Ken Fox wrote:I think someone needs to put this thread out of its misery

The body twitches before it dies...

Marshall wrote:Unless you are using ultra-soft water (and I'm sure you are not), you must be talking to someone else. I was addressing the distilled and RO water crowd.

Hey, I'm an RO user!

Actually I think any coffee that isn't Corporate is better for you and for your community. I purchase Guatemalan Dark PeaceCoffee that's locally roasted, Organic, Fair Trade beans that's delivered by bicycle or bio-disel vehicles and goes for about $10-12 a pound. I have roasters that have stuff that goes for over $40 a pound and I think it's good, but I don't need anything that fancy. I'll go head to head with Starbucks or most locally owned coffee shops in my neighborhood when it comes to my once a day cappuccino, even $12 coffee through a good machine using the techniques learned in this forum places me in a crowd that's above the norm. Yes, great (or expensive) beans can make a difference, but I don't have to have the best beans to have great coffee, just good technique and flexible tastebuds.

LaCrema wrote:Actually I think any coffee that isn't Corporate is better for you and for your community. I purchase Guatemalan Dark PeaceCoffee that's locally roasted, Organic, Fair Trade beans that's delivered by bicycle or bio-disel vehicles and goes for about $10-12 a pound.

There is a difference between morality and taste. I agree coffee delivered by bicycle is better for my community, but, all else being equal, it tastes the same.

Of course, if you use RO water, mine would taste a great deal better than yours.

BTW, you waste three to four gallons of municipally treated, tax payer financed water for every gallon of RO you use to ruin your coffee. Maybe the bio-diesel deliveries restore some of your lost green-ness; but they can't save the taste of the coffee.

No, you don't need the best beans for good coffee.. you need good beans for good coffee. Using the best beans would(hopefully) equal the best coffee. Or at least they have the potential to make the best coffee.

No one here is saying that we should ONLY buy top COE winners and rare microlots.. Just that good coffee is not expensive, and the difference of a couple bucks is a much bigger difference in the cup.

There is a local roaster by me.. that to the normal person, would be the best coffee available. But the people who run the place know nothing about coffee, and sell past crop coffees, and usually only the "generic winners", Like:
-Tanzania Peaberry
-Kenya AA
-Ethiopian Yirgacheffe
-Sumatra Mandheling

They've got no clue what coffee processing even is.. not to mention how their beans are processed. I asked them one time what kind of Kenya they were offering. the response I got was "Kenya AA, the only kind of coffee Kenya sells" They gave me a weird look when I said Thanks, and left.

3 to 4 gallons? Thats being generous. My old Ro system needed EIGHT gallons, to make one gallon of RO. Of course, I assume its different between different systems.

I highly suggest you might try using water with a bit of mineral content. Your coffee will improve a lot.. I think you would be surprised at the difference. I was skeptical at first, but when I tried softened water coffee, against RO water coffee.. The difference was profound, and clear as day.

Malachi's original point is spot on. I get several calls a day from people who have spent thousands of dollars on espresso-making equipment (sometimes even from me) and who are having extreme difficulty in getting good shots.

Dialogue generally goes like this:

Customer: "I was getting great crema with the coffee you included, but when I changed to my usual coffee it's gushing out of the spout and really thin and bitter."

Alan: "What's your usual coffee?"

Customer: "I've always used the Lavazza Crema e Gusto with my Krups and it's been great."

Alan: "That's the pre-ground stuff."

Customer: "Yes, but I bought the same thing as beans. It's a lot cheaper than yours."

Alan: "(sigh) It's got Robusta in it and it's pretty stale, at least 6 months old. You'll need to grind a lot finer, try 3 or 4."

Customer: "What's Robusta?"

And from there it goes on and on. See http://www.coffeeco.com.au/newsletter/march2009.html for my viewpoint as expressed to my customers. I know it's probably heresy here and on CG, but I regard spending thousands of dollars on expensive machinery to pull a couple of shots a day as basically a dick beating enterprise. "Mine is bigger, better, shinier and more expensive than yours, Nyah Nyah!"

The same goes for worrying too much about the water you put into your machine. If it tastes OK out of the tap and doesn't deposit rocks in your pipes or hot water service, it will probably do for your machine. I don't claim to be a supertaster, but even I can tell that that the signal-to-noise ratio of espresso tasting is quite high. In my experience, most of the claims for tasting differences due to temperature, pressure, water, equipment etc. fall down the minute they are exposed to a rigorous blind cupping regime, but almost everyone in the test panel picks up a change in blend or coffee origin.

Quality really stands out. The unfortunate thing about the internet age is that a whole lot of other roaster retailers with decent palates now have access to the best coffees, and competition drives up the prices to the point where they end up more expensive than ancient supermarket Lavazza. Which is the exact price point that people who bought their equipment to demonstrate the size of their appendages start to complain.

Alan

Where's that thread about "goofy things I did/thought about coffee before I knew better" when you need it?

It takes a huge effort to swim out of the morass of misinformation and deeply embedded cultural understanding of coffee that most of us grew from. A few years from now I'm sure some of those who currently offer us comforting downward comparisons will be posting to that thread and laughing about their ignorance.

Here's an example of what I mean about misinformation that I found this morning on a full page ad on the back of one of my wife's magazines:

"Coffee machines need pressure to keep them ticking - the higher the pressure, the better the coffee. Some machines offer only 3 bars of pressure, but you deserve better than that! Our little coffee wizard uses 15 bars!"

Mark

Alan Frew wrote:
And from there it goes on and on. See http://www.coffeeco.com.au/newsletter/march2009.html for my viewpoint as expressed to my customers. I know it's probably heresy here and on CG, but I regard spending thousands of dollars on expensive machinery to pull a couple of shots a day as basically a dick beating enterprise. "Mine is bigger, better, shinier and more expensive than yours, Nyah Nyah!"

Hi Alan,

I agree with this, mostly, however there is an abrupt increase in the potential quality of one's espressos if one has a low end HX espresso machine plus either a large conical or hybrid conical grinder, compared to what lies below with either espresso machines or grinders. Beyond that level, say going up to my new LM GS3 yields little extra in the cup other than general ease of use (especially temperature control) and in the percentage of above average shots (it is easier to do so, so you succeed more often). A really good barista who pays attention to what they are doing all the time could compensate a lot for lesser equipment at most any level, however most/many of us aren't quite as attentive as we might be, from shot to shot. This is to say we are lazy.

So anyway, I don't think you need big shiny toys in order to "beat your dick " but it sure helps

More seriously, even at an upper level of equipment, coffee is not that expensive of a hobby if you factor in the fact that you will usually keep those big shiny toys for a long time. In comparison to a lot of other activities, like golf and skiing and car collecting, it is downright cheap!

ken

Alan, reminds me of the cartoon I saw in yesterday's paper...

Ken Fox wrote:
More seriously, even at an upper level of equipment, coffee is not that expensive of a hobby if you factor in the fact that you will usually keep those big shiny toys for a long time. In comparison to a lot of other activities, like golf and skiing and car collecting, it is downright cheap!

ken

+1 on that. Golf is a monster on that account.
+1 on much of Alan's comments as well