I just opened a bag of Caffe Fresco's Ethiopia, it's a Sidamo coffee, which I have almost no experience with. I've played around with dose and grind a bit, but I'm not getting any fruit flavors, or any real brightness or acidity at all. Which isn't always a bad thing, I guess I just expected it to have some Yirg like flavors even though this is a dry process coffee.

I'm thinking that I might need to try something outside the usual extraction area to get the most out of these beans, so if anyone has any hints on where to start, let me know.

Of course it might just be that I need to let my palate get used to the change, all the shots I've pulled so far have been incredibly smooth and clean, which has always been tough on the little Gaggia.

I would not look for Yirg like flavors - which are often bright and citrusy - from a Sidamo.

Most of the Caffe Fresco coffees like to be above 200 degrees. I've had some trouble maintaining that on my daughter's Gaggia Classic. Assuming the Carezza and the Classic are similar I'd test to see where I was temperature wise if you haven't looked at that so far.

I've been targeting 200 degrees through a combination of temp surfing and preheating the water, which obviously isn't precise, but I've had good luck with other Caffe Fresco coffees. So far, I haven't had any bitter flavors, so I could definitely aim higher, I'll give that a shot next. Actually, since I didn't end up with any sour flavors in the end of the shot (which I think is typical for these machines) I was considering pushing the temps down, just to see how forgiving the beans were, or if there was anything interesting down there, but I'll try higher temps first.

If you want to bring out the berries, the lower brew temperatures will work best. I'm interested to see if this coffee works out for you. I've seen it on Caffe Fresco's offering list, but I've never gotten around to trying it. If you get good results, maybe it will give me the push over the edge I need.

I pulled three shots of the Ethopia today; one a couple degrees hotter than usual, one a couple degree cooler, and than a hot one again. The higher temps really make the cup come alive, lots of very complex flavors (that I'm not too good at describing, but I'd go with vanilla and burnt caramel). The cooler cup didn't do too much for me, I think I overshot a bit and got too much sourness.

On the first sip the last shot tasted just like the first, but then I put it down and let it cool a min while I wiped everything down and cleaned up a bit, and when I picked it back up to finish it off, there were blueberries everywhere. This was the aroma I was getting from the ground beans that I hadn't tasted before in the cup, and it was quite a surprise to taste such a difference in such a short amount of time; the vanilla and caramels were still there in the background, but those blueberries came out of nowhere.

I'm looking forward to the rest of this bag, I'll try out a few more doses/grinds, but if I can consistently get these kinds of flavors I'll be very happy.

I just pulled my first shot of this last night; I had the bag in the freezer for almost a week. I started with the same grind and dose (16 gm) as the Black Hand I've been finishing but I lowered the temp to 198. It took 40s to get 2oz but it tasted good. My girlfriend tasted it and without knowing anything about what it's supposed to taste like said it was very fruity. I'm not very good at identifying flavors but it was definitely different than any espresso I'd had before, maybe wine-like.

This morning I went one-notch coarser on the grind and got 2oz in 35 seconds and when I inhaled it I could easily pick out a fruity aroma.

I'm looking forward to more of this bag.

I was using 15g to pull slightly ristretto doubles, I was thinking along the same lines though, I'm going to try using slightly higher doeses and a corser grind, going for more of a "normal" shot. So far the shots have been good, but I haven't gotten another blueberry bomb, I'm hoping the changes will make the shots a little more consistent. Although I did make a cappuccino for a friend this weekend who's not a regular espresso drinker (pretty much only when he's over my house) and he said it was the best coffee I've ever made for him.

In the past I have been sticking to doses closer to 14 gm. The best shot I've ever had (given my limited experience of course) was a 14 gram normale of Luna Nuova that I made several days ago. It was all dark chocolate from start to finish. However, since then I've migrated up to 16 gm and have been there ever since, and it seems to be working ok.

Back to the main topic...

After reading a post by Jim I experimented with keeping the temp at 200 and only varying dose/grind as he suggested. However, in light of the whole fruit/berries and cooler temp thing I tried an experiment this morning and dropped the temp down to 195 for this bean. I've never brought it down that low before so I was expecting it to go sour on me but there was none of that. It was a little different, dryer I'd say. Is that what people mean by "smooth or clean" ? Or is that a property of it being a little more acidic? Those aren't rhetorical questions, I really don't know. It was nice and I enjoyed the shot immensely. If I remember, tonight or tomorrow I'll try the same dose/grind at 201 or so and see if I can get the vanilla/caramel flavors you mentioned.

Tristan, if you're free some time this weekend and want to drive to the North Shore I'd be happy to pull a few shots with you. Send me an email if you're interested; it would be nice to get another opinion of how these shots taste.

d

David - That would be great, I definitely want to try out some different shots with these beans, I'll shoot you a note.