Espresso Organica

So it has been about 2 weeks since I've made a blog entry, sorry about that, it has been a busy time with work.

I haven't kicked any major goals on the coffee front recently, but I did stop off at a cafe I had been meaning to try for a little while now, Espresso Organica, so I thought I would give it a quick review, for those who might be interested.

Espresso Organica are on Major's Bay Road, Concord. They roast their coffee in-house and rotate single-origin (SO) coffees regularly, dependent on availability. I tried their SO coffee as an espresso, and their house blend as both a cappuccino, and a latte.

The cappuccino came out looking like this:

A bloody good start.

 Tasting Notes: F*cking awesome.

The milk had perfect - PERFECT texture and their house blend worked very well in a milk-based coffee. The flavour was dominant enough to shine through the milk, though admittedly I ordered a double-shot for the latte after this because I like a bit of kick in my coffee. There was zero bitterness.

Another good test; my partner, as mentioned previously, enjoys a very weak coffee. Typically this amounts to pulling a Ristretto shot (15ml from a single-shot basket) into a full-sized (200 - 250ml) milk-based coffee. My partner's coffee was met with avid approval, and Espresso Organica has now been dubbed "a future regular coffee spot". It was nice to see the barista get consistently good results for weak, standard and strong milk-based coffees as well as pulling a nice espresso shot.

The espresso I had was the SO of the day, Palazzo Rosso (I think that means "Red Palace") and it was pretty smooth going down. I'm not sure if it was added, but there was a hint of cinnamon coming through the espresso - very nice.

On top of the exceptional coffees we had here (we went twice over the course of the weekend) Espresso Organica also have quite a decent menu, including the all important "All Day Breakfast" menu. Plenty of vegetarian options as well as some of the classic breakfast choices. They also make a pretty decent wood-fire pizza.

All in all, I have to give these guys their due; they specialise in coffee, and they certainly deliver on that front. The added bonus of serving good food, and having a few decent serving staff on hand makes this place a "must" on any coffee enthusiasts list if they're in the area.

Brandon.

Lessons Learned..

Well despite being groggy and half asleep this morning, my Saturday morning coffee turned out like this:

At least it's floral-ish

And it tastes pretty good too (I'm drinking it while writing this entry). On congratulating myself on a great coffee extraction and excellent microfoam, I realised that I needed to correct some information I posted here on techniques.

My coffee experience is a learning process (I expect it always will be) and I had been labouring under a misconception, particularly around the techniques for a good coffee extraction. In my entry 'The Basics' on April 29th I said this:

The tamp, is basically how hard you cram the coffee grounds into the filter basket of the porta-filter. This link  will take you to a site that describes tamping in detail, but essentially you want to have a solid cake of coffee grounds in the filter basket that the water will be forced through evenly. When inserting the porta-filter into the group head of the espresso machine (the only place you can stick the porta-filter) you want some resistance as you lock it in - but not so much that it's a struggle.

The part about wanting resistance as you lock in the portafilter is just wrong, I'll explain why. As I have now learned, if you're feeling resistance as you're locking in your portafilter, chances are good that you have over-dosed your coffee - a mistake that I was making. Essentially your coffee puck (cake, whatever) is then crammed hard up against the showerscreen of the group head.

Originally, I thought that was a good thing, my reasoning being that the whole point was to extract the coffee oils from the ground whilst under pressure, so if there is no clearance between the coffee and the showerscreen, the water has to work harder to get through, therefore more pressure.

I had missed a very key piece of information; a good extraction occurs when the coffee is extracted evenly throughout the whole coffee puck. By overdosing the coffee, I was not allowing pre-infusion to occur (I'll explain that term shortly) and was forcing the water only through the centre of the puck, meaning that if I ever extracted the outer edges of the puck, the centre core would be way over extracted.

