Pour Quality

Some Competition Results ...

2008-06-22T00:57:00.004+10:00

Catherine gave the Cupping Champs a great shot, getting 6/8 in a lightning fast 1 minute and 11 seconds. Unfortunately, several countries got a perfect 8/8 and, so, Catherine didn't make the finals. There was the qualifiers, a semi-finals and a finals, so it was utterly ludicrous to see that Casper, the eventual champ, managed to get 8/8, 7/8 and then a perfect 8/8 to win. That's ... like ... 72 cups! The home town crowd must have been happy. From memory, Casper works at the Coffee Collective. Talented bunch.

Australia did a bit better at the Latte Art.

So with Con's win, I think that that makes Australia 3 for 3. I blagged Em's photo, so it was only fitting to take the one with her in it ;P Apparently Con was quite happy to win. Whoda thunk it? So any bets there will be a stampede to Church Street over the next few weeks. I hope people actually give him a chance to get back.

Back at home, Danes decided to bring back their competiton ... oddly enough, deciding to run it head-to-head with the WBC. Rivalry between my sometime co-workers Dave Seng and Jesse Hyde continued, with Jesse pipping Sengster at the post to come second, as he did at the Australian Barista Comp. opens. I think that both times Jess just grabbed a bag of Estate off the shelf, so go Estate! Not 100% sure what Dave did for coffee, but I think that it was also just a standard blend. Bella, maybe. Habib Maarbani took the cash home - very nice to see, seeing as he was announced as the winner of the Australian Latte Art comp, then when it was found out that the wrong score sheets were used Habib lost the re-run competition to Con. Watch out for Habib next year!

And then, of course, there was the WBC qualifying rounds. My heart was in my throat until they announced finalist number five ... from Australia ... Daaaaaaaaavid Makin! It's anyone's game tomorrow, but I have no doubt that Dave will give everyone a serious run for their money.

Live streaming ... and I've got my tax exam on Monday ... must ... concentrate ... on ... studying ...

Chasing Hearts and Dreams

2008-06-18T22:25:00.003+10:00

Chasing hearts; in my cup right now:

Chasing dreams; tune in to worldbaristachampionship.com, 7:20 pm Friday, our time, to see Dave's WBC qualifying round performance.

Coffee Supreme's Fair Trade Organic Blend

2008-06-13T22:53:00.004+10:00

Introduction

Going back a few years, Coffee Supreme seemed to be all the rage. These were the dudes that supplied Ray, the cafe that started it all for Mark D of the St Ali Empire. Now, for some reason, I barely hear about them. Well, business can't be all that bad - a few months ago they moved in to a bigger, badder and better factory with a bigger, badder and better roaster. It happens to be two minutes walk away from the Veneziano factory.

Digression

Of course, this put me in a bit of a quandry. I haven't ever featured any of the big V's blends just because I thought that it would be pretty cheesy to. By the same token, is it poor form to be reviewing the competitors down the street? Well, I figure that both of these are rather moot points, seeing as final year uni has forced me to wake up and smell the coffee, pun intended, and focus on actually doing something with that uni degree that I study between sips. Of course, this means that at some stage after I finish working at Veneziano, I'll be posting about some of what is actually the bulk of the coffee that I drink these days.

Notes

So I dropped by Supreme's factory and picked up a bag of their fair trade organic blend to keep me going whilst studying last week. I'm not opposed to buying fair trade coffee, nor am I for it - I'll make my decision based on taste. Ditto for organic. It so happens that the fair trade coffees that I have tasted over the past few years have hit more strikes than they have home runs. Still, Supreme have done a great job of working with a limited pool of green coffees. The ground coffee definitely smelled like it had some sort of natural processed coffee in it, but perhaps my mind was playing tricks on me - it never made it to the cup.

French press: Roast flavours predominate; too dark for my tastes. (I often find that stuff that tastes great as espresso doesn't shine in a french press or in traditional cuppings.)

Espresso: Dark crema, rich mouthfeel, malt/vegemite, moderate acidity and a very vague hint of some sort of dry spice.

