I've really only been into coffee since February 2005. I'm 16 now and I have been completely consumed from head to toe by the coffee bug and baby am I lovin' it or what?! I started out finding recipes for Starbucks Caramel Frappuccino, and soon, thanks to espornographers, I had a Gaggia Espresso in the house. Later, I bought a Super Jolly and have been doing some minor tinkering ever since. I now work at the Elysian Room in Vancouver. I hope you all enjoy reading my blog and leave some comments!

Sunday, January 15, 2006

CLOVER IN DA HOUSE!


Well, it's been a great day of work. I arrived to see a fat chunk of engineering on the counter. I was immediately attracted to its digital display, stainless steel panels, and reminiscence of what I've been waiting monthes to see in real life. I knew we had a Clover, and it hadn't escaped my mind, but I was so excited I think that time stopped and I forgot what I was there for. All of a sudden, bam! I worked constantly with no downtime to try the Clover for a few hours, at which point we went nuts with that motherfucker.

Wow... I loooove it. Nothings perfect, but the bar has been raised substantially. It truly is able to do what espresso was supposed to be able to do: brew a cup of coffee for the order, fast and especially for the single customer. To sum it up quickly, its a French Press minus the guesswork... period.

Before reading further, please watch this video.

Now, allow me to take you through the process.

1. Grind coffee to a slightly finer than french press grind, using your new Ditting grinder
2. Press brew button, assuming volume (8oz, 10oz, 12oz, 14oz, or 16oz), temperature (adjustable to 1F I think), brew time, and other parameters such as the time the plunger pauses before going back up once it has been separated from the coffee, are properly tuned.
3. Dump the coffee into the brewing chamber as the plunger goes down.
4. Watch it, feel it, love it.
5. Use Clover-spec squeejee to swipe away the dry puck into grinds bin.
6. Wipe the top of the machine.
7. Savour the flavour!

It produces a cup very reminiscent of French Press. It seems to add a level of clarity. This could be the same idea behind a flat brew profile in espresso. With less brewing time, your end brewing temperature (just before plunger/serving) is closer to the initial temperature, you get more clarity. Kenya Karagato, Colombia Classico Cauca, Panama Carmen Estate and some Nicaraguan we had worked out very well, very similar to press style. What can I say? This thing is a winner.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Cupping Coffees from... J J BEAN?!?!

Okay, so J J Bean having coffee aint no anomaly. However, there's more to it than that. For those of you who don't know about Hines Public Market Coffee, they were a great roastery/cafe in Seattle (in the East Lake area I believe). They were home to former US Barista Champion Bronwen Serna, John Hornall (according to Mark Prince, aka Jonny Nitro), and John "don't call me the Colonel" Sanders. At Elysian Coffee & Tea, we used Hines Espresso. Unfortunately, they shut down their roasting location a few monthes ago. They've been doing what I like to call (I heard this from someone, likely on the Portafilter Podcast) the Probat Tour of America (and Canada). It seems that they have temporarily, at least, settled at J J Bean. I don't remember which location of JJ they're roasting at, but that's not very important. Thansk to the JJ crew, they have begun roasting all of their coffee there. Last week, they roasted 750 lbs (at least) of coffee and brought back a bunch into Elysian Coffee. Luckily, I was given some espresso blend, Nicaragua Agua Fresca, and some Colombian Cauco (sp?).

Two days ago, I cupped each... just two days out of the roaster.

Here's a pic of the whole bean Colombian Cauco...

Here's a pic of the whole bean Nicaragua Agua Fresca...

Ground and ready to go... I hurried up with the water after snapping this pic!

Poooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuriiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

Me about to realize the meaning of life:

Almost ready to break the crust!

Breaking the crust. I found heavy chocolate overtones in the wet aroma for both coffees, especially in the Colombian where it leaned towards nakhla tobacco smell. I could tell it was going to be a thick bodied cup, don't even ask how. It smelled of all the bass tones, but the florals weren't exactly abundant. As for the Nicaraguan, I found the same bass tones present, along with a nice caramelized molasses smell. I also got some dried prune and maybe a pineapple acidity smell There's an orgy of aromatics in these here coffees. Good work John.... oh and Alistair of course!

It's time to taste! Colombian first...


The Colombian's ripe floral fruit punch-like aromatics were completely lost in the cup. It was all chocolate, pretty thick body, and not an offensive or "defective" cup at all. It had little of the caramel flavour that I find characterisitic of a good Colombian coffee, but had a nice sweetness to it. It did not develop acidity well, which I am a big fan of. I love acidity. Overall it would be about an 8-8.5 out of 10 coffee for me.

The Nicaraguan started off the same way. Medium bodied, some nice semi-sweet chocolate overtones... make that LOTS of semi-sweet chocolate overtones, hints of maybe some rhubarb. Here's how it differs. It had wonderfully acidic and lively undertones. It consisted of all the volatile and delicate florals that I love in a coffee. It had some nice bergamot/tea-like aspects, some slightly detectable spice (sage?) flavours, and a nice balanced acidity. However, it still wasn't in the acidity/floral range that I like. Couple this with a Kenyan and then we're talkin.... or I'm talkin at least. These are great coffees that may come off from my cupping as being boring, but they surely are not. I have high standards is all! I'm gonna go make a press of the Nicaragua and do a ridiculous amount of bio homework. I sign off with this cappuccino that I made the yesterday using the Hines roasted at JJ. By the time I got the camera, I was getting bubble action... oh well... Goodbye!


