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Sorry I'm not in your club guys, it's really too bad I started my foray into the forum the way I did, because you automatically dismiss my opinion. You all have very strong opinions, and act like a bunch of teenagers who are scared of being wrong.

Literally nobody really challenged any of the facts I suggested, but decided to call me out on my manner, and I guess fair enough.

I'm glad you think you can make a good espresso at home, and you can probably beat most indie coffee shops, because people in London still mostly don't even know a thing about espresso brew ratios, and a lot of people are pulling salty under extracted ristrettos.

If you can forgive my abruptness to begin with, please I encourage you to seek out more information from the businesses I mentioned earlier.

There is a lot of new coffee businesses in London, and they all have an opinion of what to do, some are being more methodical and scientific in their approach, while some are sticking to tradition or heresay. I believe in the scientific approach.

Go on spiting me if you think it will make you feel better, but id rather have a good(note, better then you have had before as an ongoing process) coffee making you feel better.

Edit:
To me it's about as simple as tasting them side by side and comparing things. I dare you to cup climpsons vs workshop for example. Obviously brewing makes a difference, but it's such a small little piece in the system, it starts at the farm mannnnn

I'll post some tomorrow!

While monmouth has a large selection and is reasonably priced, they have developed a very large following. This has lead them to larger roasts and less consistency, especially with their in-store brewing (watch them make filter with a jug of water and no scales/timer). A good option for someone getting into specialty.

I also don't really like their common use of naturally processed coffee (as opposed to washed). If you're after a larger range from one company I think that Hasbean does a slightly better job of sourcing and roasting.

@sumo lol

Well, considering most of the people wondering about prices of coffee drop a load of cash on a home espresso machine this isn't a common scenario. my issue is with "adequate results". onwards and upwards my friend.

and believe me, I don't earn a lot of money in the coffee industry. I think all of this applies to lots of other consumables. e.g. wine or beer. shit beer is shit, popular, and tastes shit. good beer is more expensive, but you could drink 1/3 the amount of beer and have a great time with your taste buds instead of the alcohol content, and at the end of the day you don't even need beer so why buy shit beer.

isn't this thread about coffee appreciation? like... good coffee love?

anyway this has stopped being about coffee appreciation and information sharing. basically stop promoting shit coffee please, let's drink the nice stuff!

I mean this in the nicest way possible.

A single review of a cheap coffee by caffeine magazine does not prove anything. I commend you for doing a good job, and it's good that people enjoyed it. That is one opinion (by caffeine no less).

Of course people shift older coffee by roasting it darker and shoving it in a blend, and just because this is common practice, doesn't make it good. In an ideal world we'd always have fresh coffee and not be sacrificing it's subtleties by blending it.

This is touching upon the biggest challenge in specialty, that of the defect named "bag" which I'm sure you are aware of.

I have also enjoyed darker roasted coffees in the past, but nothing comes close to beautiful high scoring delicate and lightly roasted coffees, this is pretty strongly reflected by cupping scores. CoE is a good reference for this.

relative to drinking coffee in a cafe. 250g of something nice will be £9-12. thats give or take 16 coffees.

edit: of course you could always buy some crazy geisha for like £25 per 250g

Thanks for your response, and you're probably right. I still don't really see the need to recommend something cheap and cheerful when real specialty coffee is actually not expensive.

Of course light roasted coffee doesn't have to be expensive and good quality, but when it comes to being scientific about roasting, there is definitely a small band of profiles that works for each coffee. You can't just roast a nice 90 point kenyan to second crack and expect it to work.

Could you please pm me about how you proved that?

Just because some good coffee people contribute, doesn't mean there still isn't a lot of shite in here. I'm sorry if I came off too arrogant, but people are recommending waitrose coffee in here man....

and just so you know my information is all from WBC and experienced roasters/trainers from specialty businesses including workshop coffee.

also good to keep in mind that WBC is heavily scored on performance, and they have no control over the espresso machine settings. (temp)

What I was trying to convey is that dark roast isn't really a matter of opinion, it's there because the green coffee sucked in the first place.

Would be open to selling if in a similar region of buying a smaller tooth count. offers welcome :)

Dark roast brigade is strong, starbuck's legacy continues.

