Coffee Appreciation

This Rwandan from North Star is a treat each morning. The flavour description is a bit OTT but the brew via Aeropress is ace.

Barnraiser espresso blend (Heart & Graft) at my LCS is tasting good too.

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No idea about cafetto but I've been using the same tub of Puly for about 2 years now. Just about to run out. Not bad for £4 or whatever I paid to amazon. Does a good job.

Got one a few weeks ago and it's great, I'll have popeye arms soon for sure!

Intriguing plan to tap into Nespresso-tech (for the greater good?) continues:

Welcome to Colonna

"I imagine you signed up because you are intrigued and excited about our upcoming foray into the world of capsules.

Our goal is to present you with the most incredible coffee. We seek to explore and evolve to achieve this goal.

We have strong aesthetics and flavour attributes that we are chasing in coffee - complexity, clarity and brightness. Ultimately, the goal is to highlight the character and origin of each special coffee.

We want to offer a curated experience to our customers and take you on a journey without compromise.

We know how important our first customers will be in achieving our goals. With this in mind we are offering founder memberships, providing you with first access to our new products but also to continued treats, limited edition coffees, gifts and merchandise.

We will keep you informed as the project gains momentum, explaining how we are doing things and letting you know when and how you can become involved.

Capsule technology represents one of the ways we will present our coffee to you, with beans being a big part of our offering as well. We can't wait for you to brew a cup.

Maxwell and the Colonna team."

(for the greater good?)

And a lot of cash if the crack it and make the jump to mass market coffee.

One for the proverbial decent supermarket coffee beans: Here

Big shift in mainstream coffee consumption would screw up the supply / demand vs bean quality curve surely, huge impact on prices as a result. Hopefully farmers would react to meet demand.

Not the aim. Iirc Maxwell is looking at the super high end, buying the beans that are normally too expensive for speciality coffee roasters.

I thought the aim was to sell speciality coffee via Nespresso/pods to those that like the pod convenience but weren't getting the higher quality like that but I may read it wrong. I think it was either from Barista Hutle of Jim Seven's blog.

nope, the economics are way more complex than that.

yes and no.

it is a way to bring speciality coffee to a convinece market, but at the price point it's not realy aimed at the everyday nespresso user. the hope is that many will convert, some will still prefer the nespresso taste.

Nespresso actually buy some excellent coffees, they just don't maximise the flavours as they are pitching to a different market.

I've looked at all this pod stuff, I'm a strong believer in automation and removing the human error factor from coffee brewing. if you put great coffee in a pod, maybe improve the temp control of the kit and a couple of other tweaks, it could do a lot to improve the quality level of coffee in the mainstream market and break down the coffee snob nonsense.

Speaking of automation for the benefit of consistency, we're getting one of these at the roastery next week.
Tried it out at Marco's showroom last week and was blown away. They also produce a 6l batch Brewer which works in exactly the same way with foolproof interface; which is a dream when you're a roaster trying to keep on top of training your wholesale customers' staff.

http://youtu.be/OWRq7R5S-do

Like this stuff?

https://www.crukafe.co.uk/

Sort of, they're going at it more from an ethics angle and premium branding rather than a strict focus on cup quality. They're not really offering anything different to nestle other than not being nestle. You should reasonably expect the Colonna Fonsumby-Smythe effort to be an order of magnitude better than Nespresso. We shall see.

This is the absolute bomb. Really tough grind though!!!

@StevePeel

Is this a good project or is it too far gone?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272135170940?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

And what is your feedback on this?
https://www.gumtree.com/p/coffee-machines/rocket-giotto-premium-plus-espresso-maker/1154079055

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/topmelyn/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

This seller has a few decent machines/coffee making items - if anyone were interested and has a car let me know :)

That Elektra is a bit of a pup, missing the eagle and drip tray grille which will cost a few quid and possibly be difficult to source. Brass finish isn't everyone's cup of tea so they're not as valuable as chrome. I'd give that one a miss TBH.

That Giotto is a decent saving, we carry all the parts for those, should it need any. All standard stuff on those so things like gaskets and other service items are pennies. That machine would be so much easier to live with than the Elektra.

Aren't coffee pods incredibly wasteful? Or is there an effective recycling method for them?

incredibly wasteful

Probably this. When there's a very decent reusable pod I will borrow my Mum's nespresso to see if it can produce owt enjoyable.

Pact do pods at £15 for 40 but that's 40 pods in landfill I guess.

I enjoy the ritual of making coffee. Plus it really isn't that hard to get consistent results

True, I'm happy with my level of aeropress/v60/gaggiaclassic-fu but also open to other interesting brew methods. Reuseable pod & nice coffee via nespresso machine = interesting brew method.

There are reusable pods, one customer uses our coffee with it at home. I don't know if they are any decent though.

Anyone recommend a decent decaff option for aeropress? Trying to decrease caffeine intake due to ridiculous stress levels at work. Plan is - espresso before leaving the house, decaff at work.

Also - have a large (6 cup) Bialetti moka express going free if anyone wants it. Could probably do with a new filter plate.

If you have to refill then, surely they are more hassle than just using a portafilter machine? Seems pointless.

If there were fully biodegradable pods on the market it would make sense... Until then it's like setting fire to a small tyre every time you make a coffee.