After one decade of asking if the espresso world is flat, maybe it's time to assume it isn't, jump in the boat and start exploring.

malachi wrote:Anyone who says that they have "solved the problem of consistently good coffee" is (IMHO - which means "in my humble opinion") smoking crack.

What a coincidence! I was just thinking that any semi-skilled barista who is finicky about his roasters and has good, well-tuned equipment must be on crack, if he can't consistently pull "good" (not great) espresso.

Marshall wrote:What a coincidence! I was just thinking that any semi-skilled barista who is finicky about his roasters and has good, well-tuned equipment must be on crack, if he can't consistently pull "good" (not great) espresso.

It's easy to pull consistently good espresso with a coffee you know on equipment you know. But after a month of one coffee, even a perfectly tuned shot is no longer a great shot for your own palate. Familiarity may not breed contempt, but it does breed comfortable affection, rather than awe and wonder. For those, you need to try lots of new coffees, and accept a very low batting average of well tuned shots. And that's true on an HX or DB.

Endo wrote:Not sure. Perhaps they were just going for a certain look for the cafe. The Mirage Veloce is one sexy machine and fits in well in a small cozy cafe.

The Synesso is more square and "Utilitarian" looking. It looks great in the "modern styled" bistro like Veritas where he used to work.

I may be wrong, but I think I remember overhearing that the Veloce wasn't their first choice.

With all due respect, please do not speculate about "bad advice" or the Mirage not being our first choice. I'd hope to get a little more respect than that.

The mirage was our first choice for excellent reasons, not the least of which is that Kees Van Der Westen is very responsive to our requests, and our particular Mirage achieves a temperature curve that is replicated shot-to-shot with a consistency of 1 degree F.

Endo, given that you are in Montreal, you are always welcome to come by the cafe and understand why we made a logical, intelligent choice, rather than speculating that we settled for our machine. Separately, it is a beautiful machine, but I'm not one to sacrifice our coffee quality for the sake of a machine's aesthetics.

P.S. Anthony has had plenty of experience on both La Marzoccos and Synessos and he is thrilled with the bad advice I gave him.

bigabeano wrote:The mirage was our first choice for excellent reasons, not the least of which is that Kees Van Der Westen is very responsive to our requests, and our particular Mirage achieves a temperature curve that is replicated shot-to-shot with a consistency of 1 degree F.

I am recently back home after a week spent in Vancouver, where I had quite a few visits to both of the Elysian Room cafes, as well as to the (sole) 49th Parallel cafe. While at 49th on one of my visits, I ran into Vince Piccolo there, who I've met on a number of other occasions and is the owner (perhaps along with his brother Michael, not sure on that detail). Last year I had an extended visit and tour of their roasting operation which is located at a considerable distance from the cafe.

49th uses a Mirage, and I had occasion to discuss this machine with Vince as he was doing latte art. He said they prefer it to the available double boiler machines, and that in his opinion it makes better shots, which he attributed to it being a heat exchanger. I have no opinion on the topic of HX vs. DB, and specifically don't believe one is better than the other for straight shots. For this reason (not believing that HX machines are inferior) I did not find Vince's opinion in favor of HX machines to need any further discussion, and hence did not go any further on the topic.

ken

bigabeano wrote:With all due respect, please do not speculate...

Sorry Scott! Absolutely no need to speculate if you read this forum and want to answer (by the way....I said nothing about "bad advice"...I think someone else meant it as a saracastic comment).

I'm actually VERY glad you guys got the Mirage. Now I can run back-and-forth from Veritas to Myriade to Cafe in Gamba and compare shots on the Synesso, Mirage and original E-61 Faema.

Just finished reading your book. Wow. Mind still spinning. Sadly, no chapters on machine asthetics though.

Ken Fox wrote:49th uses a Mirage, and I had occasion to discuss this machine with Vince as he was doing latte art. He said they prefer it to the available double boiler machines, and that in his opinion it makes better shots, which he attributed to it being a heat exchanger.

So Myriade and 49th use the same machine, grinder and coffee? Interesting.

I must say that I have a small personal preference for shots from the Synesso (but that's just me, I have no WBC ranking). That might all change when I start up my cafe with a Slayer! Yeah baby!

