I’ve been supplying a few people at college (and various friends and family members) with roasted coffee. I have decided to set up a little shop where you too can order these (cheap) quality fresh roasted beans. You can find the order form here. You can also, if you’re in Brisbane, book my machine and services for your functions, parties, or church events.
Category: Coffee
Coffee with grunt
This little coffee maker reminds me of those bottle openers with arms. You know… the little man bottle openers. It doesn’t need power – except to boil the water. And requires a bit of elbow grease. If you’re one of those people who’ll only eat something that requires extra effort to produce then this might be for you…
It’s called a Presso. And you can buy them in Australia.
Presso Demonstration from Bush Branding and Marketing on Vimeo.
It reminds me of the previously posted MyPressi Twist…
And the Handpresso…
Obsessives make for compulsive viewing
Chow (a food blog) interviews people who are obsessed about particular foods or beverages and posts the videos as a regular feature. People who love what they do are fascinating.
Here are a few.
On coffee…
On tea
On pizza
Ice, Ice, Coffee
I really like these coffee shaped ice cube trays. I would buy them if they weren’t $8 + postage from the US.
Lattea art
This latte art is actually tea art. Cool huh. A while ago (in 2008 I think) I posted a link to this Rooibos that you make like an espresso. I didn’t think much of it until I spotted this the other day.
Pretty cool.
History of coffee
I made a throwaway comment in class the other da that Jesus probably drank coffee. This is incorrect. Coffee was discovered as a beverage in about 800 AD. There’s a nice, concise history right here. Including a passage that tells the story of how coffee came to Christendom (before it was a legitimate form of ministry).
“Europe was introduced to coffee in the late 1500s by Venetian travelers. Priests tried to get coffee banned for Catholics by Pope Clement VIII because it was so popular in the Muslim world. They thought that since Muslims did not drink wine (a holy sacrament), the devil must have given them this devilish brew. For Christians to drink it was to risk the devil’s trap. Curious, the good Pope wanted to examine this “devil’s brew” and had some brought to him. At first he just smelled it, but then to the horror of the priests, he drank some. The priests thought he might die or turn into the devil. Instead he declared it delicious and baptized it, thus snatching it away from the devil’s grasp and opening up the coffee trade to Europe.”
So the pope isn’t always wrong.
Coffee and ministry
I wrote about the sin of instant coffee a few weeks ago – if your church is still serving International Roast at morning tea and wondering why all the young people are heading down the road to the nearest espresso machine wielding pentecostal church – then I am here to help. Vicariously (or possibly directly).
The other night we trekked out to Ipswich to make coffee at a church function. We’ve done a few events around the traps and it is always pretty warmly received. We’re still trying to figure out how to cost our services. So if you’re someone responsible for putting on church events or budgeting for them I’d love to know what you think the provision of good coffee is worth… but if you’re running a church event and you have a machine available and you want to know about quantities then this is the post for you.
Neil Atwood from Ministry Grounds (in Sydney) has a 2 group machine he makes available for hire for events. In his paperwork on the hire page he gives the following quantities to help you budget for your event. They’re a pretty good yardstick. I tend to go with single shots rather than doubles – mostly because I do most of my events in the evening, and a lot of people don’t drink coffee at night. Hot chocolate tends to be twice as popular as coffee at these events.
Coffee
We recommend that you built your event around serving double shot drinks. This is because: a) For most people it’s much easier to pull a good double shot than a single. b) The taste profile of a good double is usually much better than a single.
If a single is required (ie: someone requests a ‘weak coffee’) , you can use a double spout portafilter and let the output from one spout run into the drip tray.
On that basis, you will get approximately 50 double shots from each kilo of coffee. If you decide to serve singles, your will get double that quantity.
Milk
On the basis of using 8oz disposable cups (8oz = 240ml), using double espresso shots, and making a flat white or cappuccino/latte, you will need around 200ml of milk for each drink. That means you will need 10 litres of milk per 50 milk coffees served. If you are serving hot chocolates, you will need to allow around the same amount of milk per 8oz cup. You can use whatever milk you prefer, but most people can’t tell the difference between full cream and lite white!
