Wow. Just found this via Baristamagazine's Pasteboard: The Economist writes about the Clover. They seem to be impressed. Would that mean that the Clover is becoming mainstream? Oh dear I'd hope so! I'd really love to have one in the neighbourhood. Given that the coffee that's fed into it is up to equally high standards, though.

The last post was two months ago, and a blog without posts and without comments seems a bit boring. Anyway, what am I up to currently?

Edit: Comments work again, and spamprevention should now keep away most spammers.

Well, I stopped working as a barista. The last two years have been really interesting and full of ups and downs and I came around quite a bit (I really miss meeting the people even more than I miss travelling) - but I couldn't really get university on the one and being a barista on the other hand to work together well, so I had to make this decision sooner or later (People who know me know that I absolutly hate to admit this: I need to earn money more efficiently. So back to computers and networks for now). But this has lead to some interesting side effects: since I no longer have access to the two-group Reneka at work, I really had to start working with my old LaCimbali Junior at home. And it is an old, picky beast. During the last few weeks however, with the help of the naked portafilter and Bruce's LaCimbali grinder, my shots got better and better. I learnt dosing from the doser with the typical thwack-thwack-thwack, and I now can dose quite repeatedly the same amount of grounds without a timer or scale and without waste. I learnt distributing the grounds so as my machine doesn't spit the coffee out anymore, and I learnt getting shots from blends I haven't mastered before and I'm quite proud of that ;) I'm not saying my techniques were rubbish before (they weren't, I went through a hard school during the last years), but new, commercial and well-looked-after equipment is just so much more forgiving than old, not-quite-looked-after, semi-commercial machines. I learnt being a home-barista, and I'm loving it. Only if it weren't so damn expensive! And at the same time, I'm confident that my dull-machin-mastering-skills will be of use in a professional environment, too.

At the end of the week, I expect a delivery of 7kg of Walter's finest (as green) and I really look forward to it - promises to be much fun in roasting, cupping and generally enjoying mighty fine coffee. Maybe even a competition coffee? Who knows!

Oh, and as you see, I got completly mad on the grinder front last month (but don't ask about my bank account, please).

This is basically the most important drawer I have in my kitchen ...

Actually, this post is just an excuse to announce that I have removed all comments on this blog because of massive spam abuse ... but nevertheless the picture speaks for itself :)

And just to spread it even wider: James' final performance in this years World Barista Championship!

He just seemed to be - well - really enjoying it. Well done, again!

He made it!

More at Zachary and Katies!

They're crazy!

Have a look at ZacharyZachary. They're videoblogging the whole event and try to put up every single competitor. I didn't see all but my personal highlight of today is the Swedish national champion, I really like his extraordinary style of pulling shots! Watch out tomorrow morning (in Tokyo local time, whenever that will be here) for James Hoffmann aka Jimseven, he'll be competing first in the morning representing the UK. Last year, he placed fifth in Bern, and I wish him all the best for place three, two or even one this year! And at 3pm Tokyo time, watch the german Barista Champion Matthias Linke to his presentation ... let's see how he'll make it!

Tomorrow, the world barista championship starts off in Tokyo. I'm feeling dizzy and totally puzzled just by reading and watching ZacharyZachary.com, Jim's blog and others. It's thousands of kilometers away but I wish I could be there!

Rock on James and show them how to make a cup of real good coffee :) I'm really looking forward to see the results and the presentations of the competitors.

Again there was some discussion about coffee freshness on TMC, and I thought I'd share my two pence.

Under normal circumstances, I wholeheartedly agree that coffee gets incredibly stale, unpleasant and unbearable within two to three weeks after roasting. This is also the mantra that get's repeated by the people "in-the-know" over and over. Taste fresh coffee and know that you had black, bitter and hot water all your life before! Freshness is the key in having a good cup of coffee (or espresso).

But (there has to be a "but"!) this two to three week period applies to coffee beans that are exposed to air during that time (I'm sure there are other factors to it, but I don't know them).

If the coffee is left alone for two or three months in a sealed, air-tight bag with a one-way valve (ie without a steady supply of fresh air to breathe), you open the bag and make a coffee right away - I doubt that you would taste a big difference compared to coffee from a bag that was just a few days old. Been there, done that and hell was I surprised :)

After opening that bag, ie letting the air get to the coffee, it still goes wreck within a week or two (of course. It even seems to me that it goes stale faster than "real" fresh coffee goes). But in my experience coffee can be kept quite fresh for a while! Some say six months, I don't know - but I know that even two to three months old coffee can taste really good. If it was stored appropriatly that is. And if it was good anyway and all the other factors were ok, too.

Update: Steve and Cakey appearently disagree. I change camps every now and then, but I do give much about Steve's judgment when it comes to everything coffee. My own experience as stated above tought me that coffee can still be quite fresh after a while, but it could as well have been the low expectations I had when opening the old bags ;). I guess I just need more time to think about this "problem" and evaluate ...

Gelesen bei tagesschau.de. Ich weiss nicht, irgendwas kommt mir an dieser Schlagzeile spanisch vor.