Connect quality focused cafes/coffee roasters/coffee suppliers with potential staff.

I get a lot of emails, and meet a lot of people looking for barista jobs in London, and I know shops are always looking but I forget to keep track of exactly who.  The idea of the site is very simple – shops can easily create a listing for a range of positions and hopefully we can drive people towards it who are looking for jobs.

There is the potential to monetize it but I’d rather it worked, so at some point I might put on a small posting fee to cover the cost of the website.  If there is sufficient demand I might open it up to outside of London, to maybe the whole of the UK.  Thoughts on this are welcome?  In order for it to be useful then it needs people to know about it and use it.  I’d really appreciate people’s support on this one.

London Coffee Jobs

I know I am technically biased when it comes to coffee in London but the site is completely neutral and open to anyone, I won’t be moderating/editing unless there is some genuine misuse/spam.

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.”

My feelings about espresso changed dramatically around the time I first experienced coffee in Italy.  A few things struck me initially – the coffee was prepared reasonably well, it wasn’t astonishing or delicious and it was cheap.  I would later learn that the price of espresso to be consumed at the bar is regulated and never more than €1.  When I first made espresso for Italians I was initially confused by the fact that they never asked for espresso, they just asked for coffee.  Non-specific, without customisation – just coffee.

Like many people I had held a fairly romantic notion of espresso in Italy.  This was swept away and replaced by disappointment.  This has since given way to respect.  I think what changed my mind was a little perspective, and a better understanding of espresso’s history. ¹

This poster is probably familiar to everyone in coffee.  For me it summarizes pre-1948 espresso.  The innovation that espresso offered at this point was speed.  Suddenly a cup of coffee could be brewed very quickly.  So quickly, in fact, that you could grab a cup whilst hanging out of the side of a moving train.  The cups of coffee are full to the brim, and have not even the vaguest whisp of crema upon them.  This was nothing like espresso as we know it.  This was like having a big tank of water with which to make multiple moka pots.

Then of course we have post WWII espresso, we have Achille Gaggia’s espresso machine and we have the first mentions of crema.  Again – at this stage espresso didn’t suddenly become perfect little 25ml shots, full of thick dense crema.  The real revelation for me about this period was an almost throwaway sentence in one of Kenneth Davids books on coffee.  Post WWII Italy was not an economically strong place.  It is unlikely that the coffees bought during this time, during the birth of espresso’s tradition as we know it, were anything other than cheap and readily available.  It is no great surprise that naturally processed coffees from Brazil and robusta became the bedrock of the traditional espresso blend but we’d do well not to assume they were chosen because they tasted the best.  Espresso is pretty good way to brew these coffees.

The point that I am slowly working towards is that for all the romance, history and tradition, espresso is not special.  It is not luxury.  It is not gourmet.  It is just a way to brew a small, strong cup of coffee.

That of course changed, and in no small part thanks to Howard Schulz.  It is worth noting that in any description of his epiphany moment in Italy, where he saw a barista craft both an espresso and a cappuccino in a convivial and charming manner, does he describe being blown away by the coffee.  It was the experience that stuck with him, and the experience he thought he could sell. ²

He was, of course, quite right.  He could sell the experience, he could package it up and replicate it almost exactly across the world.  I have no idea how many different stores they have worldwide, but with 700 in the UK it is hard to argue with him.  However we did something else as part of this process.  We made espresso expensive.

Let’s say a single espresso in London costs £1.50, which is a little high but not by any means unusual.  Assuming it is a 25ml shot that works out at 6p/ml.

If you were to go to a pub and buy a pint of espresso it would cost you £34.08.  Or you bought a wine bottle of espresso it would cost £45.  That is a phenomenal amount of money.  Think about the drinks you can buy for that sort of price.  They are either extremely delicious or extremely alcoholic.

The problem is that a price tag like this is a pretty hefty promise.  Selling an espresso for this much implies that the experience will be of equal value.  Sip for sip it should be as satisfying as a great champagne.  The problem is that in this country, in London, in the vast majority of businesses – it isn’t.

