Category: Coffee

Coffee School

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:

  • Espresso Extraction (hopefully I know a bit about that already)
  • Latte Art (I’m pretty hopeless at that)
  • Espresso Machine Care (I think I have a good grasp of the advanced side of that – like replacing parts – but not so much on the regular stuff like backflushing and descaling).
  • Cupping – I am really looking forward to this part.

I’m taking the camera and will no doubt give you all a run down tomorrow. I’m pretty excited.

February 26, 2009

Coffee bar

A long time ago – in 2006 in fact – I contemplated making icecream reviews a regular feature on this blog. The idea never had legs. I never really found a worthy icecream contender. 

Turkish Delight Cadbury icecreams were good. They would have scored a mention had the feature continued. As would the Drumstick Sundae line. Other than that there aren’t any particularly regular icecreams featured on the Campbell itinerary. 

Until now. Weis Coffee Almond and Cream bars. Mmm. Fantastic. The. Best. Weis. Bar. Ever. And that’s a big call – the mango Weis bars are pretty spectacular. But these were great. Robyn gave them the thumbs up. They’re now on the menu. If you like coffee they should be on yours too. They’re no doubt as good as these things.

February 24, 2009

Totally cool recipe

I need to try this while it’s still summer. Frozen iced coffee. On a stick. I would think the Vietnamese filter is negotiable. Main ingredients – coffee and condensed milk. Sounds good.

February 20, 2009

Instant gratification

Those of you who don’t read the links in my daily links post may have missed my sneering references to Starbucks and its decision to start selling instant coffee. $1 a pop. In store. Coming soon.

This is a terrible mistake. Instant coffee – no matter how good the science behind it – is still dehydrated coffee being rehydrated. It’s got none of the elements of a good cup. Wikipedia has a breakdown of the process.

People in America can now get free samples via the Starbucks website. Yay for them.

I can’t understand why people drink instant coffee – other than that it’s instant if you’ve already got boiling water.

Here’s some startling US facts about instant from the Consumerist:

“The instant coffee market is bigger than you might think — accounting for 40% of the global coffee market. It’s less popular in the US than overseas, taking up only 9% of the US coffee market as opposed to 60% in Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United Kingdom.”

Starbucks is cutting stores and staff all over the world. And this is their solution. Budget, low quality coffee for those feeling the economic pinch. The launch has received coverage from the Times Online.

“Starbucks said last month that it would cut 6,700 of its 167,000 staff and shut about 1,000 under-performing outlets, as its after-tax profits for the three months to the end of December fell 69 per cent.”

Here are some more instant instant coffee facts… and a nice little quote about why this has “bad idea” written all over it.

“In the US, instant coffee is synonymous with cheap and tasteless. The global instant coffee market is worth $17.7 billion, just $700 million of which is sold in America. Instead, Americas drink brewed, or filter, coffee – 65 billion cups of it a year.”

“Starbucks, best known as the home of the $4 latte, is gambling its luxury brand by entering the instant coffee market. As John Quelch, a Harvard Business School professor, said: “Instant, soluble coffee has long been an unspeakable wasteland. Conventional wisdom would be that no premium brand should go near it.”

Update: From a second Times Online story.

“Starbucks reckons that 80 per cent of UK households have instant coffee, an £800 million market. Darcy Willson-Rymer, its UK manager, said that its new coffee would sit at the “premium, even super-premium” end … “We’re competing with instant coffee, but we’re comparing it to ground coffee.”

February 18, 2009

Forced sale

Judging by the title you thought I was going to plug my Luke Skywalker auction. Didn’t you. Admit it. Well I’m not. Except that I just did. At the very least there are some new Q&As to check out…

No, what I’m here to tell you today, is much more exciting. Michael Jackson is auctioning off all his stuff from Neverland. The Guardian website has photos of the good stuff. Including this custom built Gaggia coffee machine.

If that doesn’t grab your attention how bout these rhinestone encrusted socks?

No? Picky. How about this nice little train engine teapot. The going rate is expected to be somewhere in the $100 – $200 range. This is like an online garage sale.

February 18, 2009

All fixed now

Well, almost. My blog was down for a while today. My hosting provider – dedicated host – had some issues switching over to a new payment system. They lost payment details and suspended my account. Apologies to anybody who has been trying to get on today…

Dedicated Host have the best customer service I’ve experienced from an online company. I emailed today at about 4.00pm notifying them of the problem and I had a response in minutes and the problem fixed very shortly thereafter. And a free month’s hosting as a sweetener. They get an A+ for customer service.

As do Coffee Dominion. My coffee machine issues were not as simply fixed as I thought last weekend. There was a leaking seal spraying water all over the control panel’s circuitry. Water and electricity don’t mix. I normally order parts online through coffeeparts.com.au – who are good. But postage for a small o-ring is expensive and the Coffee Dominion team pointed me to their local seal supplier. Who were also helpful. My machine is now up and running safely.

I isolated the power issues in my computer – my video card died a painful death at the hands of either the tropical heat or humidity. I’m not sure which. But it’s working now too. Thanks to the onboard video card. 

So, now it’s just the breadmaker. Which has been almost completely dismantled. In fact, everytime I overcome one problem with it and get a little excited, I break something else in my haste. There aren’t many more pieces left to break. And I now know exactly what goes into a breadmaker. I guess that could be exciting for some people.

February 15, 2009

People say she’s crazy she’s got diamonds on…

The soles of her coffee machine? Well, that’s one way to solve these economic blues.

