Northern_Monkey

I was out and about this afternoon, wandered past Origin Coffee Roasters near Southwark station. Pretty quiet in there today and I managed to persuade them to let me have a single espresso and a with milk taster of their Ou Yang natural before buying some. It was amazing, exactly the dark chocolate, cherry and fruit from the tasting notes and actually a bit of an eye opener to be honest. I hadn't realised just how punchy and different some natural process coffees can be, I'm definitely going to consider them more in the future.

@Nicknak That was what I was going for in terms of the table top representing the rubber seal. Picture below with basket fitted, tape was a reference point for the pics, not 100% same scale but as close as I can get with my phone camera and Paint.

It seemed to be OK, felt like the basket was fully engaging on the PF lip edge. I will double check though. I measured from the basket lip edge to lug high point when it was upside down on the worktop, shame I didn't have two identical baskets to show them fitted to both PF in a single photo. Looked to be about 0.5 mm difference between the overall stack heights @coffeechap May have a solution which avoids any filing down of the lugs.... He's seeing if there is a part used/more compressed seal in his Pavoni spares collection which might give a better fit.

Hi, I bought a stainless steel bottomless 51mm portafilter holder direct from the manufacturer (non-UK based) as it was pretty flash looking and a bit cheaper. Down side is the lug sizing seems a bit off. Unfortunately it doesn't lock in properly and I don't want to force it into the Europiccola group head in case it damages it. The original spouted portafilter and the IMS basket I'm using fits fine and easily gets to to the 7 o'clock ish lock off point. Any suggestions on reshaping the lugs with a dremel or diamond file, assuming it would be grinding the tapered edge down a bit? Measurements using a manual vernier caliper are below. The company who make them were really nice, I bought some other bits and they threw in some freebies as well. Ideally I would like to sort it myself rather than send it back etc. Original spouted holder: Lug 2.5 mm to 3.5 mm thick Basket top to lug high point 7.2 mm New bottomless holder: Lug 3.0 mm to 4.5 mm thick Basket top to lug high point 7.8 mm

@MediumRoastSteam Thanks for the link, I’ve used that offer a fair bit now. Tried most apart from the cherry cherry and tusker. It is a good deal and the mahogany malabar hit and bourbon lanes blends are lovely.

I might have confused things by equating “lighter” with “fruitier”, which I now realise isn’t the case 😂 I was looking to try something a bit different to the Milan espresso style beans, monsoon malabar or dark Sumatra blends I’ve had quite a bit of. Great to get some input from people who have tried a wider variety, also recommendations for roasters I haven’t considered before. Which is what I was after really.

I ordered these from CC today since I could use the forum discount code and the descriptions sounded interesting. No blueberry but the cherry flavour should be a nice change and I haven’t had much African coffee before, so fingers crossed! - Cherry Cherry (Cherries, stone fruits, nectarine/orange) - Ethiopian Kochere Yirgacheffe (lavender, mango and fruit tea) - Ethiopian Wild Highland (dark chocolate, black cherry and caramel)

Cheers everyone, that is a goodly number of replies! @MildredM and @Rob1 think I will be looking at hasbeen an CC first after having a search round with the suggestions so far.

I normally go for more traditional medium or darker roasts with toffee/nut/chocolate/smoke tasting notes. Used for a mix of espresso and with milk. I would like to try something a bit different really, the posts on jammy, blueberry and fruity flavours have got me intrigued. Maybe not ready for the “tomato” that someone mentioned recently though! Any decent recommendations from online sellers for safe bets that are lighter/fruitier and come in about £10 ish for 500g?

Picked up a very shiny chrome based millennium model from @coffeechap in the end so I think older the black one is still available. The larger group and non painted base were worth the extra, first shots looked pretty promising so far as well. Thanks again for dropping it off when you were in London, the timing worked out nicely!

@coffeechap The black one for £225 would work, could you please PM me to sort out arrangements etc.?

The brass one is a bit steam punk! Looking at around 200 at this point, so would be lower end really and mint ones would be out of my price range.

@coffeechap sounds interesting! How much would you be looking for each of them? A link or pictures would be nice, also to find out if they are pre or post millennium in terms of basket sizing.

Thanks for the suggestion, grabbed a link off another thread. I think it sold if it was this pretty flash 70s one! https://ebay.us/zTIaFa