Cappuccino: Cuts through milk with confidence; malty/vegemitey flavour and dry cocoa finish. Great.

How should we score espresso in a standardised manner?

2008-06-01T16:32:00.006+10:00

Unfortunately, we seem to be in a bit of a rut. Over the past month or so, I have had coffee from five or so of Victoria's finest roasters and I haven't really had anything worth mentioning. From speaking to various roasters, I gather that this is an industry-wide pheonomenon largely related to the green available in the country at the moment and that everyone is excited about new stock that should be arriving over the next month or so. (Despite which, I continue to read reviews and ads using lots of superlatives to describe the coffee that we currently have around - probably a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't.") So I write this post partly because the experience has made me focus on how we communicate about coffee and partly as a substitute for some posting up some proper reviews.

I have long enjoyed reading reviews of brewed coffee such as those on coffeecuppers.com and sweet marias. I guess that no one will ever be 100% happy with every scoring method, but I find that the standard scoring system used by Tom, Jim and Bob, combined with their comments, is quite informative - I get a pretty good picture of what the coffee is going to taste like. If you are interested in the standard cupping review framework, you should grab a copy of Ted Lingle's "Coffee Cuppers' Handbook," from which the format might well have originated for all that I know ... in any case, it's a good read, but it is a reference manual rather than a coffee table book.

What's good for cupping or brewed coffee isn't necessarily good for espresso, and I have to say that the scoring system is a case in point. Let me give you a little example; say that we have an absolutely spectacular Kenyan SO (think Mamuto or Masai) ... something that scores low to mid nineties with high points for brightness and finish, but relatively low points for body. Then let's say that we have a brilliant El Salvadorean (think Santa Elena or Matalapa) ... something that scores in the mid to high eighties, with lower scores for brightness and finish, but higher scores for body than the Kenyan. I would expect that if you brewed the two as espresso, most people would prefer the El Salvadorean coffee, but as a brewed coffee, little could stand in the way of the Kenyan powerhouse. So I think that it's time that we ditched the idea that you can really use one scoring system for both espresso and brewed coffee. What are your thoughts?

The next problem becomes one of searching for criteria against which to score espresso.

The most well-developed, widespread and famous espresso-specific scoring system that springs to mind is the WBC scoring system. That system has proved to be pretty flexible, in that it doesn't prize one particular characteristic over the other, but instead allows the judge to judge the espresso against the competitor's description. This flexibility is a double-edged sword; its open-endedness makes it suitable for the WBC, but renders it pretty useless as a descriptive score system. If you want to describe espresso, you need something else.

I had a quick look around to see if there was some brilliant, well-established system that I had missed out on. Often, these are all solved problems and it looks like there wasn't such a system, but Mark Prince et. al. had a good go at tackling the problem in battle north america vs italy. It would be great to hear any comments that people have about Mark's scoring methodology. It is pretty close to the standard brewed coffee evaluation methodology, but transported to the espresso context.

Personally, I thought that the attempt in battle north america was quite a good one, both as a scoring system in itself and as a starting point for a discussion. Here are some things that I'd like to consider:

*Acidity, Sweetness and Body "Balance" - Changing these scores to "balance" scores rather than intensity scores is clever, as it helps to get around the problem of a very acidic coffee scoring highly for it. However, it makes the scores less descriptive. For this reason, I think that it might be worthwhile having some sort of an intensity ranking as well.

*Overall flavour - Perhaps this falls under aroma, or perhaps this is best dealt with by giving comments, but where do you reflect a score for a particular flavour? An example; let's say that we have a blend where some clever roaster has created a very simple blend by combining an espresso-suitable Kenyan with something with a bit of body to make a well-rounded cup. Clearly, you can take account of the acidity level through the "acidity balance" category, but what about the distinctive Kenyan berry quality? Is that factored into overall impression? Why not have some category for flavour balance? Or do people think that this would place "chocolate bar" blends at a disadvantage?

*Barista score - Is this something more appropriately taken into account in the comments or as a separate score? Or is it best taken into account in the overall score? If so, how do you come up with the right weighting of espresso taste scores vs ease of extraction scores?

