Zazz is selling the totally awesome Facebank.
For $17.95 plus postage. For today only.
Zazz is selling the totally awesome Facebank.
For $17.95 plus postage. For today only.
I was wondering how much someone who spends as much time as I do reading about coffee could learn from a three and a half hour coffee school. The answer – not much, and a lot.
We took the three hour course at Coffee Dominion. It’s $75 and basically includes all you can drink coffee and three hours of hands on training.
The thing about coffee is that there’s an incredible amount of diversity in thinking and practice that it’s hard to nail down any one particular theory.
For example – many people argue that tamping (the compacting of coffee in the filter basket) is not only essential – but must be done with 10kg of pressure. Other people argue that as long as the distribution and dosing of the coffee in the basket is even, tamping is irrelevant.
What really matters when it comes to making a coffee is consistency of method. That was hammered home tonight. As long as your dosing is consistent – that is the same amount of coffee in the basket, prepared the same way, and your tamping is consistent – the only variable is the grind. The grind will vary based on humidity and variables like type of bean, depth of roast and time since roasting. If your method is the same this is the only change you’ll need to make.
I disagreed with a little bit at the start, we had a sit down session where we were told that single origin coffee is no good for espresso. I like single origin espresso. That is one type of bean from one place. The argument is that espresso requires a dark roast, that diminishes the flavour profile from the bean – so to keep espresso interesting you need to mix a broader variety of flavours. I disagreed. I don’t mind espresso made from a light roasted bean. But that’s less than relevant in the broader scheme of things.
The “cupping” was interesting. Cupping is the primary method bean buyers use when determining what beans to order. It’s basically hot water poured over ground coffee. It’s that simple. No plunge, no brewing, no steeping. It’s just coffee and hot water. The coffee forms a crust. You break the crust that it forms and sip the coffee. Then you figure out the flavour profile – it’s similar to wine tasting really.
Milk frothing was interesting too – I struggle to get the texture right. The goal is to make “silk from milk” and to avoid big bubbles.
We also got to look around Coffee Dominion – where all the behind the scenes magic happens. Including a little excursion into the roasting room. I’ll put pictures up shortly.
It was a good learning experience – and worth doing. We’ve even got certificates to show for it.
Robyn, Chris, and I are going to coffee school tonight at Coffee Dominion. Should be fun. It’s pretty much all you can drink coffee – and we are learning about the following:
I’m taking the camera and will no doubt give you all a run down tomorrow. I’m pretty excited.
I love the Godfather. Everyone should. I even liked the third installment. Unlike the guy who did the trilogy meter. But the first was the best. And any fan of the first will no doubt want one of these in their bed:
These are full sized horse head plush™ pieces and are larger than you might think (33 inches[84cm] from nose to neck, 19 inches[48cm] tall). They feature the highest quality soft, synthetic fur and mane, felt tongues, and our signature quality workmanship. Stuffed with non-allergenic soft polyester fiber fill, they feel just like you would hope they would. We are also offering these unstuffed for those who want to save on stuffing and shipping costs. Just be thankful that we aren’t having to ship the whole horse.
You can buy them stuffed for $US45 or unstuffed for $US35 plus shipping.
Annabel Crabb reports on an uproar in Federal Parliament yesterday regarding the National Gallery’s purchase of a $1.1 million painting of a woman going to the toilet. It’s by Degas. The gallery bought it at an auction. In the interests of protecting any prudish readers I have painted clothes onto her to include her here.
In the real thing she’s not wearing any clothes. Seems a little tasteless to me. The opposition seized on the opposition to slam the Government for the national institution’s decision to purchase the painting rather than using the money to create jobs (some of the money came from taxpayers, most from benefactors).
Line of the day:
“”It’s not as if this is Blue Poles. It’s Yellow Pools!” protested one Opposition tactician, believed to be Joe Hockey.”
So should the Government be spending money on foreign art? Aren’t Australian artists going hungry? This could have fed twenty artists in Australia for a year – and paid for 20 paintings.
Like Joel, I’m not a morning person. I hate mornings. I hate waking up. I hit snooze three times before I do. I get to work later than my colleagues – some of whom are here before I even wake up. I can’t start the day without a coffee – but that’s the same if I get up after 10am.
The Geek Dad blog at wired.com has a great ten tips for people who struggle to get up in the morning. One of which is to put your alarm over the other side of the room so you get up when it goes off. I’m all for that – especially if it means I take into account the 20 minutes of “snooze” I have every morning and set my alarm later. Here’s why:
“The thing is, snoozing sucks. It’s low-quality sleep that doesn’t leave you feeling restful in any way. My groggy brain is not rational enough in the a.m. to understand this. So there is no alarm on my bedside table.”
There are a couple of subtitled swear words here – but this is funny. And worth a watch. Does a video comparing grammar pedants with Hitler break Godwin’s Law?
Sister number two thought she was really clever when she first discovered vectors. “Everything is vectors” she said. And she would find ways to express everything in vector terminology. At least that’s how I remember that annoying phase of her life.
Here is a website that goes one better. Envisaging life and philosophical concepts in the form of mathematical equations.
So in this case the equation would be:
morenewmaths = sister number 2 + vectors + 1.
Like these.
We’ve had Optima Prime, and the Obamicon, but now fusion. Bringing two cool things together. Obama and Optimus Prime. I give you “Obamaprime – Change Into A Robot” a poster by Tim Doyle. It has sold out. But it’s awesome.
If you happen to visit my site today you’ll notice I’ve finally added a “blogroll” a list of links to blogs I read. Starting with “personal blogs” from people I know in real life, or whose personal blogs I subscribe to.
Next up will be a list of links to useful sites and blogs I read. Exciting stuff. If you didn’t make the list and think you should – let me know.
The list is not ordered by anything in particular – I just added them as fast as I opened them from Google Reader.
This little site lets you pick two words and compare the number of times they’ve been used by US Presidents (and candidates) in State of the Union, inauguration and election campaign speeches from the 2008 election.
I ran some interesting tests – firstly with the candidates on their own names. It turns out Obama talked about McCain by name a whole lot more than McCain talked about Obama – although he did forget his name a few times…
Then looking at State of the Union addresses I ran tests on faith v hope, war v peace, and must v cannot… the results weren’t surprising – hope is more popular than faith – I think because it’s more positive. Speeches should be positive. War is more popular than peace – and that’s pretty logical when you look at US foreign policy. Must is more popular than cannot – because taking positive action is better than not doing something negative – and there are a lot of synonyms for cannot but not many with the same power as “must” for the affirmative side.