shaun****

in the city centre, laboratorio espresso are decent, and mccune smith on duke street. in the west end, papercup, black pine, both on great western road, and thomsons on vinicombe street. they also have very nice pastries and cakes. there are many others but these are the ones i’d most often be passing and go in if i wanted a coffee. don’t know anything about the south side as i’ve not lived or spent time there for years.

just ordered this:

I opened a bag of this one from hasbean this morning. It’s fruity, surprisingly so. zesty citrus acidity up front but more grapefruit than orange for me, then a surprising switch to pear with a boozy edge. Very good.

I tried a small sample after a week, then put it away until two weeks. It continued to improve until I was done with it, probably about four weeks after the roast date. the strawberry was prominent at first, and it developed more complexity the longer it rested.

I had this one a couple of months ago, it benefited from a longer rest and was really at it’s peak towards the end of the bag. A definite big hit of strawberry with the toffee note on the aftertaste. They sent a Costa Rican honey natural this month which I opened the other day. Cherry in the tasting notes, and I’m getting something like almond/marzipan with chocolate notes. Very good with milk.

It’s a bit like flavour notes on a wine bottle. While you might pick up a bottle of fleurie that really does taste like strawberry or black currant juice, mostly wine tastes like wine, the variations within which can be indicated by referring to other flavours (berries, leather, floral etc.) Likewise with coffee, while for example there are ethiopian coffees that genuinely taste like blueberries and parma violets, mostly flavour notes are suggestions of whereabouts within the range of flavours in coffee that the points of definition are. I finished a bag of that one earlier this week, and while it didn’t taste like an actual toffee apple, I could see where they were coming from.

Yes, I’ve been meaning to get some for that very reason.

I usually put some hot water in the cup then do the espresso on top. I think it’s only an aesthetic difference, though. i like to watch it disperse in the water.

i had a bag of these a few weeks ago that came in the subscription. i usually like washed ethiopians anyway but these were particularly good. they couldn’t be more different from the natural ones.

I’ll probably open it tomorrow or sunday once what’s currently in the hopper has run out.

I’ve never noticed batch numbers on bags of coffee, and always assumed the roast date would effectively be the batch number. Roaster roasts a certain weight of a particular bean on a certain day, to fulfil existing orders or to bag up and put on a shelf with a label with the roast date printed on it, and that’s what batch it is. i.e if there is a problem with a particular batch, it’s traceable by the date. I think if I was you I’d return them and ask for a refund, I agree that the photos of big tubs of roasted coffee seem a bit suspicious. I had a look on their facebook too and noticed this.

If you think they are being dishonest with the roast date, then I think it’s fair enough to contact them. As for the valves, the bags I get from django don’t have valves. But it is obvious the beans have let off a fair bit of CO2 since they were packaged as they are usually bulging quite a bit by the time the arrive (usually 3 days pst the roast date). I’d rather not have plastic valves, if the rest of the bag is made of compostable material. Not had one burst yet.

Aye, pretty much. That’s definitely a standard basket. As was mentioned above you might need to think about a better grinder. Are you grinding as fine as you can go? The puck preparation doesn’t need to get too complicated, i just grind into a cup on scales, or straight into the basket, knock it once on the counter to settle it and then tamp with reasonable pressure making sure it’s as level I can. I think it’s more about being consistent once you know what works for you.

the other machines probably have pressurised baskets and sneaky devices to produce fake crema though, and so are much less dependant on variables like quality and age of beans, grind size and consistency etc. the pressure in the basket is created by the basket itself, which usually has a single small hole in the bottom. you could crumble an oxo cube in it and it would produce a drink with crema. with the classic (assuming it’s an unpressurised basket), it’s the puck that creates the pressure during the extraction so those variables become critical. not enough resistance (grind too course) and the water gushes through, too much (grind too fine) and you choke it and nothing comes out. or you get channeling. and the age and quality of the beans becomes a much bigger factor. edited to add: and with this, preparation of your puck becomes much more important (distribution, tamping, making sure it’s level etc.)

scales and a timer are useful so you know where you are, if that makes sense. you can work out a dose of grounds and where you want to get to in grams of espresso (1:2 is a common ratio, so say, 16g grounds to 32g espresso). that way if it’s not right it’s easy to think about how to adjust, and you know what the variables are, and if it is right it’s easy to repeat. you can pick up a decent pair pretty cheap. with some beans i will just eyeball the amounts once i’ve got the grind right and made a few good shots. others are more fussy and want weighed every time to get the best out of them. in my experience there’s more crema the fresher the beans, the more they age the less there is. but it varies between beans.