On to Pre-Infusion. The term pre-infusion means that the espresso machine wets the coffee puck down prior to building up water pressure and beginning the extraction. I believe pre-infusion occurs at around 4 BARs of pressure. In automatic and a lot of semi-auto espresso machines, pre-infusion is already programmed into the single-shot, double-shot and any other one-button-push operations, you will recognise this as the delay of a few seconds once you have pushed the button, before the coffee actually starts coming out.

On manual machines, as the name suggests, you have to control pre-infusion yourself.

So a quick recap:

• You should have a few mm clearance between your coffee and your group head showerscreen.
• A good coffee extraction is an even extraction throughout the whole coffee puck
• If you're not getting the required pressure from your extraction, adjust your grind finer so that you can increase your dose while maintaining clearance.

A good indicator of a decent extraction is the condition of the coffee puck afterwards, it should be basically dry, for example:

If your puck is sloppy, it means your grind was too coarse or your tamp did not apply enough force.

Hope that helps =D

Brandon.

The Baron II: Redemption

So the other afternoon I was in the area and decided to give The Baron another go. First of all there are a couple of things that I noticed which were consistent:

1. The staff are still all very friendly; so it wasn't just the one guy serving me last time
2. Everyone working there really does their best to look cool.

And it works; before you even order your coffee, looking around the place which is reminiscent of some sort of garage-based bootleg bar, you find yourself thinking "this place is kind of cool".

Here's an example, I took a quick snap with the phone, trying to look casual so no one would think I was a weirdo...which may or may not be entirely accurate:

Click to Enlarge

[Brief Segue Alert]: I actually don't mind the quality of pics I get from my phone, particularly if you saw how quickly I whipped the thing up, snapped, and put it back in my pocket. I use a HTC Desire phone running Android which IMHO whips all kinds of shit over the iphone - with the one glaring exception of internal storage.

[Back to Coffee]: So after observing the consistencies in service and atmosphere (good indicators on whether it's a takeaway coffee joint, or a sit in coffee joint) I sat down and ordered a double-shot (learned my lesson last time) decaf latte with a side of metrosexual hand cream.

The hand cream never turned up, but what I got was this:

So far it was looking good; a humble, yet elegant rosetta, great milk consistency and the aroma coming off it was mouth-watering. At the first sip I start mentally composing my review for Beanhunter, they had definitely gone up several knotches on the coffee respect-o-meter.

By the second sip the natural caramel flavours of the coffee really came through, it was bloody excellent. It reminds me of another place that also does fantastic coffee (seems a bit inconsistent, blame the barista) called 'Girdler's Grind', in fact based on the flavour I could almost swear it was the same blend.

Either way, it looks like once you know what to order at The Baron, you can get a fantastic cup o' joe in a cool, friendly cafe.

If you're ever over at Castle Towers and need a caffeine fix, sound them out, the prospects are good!

Brandon.

Time to Invest in a Dairy Farm...

Wishing I had an endless supply of milk so I could keep practising. The hardest thing I'm finding is keeping the technique consistent.

Here was this morning's attempt:

And with some left over milk I extracted my existing shot further to have a go at a layer:

Not the prettiest I've seen, but the basic concept worked. By the way, in case anyone cares, this is what my home setup looks like:

For reference, thats a Sunbeam EM6910 Espresso Machine and a Sunbeam EM0480 Conical Burr Grinder. At this point the only thing I use that isn't stock is a new 58mm tamper which has a nice weight to it, it cost 30 bucks and is far superior to the stock tamper.

New additions soon to follow; I have a tamping station in the mail heading my way. Aside from a neat storage spot for my tamper it assists in keeping the Portafilter (also known as Group Handle) stable while you're tamping, and saves you scratching your bench. I could have just bought a tamping mat, but for 35 bucks I figured I would go with the tamping station.

Also thinking of buying VST filter baskets (probably next pay) which allow for a more even coffee extraction. You can read about them here: http://coffeegeek.com/opinions/markprince/04-29-2011

Cheers,

Brandon.

