Coffee Appreciation

Was it similar to eating a tablespoon of cigarette ash by any chance?

That sounds close.

I've definitely had supermarket beans that were boring but inoffensive. The are highly offensive!

I don't even bother buying emergency beans from supermarkets any more. Even the Union ones that the deli next to my house sell are total wank. Would rather drink tea.

I still rate the Sainsburys Tanzanian Peaberry beans - they make a great standin

Booths is the only supermarket whose beans make the grade, from the ones I've tried at least.

These beans were in date (I appreciate supermarket BBDs are optimistic when it comes to coffee beans) but they were very shiny, oily and they seemed softer than I'm used to (they ground very easily).

What do those qualities say about the beans. That they're past their best? Damaged, or just low quality?

Probably roasted to death. Maybe to mask off-flavours.

Everyone is still familiar with decoding the production date from the barcode?

Some. I've no idea with the 8 digit codes though.

@StevePeel I'm gonna grab another bag of the gaslight but want one more for pour over/aeropress any reccos?

or @big_daddy_wayne @rodabod @dancing james if any of you have tried others on bellabarista?

@Tenderloin

I've tried the Brasil Daterra which was excellent; nutty, smooth and a little more defined in flavour than the gaslight (which is great with milk, but a little bland for straight espresso - that's just my palette/opinion though).

I started some of the Ethiopia Guji today. Doesn't work well as espresso, but tasted nice and floral - going to take to work to use with a Hario v60 instead. I expect it's going to work nicely, will report back on the results tomorrow.

Cheers mate - I'm gonna go for the Guji and Gaslight then.

Thanks again everybody for help regarding the Gaggia Classic.
After cleaning, some getting used to it, and finding a suitable grind I was able to pull pretty decent shots.

If somebody goes to Palma, Mallorca - I can seriously recommend La Molienda.
Very nice people, and great coffee (a city roast blend friends of them do).
https://www.facebook.com/lamolienda.palma

I still rate the Sainsburys Tanzanian Peaberry beans - they make a great standin

I second this.

I found Brasil Daterra similar to how you found it. Generally for me, it seemed softer. My personal preference between the two for both Aeropress or flat whites was the Gas Light. It's just really good, and easy to get right. Looking forward to trying the others. I need to drink this stale coffee that I was bought at Christmas first though :-(

Slightly annoys me that some coffee shops sell stale beans.

yeah it doesn't have the oomph of the gaslight, and didn't produce such consistently excellent shots - but just a bit more refined and more defined flavours.

Picked up another 500g of the Climpson's Christmas blend yesterday - wow, it's got some punch. Their beans are just so good - fantastic results every time.

Bin the stale beans @rodabod - life is too short.

Yeah Gaslight is da bomb

The guys that did the talk at LMNH about coffee mentioned the tesco ashbeck water as a good one to use. If you wanted a nil residue you'd look at distilled or deionised water, hence my low residue comment.

Interesting points you make, firstly playing with different bottled waters and tap water there is a noticeable difference, have tried it on friends.

IKEA coffee, if you use tap water these are a favourite. Even the beans are good value not to old either.

BERLIN

There is a nice little café in a former bakery in Kreuzberg; directly at the north entrance of the Markthalle Neun (Eisenbahnstr. / U Görlitzer Bahnhof).
It's called Cafe 9 and they have a nice Marzocco, are polite (a rarity in these parts of the city), and espressi have been very very good every time I've been there so far.

The Gaggia Baby Class I was given 'on here' doesn't seem to produce enough pressure since I have de-calc'd it.

Any ideas of what the problem could be?

Cheers

Vince

Have you taken the shower screen off and cleaned out the gunk that gathers behind that?

Pressure for steam or espresso?

Distilled water is actually pretty awful for coffee, the water itself is not very good at extracting flavour.
also the idea that you can saturate the water with too many minerals and therefore not extract flavour is a fallacy, balance is the key.

The bottled water test is fun, it's amazing how much difference it can make.

Espresso pressure.

I can hear the machine struggling and the espresso takes 2 minutes to come out.

I found a second hand Haggis Baby Class D on Gumtree and it looks much newer so I will probably go for that and freecycle the old one on here.

Interested if you do freecycle vince!

But they are simple machines, have you tried taking the shower screen off and cleaning it? Have you backflushed it?