Monday, January 02, 2006

Happy New Years!

Well, it is my feeling that we are about to kick off a great year in coffee. First, we've got a bunch of regionals coming up. Seconds, Clovers (the "original espresso" oriented single cup brewing system) will be showing up at various cafés [hopefully] near you and very near me. I'm building a machine, grinder, and roaster (if time permits) and the GS3 is scheduled to enter production AFAIK. Yes, things are looking up for us coffee geeks and espresso nuts. By the way, my short write-up on the Synesso Cyncra will be back up soon, pending some corrections from Alistair. In case any of you have as much time on your hands as I do, let's look at what's on my mind, and others', so far this year.

First of all, there is a heated (okay, that's an exaggeration) debate about straight-walled vs. tapered portafilter baskets at a super-duper classified uber secret forum which I frequent. Need some drama? The person who most fiercely insists that straight-walled is better is yours truly, JakeTheCoffeeLover. The person who most fiercely insists that tapered is better is my boss, Alistair. Oh well, I'll fight this one out to the bitter end. He can't lose me, this face brings in business and pimps it, too.

On a serious note, my argument is that if you get more tamping pressure and therefore greater compression of coffee at the bottom of the basket, you are getting the same flow through less coffee. Therefore, you might get the equivalent of a ristretto from 7g of coffee at the bottom and the equivalent of a caffe crema from 11g of coffee at the top in terms of flow vs. dose. Now, that doesn't sound so bad, does it? It might be good. Now think of it this way: you tamp unevenly (not you, dumbshit) and get an uneven pour. You get 0.5oz of flow through the left half of the basket and 0.75oz through the right. Same thing... how appealing does that latrine of a demitasse cup sound to you? Although this prevents jet channels, I think that they must still be forming at the top of the puck and dissipating at the bottom since nothing has changed at the top portion of the puck. The only difference I found was that the jet channels are all ending up in the cup. If you don't want channels, you gotta use a smaller diameter grouphead/basket or tamper harder. I insist that somebody try to prove that wrong. Anyways, let's move on to the arguments of others.

Others seem to think that when you tamp, the top of the basket gets compacted less than the bottom. I decided to introduce them to inertia and force and how they would affect this. I'm not even going to begin to estimate how small of an amount of time you'd have to have tamper to coffee for to create a difference that is not just completely negligible. Anyways, they are under the impression that if you have a tapered basket, you put more force on less coffee and therefore have a heavier tamp on the bottom. WHOA WHOA WHOA... wasn't the point to have it even throughout the basket? Some think that this will "even it out" since the bottom gets less of a force than the top. I refer them to the 3rd sentence of this paragraph.

To another discussion, I think it's about time I talk about my espresso machine that I am designing. I'll list some features:

-5.5 litre steam boiler w/ 2700W element
-Fuji PXR3 or Watlow PID controller for steam boiler
-3 thin diameter stainless steel heat exchangers that join into one
-DC helical gear pump for flutterless pressure and pressure adjustments during the shot, for ramping pressure
-pre-infusion created by steam boiler being opened up to heat exchanger at grouphead, controlled by a stainless steel ball valve
-boiler and all parts that touch brew water are stainless steel
-ambidirectional swivel for steam wand
-all stainless steel grouphead, will be fabbed from standard parts and will work with 58mm portafilter
-above grouphead will be a 3oz chamber with brew water, which is where pre-infusion from the steam boiler, cold mixing and PID control for cold mixing, and a digital temperature display will read out. this chamber will be insulated with cermaic fibre insulation and, outside of that, will be a chrome-plated brass casing... for looks and room for thermometer if necessary
-grouphead design will be as you see in the photo from my last post (except for "fucking screw")

-screwless showerscreen, as said above
-final temperature will be controlled by a Fuji PXR3 or Watlow PID controller with thermocouple as close to the brewing area as possible hooked up a solenoid which allows cold mixing bypass from the pump feed directly to the grouphead, with the possibility of programming a ramp (descending or ascending brew temperature profile)
-will operate on a 30A breaker on 110V

That's all I can think of for now. I'll leave you all with a blend that I will try once all my coffee arrives. It's a spinoff of my last espresso blend.

25% Java Private Estate: Type - "Prince" - Full City+
12.5% Ethiopia Oromia Sidamo Natural Process - Full City+
12.5% Yemen Mokha - Bani Matar - Full City+
16% Brazil Fazenda Ipanema "Dulce" - Full City
10% Uganda Bugisu AA - Full City
12% Indian Monsooned Malabar "Elephant" - Full City
12% Ethiopia Yirgacheffe (MAO) - Full City

I'm hoping for some comments on my portafilter basket thingamajig. Wish for a great 2006!