Dan, if you want to bring an extra grinder or two, maybe your Vario and Forte, we have lots of coffees to try as espresso.

This morning was my last opportunity for 2013 to visit the CCC Lab, so I made time! It was a great turn-out and I realize how much I have really missed the Friday morning Espresso-Geek crowd!

A buddy of mine sent me a 12oz bag of CCC's Burundi Natural Sundried as an early Christmas gift (which I have not opened yet!), so I was pleased that the Lab had a grinder hopper full of the stuff (even the same roast date). After futzing with the grind.........I had the opportunity to pull some nice shots of the Burundi as an espresso. Shared a few, and then let Lem Butler take over!! Straight out of the grinder, the smell of ripe strawberry is very prominent. As an espresso shot the strawberry vibe continued, but was coupled with other dark sweet fruit on the nose and VERY bright tart-berry & mild-citrus flavors on the tongue. Shots had modest crema, but surprisingly still coated the inside of my mouth well. I would not have thought to use it as an espresso, but it was there, so why not?.........the shots were brighter than I would usually want, but they were total fruit bombs with no bitterness or astringency...............and it was a wholly interesting experience. At home, I'm looking forward to diluting an espresso shot to like 6oz w/ water....thinking that this coffee is gonna be great as an Americano......and later as a press-pot if I don't use it all up first.

Merry Christmas to all my fellow Espresso Geeks!! I hope to see you more often in 2014.

Best regards,
dmm

I haven't posted an update in awhile! Last week I hauled the Izzo Alex Duetto to Counter Culture Coffee for an informal shootout against the La Marzocco Linea PB in their training center. See Izzo Alex Duetto V3 Review for the results.

This week's get-together is at New World Cafe. Mike plans to demo a self-service coffee machine he's evaluating and is interested in opinions. See you there!

I will have to join you guys out here sometime, I live in Greenville and the coffee scene out here is direly lacking.

I had not shown my face at the Friday morning session at CCC lab in many months, but I had a work meeting cancel-out on me and my little red car remembered the way. It was good to see folks again. The center stage was monopolized by Dan "Home-Barista's fearless leader" Kehn juggling a bunch of light stands, camera, lenses, and directing a photo shoot of a nice assortment of cups & saucers along with some real CCC talent in the form of Lem Butler and Jesse Gordon. Dan exclaimed "where's Ian, I need a real photographer"....more than once! Lem and Jesse were making lovely latte art in the various sized cups that Dan proffered. Dan would then snap a pic and I would help drink the product. It was a nice arrangement. The other hit was that the beverages were made on a new Victoria Arduino Black Eagle VA388....pretty cool & crazy looking 3-group machine and according to Lem, to be destined for the 2015 Barista Championships. One of the coffees was Ngunguru, which came off in lattes as nicely rounded combo of sweet from the milk and savory from the coffee. I'm not sure what the other coffee was, but it sorta had a crisp clean acidic grapefrutiness to it that fared much better in the larger sized cups than in a straight espresso. Hopefully Dan will post up the resultant pictures here. It was a nice time on a Friday morning! I gotta make it out more often.

It was good seeing you again Dave! Below are some of the photos from this morning. These are sample cups from HB sponsor Great Infusions. Thanks Lem and Jesse for the great looking pours (my latte art is widely ridiculed as "pine trees" or "thong" or "leafy bush" ).

Is there a coffee get-together this Friday (Jan 2)?

My wife and I are visiting Raleigh (from Minneapolis) through Monday, and if there is, we thought it would be fun to join the group. We are here in Raleigh considering it as a new place to move to avoid the cold Minnesota weather.

According to Nathan, yes, it's as usual and I'll be there.

Great! Location is Counter Culture HQ and start time is 7:30AM, correct? I noticed that sometimes the meeting is at New World Coffee House, so thought I should verify.