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:
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…)
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:
Back in 2006 I published a recommended reading list. Since that time my collection of books has (worryingly) increased so I thought I should probably update it. I could easily write a list of coffee books that one should avoid (having learned the hard way) but I suspect that would get me into rather a lot of trouble, so I shall leave that for now. I’ve broken it down into two parts and then down into sections, and have indicated which are nice to have, and which I would consider are essential on that subject.
I will try and keep this one updated – if you think I’ve missed something obvious then let me know. I haven’t recommended books I don’t own, so this means some books may be missing that you would expect to see here.
These tips probably apply more to a commercial environment than a domestic one, but hopefully there are some useful reminders for anyone in here.
We’ve all ended up chasing an espresso, somehow a delicious espresso remaining elusive. These may seem obvious but all get overlooked from time to time. (more…)
First off a big thank you to everyone who contributed to the espresso poll. It closed out at just under 100 people giving their data. Out of this some data had to be ignored as it was clearly entered in error, leaving just over 90 espressos worth of information.
I am not a massive statistics expert – and I am grateful to Vince Fedele for taking the data and cleaning it up and doing some analysis on it.
To start with the easy stuff:
By seasoning a coffee machine – I am talking about pulling a few shots per group having done a chemical clean. Conventional wisdom says that if this is not done then the coffee will have an unpleasant metallic tang to it, because the machine is “too clean”.
Something about this just doesn’t sit right for me. (more…)