RBC which opened last week in downtown Manhattan, is now the 20th coffee shop in town serving quality espresso. Now, how cool is that? I stopped by their shop this morning to meet and greet with the newly minted and have a cup slayed expressly for me.







The shop has a long communal table as well as bar stool chairs along its southern wall facing the street. behind the bar is the first Slayer espresso machine in New York, a couple of experienced baristas and a few trainees.




The slayer

They serve a Brazilian single origin roasted by Dallis coffee, in Brooklyn, as their espresso. A quick look at the Slayer. What stood out were those beautiful groupheads, and the gorgeous walnut pedals and handles adorning the machine. To my surprise, my espresso arrived in a square shot glass. I stirred it quickly and took a deep whiff. Man, this is gonna be a hazelnut bomb. I savored it in small sips as my eyes lit up. I've never tasted a brazilian this good. It was sweet, fruity, with very strong hazelnut dipped in chocolate tone. A complex, deep, and very rounded cup.



There may be something about pressure profiling after all. I understand from chatting with the locals that the machine starts with low pressure to saturate the puck, then ramps it up through mid shot and then wind down the pressure at the end. The goal is to soften the harsh notes, while still producing a flavorful cup. It worked real well on that Brazilian.

Before I left I ordered another shot, hoping to recapture those highs. Alas, the 2nd shot was... mediocre. Consistency, is still work in progress and I am sure it will get better in time.

This was a wonderful experience, a must stop for espresso hounds.

Abe Carmeli wrote:Before I left I ordered another shot, hoping to recapture those highs. Alas, the 2nd shot was... mediocre. Consistency, is still work in progress and I am sure it will get better in time.

I would think a slow pressure ramp and declining pressure would give the barista a large margin of error. You tasted both shots, so I'm curious: What's your diagnosis of what went wrong?

Hi Dan,

I would think a slow pressure ramp and declining pressure would give the barista a large margin of error.

This doesn't necessarily work that way, see here:

TMFR experiments

especially the slow ramp up, unless you grind very fine (choke on normal fast ramp up), but it can go sideways later on anyway. But then again the Slayer might be totally different, though some Slayer users noticed a similar thing.

Regards,
dsc.

HB wrote:I would think a slow pressure ramp and declining pressure would give the barista a large margin of error. You tasted both shots, so I'm curious: What's your diagnosis of what went wrong?

The 2nd shot was harsh, less fruity, and a bit bitter. If indeed the barista on the Slayer controls the timing of each stage in the pressure profiling; assuming they haven't changed the pressure of each stage between the shots, the most likely candidates for what went wrong is dosing and the timing of those stages. But this is nothing but a hypothetical. I really don't know. It just as well could have been a spike in temperature, or a few bad beans in the batch.

A bit more about the possible inconsistency issue can be found in this article on coffeed by Phil Robertson who worked with a pre-released version. In short, the timing of the pressure stages, which is done manually by the barista, may be the main culprit.

Did same barista pull both shots?

abc wrote:Did same barista pull both shots?

Yes

One of the things that I find fascinating about the Slayer is the attempt to recreate (in general terms) the pressure style profile of lever machines. I'm still surprised at how little use levers are getting in high end coffee shops. Variable pressure without Barista intervention.
I was in Seattle not long ago at a cafe Vita location that uses a Bosco lever. I asked the young gals working if they got arm fatigue or any such thing - they laughed. The shots pulled were mighty fine and consistent.