I can appreciate that point of view. You can never know. Same goes for so many things. Maybe somebody died in your hotel bed. Or maybe the last person in the room had a communicable disease. Perhaps they stuck the door knob, TV remote, or the shower control handle up their rear end. When you go to a restaurant

Thanks, @Jake_G, that's the kind of dialogue I'm looking for. I certainly don't think I'm a master home barista, I'm just at the beginning of my journey, but I'm pretty good at tasting bitter and sour. Maybe the particular bean isn't my favorite in terms of roast level or tasting notes, but I can tell if it's been "well pulled"

I fill my machines with a 20 Oz steaming pitcher. Seems easy enough to fill pitcher and pour into boiler without too much trouble

I strike up a conversation with the barista well ahead of ordering my drink. "Wow, that's a classy Slayer Steam you have there, how do you like it?" Or: "I'm a straight espresso guy generally, do you have any single origin espresso on bar today?" Or, if I am eyeing a bag of beans they

I may be somewhat manageable if one is filling the boiler with a pitcher. In our kitchen the espresso machine stands next to the sink and the faucet is pull-out. In the morning my wife gets up first and fills the machine (Silvia till Argos arrives). I can imagine the bubbly faucet water in the funnel being much more

@GU2GD, I believe Ascension to be of the "owners/leaders want to make a good product, but the staff isn't delivering" situation. Perhaps there was some initial training, maybe it wasn't sufficient, maybe there isn't continuing training/feedback etc. I also recognize that there are likely, at least in this area, fewer espresso customers than there are cappuccino/latte/etc. customers, and

I haven't found a similar walk through of how the valve works, but I put together a post with some images I found from LM a few years ago: "Current model La Marzocco GS3 MP - Does anyone have a water flow diagram?" As for how many shots, they should last a very long time. Instead of a stack

If the experience/skill/give a damn is lacking or absent at a cafe with regards to dialing in shots, pour overs, batch brews, etc. it is beyond the scope of a customer to 'teach' the establishment how to properly do so. The desire to 'coach' a barista is something of a vigilante endeavor and generally will not be received in

I once ordered an espresso at a donut/coffee shop with a friend. The espresso was undrinkably bitter, so I only took one sip and left it. My friend went back another day (for a donut) and the barista asked about me -- he explained I only drink the crema

Interesting. I'm not sure how that happened, as I used the quote button at the top of Joiglan's post in the reply to anag that quote. It didn't cross my mind to check that the user was correct... I've fixed it. Yes, I remember well your struggles with the Pro 500. The is so very much that goes into