Coffee in space:

You may need a NY Times subscription. Original article has links:

The need for caffeine was the mother of invention.

In November 2008, Donald Pettit wanted to drink his tea and coffee from an open vessel. While aboard the I.S.S., he tore out a plastic divider from his Flight Data File and used the magic of fluid dynamics to create an open cup. Until then, astronauts drank everything out of a plastic bag with a straw.

We interact with coffee through aroma as much as through taste. In a bag, half of the experience was gone; Dr. Pettit said that he wanted to add "back the dimension of what it's like to be a human being."

When Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman in space, went to the I.S.S., the Italian Space Agency in collaboration with Lavazza and Argotec, built a zero-g espresso machine, the ISSpresso. To save her from drinking espresso in a bag, Mark Weislogel, an engineer at Portland State university, designed a true 'zero-g cup' based on Dr. Pettit's invention.

In 2015, as Dr. Kjell Lindgren was preparing to launch for NASA, he had concerns about coffee.

"I love coffee and I was worried that our standard freeze-dried brew wasn't going to cut it," he said.

I didn't get a chance to ask the barista at Vivace if they were still using the Niche for their decaf, but I think the hopper mod speaks for itself. Creative, and awesome to see home gear hacked for pro use...

For reasons I don't understand my wife decided I needed some chocolate covered espresso beans. I put an actual 58mm tamper on top for a size reference. We give away foil covered fish shaped chocolate to our customers ever holiday season so this came in the boxes with 160 pounds of Chocolate fish.

Ira

Check this out, a friend found this E61 for sale, but one of the groups is bigger than normal, and has a quad portafilter spout! I have never seen this before, and the machine itself otherwise is like other E61 machines from the era. I wonder if others have seen this or know more about it.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJpfX5nR/

Would never try this with my own gear but it would be fun to try stuff like this.

Or for the significant other who doesn't want to learn to make espresso.

I prefer to remain indispensable.

Went down a rabbit-hole of cheap grinders on Amazon and found this:



I think the grinds might be a teensy bit clumpy from this one