I've really enjoyed the discussion going on after this post. One comment that stuck in my mind was Aldo's Fazenda Kaquend COE Vs Maxwell House experiment. It definitely affected some decisions I made when I was choosing coffees to take with me to a public cupping I did in East London as part of a charity fund raiser.
I knew I would have two separate groups, of between 10 and 20 people each time. I had agreed to do a cupping, rather than a tasting of brewed coffee (which I would prefer to do with the general public usually), because they were paying for a bit more of an experience.
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These last few days have been a pleasant, but steep learning curve. I know I've muttered about pressure profiling from time to time, but I hadn't really played with a lever machine properly until Gwilym's WBC prize arrived.
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Footnotes:
Posted in Espresso | Tagged arduino, brew pressure, brewing, Coffee, crema, Espresso, gwilym, learning, lever, naked portafilters, pressure profiling, vintage |
This is something of a summary of the short talk I gave at the Allegra Strategies UK Coffee Leader Summit a week or so ago. Please also bear in mind that this talk was directed at the UK market specifically so won't necessarily hold true for other national coffee cultures.
For me this talk was a moment of crystalisation about how I feel about coffee right now, and what I want to focus a lot of my energy on. I had initially planned to talk about how quality focused businesses were doing well right now, but in the process of writing the talk that seemed to shift. I should add a final caveat to this by saying that I do love making and drinking espresso.
My talk was titled "How the coffee industry lost the public's trust, and how good coffee can win it back again."
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Posted in Opinion | Tagged article, Barista, brewing, Coffee, consumer, drinks, economy, Espresso, history, innovation, italy, london, marketing, pricing, quality, tradition, trust |
I feel it is about time I broached this subject. With an eye to the last posts, as well as to the response to my Chemex videocast, I feel the need to make something very clear.
The internet is full of information, though it is also full of keyboard heroes, and has something of an issue with its signal to noise ratio. Identifying who is a useful purveyor of information is tricky and, while there is growing use of indicators in forums, often it is he who shouts loudest that wins.
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Posted in Opinion | Tagged blog, blogging, brewing, chemex, coffee blogs, Opinion, rant, right, science, technique, wrong |
I had a brief moment to dig into a couple of books and was pleased to come across the following passage in Coffee: Recent Developments 
that was very kindly sent to me by Jim Schulman.
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Not too long ago I posted on Home Barista about trying to find a good way to measure the density of coffee beans.
As always the paricipants there were way smarter than me and offered several interesting options. I dropped into the thread that this was part of my idea of a grand unified theory of espresso, and subsequently a few people mailed and pm'd me asking what on earth I was talking about and what density had to do with it.
Well, I should probably explain what I have been thinking.
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Footnotes:
Posted in Coffee, Espresso, Food Chemistry, Green Coffee, Opinion, Roasting | Tagged Barista, blending, brewing, Coffee, cupping, drinks, Espresso, experiments |
I should probably try and post some vague approximations of all the craziness, stress, surprise and good times that was the WBC this year.
So - Gwilym's performance: I am sure pretty much everyone has worked out that we didn't go to this competition with the main goal of winning. The idea this year was the same as the idea last year, and the year before that: give an interesting performance that one could are proud of.
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Posted in Barista Competition, Coffee | Tagged anette, atlanta, awesome, Barista Competition, Coffee, competition, Espresso, grinders, gwilym, Latte Art, usa, wbc |
When we started Square Mile our goals were fairly traditional for a startup roastery. After the last Nordic Barista Cup that changed. We had the chance to hang out with (the now newlywed) Chris and M'lissa Owens. As anyone who has met them can attest - they are astoundingly wonderful people.
We had a new goal - to be the kind of company that they would want to come and work for, and to be big enough to sustain them. This is a much healthier goal for a new company and we worked very hard to achieve that.
Chris and M'lissa (unbelievably) wanted to come to London to work with us and that was incredibly exciting. We, foolishly, got excited and told people about this. However one final hurdle stood in the way - the UK visa process.
The UK visa process has changed this year and try and try as we did we couldn't overcome the challenge. We, with great sadness, couldn't get them over to work legally for any length of time and so disappeared an incredible opportunity to work with some of the most talented, inspiring and undeniably wonderful people we've met.
We're gutted. No other words for it.
Usually I wouldn't post about this kind of thing on here. However, with SCAA/WBC coming up I am sure a few people are going to be asking them about London and I am sure it isn't something they are wanting to talk a great deal about - not for any secretive reason, it just makes us all quite sad.
I can't wait to see them and hang out in the next few days, and it was lovely to find out Gwilym's barista buddy was Chris. As you've probably gathered we think the world of Chris and M'lissa and are sure they have an amazing coffee career ahead of them. We just wish we could have shared some of it with them.
Read this post by Ben Helfen for some good local info.