Charging this much and delivering something so awful as the average high street espresso destroys any trust between the coffee industry and the general public.  This kind of price/experience discrepancy makes people feel stupid.  It makes them resentful.  It turns them into the kind of people that get very angry and leave vicious and dismissive comments at the bottom of news stories about speciality coffee posted online.  We’ve all seen those comments online, globally I might add, that follow a news story about speciality coffee.  Angry, bitter comments about what a waste of time and money this ‘fancy’ coffee is, that it is nothing more than the emperor’s new clothes and that coffee is just coffee.  These opinions come from specific experiences, we – the coffee industry – have created some very angry consumers.

As soon as the economy started to dip there were a glut of articles on ways to live more frugally, how to strip unnecessary spending from your day to day habits.  In every single list was coffee.  By and large lattes on the high street are overpriced, they are worth cutting out of the budget.  The frustration is that they don’t have to be. ³  I wouldn’t advise dropping the coffee from your routine, I would advise finding a place that makes one that is worth the money.

Yet still the industry persists in telling us that espresso is better.  At the Allegra talk I listened to to Rebecca Hemsley, the head of coffee for Pret A Manger, talk about how they offer (for the price conscious) a cup of filter coffee for 99p.  She added that they weren’t cutting corners – they used the same blend as they do for their espresso.  I should add that a single espresso at Pret is £1.25.  What message does that send to the consumer?  How does that affect their expectations of both the espresso and the filter coffee?

So I’ve written quite a lot already about espresso, and haven’t really gotten onto the subject of brewed coffee.  At this point in the talk I began brewing a small press of coffee.  I wanted to talk about where I thought coffee could go.  In the first talk of the day Darcy Willson-Rymer, the MD of Starbucks UK, had described value as being a combination of price, product and value.  I quite liked this, and say what you like about Starbucks but they’ve cleared managed to price their experience right for it to be the success it is. ⁴

I chose a coffee to brew that had very distinct and interesting characteristics.  I talked about where the coffee was from, and how it had gotten to the UK.  I described the coffee as having strong notes of blackcurrant, cherry and blueberry.  For me this makes an obvious promise, whereas a price makes a slightly less direct one.  A promise like this is a fairly big one but they pay off is also potentially huge.  We all have a salesman in our life that we completely trust.  They might not be an obvious salesman – they could be a bartender, a waiter, a sommelier or someone who sells stationary.  We trust their judgement, and we are loyal to them.  That trust was gained through making promises and keeping them.  Making a promise like this with a cup of coffee was what pushed us to work with Marco on the Uber Boiler but that is a slightly different topic.

As the coffee finished brewing I explained how much I’d like to sell it for a cup:  £3.  This wasn’t because it was vac-packed, or because it was airfreighted, or because it came in a nice bag with a nice logo.  If you like coffee, then I think that that combination of price, product and experience is good value for money.  Buying and drinking this cup of coffee is worth every penny.  I offered that one 8oz press to the audience for sale, and I am very grateful (and was somewhat relieved at the time) to both Darcy and Louie Salvone for paying £5 each (to charity) to split the press between them.

Brewed coffee is capable of such flexibility, such a range of experiences – from the satisfying, to the interesting, to the exciting, to the downright weird – that I think it is the most overlooked and underestimated weapon in the arsenal of those of us trying to build consumption of great coffee.  I am not saying it is better than espresso, but I do think a great cup of brewed coffee is less elusive than a great espresso.

Most operators believe espresso is somehow better than brewed coffee, and that brewed coffee is a second class experience that is suitable only for bulk brewing the nasty, weak coffee they serve at events where people aren’t paying for coffee.  Restauranteurs insist on having espresso machines even though the flow of a restaurant and its layout make serving great espresso virtually impossible even if the brewing is impeccable.

So I should wrap this up by saying that in the next year or two the proliferation of great brewed coffee, ideally by the cup, is a big goal for me – both personally and professionally.  If you are reading this and you can help then I really hope you do because I think everybody, from grower to consumer, wins.

1. Though I should say that my espresso history is far from authoratative!
2. Can I just take a moment to have a quick rant about the constant use of the word ‘theatre’ around espresso.  Theatre is entertaining, but there are only so many performances of the same thing that I am prepared to sit through and pay for.  If you have bought a commercial espresso machine mainly because of the theatre then your business may be in for some difficult months ahead.
3. That said, a large part of me is enjoying a market with more value focused, quality conscious spenders.
4. I am aware that is a childish and snarky dig at their product, but the whole point of this post is about serving great coffee which I don’t think they do.