If you’re a church in Brisbane looking to hire a coffee machine, beans, and a barista for an event fill out the contact form on my coffee page.
Brown gold
Cars run on coffee now. It seems appropriate. Provided they use Robusta… biofuels have the annoying habit of robbing us of valuable sources of nourishment. But this is pretty cool. The developers of this technology have called their first cab off the rank the “carpuccino” which robbed bloggers everywhere of an obvious pun.
The car is about to undertake its maiden journey – anybody worried that this technology will take off can sit back and sip a latte – it doesn’t sound like your jalopy will be powered by your cup of Joe any time soon.
The team calculates the Carpuccino will do three miles per kilo of ground coffee – the equivalent of about 56 espressos per mile.
The journey will use about 70 kilos of ground coffee which, at supermarket prices of between £13 and £26 a kilo depending on brand and quality, will cost between £910 and £1,820, or between 25 and 50 times the £36 cost of petrol for the journey.
On preaching about Eutychus
I preached for the first time as an employee of a church yesterday. It was so big a milestone that my gran and my mum and my wife came to watch. My wife would have been there anyway I guess.
We’re doing a series on Acts at church at the moment and when Andrew asked what I wanted to preach on I naturally said “Acts 20”. Because I wanted to talk about Eutychus. Acts 20 isn’t really about Eutychus, he’s a peripheral figure. And I actually ended up preaching a mammoth passage from Acts 18:18 to the end of Acts 20 – Paul’s whole mission to Ephesus.
I would much prefer preaching a mammoth passage to preaching a mouse sized passage – it’s far better to have to leave stuff out than it is to have to make stuff up.
Here’s what I said about Eutychus. For the record…
And in verse 7 we have possibly my favourite story in the Bible. If you’re going to go down in history for something it may as well be being bored to death by the world’s most famous evangelist. And Eutychus has that honour.
Because in chapter 20 of Acts Paul preaches what could still be a world record for the longest sermon. From dusk until dawn Paul is preaching his passion – the Ephesians might have been able to fervently chant for two hours [in Acts 19] – but chanting six words over and over again has nothing on being able to preach ALL NIGHT teaching.
Paul could have spent hours talking about tent making – and you can bet there would’ve been more fatalities – he could have spoken at length about his travels. If you’ve ever watched a friend’s holiday slide show you’d be aware just how excited some people can be about where they’ve been and what they’ve seen… but that’s not what Paul is excited about. He just wants to talk about Jesus.
Scots Presbyterian in Clayfield enjoys a visit from the boarders from the local Presbyterian Girls’ school about once in a blue moon – and yesterday happened to be it. So between the morning service and the night service I removed the flesh from the skeleton of my talk and reshaped it into something almost purely evangelistic. This is surprisingly easy to do when you’ve put some hours into exegeting the text and figuring out the ways to point people to the gospel – so Gary Millar’s advice was invaluable.
Eutychus played a more prominent role in this talk… just thinking about his story made me aim to not bore my audience of teenage girls. I was glad there were no open windows because I’m not sure how many of them would have tottered out.
My sermons still suffer from slightly trite application (as trite as urging people to live for, and preach, the gospel can be) and I’m always left wishing I’d dug the knife in a bit deeper to cut some real change into people… hopefully that’s something I can work on. Memorable application is important. I feel a tension between creating a memorable understanding of the text and a memorable application of the text – though I’m not actually sure the two should be separate.
One of the bits of preaching I find most memorable was a refrain from an NTE talk on Ezekiel from many years ago where I think Donny Kwan spoke and kept saying “God will be God, and you will know it” is the big idea of Ezekiel. A mantra like that is helpful – but it hasn’t really been profoundly life altering.
