Skybury Coffee

So I've just gotten back from a 2 week break in far-north Queensland, staying in Port Douglas. It was a fantastic, relaxing holiday - by the time I got back I had read through 6 books!

Amongst snorkelling the barrier reef, visits to the Daintree rainforest and just generally doing all the touristy stuff I dragged my girlfriend around to all the cool coffee places I could find.

The first was actually a tip-off from my manager at work; The Skybury Coffee Plantation and the Australian Coffee Centre which is located on the premises:

The scenery was beautiful:

And here's a nice shot of the cafe counter:

We went on a tour that went right around the coffee plantation, showed the trees and talked about the whole process the coffee cherries got through before they become the 'green bean' final product that we're all used to.

The Coffee Tree, comes in red and yellow

The bean, spat fresh out of the cherry

All in all it was a great, informative tour.

Now, down to brass tacks. Of course I had coffee while I was there! I have to admit that despite all the wonderful atmosphere and scenery and having a great tour (complete with a pet cockatoo named Skwarky) I class the coffee I had there in the 'average' category.

What was in the cup was just 'OK', no amazing coffee flavours like honeycombs, caramels, dark chocolates or any of that. It was just a nice, middle-of-the-road coffee. I had a latte, a long black and some bizarre iced-coffee concoction that the barista felt like making which had coffee liqueur, espresso, milk and icecream in it. I enjoyed the long black the best.

I still very much recommend visiting this place for any coffee enthusiast in the area, the coffee you drink won't thrill you, but you won't leave disappointed.

Brandon.

I Heart Coffee

This morning's attempt at a heart:

It didn't quite form but I just spontaneously decided to do one while at work. Maybe I should just keep practising these instead of rosettas for a while, I might get one that turns out how I pictured it in my head!

It tasted pretty good, we're a bit spoilt in this office, there's an espresso machine on every floor....I think most times people see me I'm heading somewhere with a coffee mug in hand =)

Foodie Stuff & a bit of a Shout-Out.

So it's obviously no secret I'm really into coffee.

My tastes are in no way limited to just coffee though, I'm a foodie in general; love wine, fine dining, great fresh food and particularly the more boutique-y, home grown stuff.

Some friends of mine are the ultimate foodies, they're really committed to DIY-food. Have you ever known someone who made their own chevre cheese? Literally sourced the goat's milk themselves and just had a crack at it?

This weekend I had the following: Homemade Sourdough, Homemade Chevre, Homemade Quince Paste, Homemade Chilli-Jam and Homemade Beer. All of which would have any self-respecting foodie salivate and have some more, all of which made by the same two incredible people.

Lara and Trent, thanks for an amazing, relaxing weekend - you guys are just awesome and an inspiration for anyone who wants to just try something different.

You guys really need to market this stuff....or maybe not, you're Forster's best kept secret ;-)

Brandon.

So Jealous of the Mexicans...

Bloody Melbourne. They get ALL the good stuff. Art, Culture, cool restaurants and of course the freaking International Coffee Expo.

Sydney plebs like me have to put up with arseholes in traffic, expensive real estate, unfriendly people in general and NOT going to the International Coffee Expo.

Us Sydney plebs have to watch 'live streaming' if we want to see all the fun the Mexicans have while they chat to world-renowned baristas, check out the sweet new espresso machines, taste cool new coffee blends and just generally revel in the whole experience.

For those interested, here's the site, it's on from May 23rd to 26th.

Bastards.

Tinkering with the Sunbeam EM0480 Grinder

I've previously mentioned that my kit at home basically consists of the Sunbeam suite - the machine is the Sunbeam EM6910 Cafe Series and the grinder is the matching EM0480 Cafe Series. They often come in a package.

This guy Andy did a decent review of the grinder in the CoffeeSnobs forum if you want to know a bit more about it: http://coffeesnobs.com.au/grinders/24606-sunbeam-em0480-review.html.

Recently I had to do a small bit of home maintenance on this grinder, so I thought I would mention it in here as the whole process cost me $1.50, a few days waiting, and then less than 20 minutes of my time.

Basically what had happened was that my grind was gradually getting coarser and coarser and I was making my settings finer and finer until I literally couldn't make the grind any finer and all of my shots just looked like my machine was pissing in a cup.

As is natural, I 'Googled' my problem.

The first thing you should probably do before going to any real trouble is just give your burrs a really good clean. If you've kept the manual all the instructions are in it, otherwise you can find them here. In a lot of cases you're getting a coarse grind purely because your burrs are clogged up.

The other reason is that over time a bit of extra clearance can occur between the upper and lower burrs - machines can need time to bed-in, equally anything with moving parts eventually wears. Rather than getting the machine serviced for a fairly simple job, I found the answer on Ebay.