Coffee in the Mountains

If and when enough people get to reading this blog, I would really appreciate some feedback to this particular post.

The gorgeous girlfriend and I quit the 'burbs this weekend and headed up the Blue Mountains for a bit of a romantic weekend, complete with fireplace and log cabins. Needless to say, it was an awesome weekend and we really don't do enough of those. For those possibly interested, we stayed at a place called 'Seclusions' in Rydal; a quick Google and you will find them easily enough, it's well worth making the trip.

Anyway, our time was spent traipsing around the mountains like the tourists we were, bouncing from boutique shop to boutique shop, flinging money left and right like it was going out of fashion, all in all a great time.

Considering the environment we were in, and the abundance of little cafes and restaurants, and being the coffee nut that I am, I kept an eye out for potentially good coffee spots.

They built me up buttercup, just to let me down.

Planning a day spent in Leura, we were tipped off by a very professional and friendly waiter at Ashcroft's restaurant in Blackheath that the 'Red Door Cafe' in Leura was a good bet for some nice pastries and good coffee.

Unfortunately, I never got to test the veracity of his claims, because somehow despite parking maybe 5 metres from the bright red door of the aptly named cafe, we failed to find it until we were actually leaving the town, filled to the eyeballs with coffee sourced elsewhere. Woe.

So some day, in the not-too-distance future, we will be heading back there to determine if 'The Red Door' might just end up being the Coffee Mecca of the Mountains. If anyone reading this has visited that particular cafe, please comment.

So with 'The Red Door' out of the equation, we opted to just try random places throughout Leura, figuring such a boutique-ish town must have great coffee everywhere. No, no it didn't.

We jauntily strolled into a deli with a cafe at the back, largely because I was having coffee withdrawals and the icy wind was insistent that we find somewhere indoors. On the positive, it was an awesome deli; we spent a stupid amount of money there. On the negative, the coffee was just slightly upwards of terrible. The staff were attentive and friendly - something you see a lot of in the Blue Mountains just by-the-by.

At a later point in the day, we squeezed ourselves into the somewhat urban-feeling and uniquely named 'The Espresso Bar'. My feeling was that with such an ostentatious "we make such great coffee it's our entire identity" sort of name, that they must make a decent cup of coffee. Not really.

Though I feel that on this one I need to be a bit lenient. When I walk into a place that seems to just specialise in coffee, before ordering I make a habit of asking whoever is taking my order just how strong the coffee is. Typically I get a bit of an uncertain look back, which is understandable as it's all relative to the drinker, so then I ask whether it is a medium-dark or dark roast coffee.

Dependent on the answer is whether I double-shot or not. In this case I was told the coffee was fairly neutral so if I wanted strong, order double-shot, which I did. The coffee I got was bitter, and tasted strong enough to blow a hole in the back of my head. Needless to say I drank plenty of water while having my coffee.

Other places serving coffee followed a similar trend, though it should be noted we avoided Katoomba this time, having been there loads of times before, and yes it's easy to find good coffee there.

Then came the unexpected surprise. Most people who have visited the mountains and ventured past Wentworth Falls are probably familiar with Talisman Wood-fired Pizzas; they are just fantastic.

While paying for the pizzas my partner and I scoffed down, my coffee-enthusiast eye caught hold of a latte making its way outside. Noting the perfect milk texture and tight rosetta sitting on top, my spidey-sense started tingling.

5 minutes later I was sipping on a delicious cappuccino in pure pleasure.

So there you have it, the best coffee I had on this trip to the mountains came from a pizza joint. Who woulda thunk it?

If anyone reading this post knows of some great places in the Blue Mountains for coffee, I would really appreciate you commenting as I will definitely make the time to head up and check them out.

Finally, this was the morning's latte art attempt, still got some practice to do:

Brandon.

The Book of Cain..

Disclaimer: This is a total Geek-Out post - you have been warned.