So, preachers who read this blog, how do I move my application from the general “live like Jesus” to the specific “live like Jesus by…”, any tips? My guess is that I need to understand the people I’m preaching to and what they’re struggling with so I can metaphorically push their buttons. But even that seems a bit apply by the numbers.
Gary Millar’s insights on Deuteronomy
Some helpful stuff from one of the planet’s leading authorities on “the most important book of the Bible” (rough paraphrase)…
The structure of the book is grace in the past, grace in the present and grace in the future. It’s the book that holds everything together – the climax of the Pentateuch and the key that unlocks the rest of the OT (historic narratives and the prophets), and the NT. How do we understand the concepts of blessing and curse? How do we understand grace? Well, it’s here in Deuteronomy.
The logic of 2 Ways to Live comes from Deuteronomy 27.
Jesus answers the Devil, during his temptations, from Deuteronomy.
Getting to grips with this book really matters.
On the idea that the format of the book is based on a cultural “kingly covenant” from around the time it was written
We can’t nail the structure down to any “king treaty” from history. Quite clear that this book breathes the air of covenant – and a covenant relationship. It’s pretty clear that whatever else is happening this is Moses’ final sermon on the subject of God’s covenant with Israel.
On the current “academic” position that Deuteronomy was an exilic invention attributed to Moses as a propaganda exercise
Stupid Academic Theory which holds “Moses could not have foreseen the exile so it must have been written later by someone pretending to be Moses”.
Counter – If Moses has spent his lifetime dealing with Israel messing things up it’s reasonable to assume that he could credibly predict the behaviour of Israel in the future. The foundation of a lot of studies in academia in the last 60 years is on the idea that it’s a late book. A natural reading of Deuteronomy could lead you rightly to the conclusion that Moses, having lead Israel for forty years of frustration, might be in a position to come to these conclusions on the basis of his experience.
On Israel’s failing to claim the promised land and wandering in the wilderness
One of the amazing things about the zigzagging wandering through the desert is the accounts of the neighbouring nations – “your brothers the descendants of Esau”… God says “I have given the Edomites their land”… then, “I have given land to the Ammonites as the descendents of Lot”… the descendents of these other people managed to find their place while Israel failed – including dealing with giant peoples who occupied them, which Israel failed to do.
What is a reference to King Og’s bed doing there in the narrative – he’s a giant who Israel vanquished in their history – but they were too scared to take on the giants in the promised land first time around… this is a critique of Israel’s failure to take God at his word – they managed to deal with giants originally, their neighbours managed to deal with them, and yet, when it mattered Israel failed.
Bonus insight – In Hebrew “to hear” is “to obey” – it means to have taken the information on board and responded appropriately…
On the structure of “the laws and decrees” – Deuteronomy chapters 12 through 26
Several years ago the suggestion emerged that this passage is actually based on the Ten Commandments… which makes sense when you look at the structure. What you find if you look at chapters 12-26 is that you can find some parallels with the structure of the Ten Commandments.
When it gets to commandments 6-10 it gets very messy – but perhaps by the time they get to commandment six Moses has made his point and doesn’t need to maintain the structure.
When God makes a covenant he makes it with every generation of his people. While God made the promises to a previous generation Moses talks like the promise was made to the current people.
What are we looking at these laws for? We’re not the Israel – we’re 21st century Christians. As soon as we get to the laws all sorts of warning bells go off that this must be legalism. How do you get these chapters across?
Israel, as a society was to be a living breathing model about what life under God was about.
What is it about these laws that would make the surrounding neighbours gasp? There will be principles and pictures of what it means to be the covenant beauty of God.
The OT does not, and never did, understand under a works/righteousness system. The required response to God’s grace was the same pre Christ (though manifested slightly differently).
On some odd laws
“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk”
Did anybody ever think this was a good idea? It seems a bit random.
“When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity.”
Was this some sort of joke Moses inserted to make sure people were paying attention – there appears to be no historic enforcing of this law.
