Coffee Appreciation

That looks super nice. How did you do the base?

Dad life increasing your caffeine consumption?! 😂

Ha! I actually drink less coffee now than pre-covid.
Coffee on train
Coffee on arrival
Maybe one around 11am
One around 2-3pm
And I was buying at least 3 of those per day!

That’s big money!

£5 for 250g is cheap!

Nice deal, couldn't find the survey link... Tried the newsletter, it's not that. But "Check you’re emails for 10% off your first order!" (link to the thread)

EDIT: found it in their twitter

Sorry I meant to link to it, then couldn’t find it and forgot! Sorry

Trying ‘Turbo Shots’ on the lever.

Thought they’d be shit.

Actually quite nice.

10g in, ~30g out. Lots of flavour but obviously quite thin. Anyone else had a crack?

Cafe hermozi is £14.00 per kg depending on bean origin. Really nice coffee

I’m out

1 Attachment

Sounds like a great ice cream menu

Gelato

1 Attachment

The artwork sold me these

1 Attachment

This is probably sacrilege to ask in here but does anyone have recommendations for some decent/fancier than usual pods to fit a Nespresso machine? It's for a gift so maybe some sort of selection pack type thing might be ideal?

I’ve heard good things about Colonna’s pods.

That'll do, thanks!

I think dark arts do pods and square mile are developing them, not sure if they're out yet.

Colonna pods are good - they’ve been the go to recco on here before

anyone tried one of these?

https://www.wacaco.com/collections/picopresso

Wanted to post my coffee set up evolution

Years 0-5 drink any plonk , just for caffeen fix.
Years 6-7 Nespresso (moved in with my now wife from Italy)
8-15 Gaggia Brera bean to cup (because f*** Nestlé) great little machine. Normally using an Italian dark rost style bean, illy, Lavazza, Pellini etc or whatever nameless bag of beans that one of the local Italian deli's have behind the counter.

I've decided to add a pour over set up to my stack to have my long coffees from pour over and better beans instead of just running the brera long (which is actually fine, but why settle)
This was inspired from having had an extended Xmas break back home drinking a lot of coffee from birth a local roaster and some coffee a pal of mine roasts, all from either pour over or aeropress.

I'm sure watching 100s of hours of James Hoffman videos has in no way rewired my brain. Went for hario V60 decanter & hario mini hand grinder as I couldn't justify spending much more right now

How much am I going to need to spend to improve my espresso from a Gaggia Classic with PID and all the usual mods. I don’t really drink milk drinks, and don’t pull a lot of back to back shots, so dual boiler, HX, etc don’t really offer me much real world upgrade even though they are a spec up, and buying anything without a PID feels like a backward step. Lelit Mara? ECM Classica? What else?

Grinder is Niche Zero

What grinder are you using?

Niche Zero

I'd be looking at something with an e61 group head and a rotary pump. Maybe Lelit Victoria.

Having gone through a similar upgrade path, I bought a Lelit Bianca to replace my classic. If I’m honest, apart from looking beautiful and being a joy to use every day, it’s made very little difference to the quality of espresso I make (unless pulling multiple shots back to back). The biggest difference to taste was improving my grinder and, like you, I now have a niche.

Long story short - don’t expect huge improvements moving from a classic to e61