Coffee Appreciation

Mate gave me this from Ride & Grind. Love it. Tastes good, and now I’ve got a cool tin to store my coffee in.

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This is a really good summary and I think confirms quite a few things we've encountered on here with decaf over the years. Freshness is probably the key takeaway. Who's currently good at getting good decaf delivered to your door and turning it around while it's still freshly roasted?

This.

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I rate James Gourmet for decaf. They roast to order.

Rave Coffee in Cirencester do good decaff (swiss water one), always arrives with good dates on.

They're caffeine Xmas blend is also absolutely lovely, but not decaf.

I just rate James Gourmet, period. I still can't believe how cheap they are for the quality you get. I was back in the UK over Xmas and had a few different coffees from them at my dads and they were all sublime. Some of them barely more expensive than shitty supermarket coffee.

I was given a 3 mo subscription to square mile as a birthday present, but honestly James Gourmet is mind blowing in the coffee you get for the money. After wanting to try something different from YB, I ordered pretty much exclusively from them last year and was never disappointed.

What's the roast style like - I always found YB slightly darker than my preference (same with dark arts + Monmouth); are JG similar / lighter or does it depend?

They have a huge spectrum. Everything you could want and everything in between, as well as fantastic brew recipes for almost all of their coffees down to the recommended temperature.

I have tended to just open all of their coffees in a new tab and have tabbed through, reading about each one. If they say light, they mean it and medium is medium and dark is dark.

As JB said, a fantastic variety to suit most needs - it’s a surprisingly big selection tbh. When you say YB are too dark, are you referring to their espresso in particular? Had plenty light roasted single origin from them.
But yes, you should be able to find something from JG to suit :)

Ok cool - will have a browse.

@Nef, to be fair I've only ordered once or twice from YB but of those I tried, theiroast for filter was slightly darker than coffees I buy in London (e.g. workshop). Obviously not espresso dark, but just a bit more than I like

James Gourmet is so cheap, and good coffee so expensive in the U.S., that I've often considered ordering from them but still haven't because of the air miles...

I placed my first Onyx order recently though which I'm very excited to receive. Not the cheapest but not the most expensive either (though they do have some exceedingly expensive coffee). But still the equivalent of 47GBP for three bags of coffee.....

They publish their costs though for all coffee, which is really cool. For example on this page, you can see the following:

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James Gourmet is one of my go to roasters, you can’t argue with the value.
FWIW We like fruit driven lighter roasts for filter.

Another vote for James Gourmet here too. My friends cafe has him as their sole supplier, so I've been drinking his coffees for years #csb.

I just rate James Gourmet, period. I still can't believe how cheap they are for the quality you get.

They just can't be beat from a quality to cost ratio, it's hard to go somewhere else and pay twice the price for poorer quality. I guess the fact that they've been going since the 90s and aren't in London means their overheads are lower than a lot of places and they've had time to build good relationships with farmers/suppliers.

They could easily get away with charging more, I think it says a lot about them as a company that they don't.

I can bring some over with me and post it to you easy enough - I’m in NC next week and in Feb ;)

Shims! Difficult to see but essentially to take up the space between the burr and its holder.

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I've seen what you're referring to here on my Wilfa Svart.

Here's some things I've noticed as a result of a little experimentation:

1. You can fit the top burrs in 2 orientations, in one orientation the burrs make a sound like they're touching at a much coarser setting (mid-aeropress) than in the other orientation.
   
2. My top burr can rotate a few degrees within the plastic holder.
   
3. Cleaning the grinder did make an improvement, but it's just made it more apparent how many fines the grinder is producing.
   
   

Quick Google suggests new burrs are £35 which doesn't seem crazy, but 2 years and 30-ish kg doesn't seem like it's really that long for the life of what's supposed to be a decent grinder. I'm going to try shimming my burrs first, then replacing them, but I think the fact the burrs can touch without even turning the dial to fully fine is a design flaw.

The sound I am now acutely aware of has been occurring for some time at finer grind settings that I don't normally use, which I thought wasn't great but I am now learning that even just touching once can kill the burrs and these cunts have been giving each other the kiss of death since only a couple of months after I bought it.

Have you considered grinder training?

Tempted

Interesting. I actually modded my grinder by dismantling it to get the burrs to go closer together. Afterwards I could get them to make exactly the sound you describe at the finest setting so had to back them off a notch.

To be honest I always thought it was a pretty imprecise way of holding the top burr and very unlikely to keep the burrs coaxial, especially at all settings. I was thinking about upgrading to a Svart but one of the reasons I didn't was because of that burr mounting arrangement.

I got a Joy Resolve Groove Compact for Christmas which, despite seeming almost like a toy, seems to give a much more consistent grind, although that might well be down to the fresh burrs.

Appreciate you but all sorted for now <3

Unrelated to my grinder woes, my mate is looking at this

https://miicoffee.shop/products/miicoffee-apex-espresso-machine

Anyone got any experience with it?

Any recommendations for James Gourmet coffee for espresso? Going to give it a go with all the recommendations

I'd be looking at a 2nd hand gaggia classic with a few mods already installed for that budget. Better off getting something with a big parts market for if(when) something goes wrong