Oh...and just to keep this post OT......go DB!

Ken Fox wrote:I am recently back home after a week spent in Vancouver, where I had quite a few visits to both of the Elysian Room cafes, as well as to the (sole) 49th Parallel cafe.

Off topic, but what blends did you like the most?

Marshall wrote:What a coincidence! I was just thinking that any semi-skilled barista who is finicky about his roasters and has good, well-tuned equipment must be on crack, if he can't consistently pull "good" (not great) espresso.

I guess it depends on what you define as "good".

malachi wrote:I guess it depends on what you define as "good".

If you've invested serious time and money on home espresso and you're still not enjoying it on a consistent basis, it's time to find another beverage you will enjoy. Life is too short to spend it on a perpetual source of disappointment.

So true. I have incredible gear that produces fantastic shots by most standards and I still tend to focus on what I don't like about the shot in hopes of making it better next time. As you rightly point out, I should be focusing on everything that went right.

I throw out 2x times more shots on my present pro-sumer gear and award winning blends than I did on my rookie Krups setup and a can of Illy. Ignorance is bliss.

thefly wrote:Off topic, but what blends did you like the most?

I have to preface my answer by saying that I don't really like blends very much anymore, nor the relatively updosed style of straight shot one finds in these "marquee" cafes. This would apply to just about any famous cafe you have ever heard of in N. America in recent years. During the trip I enjoyed visiting both Elysian Rooms, 49th Parallel in Kits, as well as the Stumptown on Pine in Seattle.

For this reason I had mostly macchiatos in the Vancouver places, although I did have several straight shots. I thought the straight shots were good for what they were, but as I already indicated this is not my style of espresso and I did not have a preference. All of these blends would have been at least somewhat similar since 49th roasted all of them. For the macchiatos, I preferred those I had at the Broadway Elysian Room and at 49th to those I had at the 5th Ave. Elysian Room, but I would not generalize from that experience since I visited the other cafes many more times and only went to the original Elysian Room twice during the week. I also had a straight shot in Mark Prince's apartment, and it was good, although I can't remember whose coffee it was.

I walked into another cafe in Vancouver whose name I forget, somewhere on either 4th Avenue or Broadway west of Kits. I was spending the afternoon with a restaurateur I know and was a passenger in his car, which is why I can't remember exactly where the cafe was located. They advertised outside that they were using Intelligentsia coffees. The packaged Intelly coffee they had for sale was (at its youngest) 2-4 weeks old and they had some decaf for sale that was 3 or 4 months old. After seeing that I decided not to even bother having a beverage there, so I left. This is one risk of selling coffee to distantly located cafes; you can't be at all sure what they are going to do with it, and in the case of this place I did not even want to find out.

I only had straight shots at the Stumptown location on Pine, and in all honesty I did not care for them. Some of this may have been due to the fact that I was rushed (had to make a plane flight at SeaTac) and I found the location and the cafe itself to be a bit dingy. The baked goods didn't look very good there either, but it was around 2pm by then and maybe they were showing their age by that point in the day.

ken

Marshall wrote:If you've invested serious time and money on home espresso and you're still not enjoying it on a consistent basis, it's time to find another beverage you will enjoy. Life is too short to spend it on a perpetual source of disappointment.

ABSOLUTELY!!

**NOTICE** I may get flack for what I'm about to type, but here goes....

This thread has bordered on being ridiculous. HX vs DB has been discussed numerous times and yet it still comes up. There are pro's and cons to both, and if you can't pull a good shot on either one it's your own fault - don't blame your equipment.

And like Marshall said, if you spent serious time and money on your home setup and are not enjoying the coffee, perhaps it's time to try something new, because espresso is obviously not working for you.

While I'm on a soap box (or tangent), throw away shot timers too. Who cares if the shot is pulled in 23 versus 33 seconds. I like the TASTE of shots that I pull a little tighter and thus run longer. It's my house, my coffee, and my machines, and dangit, I like the taste of a longer shot, so that's what I'll drink. Don't need a stupid timer to tell if a shot is good or not; that's what my taste buds are for.

Marshall wrote:If you've invested serious time and money on home espresso and you're still not enjoying it on a consistent basis, it's time to find another beverage you will enjoy. Life is too short to spend it on a perpetual source of disappointment.

