Spot the idiot!

[CoffeeOwl]

Just read this. Shame on 'The Guardian' for publishing!
EDIT:Some comments on TMC
EDIT2: as an explanation for the (controversial?) post title here is my comment on the article on TMC members section:

Oh well - it's late and maybe I misunderstood what I read - but I have a strong impression that this guy, the T.H. is an idiot. Confused

And what I'm lacking is the option to comment on his article - where I would type in proudly that nope, he has not learnt his lesson yet :THE LLOLLEST LOL ON EARTH:

Regards!

[HB]

OK, first, he bought a La Pavoni Europiccola, which is not an exceptionally forgiving espresso machine. Next, he went online and bought a Rancilio Silvia, which is not an exceptionally forgiving espresso machine. Not surprisingly, he was frustrated.

I don't think he's an idiot. He just got poor advice from purportedly well-informed online espresso forum participants. Had he visited this forum to share his tale of woe, myself and others would have helpfully pointed him to a handful of the dozens of threads recounting similar stories, most of which ended happily (after a bit of weeping and gnashing of teeth).

Lest someone accuse me of exaggerating, here's a sample of the best Rancilio Silvia threads from the site's FAQs and Favorites: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

[happytamper]

That was funny.

[JimWright]

Poor guy. I feel him - he bought a Silvia, was getting what he thought was good product out of it for a couple of weeks using pre-ground, and then it stopped. Ever have your PC stop working (or start running like crap) when you've changed nothing? Oh, the frustration!

Apparently no one informed him that using pre-ground Illy might have been his problem (or, he's leaving that out of the story). Then again, that said, if you had any OTHER home appliance/electronics product, you wouldn't expect to get good results from it on bringing it home and then for the results to suddenly go to crap after only a few weeks on what you thought were the same inputs. (He might have gotten an exceptionally good first can, and then a bad second can, or ...)

Espresso for the home is not for the unintiated - you to have enough $ and sense to figure out at least the basic variables and take care of them all at once when you buy if you want something drinkable. How many $150 Krups machines bought at department stores are sitting in people's closets after being tried a couple of times with a blade grinder? At least he'll help keep the cafes in business.

[CafeNoir]

I detect a smidgen of comic exaggeration in Tim Hawyard's article. While I don't doubt that his account is factual it's clearly told in a humorous tone right from the opening paragraph:

When, one glorious day, it blew a gasket, I seized the opportunity...

This is much in the tradition of self-deprecating humorists like Erma Bombeck -- or you and me when we inflate some small incident into an epic tale, the better to entertain our coworkers and friends.

Anyway that's how I read it. If Tim had gotten better advice he would have lost a good story. BTW this is my first post, and while I'm something of a novice in the Ways of the Bean I did once take a university course called "Humor Theory." This course destroyed my ability to have a normal conversation about anything, but it was worth it.

[JimWright]

I'd say more than a smidgen. Still a little painful though.

[DavidMLewis]

I couldn't help but notice the phrase "the labyrinthine OCD souls of internet chatrooms" in the piece in the Guardian called In Pursuit of the God Shot. Seems a bit harsh, really; overextracted perhaps?

Best,
David

[HB]

David, I merged your post with a thread on the same article...

I couldn't help but notice the phrase "the labyrinthine OCD souls of internet chatrooms" in the piece in the Guardian called In Pursuit of the God Shot.

I doubt he's even heard of HB. Tim Hayward, if you are reading this, feel free to correct me publicly or offline (contact info).

[shadowfax]

I can't help but think he'd be appalled at most of us. When you look through the "post a pic of your home espresso setup," there are a lot of people among us rocking home machines that cost several times more than the car I drive. My own espresso machine and grinder setup cost at least half of what my car cost. Silvia pales in comparison. I have a feeling that he probably got advice from people like us ("Buy a HX or double boiler!"), and ignored that as even more insane and OCD than "Silvia's the absolute lowest you can go."

