As I mentioned in a previous post – I get asked this question quite a lot. So for the month of January I logged every cup of coffee I drank, using a splendid website called Daytum.
So – how many coffees? In January I drank 126 cups, so on average a daily consumption of 4.1
Below is a quick breakdown of my consumption, as well as an explanation of what was logged, and what wasn’t.
Footnotes:You may well have seen these videos – but just in case I thought I’d post a few up that I’ve enjoyed recently:
First up a fun video from the Norwegian crew who came to visit London and did the whole Disloyalty Card in a day. Epic, heroic quantities of caffeine consumed! Quite how they managed to cup with us halfway through the day remains a mystery. I’m almost jealous of their coffee constitutions: (more…)
At the London Gastronomy Seminars I was given a Mypressi Twist to play with by the UK distributor. I had been toying with buying one having seen the hype online, so this was a rather pleasant surprise.
I didn’t really get a chance to play with it til yesterday afternoon. I’ve played with it some more today and this is just a quick summary of my thoughts and what I think is particularly interesting about it.
First off – it makes pretty good espresso. I know I am hardly the first person to make this observation, but I think everyone who tries it is pleasantly surprised. I think with a few adjustments to technique then you can get something better than any espresso machine in its price bracket, or up to two or three times its price. If you like milk drinks though – then this may not appeal to you. (more…)
This evening I had a lot of fun presenting at the London Gastronomy Seminars. The topic was flavour in wine and coffee, and I was up after Jamie Goode, which is a hard act to follow! Our topic was “Flavour – from plant to cup”
Jamie’s presentation was full of information and topics that could have become a presentation in their own right. Talking to him before, and thinking about what he said during, I suspect I am going to get sucked into flavour perception all over again. Not so much the mechanics of taste reception and gustation – but more what our brains choose to do with this information. Perception rather than detection.
I should also add that the wine Jamie used for his talk was fascinating. The best description I could have was it was like tasting a natural process, having only drunk washed coffees. Jamie’s rather more eloquent notes on it can be found here.
I really do enjoy giving talks and a room full of 150+ people certainly delivers a little adrenaline rush. (I shall make no secret of the fact that I would kill to talk at TED one day, so thoroughly jealous of Intelligentsia being involved this year! If you need a barista at all…..) That said – suddenly having to brew 16+ litres of coffee with a single filter brewer was a little challenging!
I talked a bit about coffee’s journey, dividing the narrative into four stages: creation (growing)/processing/roasting/brewing. I then served two coffees and tried to relate the flavours in the cup back through those four stages. The Q&A from the audience at the end was inevitably my favourite bit, the range of questions was wonderful. Unfortunately they were unable to film tonight’s event, and I don’t think putting the slides up would be very interesting.
I think the London Gastronomy Seminars are going to continue to grow and grow – there already seems to be a community forming of diverse and interesting people with a shared passion. I look forward to the next one, and hopefully I’ll see you there!
A rather splendid new website launched today, and I think it is a great idea and potentially very, very useful for us all.
It is called Brew Methods and I strongly suggest you visit, bookmark and begin sending the link to everyone you know.
You can read more about it by its creators on cleanhotdry, but the premise is simple – a single place online you can send anyone who wants to know more about brewing coffee, and there they will find links to various different tutorials, write-ups and videos.
There is also a submission form so you can help increase the amount of knowledge aggregated there.
Outstanding!
Is it me or is everyone else a little surprised at the lack of discussion of pressure profiling?
Most of the interesting discussion, if not just about all of it, has been over at home barista where various people are building pressure profiling units for their one group machines. Still much of that discussion remains more about how to build it, than about desirable profiles.
Pressure profiling is undoubtedly going to become more readily available. Though the capacities of the Slayer, the Strada and Cimbali’s new machine are all different, they are all chasing the ability to manipulate pump pressure to improve espresso. A lot of this desire comes from the profile of espresso produced by lever machines, which have a very different pressure profile compared to a pump driven machine.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, given my own experiences with pressure profiling. I was asked, a little while back, about why I hadn’t posted anything about it and I thought I would take this opportunity to explain:
Restaurants have a complex set of rituals, etiquette and laws governing the interaction between the establishment and the guest. Jeffrey Steingarten (and I wish I could quote it but my copy is out on loan) talks about how the best waiters are so good that they become invisible. Plates arrive, glasses are filled and the table is cleaned without any unnecessary interuption. This idea being that people come to restaurants for two reasons: for food and for company. If making sure each of these is as enjoyable as possible is the goal then you can work back and justify the seemingly curious rules and laws laid out in fine dining. (more…)