Coffee Appreciation

@Stevethecoffee I've been using Dog & Hat quite happily for a while. It's a randomized filter subscription and I get 2-3 bags a month.

What I like about it is the ability to discover new roasters and coffees that I wouldn't necessarily have found or picked up myself and to learn a bit about a roaster and their story etc...

What's not so great about it is when you occasionally have a bag that you don't particularly enjoy and think you would have been better off just picking up your own coffee yourself etc

Does anyone have any use for these? Have used a couple but it's pretty much a whole box worth. I bought them thinking they were much larger and don't have any use for them. Free if you can collect from SE20

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Nice one, I’m talking to them currently.

If you can't find a taker for them, lint free coffee filters are great for cleaning glass and mirrors.

Does anybody have a spare aeropress funnel theyre not using?

I'd take them but I'm about 200 miles away now. I reckon you should buy a cheap Kalita Wave and enjoy some nice filter coffee with them

I reckon you should buy a cheap Kalita Wave and enjoy some nice filter coffee with them

The only reasonable course of action IMO

Yes, I do. DM me your address and I can post it to you.

🙏

Does anyone know anywhere that sells largish amounts of cold brew concentrate, around 40 servings? Would like to buy some for the office. Union seems to sell a big box so leaning towards them.

https://climpsonandsons.com/products/coffee-concentrate-1000ml

Could ask these guys?

https://www.oddworks.co.uk/products/house-roast

I’ve found some bits from my old gaggia machine that I don’t need.

58mm bottomless portafilter and 18-21g basket. This fits 58mm gaggia classic and others.

New unused IMS 55mm GA200IM shower screen

And a unused gasket from an 06 baby class d machine, I’ll check the size but think it might fit some classics too.

Anyone want the lot? £30 posted?

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I want to try and learn a bit more about the different processes and how they impact coffee beans to appreciate and understand my pour over cups a bit more and be able to be more consistent on buying what I like.

At the moment, I mainly have a few different ways of "analyzing" results and don't know how to differentiate (apart from African coffees vs South America really):

• Tastes good (75% of coffees I have)
  
• Tastes amazing and something different I'd like to chase (10%)
  
• Hmm don't love that, wouldn't buy again (15%)
  

Not sure what if there's a question in there?

I've come to learn what I like just from trying absolutely everything I can over the years, which led me to understand that I prefer washed coffees grown at higher elevations, that are acidic and taste like berries/stone fruit and are lightly roasted. Therefore I almost exclusively buy Ethiopian Yirgacheffe (or other high altitude Ethiopian coffee) or Kenyan AA coffee. But it did take a good few years to figure that out. And every time I deviate away from something similar to these, I regret it.

If I look at tasting notes and see words like: chocolate, nutty, caramel, I immediately know its not the coffee for me.

Figuring out I didn't like naturally processed coffee was a big one for me as well. They always had a weird earthiness to them that I didn't like, so now I only buy washed coffee.

Keep your eyes peeled for roasters offering the same coffee processed in different ways. I did a triple pack of Ethiopia Yigracheffe from Haru washing station with washed, honey and natural process. I’m not planning on doing it again as it was a bit niche for my customer base and didn’t sell that well but some roasters will do it from time to time.

triple pack

Was that one of the "tin" collections? I love those tins, all v.useful still.

Yeah that’s right I’ve got boxes and boxes of those fucking tins in the warehouse.

I see your shop is on Shopify. It might be worth looking at some of the very effective subscription apps that are available for Shopify (Recharge etc).

I work in e-commerce and know of a great Shopify agency that would have a no obligations chat with you on the topic.

If setup well, you’d be able to treat these orders like any other mail order, yet offer the customer a high level of self-service.

DM me if that’s of interest!

@JB @Stevethecoffee Thank you both that's actually exactly the kind of stuff I was after. I guess a good first step would be to potentially keep track of it on a notepad or simple spreadsheet to be able to pinpoint the characteristics of what I like whether it be the country of origin and/or the way the coffee has been processed.

What does AA stand for in "Kenyan AA"?

@Stevethecoffee I'll keep an eye for these types of packs with the different processes

It's to do with grading the coffee

https://perfectdailygrind.com/2018/11/kenya-aa-colombia-supremo-understanding-coffee-grading/

Further to the processing question it occurred to me that triple packs can be a bit misleading because it is rare for washed, honey and natural to all be a traditional processing method to a region. For example the Haru processing station that I did a triple pack from would traditionally wash and naturally process coffees but honey is only a recent experiment driven by market demand.

It’s worth knowing what processing methods are traditional to each region pre-third-wave or whatever you want to call it, as these in my experience give the best results. With many exceptions it’s like this:

South America - all washed except Brazil who wash, pulp, and naturally process their coffee. Brazil’s mostly lower acidity coffees and very high quality natural processing methods mean their naturals are very clean and don’t tend to have that characteristic ripeness. They are sometimes difficult to distinguish from washed coffees. Natural coffees from other South American nations tend to be high quality speciality lots from recently developed processing facilities designed to service the speciality market. They are often aiming for wow factor over elegance in my experience. This is a well developed market now and it would seem that natural processing is very common but it has really just been the last 15 years or so.

Central America is often washed but increasingly honey-process, largely because of environmental pressures concerning water shortages and pollution of water ways from washing stations. I love Central American honey coffees and try to have one on most of the time. Done well they’re hard to tell from washed versions but they have a more syrupy body.

East Africa - Ethiopia is traditionally washed and natural, other processes again are down to market pressures and it’s not the general way of doing things - results are often variable IMO.
Kenya is pretty much all washed, again there are other processes coming out of there but I just like to stick with the methods they’ve been doing for generations. Rwanda washed and naturals are all great, they have a very modern infrastructure since the war and speciality buyers have influenced the processing so they’re doing good things with less traditional processes in the main.

Asian coffees - I’ve never bought a huge variety of them but in Sumatra the tradition is wet-hulling which I don’t think happens anywhere else and leads to that very distinctive flavour profile and blue colour of the raw coffee. They take the parchment off the coffee before drying which normally gets left on until export with other coffees. I visited Wahana estate which had done all the r&d of all the methods and produce wet hulled, washed, honey and natural to a very high standard. Most of the rest of the producers are wet-hulled.

So if it was me I’d be getting washed coffees from Colombia, Peru and Kenya, honey coffees from El Salvador and Costa Rica, Natural coffees from Ethiopia and Brazil and wet hulled coffee from Sumatra to train myself on typical process flavours.

Anyone want a peak water jug? It's been sitting in my cupboard for ages and I'm currently trying to declutter as I'm leaving the country in a couple of months.

Free, but won't say no to a couple of beers.

In E7.

(edit, gone, pending collection)

That's a super-useful overview - thanks!

I'm sure you'd fill them with beans & flog them if they'd sell. Must be other uses? Were they printed with the variety/process on already or that added later?