Coffee Appreciation

It's just not really the same thing, in the same way that a regular British household cup of tea made in a mug with a teabag and a splash of milk is objectively dogshit but millions find it incredibly satisfying because they've had it since childhood, and if you give a brit some fancy tea they're unlikely to adopt it as their everyday brew. As Johnny-Comelatelys to espresso we don't have all that legacy stuff, we're more interested in the aromatics rather than cultivating roast flavours which necessarily leads on to a much keener interest in provenance and preparation.

I like mediterranean style espresso when I'm there, served with sugar and a glass of water. Usually because it means I'm on holiday in the sunshine. Its just a cultural thing innit.

I agree with this. The roasts get darker and the % of Robusta seem to go up the further south you go. In Napoli, the average coffee is a treacly little thing that absolutely coats the palate. Very different flavour from what you get further north. Love them!

I've only been to Rome and after a couple of days of so-so coffee, I googled "best coffee near the Vatican" and went. Turned out they used beans from Small Batch in Brighton where I live.

Bingo.

You can find the best stuff here in the UK if you know where to look, but generally, in any random shop in France, Italy, Spain, etc you will find better stuff for much less.

I don't know why I mentioned France. Nothing is open there, ever :)

Melbourne is like that - I remember walking into some random suburban bakery and getting a better cappucino from there than I'd had in any chain cafe in the UK anywhere in 10 years.

Bread is an interesting one in France, as there are standards for most breads (only certain ingredients and processes allowed) and you can only call it a bakery if it meets certain criteria - eg all bread made on site, from start to finish, offering a certain range of breads, including local types etc.

Where as in the uk you can call any load basically anything you want. Lots of sour-faux on the shelves round here!

I'll never forget the baguette van guy not selling me a baguette because they were all still frozen. We'd started TCR on a Fri night or something so travelling over France Sat, Sun and then Monday was some public holiday. The guy is lucky I didn't break in and put him in his grill and run off with armfulls of frozen baguettes :)

Got one, works about the same as my normal aeropress, neat little package but maybe a little less versatile due to the smaller volume. Will he use/like the reusable cup it comes in? If yes go for the go, if no I’d just stick with a normal aeropress.

The comparison to tea is interesting. British people are similarly stuck in their ways with tea as Italians are with coffee, however, as demonstrably inferior as builder's tea is to well brewed loose leaf tea, the average homebrew is actually better than most high street tea, which is almost universally made with a scalding hot urn and a teabag.
  
I think the advent of "cafe culture" in the UK has generally made tea worse. We've replaced our tea equivalent of the €1 espresso with something worse for £2.50.

Traditional cream tea is genuinely great and unique to the UK though.

Being stuck in your ways is not always a bad thing though. The French are stuck in their ways with wine to the point of specific legal restrictions on production but still make the greatest bottles in the world.

Spot on for the tea front - pot exceeds bag in every sense other than convenience.

But almost all French grapes were grafted from Califonian vines in the 19th century to save them from a catastrophic blight, so it's good to move with the times if you have to!

But then again good teabags are much harder to find abroad than seems reasonable.

Funnily enough, I enjoy drinking wine from California way more than French wine.

I don't mind a drop of the local either, from time to time. :)

So true, there's real knowledge about what's good and what isn't in those countries... In Spain food is very egalitarian, you don't have to be rich to eat well, everyone eats the same things, rich and poor...

When I was in Brixton I'd go to one of the many Portuguese cafes and enjoy a £1 espresso with a £1 cake, delicious and way less than half the price of any of the third wave places... In Spain the coffee will cost you €1 and they'll give you the cake for free! I don't know how they stay open... But if your coffee is shit you'll go out of business, simple as that...

The specialty coffee phenomenon is great and all that but good coffee has been consumed in Europe forever... There were always fresh coffee beans, a grinder and a moka pot at my grandparent's place, it's how they lived and they were poor as church mice...

