Make more, drink less, enjoy more?

[hbuchtel]

Hello all, I'm sitting here wrapped in the glory of my weekly espresso

Recently I changed from drinking two or three espressos every day to drinking one a week... and it is great! I continue to make a lot of espresso, usually three at a time, and take sips of the good ones. I can't think of this as wasting coffee, 'cause this kind of relaxed practice (rather than make, drink, run) has improved the quality of my drinks really quickly- making my rare full espresso a purely pleasurable experience.

Besides this, I am appreciating being free of the fear of withdrawal...no more gulped FP before an afternoon of classes, no worries about getting my caffeine when traveling... I'm a convert

I originally tried this 'cause my regular coffee habit was somehow related to getting migraines, which I doubt is true for most people... but I still encourage y'all to give it a try!

Regards, Henry

[roblumba]

I tend to enjoy more when I make more espresso's because they are delicious. I just came back from having two double espresso's at Barefoot Coffee Roasters. Both of them were yummy. If you tried to convince me that one would be better, I would have looked at you like funny. Say what?!

If I did one a week I would be throwing most of my coffee away since most of it would go stale. And I would feel very silly to have a GS3 and a Rio Normalle taking up counter space for just a once a week thing!

Once a week is definitely not the ideal scenario for a coffee lover. But if it gave me migranes I would probably give it up too. And I would definitely enjoy that once a week.

If you were making the drink and running and the quality was low, perhaps you just became lazy. That happened to me with my ECM Giotto. I was really lazy with the ECM Giotto in the last year before getting the GS3. I would barely bother to do the HX flush, or back flush, or clean the grinder, or set the temperature correctly, etc. The espresso was just okay most of the time. In my case, a GS3 motivated me to get my technique back in gear. Perhaps your once a week experience is motivating you after you see what your improved attention to technique has resulted in. Perhaps now you'll want to have quality espresso more often.

FYI, when I sold my ECM Giotto was when I made some of the best espresso every off that machine. I cleaned it, the grinder, set the temperature just right. I did everything so that I can get top dollar from the buyer. It made some pretty good espresso that day I sold it.

[hbuchtel]

Yea, I hear you... if I was using coffee that people I know had spent a lot of time preparing or that I had spent a lot of money on I wouldn't feel so good about it.

I think you might be right about getting sloppy on technique, but in my experience this is related to how I felt when I was making the coffee. If I'm in a hurry in the morning I'll just have to drink whatever comes out and I have no time for experimentation. Now I just make coffee when I have time to mess around and get my grind and technique right. Maybe later when my technique improves I'll just be able to bang out a great shot on the first try, but that doesn't happen very often!

Henry

[roblumba]

I think what you are looking for is consistency. There are others with HX's who have a very precise flush routine and install a temp probe in order to get exact temperature, etc. As for grind, a good grinder should be able to dial that in. But temperature / humidity changes can make it more difficult to keep it dialed in.