Coffee Appreciation

I've got the left hand and middle bit. Shame I can't find the main bit, it's chrome off an Achille (posh).

No sailors but check out this unit on the 9 of spades.

phwoarrr

Chicory is what I was given when I was too young to drink real coffee.

Like dale, it's for kids and old women.

further researches reveal that the chocolate-taste of the chicory/coffee blend makes for a great iced coffee.

Which probably proves Bill's point.

It may, though, also be a route to Vietnamese coffee, which Anthony 'Confidential' Boudain raves about:
[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_iced_coffee[/ame][ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_iced_coffee"][/ame]

(Chicory and condensed milk - it seems like a time machine back to the 1950s)

Missed the Faema.. and now this.. grrr..
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140314412058

Monmouth in not the best coffee I've ever tasted shocker. Had a filter coffee on Monmouth Street and it tasted pretty rank - burnt and bitter.

They were pretty busy though - who'd have thought it at 4 in the afternoon... Came away with 3 bags of beans - but felt pretty rushed so couldn't really spend time chatting. Shame...

Well, some dude I knew for a while was like "x cafe is great, they use monmouth beans", as if using monmouth beans somehow adds to your credibility, like as soon as you mention monmouth then thats it, you must be a good cafe. but you could use the best beanz in the world and still make shit coffee, and its not as if monmouth grow the beanz themselves anyway is it. The wickedest coffee i ever tasted was from Shittards, despite the fact that a few months later i bought the same type of coffee from them and it just tasted of burn. But at least they got it right once. mmm red wine is nice

I was planning on going there today to buy some beans. My mate said the coffee he had in there wasn't so hot but I'm only after the beans so not too bothered.

Well, some dude I knew for a while was like "x cafe is great, they use monmouth beans", as if using monmouth beans somehow adds to your credibility, like as soon as you mention monmouth then thats it, you must be a good cafe. but you could use the best beanz in the world and still make shit coffee, and its not as if monmouth grow the beanz themselves anyway is it. The wickedest coffee i ever tasted was from Shittards, despite the fact that a few months later i bought the same type of coffee from them and it just tasted of burn. But at least they got it right once. mmm red wine is nice

you're right about the first part and then wrong on the second part.

you're right about the first part and then wrong on the second part.

But red wine is nice! ;p

When I was practicing my grinds, I bought some 'Guatemalan Elephant' from Whittards. It was nice enough, but not quite there - which I suppose is how you'd describe most of their stuff. They couldn't tell me anything about the coffee's origin and insisted on calling their roast silly things like 'strong roast', which means nothing.

Sadly, despite giving free training and trying as much as possible to instill the mantra of quality on wholesale customers, many simply want to write Monmouth Coffee on their blackboard without backing it up with the necessary integrity.

Other roasters are more discriminate in who they give accounts to, and they are very fortunate to be in that position. Unfortunately as the business expands it becomes far more difficult to keep all the customers whipped into shape.

You know where the good places are!

I'll agree with that - as time goes on, the stockists who rely on the name 'Monmouth' - rather than their coffee skills - as a source of revenue will increasingly neglect the product and trade off the name alone.

On a slightly different note, after months of trying to track one down, I've finally got hold of a new head gasket seal for my Cubika. The problem is, after thoroughly dismantling the machine and cleaning it throroughly, before installing the new one, it turns out that when I put the portafilter on, there's not enough of a seal there to create the pressure needed. Essentially the basket turns all the way to the right with no resistance, whereas even with the old one it would 'stop'.

There's a slight possibility I've put the filter holder on the wrong way round, or maybe the rubber seal just expands when it gets hot properly, but if anyone has any experience of installing this sort of thing, please let me know.

Cheers...!

There's probably a schematic of your machine online. Let me know if you can't find it and I will look..

Amazingly it does work. I'm used to having to really wedge the portafilter in hard to get a good seal, but it seems even when it feels 'loose' it's actually pretty well sealed.

How do I know? Pulled off a shot and put the steamer on - absent-mindedly forgetting to take off the portafilter, which is what you're supposed to do before frothing. Went to take off the portafilter, sound like a gun went off, portafilter flies out of my hand, coffee grounds all over the kitchen.

I think the seal's good...

I had proper portafilter sneeze the other day on my lapavoni. ground a little too fine and tamped a little hard so the lever offered me some firm resistance. I took that as a challenge and gave it some welly, which probably did it no good. Decided to give it up and took out the portafilter forgetting the whole thing was still under pressure. Coffee. Everywhere.

Yep - that's the ticket.

The worst part was that the grounds went all over the freshly prepared macchiato I'd put on the side, next to my machine.

EDIT: To be honest, they went pretty much everywhere else as well, so it's not that surprising they went in the drink...

I've read that your seals will last longer if you don't force the portafilter closed and also make sure it's properly cleaned post shot by wiggling the portafilter loosely around in the head to free any stuck grounds.

mooks: Why would you take the portafilter off before steaming? I thought the idea was to leave it on so the coffee puck is dried out a bit and is more easily binnable.

I've just bought a Bezzera 1 group to fuck around with..

http://www.bezzera.it/prodotti_ted/bz35.html

BZ35 P MG
[FONT=Verdana][SIZE=1]BZ35 P MG[/SIZE][/FONT]

Show off.

I've read that your seals will last longer if you don't force the portafilter closed and also make sure it's properly cleaned post shot by wiggling the portafilter loosely around in the head to free any stuck grounds.

mooks: Why would you take the portafilter off before steaming? I thought the idea was to leave it on so the coffee puck is dried out a bit and is more easily binnable.

I've just seen your other post - a hearty 'shit the bed!' from me for that one...

When I got the machine (my first espresso maker...) I felt resistance towards the end of the turn when I put the portafilter in. I assumed this was because there was some kind of taper or thread that was creating a tighter seal the more I turned it. When I stripped down the machine the other night, it turned out that resistance was because the grouphead gasket hadn't been installed properly before, and was sticking out - which was causing the resistance.

Over the past year, I've gotten used to turning the portafilter as far as it'll go, when actually it can feel a bit 'loose' and still create a good seal. When the machine's hot, it can actually get properly jammed in there if you twist it too far.

As for leaving the portafilter on there when I'm steaming, well I got out of the habit of steaming when I started drinking more americanos than lattes, so just got used to taking it off straight afterwards. Now I'm drinking a lot of macchiatos I'm obviously using the steamer more, but still taking the portafilter off before steaming.

The big problem it seems I've got now is that the new gasket has made the seal *too *good - and as I don't think I have a three-way valve on the Cubika to release some of that pressure, and you can really feel it when you're taking off the portafilter now.

This bloody thread started my sudden coffee machine craze.. it's only right that I pollute it with the results. I'm gonna strip the orange panels and get them powdercoated white*.

*I'm partly serious. It's gonna be the iCoffee

Rancilio steam wand mod..

1st fucking lame attempt at 'latte art'.. it did look better but I mistakenly went for a second pass and clobbered everything.. see what happens when you lose your 5mm allen key..

it's the angel gabriel in latte form…

that Bezerra looks great, bastard.

i have run out of coffee. do i buy some lavattza (gold or black) or a tub of illy or go without until i go to monmouth sometime next week?
something tells me i am going to be disappointed with ready packaged stuff.

Yep.. prepacked is poor. I wouldn't have known different until I got my grinder. Fresh ground makes a HUGE difference to the shots. Saying that, I had best results with Lavazza prepacked before I got the grinder.

I'm thinking about riding to Monmouth now actually..

give me a ring if you do i may join you as it's easier to queue if somebody can watch the bike(s)