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. ²

When approaching a coffee and brewing it using an espresso machine you are often searching for an ‘ideal’ recipe for that coffee.  For many of us knowing as much about that coffee as possible often helps make intuitive judgements about things like dose and brew temp.  If I get my science wrong then please, please shoot me down. ³

One of the things that broke my head about roasting early on was the discovery that the longer/darker you roast the less potential solubles you have.  This may seem obvious to some but it always felt like the roasting process created many new flavours but one must distinguish between flavours and solubles.  This explains why instant coffee is roasting very fast and relatively light – they are interested in a percentage yield so the more solubles the better, regardless of taste.

Knowing this then made something I had experienced make apparent sense – darker roasts generally prefer higher doses, because you need more coffee to get more solubles to get a nice, thick and pleasant espresso.  But after a moments thought it didn’t make sense.  This would mean that you would get a thicker, heavier cup with a higher TDS measurement from lighter roasts but lighter roasts generally produced delicious but lighter bodied cups.  What nudged me towards density was how we approach very high grown coffees versus lower grown coffees.

Higher grown coffees (and let me make a broad sweeping generalisation here) have a much higher acidity than their lower grown brethren.  When brewed as espresso they can easily yield extremely acidic and unbalanced cups and, taking unbalanced and pronounced acidity as a sign of underextraction, I found that higher brewing temperatures helped to produce a more balanced cup.

What do lighter roasts and high grown coffees have in common:  higher densities.  Though there was more to extract (in theory) you had to work a lot harder to do it.  Therefore reducing the dose of a lighter roast/higher grown coffee gave you a higher ratio of water/energy to coffee to help extract a tasty cup.  (I often think of heat energy as some sort of currency, with which you can buy solubles.  The more heat, the more you extract/purchase.)

This is all well and good for convenient examples – high grown, light roasts versus low grown darker roasts.  Give me a clean prepped coffee from relatively low altitudes in Brasil, roast it into 2nd and I will likely be dosing quite high and not brewing too hot.  I’ll certainly be dosing it very different from how I might brew a lot of Aricha as a straight shot.

But what about a light roast of a low grown coffee, or a dark roast of something grown super high up?  This is what lead me to wanting to find a way to measure and compare the densities of coffee beans to see if there was correlation between the density of the end product and an ideal brew temperture of particularly effective dose.

So – if I have had such a good idea why don’t I do all the research and then publish it all at the end of it and try and stamp it “Hoffmann’s theory” or something equally absurd? (Apart from the fact that it is absurd).  Because I want to generate a little discussion about this.  I want people to weigh in and tell me I am being stupid/simplistic and to suggest better ways to test these ideas.  I want to understand espresso better so I can make better tasting drinks and translate coffee’s journey more transparently in the cup. ⁴

I really hope people will offer their opinions on this idea, shoot it down or take it and run with it.  I am going to start doing some basic testing and see what happens.  Lots of little experiments appeal. ⁵

1. There really is no better place on the web for these kinds of questions!
2. Some of this is based on personal preference, some on what seems to be fairly well agreed upon within the community of people who worry a lot about their espresso.
3. There is another post in the works about the value of being wrong and discussing it afterwards – yes, I have a big wrongness to confess to…..
4. I know this is a wordy post and all, and I would have put some nice photos in but my camera is dead
5. For example – if I roast two coffees til their densities match – will they grind the same, and at the same dose will they extract the same?  Would they be ideal, therefore, to blend together to get the most out of each of them.  This probably shouldn’t be a footnote, but it is.  So there.

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.

Nick Cho highlights the potential advantage of the simplicity of using a single estate or lot in competition over on Portafilter but what is most interesting about all this is that I think we can acknowledge how far we’ve come in coffee recently.

I think for a long time conventional wisdom said espresso was bad for anything but blends, and I think for a long time it was right.  There weren’t a great deal of incredible coffees around then, our understanding of espresso was limited as was our understanding of roasting.

More recently – and I haven’t been in coffee long enough to know the chronology – lots of coffee have become increasingly traceable and increasingly delicious.  I’ve said it before and I am sure I will say it again but coffee has never been as good as it is today and it will only get better.  Add to that our increased understanding of espresso and of roasting coffee to work well as espresso and I think that unblended espressos can be great.