Still, I would suspect that if he couldn't figure out how to make a good espresso at least most of the time on a PIDed Silvia with a Rocky, there's probably not a lot, equipment-wise, that would help him. I wonder if anyone got him to do the teflon tape mod with the Rocky.

Edit: as the others in the TMC thread noted, he really did fail to mention a thing about freshly roasted coffee (only fresh ground coffee), and there's not a chance that people he asked didn't tell him about that. I would imagine that he just ignored them, but still bought the Rocky and the PID. That's pretty stupid, don't you think?

[Beezer]

When you look through the "post a pic of your home espresso setup," there are a lot of people among us rocking home machines that cost several times more than the car I drive. My own espresso machine and grinder setup cost at least half of what my car cost. Silvia pales in comparison.

You really need to upgrade from that Yugo.

[shadowfax]

You really need to upgrade from that Yugo.

well, I'm restoring it! check me out on home-mechanic.com!

Actually, I just drive a '97 Altima. I'm still trying to figure out when and how to descale the engine...

[CoffeeOwl]

OK, do you people here really believe that he had ever bought an espresso machine?
On TMC most comments were much more along the line that his article is journalism etc. and that he never brewed a cup by himself.
This is the impression I got after reading this sh$t. A kind of 'take the vocabulary and put it all on a page'.
And it wouldn't make it onto his blog page if there wasn't a purpose - and the purpose well may be cutting down the good coffee enthusiasm. Who will buy all this preground trash and the cheapest machines, if people learn from online sites how to make a good cup and then try it and taste it? You guys ever heard of 'slowfood'?
But - I live in a country that had a Kafka and Orwell environment fully in bloom present for fifty years.
Still I think you are a kinda naive.

[CafeNoir]

OK, do you people here really believe that he had ever bought an espresso machine?

A former coworker of mine had a standard reply to any speculation: "Use the force, Luke." By which he meant Google.

So... Google shows that someone named Tim Hayward posted frequently to forums.egullet.org, including pics of his PID'ed Silvia.

I'm not a huge fan of his writing style either, but I do think it was based on some first hand experience. Just my .0127 Euros (falling dollar, you know).

[beanz4brainz]

Well, kiddies, it had to happen eventually.......

An individual with the IQ of a carrot finally figures out how to use a PC and makes some 'intelligent' decisions regarding advice given on a forum. Wish I could see all the advice posts and the great info that he/she arrogantly chose to ignore. The result (as deserved) is what happens at that end of the gene pool.

In all my digging around on coffee forums, I can only recall two threads where someone didn't suggest that the first thing to try for his/her same/similar problem was 'freshly ground' coffee (as for the initial problem) or freshly roasted beans, full stop!! Brainsample has obviously chosen to ignore this vital parameter and, don't even suggest to me that during the length of time said brainsample was mucking around with this and that, that it wouldn't have been suggested!

Enough of our time on this neanderthal. The outcome is as it should be...... the coffee fraternity's intelligence quota has been maintained to the benefit of mankind and all who sail in her!


b4b.

ps. note my nick....not a good start to this type of thread!

[CafSuperCharged]

Imagine, you grew up in a culture (civilization?) that drinks tea by the mugful - of a totally fermented kind that is so strong it can only be drunk without vomiting after substantial amounts of milk were added.
Where, a decade ago, foreigners would say "when there, the only safe place to drink coffee is in bed" (or you might faint and hurt yourself).
Now someone from there has been on a holiday to Italy and wants that delicious coffee thing called espresso. At home. And they might think this is just a matter of buying some coffee, putting it in a machine and pressing a button. After all, how difficult is it to make a good cuppa (their long time cup of tea). Well, they may tell you it requires sourcing of a specific brand of tea, a specific process of heating the cup, treating the water and the infusion process, adding a specific kind of milk, and, shame on you if you think the tea could be in bags.

Or, is this journalist telling us brewing a good espresso it is not as simple as he thought it would be?

Regards
Peter
Netherlands
Europe