Dead Blog

I know, this blog is dead. Rather than try to revive it, I've found a newer, prettier, flashier blog at http://kyleglanville.wordpress.com

Dead Blog

I know, this blog is dead. Rather than try to revive it, I've found a newer, prettier, flashier blog at http://kyleglanville.wordpress.com

WBC Results

1. Klaus Thomsen, Denmark
2. Sammy Piccolo, Canada
3. Matt Riddle, USA
4. Anne Lunnel, Sweden
5. James Hoffman, UK
6. Ingibjorg Jona Siguroardottir, Iceland

Stumptown Coffees

I received a package from Portland today. Opening it revealed what appears to be 3 one pound bags of Stumptown's finest, a delivery I have been eagerly anticipating as I am almost completely burned out on Vivace espresso.

The bags contain coffees which were all roasted on May 8th: Ethiopia Harrar, Rwanda, and Brazil Sao Benedito, the coffee which nabbed 2nd place honors in the 2005 Brazil CoE competition.

I decided to go for the Harrar first and am sipping away at it right now. I prepared it in a french press and decanted it into a glass measuring cup. This is a really lovely coffee. Not the blueberry explosion many associate with Harrars (although there is some in there) but more of a simple, high body, high cacao kind of coffee. I would say there is also a bit of lightly roasted sweet almond in there as well. A really lovely coffee with a big, beautiful personality.

Thanks Duane and crew for lifting me out of complete palate boredom, these coffees will be much appreciated!

You Know the Story. Now Get the Shirt.

Online coffee personality Steve Ford (Dogmilque) took a nasty spill while we were all drunkin it up in Charlotte. And now he needs help. Donations can be made via paypal, or you can order an awesome commemorative t-shirt here.

Schecter's Device: Dare I say "Third Wave"?

Home espresso enthusiast and shade tree engineer Andy Schecter had something to show at the SCAA conference in Charlotte. It was an air compressor powered piston pump outfitted with the ability to modify and sculpt pressure profiles. Attached to the Synesso Cyncra in Gimme! Coffee's booth, the device drew mixed reactions. Spectators seemed either completely indifferent to the impractical innovation or enthusiastic about the possibilities of pressure sculpting for optimizing coffees.

This device appears to be very significant for two reasons:

1.No more pulsating pump pressure. The piston pump pushes water straight through with nary a flutter. Other online coffee blogger types have claimed that constant pump pressure increases clarity and mouthfeel. After tasting a really fantastic shot off a lever machine, its hard to disagree.

2.Complete control over pressure profiles. We have experienced a gentle brew pressure decline from lever group machines, but what about a gentle upward ramp in pressure? What happens if pressure completely falls off halfway through, only to ramp back up full blast? We can only guess, and the truth is that a lot of time could be devoted to experimentation with this variable.

So what I imagine is this: Each group on an espresso machine very much like the Synesso (but with different pump activation controls) is fitted with one of these pumps and an easily accessible user interface screen much like that on the Clover 1s. Using the interface the operator can set, on the fly, the group to optimize for different coffees. Somebody wants a shot of the Guat Huehue Finca Huixoc? No problem. Turn the dial to set for "guatemala", and the preset pressure profile and temperature for that coffee is dialed in. Wait for the light to turn green (to indicate the group is at correct temp) and you are ready to rock. With small dedicated boilers for every group, it wouldn't take long for the temperature to increase, nor would it require much surfing to cool the group down.

If you need to adjust the settings for different coffees, a simple laptop terminal connected with USB or firewire allows you to dock into the machine's central brain, tweaking extraction parameters from there. Of course, the operator would still be able to make simple temperature and pressure adjustments without presets using the interface on the machine.

Or if you are a wholesale roaster, and your espresso changes and extraction parameters need to be adjusted, you can email your clients the update, which they can easily load into their machine with a laptop.

Crazy control over the extraction environment. Is this third wave?

Obligatory First Post

Welcome all to my new blog, a dumping ground for the incoherent ramblings of a recently unemployed coffee obsessive.

Until recently, I served as Victrola Coffee's head barista and trainer, among other things.

Today I find myself contemplating several options for new employment and am happy to be unemployed in the interim. This is the first time I have been without job since I was 16 years old so the whole thing is quite novel.

I'll try to keep you all (ALL of you... sigh) updated on how that goes, as well as keeping my massive readership attuned to every silly, half baked coffee related idea that springs to mind.

Soon, there will be pictures to accompany the posts on this site. First, however, I must get the lens on my beloved Canon Powershot S80 repaired as it is jammed half way between fully closed and fully opened.

You can reach me at kyleglanville (at) gmail (dot) com. Thanks for visiting.

-Kyle