On the division of the law
Calvin’s division of law into ceremonial, civil, and moral doesn’t actually fit with the text.
A better division:
- Obedience and worship
- Obedience and the land
- Obedience and the community
The ultimate inheritance of Israel is not the land – it’s the God of the land.
A lot of the book is to do with human relationships.
Measuring in coffee
The coffee bean should really be a standard measure. Someone else out there (from the genetics department at the University of Utah) agrees with me. They’ve created this cool zoom in/zoom out infographic that displays the size of cells relative to the size of a coffee bean.
Can you drink instant coffee to the glory of God?
Mikey doesn’t think bad coffee is a sin. He’s like one of those self flagellating monks who thinks that enjoying painful things is character building. Here’s a list of things he is purposefully unsnobby about.
I’m more in the 1 Corinthians 10:31 camp. And I don’t think you can drink instant coffee for the Glory of God. I’d go further. Instant coffee is a corruption of God’s good creation. Coffee existed before the fall. Instant coffee is a product of an impatient generation looking for instant gratification. In fact – looking at Mikey’s list – I’d say that’s true for most of the things there…
His reasons for being unsnobby are admirable – but I don’t think it’s wrong to avoid bad versions of things when superior versions are available.
It enables you to be content wherever you are. It enables you to find joy in more things. It enables you to accept and enjoy the hospitality of anyone. It enables you to think a little less about yourself.
I haven’t found anybody who offers hospitality but not tap water – and I’d rather drink that.
Over to you Mikey.
Seven Deadly Coffee Sins
Having just returned from our college weekend away I’m convinced of many things – this is not the chief amongst them – but it is important nonetheless. Bad coffee is a sin. Mikey has spent the last couple of days blogging about coffee (and here). But he’s said a few things I disagree with – chief amongst these is that you should drink instant coffee in certain situations, he also suggests that if you want good coffee you should go to a cafe.
Bad coffee is a sin. Good coffee is good hospitality. Having lugged my 100kg machine up Mount Tambourine to provide good coffee for my college brethren I want to take a stand on this matter and provide the seven cardinal sins of coffee. I hope this list will contain some helpful tips for people wanting to avoid the sin of bad coffee in their ministry… when it comes to coffee there are sins of omission and sins of commission.
- The sin of Instant Coffee – Instant coffee is the chief among the cardinal sins of church hospitality. We are so far past the need to provide instant coffee at church events that its like putting songs on an overhead projector rather than data projector. There are degrees of coffee sin – International Roast is not coffee at all. Do not serve instant coffee in your church or house. This is not loving. Buy a plunger – source some real beans – or stick with tea. It is better to offer tea than to risk offending your guest with instant.
- The sin of Stale coffee – Instant coffee is bad, real coffee served stale is only marginally better. Coffee starts going stale almost as soon as it is ground. As soon as those particles of coffee start feeling a breath of fresh air the coffee is going stale. It’s a chemical reaction. It’s unavoidable. Don’t buy your coffee from the freezer. Don’t buy your coffee in volumes you can’t consume in a week. Don’t put your ground coffee in the freezer, don’t buy ground coffee. Grind it yourself. The closer to roasting the better. Coffee beans need to rest for a couple of days after roasting – but once that time has passed it’s a case of the sooner the better when it comes to consumption.
- The sin of off, or burnt, milk – Nothing ruins a good coffee like off milk. Read Ben’s account here. Burning the milk is inexcusable – if you can’t tell that your milk is too hot by touch then get out of the game or buy a thermometer.
- The sin of burnt coffee – Burnt coffee (or “over roasted ash” like Starbucks sell) is bad coffee. Burnt coffee under the guise of “quality control” in the roasting process is unforgivable. It’s one thing to have a machine that runs hot – or to use water hotter than 98 degrees in your plunger – it’s another thing entirely to produce black beans intentionally. Which is what Starbucks do. They roast any original (as in “of origin”) characteristics out of their beans so that they can produce a consistent flavour using beans from different origins. Unfortunately this results in consistently bad coffee.