Perhaps they still don’t fulfil certain criteria that people have for espresso that blends do fulfil.  However, I used to see bad single estate or bad single origin espresso as a failure of the espresso machine or our barista skills.  The coffee itself was certainly good and yielded a great cup very simply and cheaply. Yet through our incredibly expensive machinery the result was disappointing – so we (quite incorrectly I believe) blamed the coffee and not the process.  Mike Philips’ win was particularly interesting because he showed an understanding of his coffee and of espresso brewing to deliver a range of great drinks from a single lot of coffee.

Mike Phillips' coffee (stolen from Brent Fortune's flickr)

What I am trying to say is that I think it is time to let go of the notion that SO espresso is any different from blended espresso when it comes to expecting and delicious, nuanced and balanced cup of coffee.  I don’t think we’ve reached any kind of pinnacle, but I think we are definitely getting making some good headway.  As producers continue to craft ever better lots of coffee, and we learn to roast them better I think now more than ever espresso is a suitable and good way to brew them to celebrate the flavours, aromas, tastes and textures that make that particular coffee so special.

1. as well as diverts away from the traceability we often want to highlight

I really want to  encourage people to enter, it isn’t as difficult or scary as it seems.  Everyone who competes, as long as they do it for the right reasons, gets a lot out of it and doesn’t regret a minute of it.  What’s more – I guarantee it will make you a better barista.

1).    Make sure you put an espresso into every sig drink.

Now to begin with this might sound painfully obvious, but every year people make this mistake and up until now the rules haven’t been very clear.  Just brewing those 4 espressos isn’t enough.  If you blend them into something and don’t pour it all out then it doesn’t count as an espresso per drink.  Under the new rules you would get 0 from all sensory judges for this category so DO NOT make that mistake.

I really can’t emphasize this enough (Tip No.4 from the previous post) – Know the Rules!

2).    Come to competitions to learn.

If you compete with the sole goal of winning then most of the time competitions are disappointing and unenjoyable.  Whether it is your first competition or your fifth – if you are open to it then competition is the most intensive 15 minutes of learning of your life, and a great experience.  Those who come only to win often leave resentful of their scoresheet instead of seeing areas where they can continue to learn and develop, which is a real shame.

3).    Be yourself.

If the rule changes are implying anything it is that judges want to see individual, interesting and above all genuine performances.  This was a big goal for both Stephen and myself – from the music, to how we dressed to the way we talked to the judges.  (And of course the drinks we served!) Don’t try and be the barista onstage that you think the judges want to see.  Be honest, be yourself, let your passion for what you come out.  This year I really hope to see some interesting, entertaining and honest performances because those are the ones you remember best and enjoy most.

4).    Stop worrying about latte art.

A rosetta on a capp is not the be all and end all of a competition routine.  It is a six point box.  If you aren’t comfortable pouring art onstage then don’t worry, judges are more interested in taste and texture.  I’ve seen a bad pour throw the routine off of many a barista and it just isn’t worth worrying about.

5).    It isn’t about recreating real life.

Barista competition is a game based on real life, not a direct recreation of a bar.  You can fight against it, moan about, or have fun playing a game that makes you better at what you do for a living.  Once you turn it into a sport it becomes impossible to recreate what happens day to day.  Don’t worry about it – worry about making great drinks, and entertaining your judges for 15 minutes.

If you are reading this in the UK and you want to get involved then click here.  Again – I highly recommend the experience, and it is one of the few opportunities to meet up with other baristas from all over the UK.

You, the consumers, are to blame.¹

Now you certainly can’t take all the blame but consumers have an enormous power over the people making the coffee.  After all – you’re paying for it.  You are staggeringly tolerant of incredibly poor product.  You can do something very simple that would have a huge effect on the quality of coffee served:  when it is bad – take it back.

I’ve spoken to a rich mixture of cafe owners in my few years in the coffee industry, and if we look just at those who serve terrible coffee they all had one thing in common:  they didn’t know.

Worse still they thought that they did a great job, not because they tasted it and found it delicious but because (and to quote them) “not one of my customers has ever complained.”