In the lead-up to the launch of Diablo III - a game which has been anticipated for about a decade now I have made a couple of purchases to stymie the frenzied emergence of my inner-nerd, which will be inevitable once I hold the game in my hands.

The first of these, The Book of Cain I read through in a single sitting - it cost me 50 bucks, which admittedly I first felt was excessive for what was essentially a bit of back-story to the game, but my inner-nerd wouldn't be denied. Also my inner-nerd felt it was worth every cent after reading it.

Gameplay aside, one of the things which makes the Diablo franchise so successful is the way the back-story of the game has evolved (I could even segue this into my Literary Neophyte blog) to create a rich, vibrant world for your imagination, as well as explain the situation the player finds themselves in.

For those not in the know, the story of Diablo is the quintessential story of Good vs Evil. Your character can be one of a few different disciplines, hailing from one of several diverse cultures with the sole duty of battling against the Burning Hell's minions and ultimately defeating the 3 Prime Evils and 4 Lesser Evils, IE Diablo: Lord of Terror, Mephisto: Lord of Hatred, Baal: Lord of Destruction, Andariel: Maiden of Anguish, Duriel: Lord of Pain, Azmodan: Lord of Sin and Belial: Lord of Lies.

These rulers of the realms of the Burning Hells are introduced to you throughout the game either by narration, or by stumbling across them during gameplay. Azmodan and Belial have yet to feature at all.

Prior to reading The Book of Cain I was not even aware of half of those titles, and where they stood in relation to each other. Blizzard (the company who have designed the franchise) really did well in fleshing out the details, while leaving clues that hint at what you can expect in the game.

It seems that aside from however Diablo gets resurrected for the 3rd game (I assume we can't have a Diablo III without the namesake featuring) the lords of Sin and Lies may feature prominently as well.

In a nutshell, the book gives a thorough breakdown of how the world of Sanctuary was formed, the Demon hierarchies of the Burning Hells and the Angel hierarchies of the High Heavens, as well as details of past wars, the formation of various cultures, more details around the story thus far (IE what the player went through in Diablo, Hellfire, Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction) and details around the Eternal Conflict (the war between the Burning Hells and the High Heavens).

All in all, just because of the detail and excellent story-telling involved, and for what it adds to the overall experience of the game franchise, if you're a fan, I recommend getting the book:

The Book Cover

Artwork Example

Oh and the second purchase? The mouse-mat of course:

The Basics

By request this post is going to cover the basics of espresso shots and milk texturing, which are absolutely necessary foundations for a decent tasting cup of coffee, forget about latte art. I know right? Someone actually read this blog!

Firstly I'm going to re-iterate that I am not a barista, I'm just an amateur coffee enthusiast and these are my observations. If you see advice out there to the contrary, definitely give it a go and see if it works for you.

Here are some images to cover off terminology before we get started:

This is a porta-filter

This is a Filter Basket

The caramel coloured layer on the espresso is called Crema

The Shot:

There are really 3 major components to producing a good shot of espresso; the grind of the beans, the pressure of the tamp, and the pressure capability of the espresso machine you're using.

The typical measurement of pressure for espresso machines is the BAR, I have never seen a machine use PSI. Any espresso machine that doesn't produce 15 BAR of pressure is not worth the money as before you even get started, you will have a sub-par shot of coffee. That is pretty much the standard for most home espresso machines now, so you shouldn't have any trouble getting your hands on one.

The tamp, is basically how hard you cram the coffee grounds into the filter basket of the porta-filter. This link  will take you to a site that describes tamping in detail, but essentially you want to have a solid cake of coffee grounds in the filter basket that the water will be forced through evenly. When inserting the porta-filter into the group head of the espresso machine (the only place you can stick the porta-filter) you want some resistance as you lock it in - but not so much that it's a struggle.