- The sin of unethical coffee – I am yet to find “ethical” instant. It might exist. But coffee is not like eggs. I’m happy to buy caged eggs, but I won’t drink coffee produced by the slave like conditions of many mass production focused coffee plantations. This doesn’t mean I’m a fan of “Fairtrade” coffee – ethical coffee has many labels – and I’d much prefer “relationship” or “direct trade” coffee given the choice, and Rainforest Alliance stuff failing that. If the church wants to take social and culinary responsibilities seriously there is just no place for instant or unethical coffee to be served from your church kitchen or conference.
- The sin of adding sugar – This one is not so serious – but unnecessary sugar is bad for your health and my mum always said if you were not adult enough to enjoy coffee (or tea) without sugar you were not adult enough to enjoy coffee.
- The sin of not sharing the gospel of coffee – Mikey made one valid point – if you’re going to be a coffee snob at a conference be a coffee snob who shares. Bring some for everybody. Sharing the gospel of good coffee is not only good for the hearer – but for the friends of hearers also. Instant coffee will not disappear if people aren’t shown the light. The principles of good coffee are simple and easy to share – and good coffee done well will actually be cheaper than good coffee bought from cafes. Good coffee saves money – even taking into account the cost of equipment.
Someone on camp asked me how much my coffee habit “costs” me – it doesn’t cost me. It saves me. Before I started roasting my own beans I was buying two large coffees a day at $4 each. That’s $56 a week. $2912 a year (if you take into account the one coffee my wife would drink a day it’s $4368 a year).
18gms of coffee is required to create a single double shot of espresso. That means you get 55 coffees per kilo (assuming you waste none). The average boutique roaster sells 1kg of coffee for $30. That’s $1.80 for two shots. That’s $1300 a year for the coffee part of my four shot a day habit (milk is also expensive and should be taken into account). By home roasting rather than buying supermarket beans (or boutique beans from artisan roasters) I’m saving about $18 a kilo (including the cost of the roaster). Which means converting to coffee snobbery is cutting my personal cost of coffee down from $2912 a year to less than $520 per year. The $600 I’ve spent on my machine, $475 I spent on my roaster and $600 I spent on my grinder has paid for itself in less than a year (not to mention the money it has made me through selling coffees).
There really is no excuse to drink bad coffee, and less excuse to drink instant.
More synchronicity
I meant to keep track of occasions where non mutual Facebook friends had similar status updates close to each other. But like so many of my promises and ideas that one was put to the side (my current exciting idea is photo flash cards for Greek vocab – Greek verbs often describe an action that has many English equivalents like our paradigm word luo (which I can’t be bothered writing in Greek characters).
But now I want to share an odd coincidence and then three people who had the same theme in their status within an hour of each other this morning…
On Tuesday we were driving home from college and I took the wrong turn – while we were trying to figure out how to best get back on track JJJ started playing a song – I didn’t catch the name – but the lyrics were “this is not the way home” and “you’re going the wrong way”… It was like I was driving Bumblebee.
Coffee related status updates are not uncommon on Facebook – but this morning was a coffee withdrawal overload.
The statuses were as follows:
Person one: Coffee Cravings :/
Person two: is going to find some coffee… probably good coffee… probably Campos coffee.
Person three: Need coffee.
What was it about today that prompted this outpouring of caffeine related feelings?
Baconspresso
You know I love coffee. You know I love bacon… but what about Bacon coffee? Urgh.
But that’s exactly what the guy behind “Putting weird stuff in coffee” did. Bacon coffee – breakfast in a cup.
The findings:
“This project was a little daunting at first. The world of meat-based coffee additives is, as far as we could tell, completely unexplored. It could have turned out disgusting. But to be honest, it wasn’t. The bacon added a subtle smokey flavour that did not clash at all with the dark roasted coffee. The bacon grease left a beautiful sparkly film on top and gave the coffee a creamier texture than usual.”