This is probably true, most people don’t complain.  But what would happen if they did?  Initially not that much.  I’ve sent coffee back, they’ve remade it and it was just as awful.  I sent it back again.  If just one person does it then a business can shrug it off.  Now imagine if a dozen people a day complained.  The business would have their coffee supplier out very quickly – they’d re-examine what their raw materials, their machinery, their production skills.  The might change supplier, they might get some more training.  They’d be worried and they’d turn their energies and their focus onto serving drinks that made their customers genuinely happy.

I am not suggesting that you begin to bully your local cafe into doing exactly what you want, but sending back a terrible coffee is never a waste of time.  Businesses are listening very carefully right now and it may turn out to be in both of your interests.

My final point in all this is that you only earn the right to criticism when you take the time and effort to compliment good work and great drinks.  Let those businesses know – it really does make one’s day!

1. I ought to make it clear at this point that obviously consumers are not really to blame, but to start a discussion about the power of the consumer and also – heaven forbid – have a little fun with this topic!

So – many of you know I was very kindly invited to Minneapolis to be part of the blog team updating the SCAA Blog. I was in esteemed blogging company – Erin Meister, Travis (quiet but awesome videoist) and Katie and Zachary who happened to change the face of coffee blogging back in Tokyo last year. Our remit was simply to cover the show, and to some extent we were making it up as we went along.

This was my first USBC and my last SCAA show had been Seattle in 2005. I had never attended any SCAA workshops before, so didn’t really know what to expect from that angle. Covering a talk ate up a lot of time, and often resulted in what seemed like not that much text. I think all of us were aware that we were writing for the SCAA, at their expense so we just tried to find the best of the show.

Of course the real draw for most people was the USBC. This has to be the most hardcore of the barista competitions outside of the WBC. The open rounds had 50 spots, and those baristas were whittled down to 16 who joined the 9 regional champions in the semifinals. Some amazing baristas didn’t make it through round one, which was oddly depressing and inspiring.

A very calm Chris Deferio in the semis pouring lovely tulips

Bronwen watching the clock

The highlight of the competition for me was getting to MC the finals with Nick Cho. It wasn’t getting to be onstage, or talk rubbish into a microphone. It was getting all six of the finalists to make us an espresso after their performance was over. I know what you are thinking, it is what everyone has been asking – which was best?

It is a difficult question to answer. Drew certainly had the advantage of making my first shot of the day, and it always tastes better when your body wants caffeine. Nick’s shot was really interesting though I was more focused on looking for the leather/sweet suede he described (which I totally got!). Heather’s shot reminded me of the WBC blend she brought to machine testing – quite heavy and with some prominent naturals. In contrast Chris Baca’s single estate Brazilian natural was not very naturally and super clean and complex. Pete’s blend was, in my humble opinion, more a traditional espresso blend (certainly in contrast to the three other single estate shots I’d taste) – quite heavy bodied and sweet. Kyle’s shot was stolen by Katie and he very kindly remade me a double. At this point I was quite caffeinated but his pull was very different to Nick’s – shorter and more intense, with the acidity a bit louder. Looking back it is tricky to pick a favourite but I told the people right after that it was probably Drew’s – though that isn’t to demean those other shots that were also truly excellent but suffered an increasingly caffeinated taster.

I get to this point and I realise I haven’t really talked about the first round or the semis. I didn’t get to see all of either though it was kind of fun to be allowed onstage (to photograph) whilst a few awesome people performed. I enjoyed Ben Helfen go job hunting in Finland, and Lem Butler… what can I say – Lem was a pure drama, rollercoaster-ride of a performance that brought tears to my eyes when against all odds he came in on time despite luck being against him and scuppering the start of his set. Watch the video…..

Sexy Foam

Come to think of it that stage was crazy – being up there was not a comfortable experience. The combination of the lights, the sound and the stadium seating meant you felt very distant from the audience and I think the overall experience threw a good number of the competitors. Perhaps those who had to go through round one had an advantage over those in the semis in that they knew a little more of what to expect from that. It looked great as a stage though!

Chris Baca in the Finals

For onstage photographing I was often accompanied by Meister who was far better at being out of the way than I was, and also by Liz “Twitchy” Clayton. Talking to Liz we would often joke and aim to get the best possible intense judging pictures. This is one of my favourites, in my mind the portafilter is glowing like gold…..

Intense Judging

Jay’s libation (I know Jon isn’t a God technically, but I couldn’t think of a better word – “toast” just doesn’t seem to do it) was a lot of fun – people always have high expectations of Jay’s performance and this was more touching than shocking.

