Espresso Fiend

A Welcome New Trend: House Blend

2011-01-26T22:42:00.000-08:00

"Creating a cafe-worthy home blend takes some basic, working knowledge of coffee biology, chemistry, and geography. Understand what characterizes each bean—those single notes, and how they play together—and you'll have what it takes to start blending at home." -- The Atlantic

News from the just moved away when... department

2011-01-09T23:51:00.000-08:00

Last year, Oliver Strand wrote an article wondering why Paris doesn’t have better coffee. Or, to quote Duane Sorenson of Stumptown Coffee Roasters, “Why does the coffee in Paris suck so bad?”

This year, he is reporting of some new developments changing things for the better. Read the article in NYTimes' TMagazine's Ristretto column for his review on Café Lomi and Le Bal. Frog Fight is shaking up the scene, pictured below.

PS: Thanks, Caroline, for the link!

Coffee Bean Processing

2011-01-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

Excellent article on Serious Eats. With great illustrations.

"What makes coffee taste like coffee? That's a more complicated question than you might think. At every step of a coffee bean's life, something intervenes that could drastically alter its flavor: Plant variety, agricultural approach, terroir, processing, roasting, storage, and, of course, brewing all play a huge part in how your morning cup tastes. Today, let's explore one of these influences: processing."

Extracting Double Ristrettos

2011-01-03T17:56:00.000-08:00

First drops.

Pourover Techniques Video

2010-11-07T15:28:00.001-08:00

Shotzombies posted an excellent video on how to properly execute a pourover. Video format, you will need flash for this :(

The Great Coffee Debate

2010-10-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

The Founder of Blue Bottle, the chairman of Illycaffè, owner of Joe Coffee, president of Gillies and the CEO of Intelligentsia walk into the same room. The joke is not funny and the setting is real. The Great Coffee Debate of NY. Read Mike White's twitter stream for details.

via Shotzombies
Illy's press release with videos

Great (not big) cups

2010-10-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

Great cups as seen at Profeta. Very thick porcelain, with heavy-duty glazing. Multiple colors are available, red one is what I have my eyes on. The fact that there is a separate Espresso "Ristretto" and Espresso "Macchiato" cups in some of the colors is a big plus.

Great Infusions

2010-10-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

Espresso Profeta
1129 Glendon Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90024
(310) 208-3375

Espresso here is double ristretto, $2.75. Loyalty program: 1 free drink after 10.

Man Seeking Coffee: LA Map

2010-10-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

View MSC: LA Map in a larger map

Ratings are off according to my taste, but a decent list of almost all cafes worthy of a visit in the Greater LA Metro area (that includes Orange County, like it or not). via Man Seeking Coffee

Naked Shot of the Day

2010-10-22T13:51:00.000-07:00

by journeyscoffee

Baratza Virtuoso Preciso Review

2010-10-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

Orphan Espresso reviewed Baratza's Virtuoso Precisio. Seems that the new burr design does really well in the coarseness consistency test. I'm intrigued. Via @uberproject

Eventually, Starbucks announced it would not oppose Ethiopia’s trademark efforts

2010-10-21T23:51:00.000-07:00

Well, look at this: "Eventually, Starbucks announced it would not oppose Ethiopia’s trademark efforts." How incredibly gracious of them. Ethiopia does need to create analogs of AOC, DOCG. An appelation system, which guarantees the georaphic origin and the processing method of green coffee. It is not right that any roaster or retailer could claim these precious region names as their own. It's great to hear that this time all worked out for the better. Via Tactical IP

Coffee With Tim Wendelboe

2010-10-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

Tim Wendelboe World Barista Champion of 2004 wrote a book on coffee. English title is "Coffee With Tim Wendelboe." It is unavailable on Amazon, but the great Hario USA site is selling it. Excellent write-up by NYTimes.com.

LA Coffee Beans

2010-10-18T23:00:00.000-07:00

My chat with the baristas at my new espresso bar revealed that both Profeta and Caffe Luxxe use Espresso Vivace beans. Caffe Luxxe, naturally rebrands it and sells it at 2-3 times the cost. Both places tend to extract it to a sweet and almost salty consistency

I'll report back once I've done the Victorola versus Vivace home test..

NYC: Coffee bar

2010-10-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

D’Espresso's new location a block away from the New York Public Library at Bryant Park via I New Idea Hompage

Espresso Map U.S.A.

2010-10-16T13:30:00.000-07:00

Incredibly useful and very high quality espresso cafes in the USA. Google map overlay by Eric Schrepnel

Ironic Coffee Poster Is Actually Useful

2010-10-16T12:37:00.000-07:00

Ratios and contents of different espresso based drinks. Can be had in poster or mug form. As for myself, it's 100% espresso with my daily sugar. via GEARFUSE

That's what I call an eye opener

2005-12-31T13:44:00.000-08:00

The last morning[*] of the year starts all right. Params: Barefoot roasters' Bossanove Brazilian; Rancilio Sylvia; Bodum Pavina 2oz glasses.

[*] In the broad sense of morning, ie. right after leaving the bed. At 12:30PM...

Winter in LA

2005-12-23T23:00:00.000-08:00

So far this is the closest approximation of the winter mood in LA. Friday, the 23rd a thick fog formed all along the coast. The streets were practically empty and we just drove around for fun. Stopped by at Urth (which was maybe 15% full), had some soba at Yabu, walked on Santa Monica beach. Like a great Xmas present. Now I finally understand how Yoda [*] felt, getting out of his cage...

[*] an ex-hamster, now pushing up the daisies, no longer a hamster, ceased to be, lovely plumage...

Espresso: Expensive

2005-06-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

Man, oh man, is espresso exprensive in Singapore. S$3.60 at the $bux, and S$3.25 at the Clark Quay. Compare this to our lunch for S$15, for three of us. The espressos were decent, but not Seattle quality.