About a year ago I registered a domain and set up a simple website called London Coffee Jobs. The idea was pretty simple – create a focused site that would help connect baristas and cafes in London. I knew (from my inbox) that they were looking for each other and struggling.
It quietly ran away in the background, and though it was set up to charge per job I let people post for free to see if it had value. (more…)
I was going to do revisit an old post about why someone’s coffee might taste bad, talking about the amount of dull burrs out there, as well as a bit more on cleaning and other stuff. However, one aspect alone deserved a post on its own. I will say right now that this is particularly relevant to water in London. It isn’t your friend.
Today at the roastery we had a very interesting cupping. We had pulled out a sample from the roast every minute, starting five minutes in and ending at around 15 minutes. This is not a particularly new idea – full credit to Tom at Sweet Marias. His video of it here is worth watching, especially as I am not really going to talk too much about how each bowl tasted.
David Schomer’s comments on pressure profiling this week haven’t been particularly well received it seems.
This is quite frustrating – he’s raising an interesting point, but has done so in a way that allows it to be torn apart due to his presentation. You could say he’s unable to back it up, he’s making such sweeping statements topped up with a self confidence easily labelled as arrogance. 1
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This post has come out of an email conversation between Andy Schecter, Scott Rao and myself. Scott had originally considered posting this as a comment on the Brewing Outside of Gold Cup post, but I thought it was too interesting to take the chance of being missed by people who might find it very interesting.
The timing seemed excellent after my last post on Cupping and French Press – for reasons that I hope will make sense once you read it.
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I like cupping coffees, especially delicious ones. I am occasionally guilty of liking a coffee so much that I swipe the bowl after we’re done for drinking. This is obviously a disgusting and shameful habit, but hey – tasty is tasty.
Cupping is something that occupies a constant pocket of my mind – the process, the purpose, the results and everything in between. Like many people who often fall in love with coffees on the cupping table I also like full immersion brewing a lot. Often that means the french press. (more…)