When tamping the coffee grinds, it is good to do it in stages; the first tamp after adding grounds to the filter basket (about 5 pounds of pressure) is just to clear space for more grounds. Once you have basically packed the basket, the final tamp should be at 30 pounds of pressure - about the same amount of pressure applied when leaning with one hand against a kitchen bench.

Finally, the grind. If you are experimenting with many different beans, the grind is not a 'set and forget' setting. Different beans, with different roasts require different grinds, as their oils are released at different pressures. If you have too fine a grind on the wrong bean, you will notice your espresso machine struggling to push the water through the coffee (usually lots of noise and vibration with only a slight coffee stream) and end up with a bitter coffee. So this requires some experimentation.

I will segue slight to the subject of Grinders. If you can, I recommend getting a Burr Grinder which allows you to set how fine you would like your grind, rather than a Blade Grinder (also used for herbs) which is mostly guesswork. For reference, I use the Sunbeam Cafe Series Conical Burr Grinder, and it's pretty damn good.

The Milk:

Texturing the milk to create that silky microfoam requires a bit of finesse, but once you are used to your machine's steam wand, it's usually a piece of cake. That said, many of the cheaper espresso machines have crappy steam wands with frothing attachments that overly aerate your milk. Sometimes there's no getting around the capabilities of your machine, but I recommend removing the frothing attachment and giving it a go with just the steam wand.

Again, there are some components which are key to success with texturing milk; Firstly, the milk needs to be cold before texturing - like straight from the fridge cold. I actually put my milk jug in the freezer for a minute before adding milk so that everything is nice and chilled - this has to do with how the fats in the milk react to the steam, colder milk = tighter microfoam.

The next component is the temperature, when starting out I recommend getting a milk thermometer to measure the temp while heating the milk, before starting to texture, you really want the milk at around 60 degrees celcius. You don't want much more than this as if you over-heat the milk you will scald it, and your coffee is ruined - not to mention you could burn someone's mouth.

Obviously, the final component comes down to technique. The general idea is to create a whirlpool effect in the milk jug. After pouring the cold milk into your jug, the steam wand should be on an angle in your jug so that it will push the milk into a whirlpool. The end of the steam wand should be just slightly below the surface of the milk, but deep enough that you're not blowing bubbles on the surface. Turn on the steam and start whirling.

If you don't have a milk thermometer, a rough way to do this is to place your fingertips on the milk jug on the opposite side to where you have positioned your steam wand; Eventually you will feel the jug warming as the milk heats up. When the jug reaches the point where it is too hot to touch comfortably, that is the point you should start texturing.

To texture, just very slightly raise your steam wand (really you're lowering the milk jug to do this) to the surface of the milk until you're hearing the hissing, slurping sound of the milk being aerated. The key is to make this a slow, regular process; too fast and you will over-aerate the milk, too slow and your milk temperature will climb before you have fully textured the milk.

Just raise the steam wand in small increments and you will see the milk start rising up with your steam wand in the jug. Once you are starting to see some fine foam appearing directly in front of the steam wand, continue for about 10 seconds and shut off. Your milk is textured :)

It will take a bit of practice as every machine is different, some steam wands are better than others, but hopefully my observations will help you out to making some great coffee.

Cheers,

Brandon.

Sunday Success...Sort of...

Practice is paying off, these are today's coffees for my partner and I:

First Attempt, the girlfriend's weak latte

Second Attempt, the strong latte

Not bad hey? I still don't have those really tight rosettas happening, but now they're starting to look somewhere in the ballpark. 

The Baron..

So based on some positive reviews from Beanhunter I went and checked out The Baron at Castle Hill  this afternoon instead of AIR Coffee, also at Castle Hill. I have to admit to being disappointed somewhat in the quality of the coffee, though presentation was not the issue:

By now you have worked out that I'm a bit of a coffee snob, unashamedly so. I ordered a total of 2 cappuccinos, the first came extremely weak (my partner would have loved it) and the second (after ordering a double-shot) came out extremely bitter.

