rethink their menu names and sizes, etc. hehheh

 

[Scepticalscribe]

You know, in a the small (but really good) wine shop which I frequent, - I called in today, but - carrying a briefcase rather than a rucksack - bought nothing - I did see a tasting note (for a Californian reserve) which described the wine as possessing 'notes of pencil shavings'.

Pencil shavings? I was incredulous. "Oh, yes," my young friend confirmed, "Pencil shavings. Graphite. That is well known for those wines."

Nice to hear, @mobilehaathi, that the Ethiopian Agaro beans are 'smooth, sweet, and relatively low in acidity'. Sounds very much like my kind of coffee.

And that is a funny story about Starbucks having to rethink sizes and naming conventions when seeking to open cafés in Italy.

 

[mobilehaathi]

You know, in a the small (but really good) wine shop which I frequent, - I called in today, but - carrying a briefcase rather than a rucksack - bought nothing - I did see a tasting note (for a Californian reserve) which described the wine as possessing 'notes of pencil shavings'.

Pencil shavings? I was incredulous. "Oh, yes," my young friend confirmed, "Pencil shavings. Graphite. that is well known for those wines."

Nice to hear, @mobilehaathi, that the Ethiopian Agaro beans are 'smooth, sweet, and relatively low in acidity'. Sounds very much like my kind of coffee.

And that is a funny story about Starbucks having to rethink sizes and naming conventions when seeking to open cafés in Italy.

Ahh, pencil shavings, yes that's a common tasting note for Cabernet grown out here. Having tasted a few wines that have been described this way, it is sort of a woody (but to be distinguished from oak/vanilla) minerality that comes through once the wine has had some time to lay on its side.

Some people, quite seriously, write notes of 'cat pee' when considering the aroma of Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier.....

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Ahh, pencil shavings, yes that's a common tasting note for Cabernet grown out here. Having tasted a few wines that have been described this way, it is sort of a woody (but to be distinguished from oak/vanilla) minerality that comes through once the wine has had some time to lay on its side.

Some people, quite seriously, write notes of 'cat pee' when considering the aroma of Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier.....

Fascinating.

These were Californian reserves - carrying a wicked price - and, normally, my eye would have fallen elsewhere, but I was idling, waiting for my young friend to conclude a phone call. "Pencil shavings". Extraordinary.

Then, again, I have heard of 'petrol' used to describe Sauternes. Some Rieslings are said to come with a note of 'silage'.