*Milk score - Again, should this be part of the espresso score, or should it be a separate score? If the latter, what is the appropriate weighting?

I look forward to all of your comments, as this discussion could result in a very productive outcome for all of us.

(Please note; this post has been cross-posted to a number of other places, including the forum that shall not be linked to or mentioned by name - happy, Alistair?)

George Howell, "The Long Road to Coffee Quality"

2008-05-26T20:15:00.002+10:00

I have long maintained the links on the right hand side of the blog without saying much about them, so I thought it worthwhile to start mentioning a few.

International coffee superstar George Howell has come up with the brilliant idea of sharing his voluminous coffee knowledge by adding little snippets to the page linked above. George seems to be adding a snippet every time that he sends out his monthly newsletter in a bid to get more people to sign up. So do that too if you're in the US of A. (I signed up from half way across the world.)

At the time of writing this blog post, George's article focuses on coffee varietals and - you guessed it - terroir. I have only skimmed the article so far, but it is worthwhile remembering that George's focus is single origin brewed coffees, rather than espresso blends.

... and if I didn't make it clear, you can access the article by clicking the title of this post.

ARC Opening

2008-05-15T20:04:00.008+10:00

I was flicking through my photos in preparation to post something else when I flicked past some photos of the party to celebrate the opening of ARC's new bigger/better/faster/stronger warehouse a few months back. It occurred to me that many of my readers probably aren't really familiar with the ins and outs of the green coffee trade. For that matter, neither am I, so I'll just say that green coffee brokers/importers are an absolutely crucial and often overlooked link in getting something tasty into your cup; these are the guys who are largely responsible for selecting the pool of green coffee from which Australian roasters create their blends. And with that, I'll congratulate ARC on their new facility with some photos ...

Zoe hearts green coffee. This should give y'all some idea of the scale that we're talking about here, although the warehouse was practically empty at the time of the party.

Moshe aka. "Mr ARC" with a number of samples in his gorgeous new cupping room.

A rather serious piece of sample roasting equipment; Brambatti, from memory. ARC is part of a global network of coffee brokers/importers. Their quality assurance process involves a heck of a lot of sample roasting, including the exchange of sample roasts and roasting notes across the network.

Again, you can see that the space is pretty massive. The crowd included a lot of the movers and shakers in the coffee scene in Australia, with many making a trip from interstate to be there.

Some of the interstate guys continued the celebration the next day with a coffee crawl.

Australian Barista Competiton: The Gear

2008-05-06T17:10:00.006+10:00

There is plenty to write about the ABC and I anticipate that it will be at least a week until I get around to it. For now, interested readers should take a look at Syd Low's amazing photography of the open barista competition and the final event.

In the meantime, I compiled a few lists of what grinders and tampers everyone was using. The references in brackets are references to the number of the photo in Syd's series where you can see the competitor using that gear.

Grinders

Dave - BNZ + Stepless Mod (Syd, 16)
Con - Robur (Syd 06)
Jen - Robur (Syd 17)
Anne - Robur (Syd 1)
Aaron - Robur (Syd 1)
Kallum - Compak (Syd 03)
Ian - Compak (Syd 11)
Patrick - ???
Hazel - BNZ + Doserless Mod (Syd 10)
Jesse - Robur

Tracy Rupe - Compak (Syd 3)
Simon James - Robur
Kiril Shaginov - Robur
Nic Hind - Compak (Syd 1)
Vanessa Moore - Robur
Tim Adams - Robur (Syd 2)
David Seng - Compak
Alex Forsyth - Compak (Syd 4)
Jesse Hyde - Robur
Craig Simon - Robur
Kelvin Wong - Compak (Syd 5)
Douglas Bolzon - ???
Mimma Battista - Compak (Syd 7)
Emanuelle Muratore - Robur (Syd 3)

It looks like the Robur was the clear favourite, taking up 12 of 24 competition slots. The Compak put up a reasonable show, with 7 out of 24 slots, but we need to remember that it was the supplied grinder. Other than that, seasoned campaigners Dave and Hazel opted for the BNZs and did not like their stock configuration. Dave modified his grinders to give them stepless adjustment. Hazel modified her grinders to make them doserless. One has to wonder if they would switch to Roburs if they were buying now, seeing as they will soon be available in doserless and the new doser seems to sweep pretty clean and dose pretty straight.

