HB in the news

[HB]

Never heard of Slashfood, but they've heard of HB:

For those looking to get the most out of their home-brewed espresso experience, consider Home-Barista.com. There are product reviews, buyers' guides, and even interviews with espresso pioneers.

The site also hosts a fairly active group of forums. Topics in the "barista tips and techniques" section include "exercises for tuning your barista techniques" and "controlling shot extraction pattern."

The links section is also packed with resources for everything from beginners' faqs to instructional dvds for latte art. There's more than you could ever want to know about milk frothing here...

[HB]

Capital 9 News' Noah Robischon of Entertainment Weekly offers a video newsclip on espresso websites including a brief mention of HB:

[HB]

Yesterday a friend mentioned that HB was on the local News 14 Carolina. It is the same syndicted story from Entertainment Weekly. I wonder if Noah Robischon still lurks in these here parts...

[cannonfodder]

Cool, that will sure push the bandwidth consumption up a bit.

[HB]

You would be surprised how little it matters. I'm new to the website owner business, but in my short tenure I've learned that one-off events like this are unlikely to bring any lasting measurable increase in traffic. What matters is that the site hosts quality content, has good organization, and is search engine friendly. If you have those three key elements, your site may survive to see its first anniversary.

Allow me to digress to offer a few comments on links from other sites, search engines, and their role in the Internet: As everyone knows, google is the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to new traffic and mastering its shadowy "page ranks" is the brass ring website owners spend countless hours reaching for. Search engines are part of the reason I'm persnickety about the title of posts (the other part is my persnickety nature). The choice of words not only makes it a lot easier to refind the topic for regular members, but it also affects the results returned by google and other search engines. For example, a title like "Help!?!" is much less likely to be returned by search engines than "La Pavoni problem with leakage between the group head and portafilter".

That said, I appreciate that my friends and family consider my work more "legitimate" because Noah spent five seconds talking about HB on television. Over twenty years in the Information Technology business and I've never been able to satisfactorily explain what I do in my "real" job...

[chelya]

I'm new to the website owner business, but in my short tenure I've learned that one-off events like this are unlikely to bring any lasting measurable increase in traffic. What matters is that the site hosts quality content, has good organization, and is search engine friendly. If you have those three key elements, your site may survive to see its first anniversary.

Well said. It is one of those things that you kind of know but don't fully realise until someone says it.

[cannonfodder]

Did what I could. Go to Google, type e61 temperature in the search field, look who is #1

[HB]

Good job Dave, it's not easy getting Google's #1 pick! I'm generally very happy if HB is on page #1. On other recent spottings, my own ISP (EarthLink) added a blurb to their weekly newsletter:

Home-Barista.com
All espresso, all the time.
Don't make another cup of espresso at home until you've checked out this site. They've got a buyer's guide, a series of how-tos, and community forums. Exchange trade secrets with hundreds of fellow espresso enthusiasts and take your brewing bravado to the next level!

I read their newsletter for its interesting, off-the-beaten-path links with crisp introductions. The TechTips are often useful too.

[HB]

HB was among three sites noted at the end of the NY Daily News article Something's brewing (CG, alt.coffee, and HB). Ken Nye's Ninth Street Espresso gets another nod, as does Gimme! Coffee. There are several other cafes that I've never heard of, lucky NYers...

Something's Brewing
The buzz on New York's coffee culture

BY JONATHAN SILBERBERG

Jack's Stir-Brewed Coffee brews the perfect standard cup of joe.
Williamsburg's Caffe Capri is famous for outstanding iced coffee.
Maybe the city that never sleeps never sleeps for a reason: New York is, and always has been, a coffee town.

"New York was founded by the Dutch," says Donald Schoenholt, whose family business - Gillies Coffee Company - has been roasting coffee in New York since the 1840s. "The Dutch were the great coffee traders of the 17th and 18th century, as opposed to the English, who were into tea."