Is 1€ coffee ( in a commercial setting) possible allowing for an ethically acceptable supply chain?

Feels as though a lot of the 'speciality coffee phenomenon' focuses on ensuring growers are compensated fairly etc. I'm sure I read a really cogent post from someone on it upthread but I'm fucked if I can find it now.

I think that's a very third wave problem, these places are old fashioned businesses, the bottom line is everything so they're gonna buy the cheapest beans they can get away with...

There's a coffee shop my MiL takes us to where the guy swears by bags of commercial Segafredo beans, I asked if he used the local roaster and he very proudly pulled the bag from under the counter complaining the local roaster's beans were too acidic... Was a bit odd... Place is always packed, the coffee is pretty good, very Euro style...

Rent is a very third wave problem too, at least in London, LA, NY etc...commercial rates in Italy outside the tourist centres are laughably low, relatively speaking. The amount my mate pays to his landlords to keep the doors open here is astonishing.

Fancied a cup of filter so borrowed my neighbour’s timemore c2 rather than faffing about trying to get the super jolly set for filter. Honestly blown away by how much better it is than my 10+ year old Hario slim (admittedly attaching my drill probably accelerated its demise). Grinds really quickly, with a very satisfying action, and produces great grounds with very few fines.

Also reminds me of how nice a good cup of filter is (especially when you’re not ruining it with 50% fines in your grounds).

Considering how cheaply you can get a timemore c2 off AliExpress (£45 IIRC), is there anything else to consider in the same price region, or anything significant to be gained from getting a 1zpresso or other more expensive grinder? Wouldn’t be for espresso, just taking with us when travelling for making filter etc.

I wonder how much, if any, that will change. It's all well and good demanding $shitloads for rent, but if there's no footfall due to covid and businesses simply can't afford to pay, there's no point landlords kicking out tenants coz there's no bugger to replace them!
So, might we see a global commercial rent drop?

I have a gaggia baby 06 class d.
I bought it from vince of this parish and its been absolutely brilliant, a real bargain, probably the best money I've spent on anything.

I look after it and run pullycaf through it once a month.
Recently the steam has went a bit funny. Previously it had good pressure and came through in a nice constant jet with no spluttering.
It's now started to splutter a lot, it quickly alternates between invisible jets of steam to sudden bursts of white visible steam at the nozzle with some small splashes of water.
It no longer gives usable steamed milk.

I ordered a new steam thermostat hoping that was the issue but it hasn't fixed it.

Any one have any ideas of anything else to try that doesn't cost too much?
I'm worried that it's the pump that's fucked or some other expensive part.

I'll post a video of the steam action later when I'm home.
Would really like to get another few years out it but things like the pump might not be economical to replace

Pullycaf doesn't descale does it? So you might have scale in the steam wand or the solenoid the controls it.

Only thing that a 1zpresso is better for would be bigger burrs hence faster grinding. The burrs in the JX and JX Pro are huge. They’re also ridiculously overbuilt.

If you’re happy with the coffee they came out of it, I’d just grab the C2.

Aye thats a fair point actually. I've just ordered some descaler so will give it a try.
The steam wand seemed to go a bit suddenly, was fine one day then fucked the next.

But it hasn't been descaled since I bought it which must be close to two years now...

That's usually the first thing I try (because it's the cheapest fix) and then I'd start a bit more detailed debugging. I can't remember the specifics on this machine so it might not have a 3-way solenoid but if it does you could try backflushing with pullycaf to see if this makes any difference to the wand waterflow. If it does then it might be the 3-way clogged with scale or coffee.

But the cheaper Gaggias don't have a 3-way so check first.

"Gaggia Classic Pro: How to Clean 3 Way Solenoid Valve
If NO WATER comes out of the steam arm, and NO WATER comes through the group head, but you DO get water out of the decompression duct (the pipe on the front of the machine) then it is time to replace the solenoid valve."