My suspicion is that the barista felt the best way to prove his coffee wasn't too weak was to tamp the living daylights out of the coffee, which created the aforementioned result.

I missed out on the food menu, so I can't talk to that, but the service was friendly and the atmosphere was bohemian and cool. All in all it seemed like a great little joint, too bad the coffee sucked.

In saying that, they have had amazing reviews lauding the standards of their coffee by quite a number of people, so I will head back there to give them another go at some point.

Brandon.

Getting There..

This morning's coffee started looking a little better, but still not the Rosetta:

Being perfectly honest, it was a sub-par coffee. My hand slipped while texturing the milk, it ended up overly aerated which affected the flavour and texture as you drink it. Presentation was saved somewhat.

It just goes to show you how important the details are just to make a decent "Cup O' Joe" as the american slang goes according to cop shows. It gives me a lot of appreciation for all those baristas out there making great coffee.

Of course with a machine worth $10000 instead of $800 some things are a little easier and more consistent, but if you don't have the skill, the machine isn't worth much.

I'm going to take a bit of a geek tangent for this blog. Most people working in IT are acutely aware of this, but for those of you who aren't, I would like to stress the importance of backing up your important documents to external media.

A recent horror story for my step-brother which was averted by yours truly: For his privacy I'll just call him SB...anyway SB is currently in uni studying a Bachelor of Science majoring in Chemistry. Needless to say the kind of assignments he works on are not kid's play.

SB does all of his uni work on his 3 year old HP laptop running Windows Vista (shudder) and a week ago, SB's hard drive failed in a big way. He got the BSoD (blue screen of death, yep that's the tekkie term) and from then on his laptop blithely remarked that it couldn't find a bootable device whenever he tried to start it up.

To keep the description simple, most people these days know that the hard drive is where all of your information is stored in a computer, his laptop decided that he didn't have one any more - bad news for SB and all of his uni work that was sitting on that hard drive.

Long story made short, I got the bat-signal, recovered his uni data off his hard drive (just before the thing completely rooted itself..I now can't even access it without really good data recovery software) and he is able to work on it on another computer until we sort out his laptop.

This story's moral: Backup any sensitive documents religiously, it is not just in case of power surges, computers (hard drives in particular) have moving parts (until everyone moves to SSD), they can and will fail eventually.

Also, hard drives have a 'file system' in which they track where every bit of data is stored physically on the disk; if you kill power to your laptop without shutting down properly (sometimes this is inevitable) it is possible that the hard drive's file system can become corrupt - think of it as a manila folder gone missing amongst 10000 other manila folders inside a filing cabinet.

Anyway, preaching done, I'm off to enjoy my Saturday.

Cheers,

Brandon.

Ah L'Amour...C'est...Wonky..

With some marginal success, the afternoon's efforts have produced this:

As Pat Benatar sung it, Love is a Battlefield, and I am definitely battling with these designs. Still, it looks like I'm a lot closer to getting the heart right than getting the rosetta happening.

So 3 cheers for the mid-week break huh? It's already Friday and it feels like a Tuesday, fan-bloody-tastic. I'm thinking about heading down to AIR Coffee this weekend, a little cafe in Castle Hill I've read good things about , to try their wares and maybe buy some beans if they're any good.

Another quick tip for the coffee enthusiast (I'm full of them today), check out www.beanhunter.com, it's a great site which has ratings and reviews for many coffee places throughout the world, but plenty for just Australia.

You can hop on there and let people know your own experiences, but far more valuable I feel is the ability to filter the cafe list by location, number of reviews and overall rating. It's a great way to get a list of some of the better cafes in your local city and filter out the crap or 'unknown quantities'.

Brandon.

If at first you don't succeed...throw a tanty and try again.

