Coffee Appreciation

Fight the power.

I took a Gaggia Classic into my old office.

Power move...

I've always taken an impress brewer in to any job on day 1
(It's like a French press combined into a travel mug)

Previous job, I had 4 or 5 coffee devices on my desk plus a tea pot..

Another alternative is a thermal flask. I like my Hario Soto but not tried others.

Forget is a bit strong. I got a working Gaggia Classic for £50 on ebay.

If you're patient and motivated to clean up and/or repair stuff then you can do espresso on a budget.

Good on you, not sure though that someone who was happy with a basic consumer unit would know what to look for, have the patience to wait for a good deal, and have the skills and motivation to actually bring it back to usable condition.

I’m assuming a lot about this person of course, mostly inserting myself into the situation.

French press and share your brew with the office manager. Once they’re used to the good stuff, cut them off and make them go back to instant. Hopefully they’ll invest in a decent machine at that point.

I like your thinking there!

I thought this was really great. Once you get past the fact that the A cam was out of focus for the whole video, ha.

Really want to get my hands on some of these decaf beans, my taste is similar to Tom's in terms of light/acidic. I thought they were from Square Mile but the folks at the roastery said that wasn't the case. Any ideas?

Right now I'm brewing a Colombian decaf from Origin and it's quite unpleasant. Just tastes like ash to me.

Not sure to be honest, my only experience of decaf has been Square Mile's own 'house decaf' which they would regularly rotate which beans they use.

Unfortunately I'd be willing to bet that good decaf is still tricky to find, and when you do, the choice in beans you will have will be much lower.

In terms of things to look for to suit your taste, African coffees tend to be more sweet/acidic than those from America/Asia in my experience. They tend to be roasted lighter anyway as that tends to bring out the bright acidic flavours that those beans can provide.

As you've found, Central/Southern American beans are more likely to be roasted dark and frequently (IMO) just plain burned. Some people enjoy that roast level, but it's certainly not for me.

Would also be worth keeping an eye on Square Mile's decaf to see what beans they use next time out. Can't quite remember how often they rotate, but for their regular house blend it was every 3 months I think.

Really want to get my hands on some of these decaf beans, my taste is similar to Tom's in terms of light/acidic. I thought they were from Square Mile but the folks at the roastery said that wasn't the case. Any ideas?

Right now I'm brewing a Colombian decaf from Origin and it's quite unpleasant. Just tastes like ash to me.

How did you get on with the Waitrose organic decaf? I found it made a very acidic espresso. Pour-over was very straightforward tasting on the other hand, not really anything specific to describe about it but very different to putting it through the espresso machine. I actually struggled with it in the espresso machine; it needed to be ground so fine it was kind of somewhere between choking the machine and channelling, and I couldn't get a very satisfactory flow out of it.

I haven't tried it but everything else I've drank from this roastery has been good, also it's a little pricey
https://www.manifesto.coffee/muraho-decaf/
they do a half-caf too
https://www.manifesto.coffee/emulsify-half-caf-blend/

oh, thanks for the reminder - I don't think I have a Waitrose near me but will have to look for one to try it

looks like a really interesting roastery, they even have stuff from China and Mexico!

yeah, the Sq Mile decaf is apparently an espresso blend, but they did say in their email reply to me that it can be decent on filter too. Square Mile was always my top pick when I was a caffeine drinker, so I do miss their overall quality.

Reminds me of a time when we had some Square Mile Sweet Shop that I was serving on filter. One of the folks from Square Mile dropped by one day and asked for a filter, and asked what we were using for it. I told them Sweet Shop which was met by a "Hm, interesting, never had it as a filter before". At which point my mind was going "Uh oh, I did a bad!". Thankfully it was thoroughly enjoyed though!

Just checked back and @>>>>>> got some too. What did you think TS?

My scales broke, but naturally I can’t not drink coffee. I’m not claiming to have invented this but it seems to work. Anyone else tried it?

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relevant jimseven https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umb2lhcxHHU

Either my palette isn't as developed as I thought it was or all the single origin decafs I've tried recently were all much of a muchness... They've all been pretty dark roasted so most of the character of the beans has been nullified... If I'm honest the overall experience hasn't been much different to my usual local roaster's blend...

I'm halfway through a kilo of organic Peruvian beans at the moment, roasted to fuck! Still tastes like coffee, good coffee, but not much to differentiate it...

There's an Ethiopian decaf down in Melbourne I wanna try next... Find me a REAL medium roast decaf, I dare you!! 🙃

Sort of relevant but beans. This is purely an emergency tactic. I will be scoring some scales on pay day

Just received a Bodum pour over kit as a gift. It comes with its own mesh filter thing. Any advice for how to grind, or other technique, compared with a V60?

I was thinking that I would just use a V60 but they don't quite fit right so I'd be worried about making a mess. And then I thought I would still just use a paper filter in this dripper, but it's flat bottomed so I would need to get some Melitta style filters.

I have the same, also received as a gift. I've drilled holes in the bottom of the mesh because some idiot thought the bottom of a filter doesn't need to let liquid though. And I use some flat bottomed filters like this and just put them inside the metal one.

That's helpful, thank you.

I also didn't understand why they would block off the bottom of the dripper... This surely just means quite a lot of the water bypasses the coffee because the path of least resistance would be through the sides before it even reaches the coffee.