Jay Handing out the beer

One thing was clear this year – lots more talking about the coffee. Lots more, which I something I thoroughly approve of. Baristas were there representing their coffee in a different way, seemingly more aware of a barista’s position in the coffee chain. It seemed to be the first competition I’d seen where the espresso upstages the sig drink and that is something no one can complain about.

I didn’t taste as much as I would have liked to – in terms of all the drinks, but I did manage to snaffle a few glasses out of the bussers trays. I’d like to apologise to the busser who tried to stop me tasting a drink, telling me I wasn’t allowed but unable to stop me because she was stuck holding the tray with both hands. (And no – I didn’t give it the “don’t you know who I am?!” crap, despite several people suggesting that this is the way to go in such situations…)

No doubt Kyle’s individual sig drink preparations were a great little concept, in line with espresso being a drink prepared to order, for an individual opposed to other bulk brewing methods. Scott Lucey’s sig drink was also great – simple, yet very tasty and totally ticking the texture box for me with its custard component. I would have killed to taste Baca’s drink but the judges drank it all every time (as asked) so we (me, hopefully bussers, audience members, friends and bloggers) were left salivating but unsatisfied. I have to just add that the whole Ritual crew were very inspiring to me, as were the Intelli crew. People like that get me excited about coffee and I don’t think it is out of place to say that if there were a barista’s barista award at the show (as there have been at some regionals) then Baca may well have picked that up.

Those crazy

The ever awesome Scott Lucey

One more note on the competition – the live feed. I can’t believe how well it worked out, how much fun it was to interact with people watching and on occaison to pick up the laptop and do a little backstage cam stuff. Sorry for my silliness. The quality of the feed will only improve and I hope to online as well as live at the WBC, interacting again with all those online watching things unfold.

There is lots of other discussion circling around online – from the SCAA blog coverage to the grinders baristas were using onstage and the techniques that went along with them. The doserless Roburs are terrifyingly fast (2.5s for around 19-20g by the look of things) but I suspect the Anfim’s scored higher. It was great to talk to John Ermacoff about the mods he has done on the ones Ritual are using. I suspect that if you put John Ermacoff, Greg Scace and Andy Schecter into a workshop for a month, gave them unlimited budget, then they would come up with something that would totally change the way we brew espresso.

I spent virtually no time on the show floor, which was quite frustrating as there were lots of people I wanted to see, but I had a few good drinks – the Chemex of Ethiopian Konga from Lindsay at 49th was delightful as was my espresso from Jeremy on the Synesso booth. Getting into lectures and workshops at the show was a privilege but I don’t really have anything to add to the stuff on the SCAA blog.

So congratulations to Kyle. I am a big fan of his, it was a pleasure to watch him perform three times and to see that performance evolve onstage. He is not only technically outstanding as a barista but a great ambassador for specialty coffee in the United States. That and he makes me laugh quite a lot. Hopefully I’ll catch up with him before WBC, but if not I can’t wait to see him again there and see what he brings to the stage.

I know I’ve missed out people, coffee and things and I apologise – I always forget stuff and my head still isn’t on the right way around. I am sure people reading this will have questions and I will try and answer them – and if I have forgotten obvious stuff (not unlikely) I will add to it asap.

Fear of Dilution

This is something that I think we all agree on at Square Mile HQ – a little dilution is not a bad thing.

As coffee is forced onwards in an online game of one-upmanship it seems shots have been getting shorter and shorter. No doubt the very visual medium of the internet means we are more terrified than ever of even the vaguest signs of blonding.

A paler pour does not equal bad taste, it just means that there are less coffee solubles in that pour.

From the colour we can not gauge the quality of those solubles. Empirical evidence certainly suggests that the longer the paler pour continues the more increased the bitterness in the cup. However for me it is all about balance I struggle to find balance in super short shots. Even from a technical standpoint I struggle to see how a complete extraction of all the goodness the coffee has to offer can be done with such a small amount of liquid. (Even though, as Andy Schecter points out here, more energy is being spent in the cake in these type of shots)

The constant chase for the heavier bodied, “sweeter” shot sometimes makes me sad as I wonder how many good flavours and desirable aspects of the coffee get knocked out with the spent puck.