Despite this long history, the prototypical New York cup of coffee is watery, creamy, sugary and served in an iconic blue-and-white, Greek-motif paper coffee cup emblazoned with "It's our pleasure to serve you."

Then came Starbucks.

(cont'd)

Filed under "it was an honor to be mentioned."

[HB]

It's nice to be listed in the Wikipedia's External Links under the definition of Espresso:

Home-Barista.com - Resource for serious home espresso fanatics.

What prompted me to mention this small honor is not the citation itself, but the challenge it is to remain linked in Wikipedia. Evidently contributors (some of which are very well known) engage in "wikiwar" over links, as documented in Espresso's history. HB has managed to survive over six months of editing, though its position has moved steadily downward to make room for more "important resources".

Filed under "whatever."

[HB]

Bean Counters The Last Drop tells the author's tale of espresso ephiphany and briefly mentions HB. Too bad it's misspelled.

When the 140-pound wooden crate arrived from Seattle's Espresso Specialists, La Marzocco's American rep, I was more than ready. In anticipation of GS/3- hood, I had pored over how-to guides on CoffeeGeek and www.homebarista.com, gathered the finest, freshest roasts and stocked up on supplies worthy of the machine, like the Daliesque coffee stirrers from El Bulli chef Ferran Adria's Faces collection ($40, available from Le Sanctuaire in Santa Monica, California).

Alas, another entry filed under "It was an honor to be mentioned."

[HB]

Our own Marshall Fuss was one of the people Michael Segal interviewed as he began writing The Coffee Companion: A Connoisseur's Guide.



Marshall thoughtfully suggested HB be included in the "useful links" pages along with respected online equipment vendors and roasters many regulars will immediately recognize. Thanks Marshall!

From the publisher's website:

With a Starbucks on nearly every corner and a Mr. Coffee in nearly every home, it is an understatement to say that coffee is a well-rooted part of American cuisine. And while 400 billion cups of coffee are consumed each year worldwide, it might seem that coffee consumption would be at a plateau, but its desirability is at an all-time high. In The Coffee Companion, coffee lovers will find a thoroughly spectacular guide to help them continue their coffee consumption, with only the best coffees of the world. This richly illustrated guide describes and rates more than 150 coffees from around the world, including tips on roasting, grinding, and blending beans to create the perfect brew. For the true connoisseur, there's also an in-depth coverage of estate coffees plus expert guidance on tasting coffee properly. Top it off with a delectable collection of recipes for classic coffee drinks. Not just an indispensable book for coffee lovers everywhere, The Coffee Companion is a visual hymn to all (the best) things coffee.

[HB]

We've been meeting at Counter Culture's espresso lab every Friday for several years. Espresso obsessed documents one of our sessions. We planned a grinder comparison that morning, but the interruptions for questions and photos prevented any real testing. Oh well, the price of 15 seconds of fame...

Over the whines and hisses of brewing espresso, several self-described coffee geeks shout "Money shot!" and "Party foul!" while testing their barista skills on the Rolls Royce of coffee makers.

At 7:30 a.m. on Fridays, about a dozen men -- mainly engineers and scientists by profession, some dressed in T-shirts and jeans, others in RTP-appropriate dress-shirts and slacks -- gather at Counter Culture Coffee. The Durham coffee roaster hosts these weekly gatherings at its barista training center so these men can play with a special edition La Marzocco FB-80, a gleaming, chrome and blue machine that can brew three espresso shots at once and costs $14,000.

On a recent Friday, Dan Kehn, the espresso-obsessed Cary man behind http://www.home-barista.com, and Kevin Krautwald, a telecommunications engineer at Tekelec, are manning the La Marzocco FB-80. The two make shot after shot, while the others evaluate. Akin to a wine tasting, they inspect. They sniff. They sip. They swirl. They repeat.

Holding a small white cup and judging his handiwork, Kehn says, "That is pretty. I beat you there, buddy."

"Mine tastes better," Krautwald retorts.