I can understand that. I started there when we had lovely, but fickle manual La Marzocco machines. With dosing and tamping done by the barista, you could achieve truly magnificent ambrosia or disgusting swill…even by the same person. As such, much espresso went down the drain or, horrifyingly to me, into a drinks and served. Hence, the move to fully automatic machines as management realized that the key to continued success was consistency. Nevermind that the machines often produce a subpar espresso and incapable of producing a ristretto. It is deemed adequate by the masses. Whatever artistry (which rarely ever rose to the Intelligentsia level) was there is long gone. As a barista who put a huge amount of pride into pulling the perfect shot (and begged for a sharp spouted steaming pitcher), a part of me died when the full autos went in. I remember having remarked to my boss that could hardly call us baristas anymore. I felt like corporate had demoted us all to fast food monkeys. Push button, push button, assemble drink, push out, push button, push button, assemble drink, push out…
You peeps are making it all too complicated for me.
I use the electric Faberware perculator that was my mom’s. It’s at least 30 years old and still going strong. It looks like, you know, a coffee pot. It gets plugged in when I’ve got it loaded with water and coffee in the basket–so I’m not wasting electric 24/7.
I have a cheapo little grinder (what is this “burr” that you are speaking of?) and buy 1-lb. bags of coffee beans at Dunkin’ Donuts because I like the taste of DD’s. Now they have a sale 4 bags for the price of 3. I don’t buy flavored coffee. If I want a flavor I add the spice or extract to the basket. Usually cinnamon, sometimes cocoa too.
I’ve got a couple of coffee tools: a French Press and a stovetop Mukka. I love my Mukka, as it makes me a nice frothy latte in the morning with little to no effort. I tend to use Cafe Bustelo or Pilon, as I’m not terrifically picky about my coffee beyond “make it dark and earthy”, and I almost always drink coffee with some sort of milk or cream. It just doesn’t taste right to me otherwise.
Grinders come in two varieties: burr and blade. Blade look like a blender/chopper blade, while burr grinders work similarly to a box grater attached to a motor.
We don’t use an aroma wheel for coffee, although we used to have two in our training room from the Specialty Coffee Association of America. This bloghas a link to images of both.
Our scoresheet is computerized. Basically, it’s just a scale from 0 to 15 for each attribute. One of the most challenging things is that the scale is standardized. In training, we were given various metrics for the scale: the apple note in applesauce is a 5 in intensity, the grape note in grape juice is a 10, etc. We score the coffee attributes against this fixed scale. It’s challenging because a particular attribute may dominate in a given sample, but that attribute has to be measured against the fixed scale, not against the other flavors in the sample, if that makes sense.
Yes, we use various scents for reference. Our reference for the green/vegetative note, for example, is the water from canned green beans. For the woody note, it’s a popsicle stick.
The important difference being how it grinds the bean. Blade grinders chop beans unevenly as they are spun around the chamber resulting in a grind that is a combination of fine and coarse bits. I explained the effect that inconsistency of grounds has on coffee a few posts ago.
Burr grinders have plates that crush the entire bean all at once resulting in more uniformly sized grinds. A conical burr grinder has a donut-shaped disc with grooved “teeth” along the inside edges and a cone-shaped disc with teeth that sits inside the hole of the other disc. The discs spin in opposite directions and as the beans fall into the crevice between the two discs, they are grabbed by teeth and crushed between the two discs and grounds fall in a collector. The size of the grind is selected by raising or lowering the conical disc; a larger crevice results in coarser grind and a more narrow crevice results in a finer grind.
No love in this thread for moka pots? Best cup you can get outside of a $400+ espresso machine, and they cost ~$30. No crema, but complex, rich, strong coffee. Yum.
I saw that one before, but was turned off by two things: one, some of the ratings are terrible (seems like some qualityncontrol issues) and two, ya gotta fill ip the container, doesn’t seem like there’s room to switch outthe beans depending on how you feel (and I like flipping between various ones day to day). So I guess I’m also looking for something with a small footprint that can grind jsust a day’s worth of beans at a time.
Special thanks to QtM and BrownEyedGirl! This is a great thread. QtM, You’ve inspired me to try the espresso at my coffees shop (the one that does all of its coffee French press and offers daily Aeropress specials as well) so I have high hopes :).
I have a Bialetti, or whatever they’re called. I found it very inconsistent and got something I didn’t loathe maybe 10% of the time. A few times, I couldn’t get the steam to pass through the grounds. Eventually I figured out what I was doing wrong. After that, I’d get bored waiting or get distracted and come back to have all the espresso boiled out into a super condensed sludge.
Bialettis should be pretty simple, but finding the right fill line and using properly-ground coffee is critical. Without a burr grinder, they’re probably worthless.
I’ll admit I don’t actually have a standard 4-cup Moka, though. I have a 2-cup Brikka, which is amazing. It has a weighted valve over the spout that adds a little pressure through the grounds. Darn tasty. Also have a 6-cup stainless model that works extremely nice when I have guests. I intend to buy a 4-cup at some point since that’s the “classic” and it’s probably the right size making two mugs of coffee.
Still buy the cheapest ground in a can, in a French Press, as I always have, but I found the greatest thing for lightener.
Powdered goat milk. I fill a thermos with my sludgy brew, and pour some goat’s milk in it, give it a shake to dissolve, and it’s damned good. Hard to find powdered full-fat milk, maybe outside of backpacking stores, but this is better, and fattier, I think.
Believe it or not, Walmart’s 100% Colombia coffee did surprisingly well in a Consumer Reports taste test a couple months ago. $3.88 for an 11.3 oz. container. I keep it around for when I run out of whole beans. Otherwise it’s Sumatra Mandheling from a local roaster and run through my French press.
Yeah I have a Capresso Infinity conical burr grinder. I think my grinds were too fine and, therefore, getting packed in too tight. I made it one or two settings coarser and put it in the bowl loosely and didn’t have that specific problem anymore.
Hey, same grinder. My experience with my mokas is that the coarse end of “fine” is the sweet spot. Sadly, I haven’t used the pots in about a year because I need to replace all the gaskets and am lazy about ordering them.
Does anyone have favorite how-to books, guides, or online sources?
I’d like to read up on handling, storage, variations, pricing, etc.
Also, what’s the skinny on how to keep beans fresh – I’ve read conflicting things; don’t buy anything more than 5 days after it’s been roasted (and ask what the roast date is), refrigerate or freeze beans (and DON’T do either), drink the beans you purchase within a week, etc. I have no idea who\what to believe.