This shot may be blonding to some people but it still tasted good

The rapidly disappearing single espresso

This one also turns me a bit ranty I am afraid. Maybe it is the bigger, better, harder, stronger thing but in many places around the world when you order an espresso you get a double. Whether the volume is 30ml, 45ml or 60ml this is irrelevant. I like coffee, I like drinking espresso and I like tasting different things. Whilst I may worry about coming across as the curmudgeonly Italian we specialty people all complain about who gets angry about our excessive dosing of coffee, I can’t help but agree that too much caffeine really limits my ability to enjoy my coffee. I really like a single espresso I think one of the most attractive things about great espresso in Scandanavia is that they are all just as hardcore about the quality but don’t feel the pressure of the big drinks to need every espresso brewed to be a double.

This isn’t really a rant about the single basket. I know a lot of people lament its rapid disappearance and I know it is a damn finicky thing to work with. That said one of my most viewed is this one – a single basket naked pour:

Naked single basket

How to enjoy espresso

This one is less rant and a bit more fun I guess. Tasting shots you brew, or shots you are assessing is rarely, if ever, fun. Inspecting the shot in minute detail with your tongue and olfactory system you quickly find the flaws – a touch of astringency, or a hint of underextraction or maybe the shot shows itself a little overextracted in the finish. It is easy to demolish just about any shot (ask a competition judge if you don’t believe me!) but it is often very difficult to enjoy it.

A friend of mine once told me that a different part of your brain assesses things than makes hedonic decisions¹. One part of your brain decides if it like, and the other part analyzes it. One part tends to dominate (the mean, cynical part going by personal experience). Recently I’ve taken to trying to trick myself. (I am aware I am starting to sound crazy now). It all started when we were pulling shots of Coffee Collective’s espresso that Stephen used to win the Irish Barista championship. He pulled me a great looking shot and just as I got it to my lips he asked a distracting question and instead of paying attention to the shot my mind was elsewhere. When my brain finally reconnected with my mouth all that was left was an overall awareness of deliciousness but little more. Suddenly I was like a normal customer, a person who drinks coffee for money because they like it. It had been a long time since I had thought like that, and I really liked it.

So now I will either drink espresso as a harsh judge, and look for every flaw or I will try not to pay attention – to distract myself so I can just switch that part of my brain off to enjoy an espresso now and again.

1. Though I confess, while I completely trust him – he is painfully smart – I never did go and find papers online to back this up

Happily rocking away

The presentation was in the evening, so we wandered around town a little with Mary who runs the training centre there. I bought a book or two (on Chris Deferio’s recommendation – Thanks Chris!) and we drank too much chocolate ganache of various flavours. The event that evening was very different to the one in Durham, but not in a bad way. The focus was a bit more onto espresso techniques and it was mostly baristas from nearby shops and one lovely chap who was a pro cyclist and also a bit of a coffee nut who trains in the mountains when Canada is too cold. Latte art seemed pretty popular…

Kneeling and pouring latte art

After the event a few of us hung out for drinks and we got chatting to a couple of guys from the Dripolator, a shop in town. We vowed to make it there for breakfast before leaving town, and we I ate my first vegetarian meal of the trip – I’d never had tempe before so I was curious!

The shop was cool, a big space but its layout meant it felt quite intimate wherever you were in the room. Coffee was drunk, and thanks again to Jay the owner for his hospitality and also for the awesome Dripolator mug.

Me, Jay and Anette

After Cindy had purchased a suspicious green smoothie we hit the road heading back across to Charlotte for the event that evening.

Brent and Banks have a great space to work from, and the event that night was pretty full. We tried to sneak in a quick dinner at Dish before hand, but it was quickly becoming clear that sneaking in a meal in the South is pretty hopeful.

A good mix attended the talk, though a fair few from a rival local roastery which was interesting. I always like the bit afterwards where you get to chat people, hang out and it becomes a bit less formal. One couple had driven up from Greenville for the event, which was cool – especially as they were huge hardcore coffee people and a few other local enthusiasts had turned up as well.

Talking to the audience in Charlotte

The hotel we stayed at was lovely – the Blake, and it cemented itself as memorable by having a member of staff who was convinced Anette was someone famous “under cover”.

After a fine breakfast, and some NASCAR discussion we hit the road towards Atlanta, with a pitstop ahead at the home of the chemically imbalanced – Greenville.