What do you buy the coffee lover that has everything? How bout a Swarovski crystal encrusted coffee machine? Why? I don’t know.

February 13, 2009

Will it blend: coffee

Will it Blend is the viral marketer’s dream. Who’d have thought getting the managing director of the company to blend cool stuff with this magic blender would capture the attention of hundreds of thousands of regular viewers. 

Now, Will it Blend’s Blendtek blender takes on the high end coffee grinder market. 

February 13, 2009

Pour quality – putting the art into latte art

Coffee photos are my current favourites. This one here featuring a “naked portafiller” is very nice. Does anyone have a spare angle grinder? A naked portafiller for my machine would cost $70 otherwise.

This one’s from Flickr user Tonx’s coffee photos.

There’s shots from barista competitions, cafes and a variety of other coffee related events. And some Latte Art. Including this one. My favourite. There’s a series of “making of” ones for this too so I’m pretty sure it’s legit. Or a seamless photoshop job. They’re worth checking out.

February 10, 2009

Author Profile: Honoré de Balzac

I haven’t actually read anything by de Balzac. But he’s my new favourite author. The man is a legend. A prodigious talent. Not because he’s famous for writing a series of 100 novels and plays about French life post Napoleon. But because he famously drank up to 50 coffees a day. And none of the namby pamby “french press” stuff. He was on the hard stuff. The hardest stuff. Spiscious Turkish Coffee. That’s pretty much coffee sludge.

Here’s a description of his work habits from his wikipedia entry:

“Balzac’s work habits are legendary – he did not work quickly, but toiled with an incredible focus and dedication. His preferred method was to eat a light meal at five or six in the afternoon, then sleep until midnight. He then rose and wrote for many hours, fueled by innumerable cups of black coffee. He would often work for fifteen hours or more at a stretch; he claimed to have once worked for 48 hours with only three hours of rest in the middle.”

And here’s some info on his coffee addiction from a Neatorama profile of famous people and their addictions:

“The famous French author would drink up to fifty cups of coffee every single day. And not stuff watered down with milk and sugar and the like – nope, Balzac liked thick, black, Turkish coffee. If it was unavailable in liquid form, or if he didn’t want to wait for it, he simply popped a handful of beans into his mouth and chewed (yuck). It may have kept him up all hours so he could write fantastic and prolific works of literature, but it didn’t do him any favors in the health department: he suffered from stomach cramps, high blood pressure and an enlarged heart. Some reports say it was the coffee that killed him – ulcers ate completely through his stomach and he died from a combination of that and caffeine poisoning.”

February 10, 2009

A bright spark: Coffee Machine update

My coffee machine is working again. It seems the water that I found in various parts of the machine was probably the problem. Based on my diagnosis (which could well be flawed) the waste water bottle being full caused the issue. But if the problem occurs again I’ll have to go back to the drawing board on that one.

I did get to pull the machine apart again and used that as an opportunity to comprehensively photograph its gizzards.

My desktop PC and Breadmaker are both still out of commission. Hopefully not permanently.

February 9, 2009

Failblog: Coffee Machine

Everything electrical in my life is dying. Painful deaths. Yesterday, before dismantling my breadmaker (and killing it), I discovered my trusty desktop PC is dead. I think it’s the power supply. Anyway, it’s gone. 

The breadmaker situation was all my own doing, and has been well documented. 

My coffee machine, the appliance I am most dependent on, gave up the ghost this morning. 

It was working last night before we went to bed. We only turned it off as we traipsed up the stairs to bed. So I haven’t done anything to hurt it. The waste water bottle was backed up which meant it wasn’t draining properly – but I couldn’t find any water that was interacting with the electricity. 

When we came downstairs this morning everything was off. We couldn’t figure out why. I checked the fuse box. Our circuit breaker was on “off”. Something was wrong. The usual suspect at this point is the coffee machine. And sure enough, when I turned it off power was able to be restored to the house. 

Subsequent testing (including pulling the machine apart and looking at all the wires) showed nothing structual was wrong with the machine, no wires were frayed. None were touching each other causing any short circuiting. All the earthing wires were still earthed. I am at a complete loss to figure out what’s going on.  

Could it be all the moisture in the air from all this rain?

February 8, 2009

Coffee mug

Also awesome, also from ThinkGeek. This one’s $7.99.

February 7, 2009

Failblog: Breadmaker fail


A hard day’s work. Still no joy.

February 7, 2009

Epic fail

A few days ago in my post on coffee snobbery I mentioned that I liked the idea of rewiring my breadmaker so I wasn’t subject to it’s stupid cycles.

I had to wait half an hour for the motor to kick in and spin the beans. Now they won’t spin at all.

It sounded so easy on the website. Just add a wire here, a switch there. It wasn’t. I’ve killed the breadmaker (I think, I’m in the process of rewiring it again).

There was a spark, and a bang as the fuse blew when I turned it on for testing.

My soldering skills aren’t up to scratch and now I’m feeling a little light headed. In a rare moment of wisdom in this little episode I purchased the lead free solder. That could possibly have saved my life.

The breadmaker’s body, when you strip all the plastic off, is quite sharp. I now have cuts on my arms, the back of my hand and a nasty one right on an existing scar on my thumb.

The most annoying thing is the death of the breadmaker. Hopefully I’ll be able to fix it or replace it before the next batch of beans is due to be roasting.

If any of my readers have some electrical expertise and feel like coming around to take a look I’ll make them a coffee.

February 7, 2009