Your standards are too low. Whatever happened to self-flagellation?

ken

uscfroadie wrote:ABSOLUTELY!!

**NOTICE** I may get flack for what I'm about to type, but here goes....

While I'm on a soap box (or tangent), throw away shot timers too. Who cares if the shot is pulled in 23 versus 33 seconds. I like the TASTE of shots that I pull a little tighter and thus run longer. It's my house, my coffee, and my machines, and dangit, I like the taste of a longer shot, so that's what I'll drink. Don't need a stupid timer to tell if a shot is good or not; that's what my taste buds are for.

Personally, I couldn't care less whether you use a shot timer or not; to each his own, and no one will ever know except if they are present while you pull shots.

There are, however, good reasons to use a shot timer. Most notable among reasons NOT to use a shot timer is for the shot timer to tell you when to turn off the machine. The main reason to use a shot timer, in my opinion, is that people tend not to be very accurate when it comes to guessing the duration of their shots. Most good or better shots will be produced within certain parameters. One of those parameters is the time it takes to extract them. Most of these good shots will be produced within a certain time window, which I'd roughly define as extending from around 25 to 35 seconds, although a few seconds difference at either end of the range could still work well. Very few good shots will be made in 18 seconds or at 45 seconds, although I'd taste such a shot before I tossed it down the sink. As a general rule, a shorter shot (a "ristretto") will take longer to extract than a "normale," so the shot volume needs to be taken into consideration with the shot time as they are interrelated.

Most competent home baristas will have a range of shot extraction times that they try to work within, and when their shot times drift outside of this range, they will take it as a clue THAT IT IS TIME TO CHANGE THEIR GRINDER SETTING.

That's the point. Don't use the timer to tell you when to kill the shot, but do use it to tell you when to adjust the grinder FOR YOUR NEXT SHOT.

ken

I never use a shot timer. I've been watching commercials long enough to know what 30 seconds is.

Marshall wrote:If you've invested serious time and money on home espresso and you're still not enjoying it on a consistent basis, it's time to find another beverage you will enjoy. Life is too short to spend it on a perpetual source of disappointment.

Just because I enjoy a shot doesn't make it good nor does it make it consistent. The minute I consider my shots to be good is the minute I stop progressing is the minute I stop learning is the minute I start lying to myself.

I've had good shots periodically.
I don't pull good shots consistently.

another_jim wrote:It's easy to pull consistently good espresso with a coffee you know on equipment you know. But after a month of one coffee, even a perfectly tuned shot is no longer a great shot for your own palate. Familiarity may not breed contempt, but it does breed comfortable affection, rather than awe and wonder. For those, you need to try lots of new coffees, and accept a very low batting average of well tuned shots. And that's true on an HX or DB.

That is so true, and one of the banes of going from hobbyist to professional cafe owner. To combat personal espresso boredom at my cafe with limited counter space for grinders have one I rotate different coffees, sometimes SO, sometimes a different blend than my main blend. Currently only have 3 espresso grinders running (one decaf so really only 2 that count). Did have 4 but had to take one out last fall when I switched to pour over station on demand rather than Press Pot to Airpot. My second coffeehouse I'm working on opening at my roastery location will have more counterspace and planning for a minimun 3 espresso grinders PLUS a decaf espresso grinder.

malachi wrote:Just because I enjoy a shot doesn't make it good nor does it make it consistent. The minute I consider my shots to be good is the minute I stop progressing is the minute I stop learning is the minute I start lying to myself.

I've had good shots periodically.
I don't pull good shots consistently.

Chris, I've respected your experience and opinions on coffee and espresso for a long time yet sometimes think your humility may be a bit extreme, even sounding sometimes contrived. 100% agree the minute I stop striving to improve is the minute I accept mediocrity. OTOH I do believe there's a difference between good (even relatively consistently good) versus great or excellent or the once in a blue moon god shot. Is it not possible to be consistently good at something and yet continue to learn and grow ever striving for higher levels of excellence?

I mean no offense. Could simply be semantics, differing understandings of the meaning of the word good. Good always seemed to mean like getting a "B" when the goal isn't just an "A" but a 100% scoring "A".