Coffee Appreciation

If there's anything on here that you might like I could bring you some.

wow, that is good value

do you work for them?

would probably get a kg of monsoon malabar and a kg of something else - what do you suggest?

Don't work for them, it's my way to work and go past there at least 5 times a week. I buy Malabar or Ethiopian Yergacheffe usually.

do you come via kew in your travels (sorry to be a pain but housebound at the moment)? i dont want to put you out, i could just mail order.

if you like the malabar (which is a particular favourite of mine) then I will take your suggestion on the yergacheffe

Prancer, i'd go for Hasbean mail order for guaranteed quality. Awesome service, roasted to order and despatched same day. You should get your coffee in 2 days.

^ +1

Expecting half a kilo of Bolivian & 250g El Salvador La Illusion in the next couple of days. Coffee heaven everytime.

Fair do's so based on that I drink espressos only and prefer malabar and yergacheffe and want to try something fairly similar or the same.

I just popped into Monmouth. £12/500g for house espresso. Hmm. Think I might still go the hasbean route for ~£10.50 delivered. It's a big step up in budget for me, but at least it's delivered for that price. I also felt distinctly out of place on the Monmouth premises :/

I'm looking at the Bolivia Cooperative San Ignacio and the Brazil Fazenda Sol Nascente Natural as cheap espresso options that sound appealing. Apologies for not going back through the whole thread, but are there hasbean.co.uk customers on here who've tried those / have any other recommendations in the up-to-£5-per-250g bracket?

Why did you feel out of place?

going back to LMNH after nearly a week off. I'm excited for coffee.

Why did you feel out of place?

It seemed full of overly clean monied people, and the 'vibe' was sterile. Not that I'd be stopping to drink there or anything. I can't afford coffee out.

[quote=;]/quote

*these last approx 55 minutes per hour

Fair do's so based on that I drink espressos only and prefer malabar and yergacheffe and want to try something fairly similar or the same.

hasbean sells a yirgacheffe:

http://www.hasbean.co.uk/products/Ethiopia-Yirgacheffe.html

I'm looking at the Bolivia Cooperative San Ignacio and the Brazil Fazenda Sol Nascente Natural as cheap espresso options that sound appealing. Apologies for not going back through the whole thread, but are there hasbean.co.uk customers on here who've tried those / have any other recommendations in the up-to-£5-per-250g bracket?

Depends what you like flavourwise. I tend to go more for Chocolatey / Dark fruity types over the floral jasminey ones (a bit soapy for me sometimes - I rinse the aeropress in water only before anyone comments!) and have found the Central / South American ones to hit the mark more often than not.

I'm no expert though, and shop purely on the tasting notes on the right hand side of the coffee pages.

The La Illusion I've ordered is described as Lemonade / Sherbert which doesn't fit the above, so I'm looking forward to brewing a cup of that later in the week.

^yeah, I'm just going by tasting notes that include stuff like milk chocolate, nuts, caramel. I'm intrigued by those that also mention citrus acidity (lemon, lime) along with chocolate, but not sure I'd cope with going as far as the sherbety ones you mention; and definitely haven't enjoyed the bright fruity African SO coffees I've tried in the past.

Enjoying experimenting with the handpresso / porlex mini combo, and the 'inverse basket fill / tamp' method demonstrated by Bigfoot (hello, lurker) is great :)

Got extraction (if that's the right word) at 25 to 30 seconds now.

If the Costa Rican Finca Del Licho returns this year it's worth trying. Honey and Blackcurrant that is just a delight...

Cupped the 2011 crop Hacienda Esmeralda from Panama this evening. The top lot of this coffee last year sold for $170 / lb, or £224 / kg (green, unshipped) add shipping and some margin and you're easily looking at over £300 / kg retail, or £6.00 per cup if you make it at home.

So was it any good? Yes. Very good. Lime, jasmine, bergamot, developing into mango, melon, cherry, berries. Truly kaleidoscopic. It's also a prime example of diminishing returns. One of the cups was our Yirgacheffe, and in a blind tasting 2 out of 10 tasters picked the Yirg as their favourite.

I would certainly recommend trying it, I very much doubt Monmouth will be buying it, but Fortnums and Hasbean have the 2010 crop, just as an experience akin to a vintage Krug, Beluga caviar or an aged Cohiba.

what! no marshmallows and squirty cream?? what a waste

Enjoying experimenting with the handpresso / porlex mini combo, and the 'inverse basket fill / tamp' method demonstrated by Bigfoot (hello, lurker) is great :)

Got extraction (if that's the right word) at 25 to 30 seconds now.

And how long do you spend pumping?

snigger

To get to the bottom edge of the green on the gauge, which seems to work fairly consistently, it takes about 36 strokes, though for the second shot in a sitting, it might only take 28 to reach the same point. Can't explain that.

On the grind setting that's working for the Porlex (3 clicks back from the tightest), it's approx 225 turns of the handle to grind 2 shots worth of beans (which is less than 2 minutes, without getting all goldsprints about it).

[/anal, but SFW]

It seemed full of overly clean monied people, and the 'vibe' was sterile. Not that I'd be stopping to drink there or anything. I can't afford coffee out.

Ha, I just roll up there on weekends with bike in tow, push through all the people ordering drinks, yell my order through at the beans-are-for-legends counter, grab beans disappear before the 'jumper over the shoulders' brigade even know where the fuck the smell came from..

repost?

chris deburgh/rapha tampers

I've seen the CK tampers, not Rapha branded ones though pukesoncock

repost?

chris deburgh/rapha tampers

I see what they did there.

It seemed full of overly clean monied people, and the 'vibe' was sterile. Not that I'd be stopping to drink there or anything. I can't afford coffee out.

i have always found the staff quite chilled and not at all snooty, even when rammed they have even made me a small taster coffee when i was dithering over some beans for cafetiere and don't roll their eyes when somebody wants help choosing.

shame they don't have the other stall in the market itself as they used to do espressos for 50p there.

in other news i has a nice iced coffee from StAli and have now mastered the art of frothing milk as i had to make 10 coffee's* for some photographs, might get a proper jug and start steaming at home.

*using cold instant coffee in a paper cup for chain of food and beverage garage shops.