You can buy shims for the EM0480 on Ebay for 1.50 delivered, complete with the installation instructions. You literally just take apart the main components of the grinder, whack in a new shim or two, put it all back together and voila! your grinder is restored to its former glory.

Hope that saves someone a bit of cash, and maybe gives you some confidence in just pulling it apart and having a go.

Brandon.

Mountain Coffee Follow-Up

So about this time last year I mentioned that the gorgeous girlfriend and I merrily went into the Blue Mountains on a romantic getaway.

We'd been tipped off about the Red Door cafe in Leura and failed to find it because we're crappy detectives.

Since then I've been twice. Here's the write-up:

The Red Door Cafe

This is not a big place at all, but both times we went there it was packed to the rafters. Unfortunately you do get that 'crammed in' feel which doesn't promote a relaxed/comfortable atmosphere.

The coffee was definitely good so they ticked that box. Not much in the way of latte art but I feel fairly confident in saying that of all the places I've tried in Leura (maybe 4 - 5), these guys make the best coffee by far.

No particular characteristics leap to mind, there was no overriding caramel/chocolate flavour, just good coffee flavour in general. Next time I'm there I'll try an espresso and see what the more dominant flavours are - something tells me that might be more rewarding.

We both had omelettes to go along with it, the food was great, the staff were friendly though if they had another look at the floor layout, I think people would be a bit more comfortable in there.

As an aside, we went back to Talisman - the pizzas are still awesome. The coffee is still pretty good though not as good as last time. they use 'Danes' coffee which I haven't come across elsewhere.

Coffee in Absentia

So nearly a year between posts...not the greatest blog in the world huh.

I certainly haven't backed off on the coffee, but I admit I was struggling to come up with new material, and then life happened.

Ok let's talk coffee..

I have some new regular haunts that I'd like to give a little shout out to:

Element 6

These guys are tucked away in a location obviously designed for cheap rent rather than foot traffic in West Ryde, just near the train station. They use 5 Senses coffee (more on that later) and their regular barista Sarah knows how to pull a shot, not so big on the latte art side of things but hey, taste first right?

Coffee Trad3rs

A newish cafe opened up in the Piazza section of Top Ryde Shopping Centre. The owner/roaster/barista is Joseph, not a huge conversationalist initially, but if you show an interest in coffee suddenly he lights up and it's a struggle to wind up the conversation so you can go read a book or something.

They have several in-house blends, '3 Angels' is my favourite with a great dark chocolate flavour. This isn't like some wine-poofs (guilty) who have to paint a picture to convince you there's a flavour in there, the dark chocolate is obvious and delicious.

The food here isn't 'amazing' and is more like some tapas options and pizza. Breakfast isn't anything to write about either. Just stick to the coffee.

AIR Coffee

I'm pretty sure I mentioned these guys in a previous post. Would you believe that a year later I only made my way over there last weekend?

The coffee is good, again they have their own in-house blends and single origin roasts. They were training in a new barista who seemed to consistently serve the coffee under temperature (somewhere around 40 degrees is my guess) which I pointed out to the manager.

The potential is definitely there though, they have great beans, I've bought a guatamala-something-or-other S.O. to try so I'll report back on that.

I'm pretty sure you can find all 3 of those cafes on beanhunter.com.au so if you drop by and like what they do please review them, I'm sure they will appreciate it.


So let's move on to preferred bean suppliers. Firstly, let me tell you what I like - in milk-based coffees I like a caramel or dark chocolate flavour. In espressos I prefer the really citrus/fruity flavoured coffee.

Best Milk-Based Coffee Beans

For my money, I really enjoy the house-blend beans from The Baron in Castle Hill, the '3 Angels' blend from Coffee Trad3rs and the house-blend from Espresso Organica in Concord.

Best Espresso Coffee Beans

Again, the '3 Angels' blend at Coffee Trad3rs makes for a cracker espresso, it's outside of the normal flavour profile I shoot for, but has some really complex flavours and strangely a cinnamon-like backtaste that you just don't get in milk.

The '24/7' blend from 5 Senses. Great flavour, has that citrus that I look for. I like a strong coffee and I find that 5 Senses coffee, while having a great flavour, doesn't hold up well in milk for me, it just gets lost.

Generally I find most of the Guatemala S.O's tend to have the citrus/fruity flavours I look for in espressos that linger for a long time on the tongue.

As a final sign-off for this post I'll show a couple of examples of where the latte art is up to. I'm still far from great at it, these aren't the best examples, but they're all I had on my phone at the time.

A lot of them are still turning out a bit wonky :( oh well, keep practising!