Well at the very least, I'm consistent:

I call this one "Autumn in a Cup". I mean it's not that it looks bad, but it wasn't the look I was after, I will eventually get that rosetta happening. This time I was a little too heavy-handed on the pour at the end...I did the initial "deep diving stream" to make my "canvas", I increased the pour volume..I wiggled the jug..and then my hand tipped forward all by itself and I ended up with "Autumn in a Cup" instead of "Ooh..Rosetta!".

Still I'm fairly happy with how the coffees are turning out these days. If I ordered one of these in a cafe, I'd be very happy with what I got. I know that is a bit self-congratulatory, but if you saw how many shitty cups of coffee I had to make (and force my partner to drink) to get to this point, you would understand why.

2 things changed which started the dramatic improvement of the flavour and texture of my coffee:

1. I changed coffee machines; I now use the Sunbeam Cafe Series Espresso Machine (EM6910) which has a dual thermoblock - IE you can pour a shot of coffee and texture milk at the same time, I'll explain why that's important shortly.

2. I had a bit of a milk epiphany; like many coffee enthusiasts out there, I'm a total amateur when it comes to actually making the coffee. There's no substitute for technique and skill, no matter how many books you have read. The epiphany was this: When texturing the milk in the jug, don't wait for the milk to look frothy before you stop texturing it.

That was the big mistake I seemed to have been making. For those of us (including myself here) with the dirty minds, you need to pull out before the point of no return. Eventually after making a few cups of coffee you just get a feel for the timing; if there is a bit of froth appearing directly in front of the steam wand as the milk is swirling (like a whirlpool) and your milk has been expanding (rising in the jug) as you have been texturing then shut off the steam, tap the jug on the bench to release any extra air, and start pouring.

I thoroughly recommend getting latte glasses so you can actually see what is happening when you're pouring the milk into your espresso shot. The effect is not unlike pouring a beer, the froth on top forms basically like the head of a beer.

Going back to why dual thermoblocks are awesome (there are a few espresso machine models out there that do this) is that timing is a factor in making a great cup of coffee. You want your milk to be ready as close as possible to the point where you have just finished your espresso shot, if you want to have a crack at latte art anyway. The reason for this is that if the espresso shot is patiently waiting in your coffee cup for you to hurry up with the damn milk, then the crema may disperse before you can draw pretty pictures on it.

The inverse is also a problem, if the textured milk is sitting there waiting for you to grind, tamp and pour the espresso shot, the froth will separate from the milk..so when you go to pour, you end up with the effect of pouring straight hot milk, and scooping your froth out with a teaspoon. Which looks and tastes a bit crap. This is especially a problem with low-fat milk as the separation process happens much faster.

So the ability to do both at essentially the same time is fantastic for a little home espresso machine. Just pre-grind and tamp your coffee in the basket, load it up in the machine, start texturing your milk and about halfway through that (you will work that out) kick off the espresso shot. They should finish within seconds of each other.

Anyway, assuming anyone actually ends up reading this blog, I thought you might appreciate benefiting from lessons I've learned so far.

Cheers,

Brandon.

Slight Improvement..

Ok well at the very least, the next attempt looks somewhat like less like a Feather Duster, and more like a Feather/Leaf:

Still pretty far from amazing though. But I am getting slightly better at the pouring technique, this time as I was pouring I noticed that the crema/milk swirl started looking closer to this: (Click Here)

So it's getting there....fortunately I have some decaff coffee on the way in the mail so I can get more practice in without the jittery nerves!

Brandon.

Not Quite a Masterpiece...

So the morning coffee was a triumphant failure in presentation:

If you squint it almost looks like the Feather Duster/French Maid from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. However, all the key components turned out well. The coffee shot had excellent crema, the milk had perfect microfoam and the coffee was actually delicious.

Which bring me to a tip for coffee enthusiasts who haven't caught on to these guys yet. CoffeeHit (www.coffeehit.com.au) do a number of excellent blends of coffee with beans sourced from around the world and expertly roasted by their secret barista. I'm waiting on my next batch to arrive, but right now I'm using their 'Ultimate Coffee Hit' blend..and it is really something special.

