I generally buy my beans from a local cafe near work, always relatively close to the roast date so the bag is good from start to finish. If the cafe happens to be pulling that bean that day, I always like to order a shot to give me my palate a bit of a reference for dialing in the shot myself. I can usually get hints of those flavours when I pull the shot at home, but it's still a far cry from the rich sweet flavours that the cafe will produce.

Equipment at the cafe: LM GB5 and NS Mythos One
Equipment at home: Magister E61 and Mazzer SJ (rebuilt Astoria)

My question to all of you, is do I stand a chance? I do enjoy what I produce at home and it's rather consistent from shot to shot. But I just wonder, with such a difference in equipment, am I chasing an unattainable ideal?

Basically trying to talk myself down from my latest upgraditis fever.

I think the grinder also makes a huge difference.
I realised it after I tried HG One.
That cafe is using Mythos One, excellent grinder.

It is second nature that almost all coffee hobbyists project their brew quality upon their equipment. This is neither accurate, nor helpful.

One anecdote: After visiting one of Intelligentsia's locations in Chicago and trying their Honey Badger with its wonderful strawberry start and succession of nutty, spicy and earthy following flavors, I decided to take home a pound. One virtually the first brew using a Gaggia MDF and Mypressi, the strong, unmistakable strawberry introduction and most of the following flavors were present. That never happened for the rest of the pound.

The point is, your equipment is capable of closely replicating the cafe's shots all other things being equal. Parenthetically, have you tried going back to the cafe nexrt day and seeing whether they can replicate their shots (i.e., consistency)?

Unable to refrain from the trite expression regarding Devil and Details, here are the determinants of your desire:

1. Dialing in. Cafes usually discard an amount of coffee that would break our banks to dial in and the best cafes dial in several time a day. How assiduously do you dial in?

2. Dosing and tamping technique. You are comparing yourself, quite possibly, to trained baristas. How good and how consistent is your technique? Do you even bother to use a bottomless portafilter with a mirror sitting close-to-under-it on the drip tray to assess the cone?

3. Experience. Not a reiteration of #2 above, but an in depth familiarity with the roast. The cafe to which you are comparing yourself perhaps deals with only 2 to 5 roasts that change only slightly (if they have a good supplier). In the last six months, how many roasts have you tried? If you arer like most of us, the answer is: too many. Most of us are serial daters when it comes to commitment, but some commitment is necessary for good training. Are you really, almost boringly, familiar with the day-to-day behavior of any roast?

4. Extraction technique. Did you ask them at what temperature their boilers are set? Did you time the shot that they delivered to you?

5. Cafes predominantly, not always, use filtered,conditioned water. What water are you using? Have you tried Global Customized Water? Or tried Zerowater with remineralization with CaCl2, NaHCO3, KHCO3, possibly an Mg salt? Recipes abound.

6. Your machine is close enough to the cafe equipment (are you sure about your pump pressure? Have you measured it lately?) that the roast characteristics should not make a difference. Many roasts produce a different flavor profile, depending upon whether the machine is pump or manual (lever).

Coffee hobbyists who stand a chance to replicate a cafe shot are those who have worked on their technique consistency - with or without taking barista classes, and are those who have worked with a roast long enough to be able to predict its behavior as the weather changes and the roast ages. Limiting the variables of roast and performance will allow one to learn surprising things about the personality of one's machine because an invariant taste target can be tried for again and again. This often points up consistencies (or the lack thereof) in machine performance and, perhaps, how to control for them. Finally, after all of these variables are taken into account or possibly controlled, then water formulation can be investigated.

Inverse corollary:

Investigating the effect of brew water upon taste is a waste of time if one cannot produce a consistent cone and a consistent cone is meaningless if one's infusion times are random. First things first. Have you noticed how methodical is your favorite barista?

Buckley

Yes, you do.


I do exactly as you when buying roasts from BB. When I get home I pull shots imediately while my memory is still fresh with the drink I just had.

While the shots are not 100% identical I definitely taste the same notes from my recollection. So the shots turn out to be very close and often better. This is using my Olympia Cremina 67 paired with an HG one.

Mind you I am referring to straight shots. I've done this with milk drinks but there are too many variables with milk that the drinks are completely different despite the shots being relatively similar. BB uses Clover brand whole milk and it's very different tasting from my Costco Organic 1%, which is incredibly sweet by comparison.

You can win this game!

We now only buy from a few cafes, only as a last resort. I was just in Portland and visited Nossa and was incredibly disappointed. My wider family can't wait to visit our house to have a cup.

I've been very pleased with my recent upgrade to the Super Jolly, but I don't know if that's all about the . I'm very consistent on weight, how I pre-heat and pull. The process took a while to formulate, almost shockingly long, but now it's stone simple.

I've got a nice rotation of beans from different roasters & know what each one likes on the grind. I carefully let beans rest before using them, and then make sure my grind setting produces the right quantity of product in the set number of seconds as a starting point. But, I'm not quite as happy with my Cremina game as I am with the ECM, so I still have challenges.

I think the reason it took me a while is that I look at this as a bit of a science project and dealing with one variable at a time in a sea of variables just takes time. Just be patient and methodical and it will happen.

Thanks all for the encouragement!

I suppose the simple answer is, I just need to get better and more consistent. Great tip regarding sticking with a single blend, something along the lines of Old School Espresso from 49th (i.e. not too light), for a prolonged period of time. I have been very unfaithful and it does feel like I'm always starting from scratch again as I go from one blend to another.

The quest to great espresso continues...

mikeness,

Thanks for agreeing on that important point. The significance of it escapes most people. It helped me a lot. We always get the itch to again 'try something new'. Go ahead when you want, but do not wait too long to return to 'old faithful' in order not to dilute the experience. You will be surprised about how much more you will learn about your machine. When you get a little bored of the 'same old thing' you have to work carefully at nuances to return to that 'best cup' ever from old faithful, but it is there.

For further encouragement, check out Reiss Gunson, he advocates this. He used to be a roaster; now he owns Londinium, which makes lever espresso machines. He blogs a lot, so you might have to google him with "stick with" or "one roast" or something like that to narrow it down.

Happy infusing,

Buckley

mikeness wrote:I generally buy my beans from a local cafe near work, always relatively close to the roast date so the bag is good from start to finish. If the cafe happens to be pulling that bean that day, I always like to order a shot to give me my palate a bit of a reference for dialing in the shot myself. I can usually get hints of those flavours when I pull the shot at home, but it's still a far cry from the rich sweet flavours that the cafe will produce.

How many days post roast are your beans? Ask the cafe at what age they start using the beans and try to start your experiments 1 day before that and test for a couple days. If they have a slow spot while your at the cafe you might get some tips from the barista for pulling the shot. Also ratio info from the barista, even a guess will help: how much of a load in the basket, how long of a pull, pull before/during/after blonding - does it even blonde?

Well the beans they are using are usually from the same roast date as the bags I'll purchase. I did have a chance to discuss a little with the barista and they are pulling with 18g in, 30 out. What kills me is how little redistribution he does to get those results. Dose 18g dose directly into the portafilter, settle the grounds with two taps on the counter, tamp and lock in.

They were pulling Detours Punch Buggy, and ill settle on that as my staple for the coming weeks as I improve my technique. Anyone with experience with its particularities?