A shoutout to John Weiss, who has just received the heartiest possible last laugh over my long-time teasing. According to Mark Prince's review, John is one of the very few coffee people called out by name and honored in the newly-published and much-anticipated bible of scientific cookery, "Modernist Cuisine." It's about his distribution technique, of course.

Mark's review here: http://coffeegeek.com/opinions/coffeeatthemoment/03-21-2011 .

For some beautiful imagery from the book (not coffee related), you can check out this article on Yahoo: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/extreme-eating-inside-the-new-625-cookbook-2464738/ [Yes, my daughter wrote it.]

Or buy all 5 volumes for only $462 at Amazon.com.

Thanks! Having not read Modernist Cuisine, I can only hope that the true luminaries of amateur espresso - giants such as Jim Schulman and Andy Schecter - received the recognition they deserve. By comparison with their contributions, the WDT falls into the category of low-hanging fruit.

Very gracious of you John, but speaking for myself only, "giant" is a vast exaggeration. "Pygmy" is far more appropriate, thank you!

As for your invention, the WDT: its true worth was evident when I, like so many others, first read about it. "Damn!" we said, slapping ourselves on the forehead. "Why didn't I think of that!"

John got the last laugh long ago when literally thousands of home baristas saw how obvious and dramatic the improvement of their espresso was when they used his technique. Sure you can buy expensive grinders and study the essentials of good distribution and graduate from it, and sure it seems a little obsessive to go through such extremes over just a cup of coffee (though not as extreme as reading and posting on coffee message boards or as extreme as spending $700 on espresso gear), but there is nothing subtle about the improvement most people see when they first try it. It is hard to think of many message board posters who have done more to improve the average cup of espresso pulled by home enthusiasts.

Hugh

I use the WDT everyday. Thanks, John, and congratulations.

SlowRain wrote:I use the WDT everyday. Thanks, John, and congratulations.

Big +1!

SlowRain wrote:I use the WDT everyday. Thanks, John, and congratulations.

me too, though no yoghurt cups here! hehehe
I do a needle dance in the basket for redistribution - so I am a bit different... the genius's...son!

congratulations!

Now I feel all honored to have received my dissecting nee... er.. 'Weiss Tools' directly from the innovator himself!