Somehow they managed to make a blend that starts off smooth, and then boldly states 'I'm awesome!' while it makes sweet love to your tastebuds. I'm not sure if wine terminology crosses over to coffee, but this is a coffee with body..a good body, that manages to convey strength without blowing the back of your head off, and no bitterness that I can really detect.

I like my coffee strong, and my partner likes her coffee very weak, so I use large cups, double-shot it for me (60ml) and half-shot it for her (15ml) and both of us are in bliss. If you're using average sized cups and like a weak coffee (I seriously can barely taste the coffee in my partner's cup) then I recommend the 'Daily Blend' from CoffeeHit.

You won't be disappointed.

Brandon.

I got the Seed...The Seed to Feed!

So recently a friend of mine has started up a great little business which she has titled 'Seed to Feed'. Essentially it's a DIY veggie patch solution to give a bit of a leg-up for the botanically-challenged among us (such as myself).

The instructions are so easy that even I can follow it, and there are several solutions tailored according to the amount of space you have dedicated to growing your veggies at home. Simply put, the packets of seeds are designed to be planted on a fortnightly basis (the dates are given to you so you literally just put them in the ground and water them) in alternating rows.

Assuming that you're capable of watering a veggie patch, and Bunnings even has self-watering beds so if you need to miss a day or two it's not a big deal, what you end up with is a fully functioning, rotating veggie patch of seasonal veggies, complete with 'decoy plants' so that aphids and other pests attack them instead of your veggies (reduces the need for pesticides etc).

The smallest size, titled A Wee Bit of Green, is ostensibly for a two metre squared bed, and produces a range of greens, however, like many Sydney-Siders, I live in an apartment with a medium-sized balcony. So I gave it a shot in one of those 80cm x 25cm self-watering (because I'm forgetful) plant beds with some universal potting mix.

So far I'm having success!

The April seeds are sprouting, and pretty soon I'll be adding the fruits of my labour into something delicious, with the added benefit of knowing that not only are they pesticide-free, but I grew them myself on my balcony - and believe it or not, I actually manage to get caterpillars and all kinds of things up there..so the addition of the 'decoy plants' is a really clever idea.

My results so far:

The website is www.seedtofeed.com.au and I can thoroughly recommend you checking it out.

Cheers,

Brandon.

The Shot, The Pour and The Art

So I don't know how many of you are into coffee beyond Nescafe Blend 45 and Starbucks, but if you consider  either of those options real coffee, then we're probably not on the same wavelength.

That said, I wanted to post a bit about making latte art. As someone just starting to get into this, as a beginner it takes some serious practice. For starters, unless you have a decent shot of espresso (meaning your grind and tamp need to be pretty spot on) with a good layer of crema, it won't happen. Next you need to get the milk textured to the right consistency, meaning getting a good 'microfoam'.

From there, you have the basis to make those pretty pictures in your coffee that almost make you feel guilty when you take that first sip...but somehow you keep going until you're staring at the Andy Warhol version of your art at the bottom of your cup.

A mate from work (thanks Brad) sent me this link: http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2012/04/latte-art-foam-designs-rosetta-on-your-coffee-like-a-barista-technique.html which provides a great step-by-step on making rosettas, but gives you some foundation tips on any other designs too.

I'm just starting to practice this myself, so I'll be posting up my attempts here, available for ridicule until I start getting it right :)

Cheers,

Brandon.

Numero Uno

Hi Guys,

Welcome to my little corner of the internet! Books and Coffee are 2 of my favourite pastimes so no doubt you'll be reading a bit about both of those if you intend on reading my blog.

I recently started another blog theliteraryneophyte.blogspot.com.au where I talk a bit about my latest challenge - writing a novel. But this blog is more generalised so I will be discussing anything that comes to mind.

Cheers,

Brandon.