My current aeropress method is pretty basic, but I'm working with a number of baristas and need to keep it consistent:

15g coffee grind on 8-8.5 (depending on coffee and desired extraction) EK43
230g R/O filtered water (140-180PPM for london) 90 degrees
Non inverted, standard paper filter.
30 second bloom with 50g bloom water
add 180g more of water (total 230 on scale) while spinning aeropress constantly to immerse the floating coffee evenly
allow coffee to drip through without placing plunger on until 1:30
press slowly from 1:30 to 2:00 (this takes very little effort and isn't forcing it)

This results in a TDS of 1.3-1.4 generally close to 1.35. (depending on surrounding air temp, random fines, age of coffee)

that is a extraction of around 21% according to VST coffee tools on immersion settings.

I feel I should also say that I prefer v60 or chemex over aeropauses for all application apart from camping. it results in a cleaner coffee (most of the time) and is slightly less fiddly to set up.

The problem with recipes like this is the agitation, there is a very sound method in there apart from the ambiguous "stir".

I support very slow press, as it doesn't force as many fines through the side holes in the aeropress. 78 degrees is a touch low in my opinion, slightly above 80 to get a little more acidity.

You say you changed the dose from 16.5g to 19g. did you adjust any other parameters? the thermal mass of that would require you to increase your temperature slightly to get the same extraction percentage. 16.5g to 250g is already on the high side of strength for dose if you are using a lightly roasted coffee (because you will inherently have a higher extraction and more coffee dissolved). Going to 19g would usually result in having to under extract the coffee to have a normal mouthfeel/body.

I was waiting for these replies, lol.

but seriously lots of "dark roast" appreciation going on here. Seems to be a lot of opinions and not a lot of science in this thread.

Dark roast = easy to brew, cheap coffee over developed flavours til all you can taste is chocolate/nuttiness

Light roast = hard to brew , nicer coffe with more complex flavours preserved by not over caramelising it in roaster.

...in general

This thread has a disturbing lack of coffee information. I am an Australian barista/trainer and coffee person. There is literally so many wrong opinions in this thread it saddens me.

Firstly, more expensive coffee IS WORTH IT. From the farm to the cup coffee has hundreds of hours of labour involved, and it is your privelage to have such readily available coffee. Each bean is hand picked and sorted!

Generally the more expensive the coffee, the better. This is true and measured on a scale of "cupping" scores out of 100.

Of course it doesn't matter too much I if your roaster over cooks it, or you don't have any idea how to brew it.

Let's have some brewing basics:

Step one:
Get a decent brew device. Home espresso machines aren't worth it. Stick to filter.

Step two: buy micro scales and a grinder, essential for any kind of brew if you want to get a decent extraction.

Step three: tasting. Generally speaking, sour is under extracted, bitter is over extracted. Somewhere in the middle it's sweet and balanced. Adding sugar will cloud this away till you have no idea.

Step 4: ratios and brewing:
There are many exceptions to these rules but here's some good starting points.

For filter brewing, a ratio of about 1gram coffee for 18 grams water is a good starting point.

Use water at least 90 degrees, and grind as course as your grinder can without producing too many fines (finer grind particles)

Adjust your brew time based on tasting sour or bitter, and try to always use the same water source and temperature.

ALWAYS GRIND FRESH and coffee should be between 2 days and 2 weeks old for filter. (7-14 days for espresso)

As a closing note to this post, cheap coffee will generally be roasted darker to caramelise the coffee more and make it sweeter. This also masks the natural flavours of the coffee and makes it extract faster. It is acceptable in lower quality coffees but higher quality coffees should be roasted lighter to preserve be natural complexity and acidity of coffee.

If you have more questions I encourage you to seek out information from well know specialty coffee businesses. I suggest The Nordic Approach, square mile (mainly for the blog) seven seeds (Australian), Koppi, the coffee collective, Barn.

Please feel free to pm me for any recipes on filter coffee, cold brew, or espresso advice.

Friend seems interested, test ride tomorrow? I'll pm you deets

As title says, I would like a Dura ace Track Chainring in 1/8, 144bcd between 46-49 tooth with little wear/new. Silver preferred.

My 55t Chainring has very little wear, I have not used it but bought on lfgss recently.

I am based in clapton but can meet centralish most evenings/some days.

Hit me up if you want that epic big ring look on your HHSB or Track bike. (and you have a smaller DA ring!)

edit: could also go for a 46 ring.

beautiful, but way too big for me. friend might be interested depending on budget stretch :)

I'll take this. pm inc.

This sounds like there isn't room for the brake clamp on the bars, if there is though, electrical tape and adequate(-not overtightened) torque will hold it in place.

Still looking for a seat post!

Ah damn, I need a decent length post :( oh well

pm about 3ttt stem