Coffee Appreciation

Should be fine for me.

Thanks for the kind words everyone, just had our best day in the shop so far takings-wise at the same time as having one of my best mates from the Monmouth days over for 2 days of tasting and roasting training for his new project. Not just that, but one of the pot plants had an offshoot that I may have successfully repotted, plus I'm excited to see the lufguss riders tomorrow to show them round.

It's alright this.

Nope. I've learned on the job, been very lucky in the places I've worked!

Back in London after a great day cycling to Northampton with @ChasnotRobert and @james_g

We visited @StevePeel new coffee shop Yellow Bourbon Coffee Roasters.

The shop looks great, the coffee is great and Steve organised a coffee tasting session just for us so we went through the full range. He also had all the cake ready for us and even a couple of beers!

The route was nice and quiet, so I would recommend riding up to check it out and stock up on beans (which is what we all did).

Route is 133km from north London, Return train was under £10 (bought online) and only takes 55 minutes back to Euston.

Cheers @StevePeel for the warm welcome!

Strava route here with more photos:
https://www.strava.com/activities/1164818506/shareable_images/map_based?hl=en-US&v=1504373804

2 Attachments

It was a pleasure having you all, thanks for making the journey. Catia and I had great fun, I drank one of those beers and lost all coordination for the last hour of the day having not eaten. Hope you all enjoy the coffee you bought. Cheers :)

many thanks Steve; top hospitality - @Vince has summed it up nicely.

Great day out and great coffee.

Emma was very pleased that i'd come home from a cycle ride with something she actually likes - two bags of Yellow Bourbon beans.

What do you normally bring her back? A couple of inner tubes to mend?

Normally just a tired and sweaty me which is obviously useless.

Occasionally some "interesting" anecdotes about my fellow cyclists, road rage incidents or what kind of cakes we ate...

Slurping up Yellow Bourbon Las Acacias Colombian this morning - delicious; smoothest coffee ever!

Think I will be defecting to YB once my Has Bean subscription has expired.

Let's petition @StevePeel to start a subscription service.

Ah nice one! Fear not, webshop with subs is in the works.

Take my fucking money!

ahh yiss

I'd be interested in joining in too!

Office has just acquired a Nespresso machine, is there anyway of using this to make reasonable coffee? Pods from decent suppliers etc? Or should I just stick to the aeropress?

https://colonnacoffee.com/collections/capsules

Some incredible coffee - at a price.

Volcano also make (Compostable) pods and are highly rated. Haven't sampled them myself though @Kompute

Not used the pods, but used Pact coffee before and was very happy with it.

Compatible pods available here: https://www.pactcoffee.com/coffees

This is not so bad really, from a standard 250gm bag of coffee you get approx. 14 aeropress (@ Slightly under 18gm per coffee). 14*0.55/0.85= £7.70/£11.90. Guess it depends on the quality you get from the machine mind.

Looking for recommendations for a decent quality second hand espresso machine, is the gaggia classic still the go to?

the new version is meant to be terrible so i would say yes but you need to make sure it's an older one.

the gaggia is also a bit of a mr potato head in that you'll probably end up pulling a ton of parts off and replacing them with other bits if you want to get the best out of it.

mine was bought in 2012 which is meant to be a good one and has the vst basket, bottomless portafilter to keep an eye on the shots, madebyknock 58.035 (or something) tamper to precisely fit the basket better than a plain 58mm, silvia steam wand for better milk steaming, brass group holder for heat consistency and a 'pro' shower screen with fancy holes to even the shower spray onto the puck to avoid channelling etc. it can still be quite changeable in results based on technique though and i've found that it's much more consistent using one of those ridiculously overpriced ocd pre-tampers to make sure the puck is 100% sorted before going in the machine.

tl;dr a classic can make decent coffee but upgraditis may set in quickly if you want truly decent quality..

Upgrading is fine, I do like a project! Is there any way to tell the older, good ones apart from the newer, crap ones?

Anybody checked out Four Boroughs coffeeshop in Crystal Palace? Came across them on IG last night, and saw it's run by a couple of guys from Brixton Cycles CC. Looks good. Apparently focus on healthy food and don't serve drinks with milk.

you need to have posted a few times on coffeeforums.co.uk before you can view the classifieds i think but there's one up on there at the moment from 2011 for £150.

https://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?40052&p=525821

seems like the serial label will indicate the year based on the photos in that thread too.

Yep it's a quality spot. They've got locks for bikes outside, assembly beans, top notch kit. Yep 3 really nice chaps from Brixton Cc it's also got a few other elements supported from members if the club in the design.

Motto is Good Things and has a healthy theme but serves coffee inc. milk drinks, local beers and light food.

If you're an Instagramer just featured them on my account london_baristas

It's a perfect pre post ride spot for a Kent ride

Sounds great. Thanks.

(and london_baristas now followed, for further reccos)