Tampers

Dave - Espro (Syd 16)
Con - RB (Syd 15, 36)
Jen - Pink RB (Syd 20)
Anne - Pink RB (Syd 20)
Aaron - Coffeelab (Syd 6)
Kallum - Old Pullman (Syd 3)
Ian - ???
Patrick - ???
Hazel - That NZ Thing (Syd 12)
Jesse - Espro?

Paul Asquith - Some Generic Metal Thing (Syd 2)
Tracy Rupe - RB (Syd 4)
Simon James - Pullman
Kiril Shaginov - RB
Nic Hind - RB (Syd 2)
Vanessa Moore - RB
Tim Adams - RB (Syd 2)
David Seng - Coffeelab ?
Alex Forsyth - RB (Syd 2)
Jesse Hyde - Espro ?
Craig Simon - Espro ?
Kelvin Wong - RB (Syd 05)
Douglas Bolzon - ???
Mimma Battista - Pink RB (Syd 07)
Emanuelle Muratore - RB (Syd 05)

Again, there was a clear favourite - the Reg Barber, taking up 12 spots out of 24. The Espro made a minority showing, taking up four spots. The Coffeelab (2), Classic Pullman (1), New Pullman (1), Random NZ Tamper (1) and Generic Metal Thing (1) took up the slack.

A Five Star Coffee: Guatamalan Cinco Estrellas

2008-04-21T22:56:00.006+10:00

Introduction

I'm happy to go out on a limb and presume that Spanish is the main language spoken in Guatemala. (Go ahead; wikipedia it up and tell me I'm wrong.) This being the case, "cinco estrellas" means nothing more than five stars. Whether this is a grading or a trade name, I don't know.

The terrifically uninformative start to the post is really just to draw attention to the nature of the coffee trade in Australia and to underscore the importance of cupping as a commercial roaster; how much do we really know about the green that is on offer? I would argue that we don't know much, in stark contrast with some of the top-end roasters overseas, who can give you full details of the family trees from which their farmers pluck both their coffee and their workers. Fortunately, the depth of the brew in the cup doesn't depend on the length of the name on the bag ... it just means that roasters have to be shrewder about their purchasing decisions.

The Cinco Estrellas draws together a few different lines of research that have kept me amused of late and over the past few years. The first line of research concerns role of the washed coffee. My much-neglected regular readers will probably remember my linking to this thought provoking piece on the subject. It so happens that this coffee is a washed coffee. In fact, it more than so happens ... according to Edwin, it might even be illegal to sell naturals in Guate. Washed coffees tend to produce a clean, bright cup, perhaps with some subtle flavour accents and/or sweetness. See coffeeresearch.org In fact, I'm sure that many people would think of washed coffees as one-dimensional when it comes to espresso. This last trait made the 5* an excellent feed into the second and third lines of research; learning how to use my gene cafe and learning how to brew drip.

On Drip Brewing Generally ...

The humble drip brewer seems to be becoming a bit sexier. The revolting idea of the day old carafe sitting on the hotplate at McDonalds has long since left my mind and been replaced with a willingness to actually give it a shot ... admittedly brought on, at least in part, by involvement in the cupping comps. (Including my atrocious 5/8 score in the last one.) It turns out that there is more than meets the eye to drip coffee equipment - for example, the k-mart drip brewer at work definitely brews a less flavoursome cup than the old royal boiler co thing that we found. As far as I can tell, the much-lauded Technivorms aren't available in Australia ... a fact that I regretted until I realised that even I have no use for a litre of drip coffee.

For $20, I was game to find out how the humble plastic pour-over and melitta filter fared. This brew method carries the weighty approval of Paul at Mecca, so I figured that it couldn't be that bad. It turns out that if you pour water straight off the boil, the brew stays between about 95C and 92C for the whole brew time. (That sound you're hearing is of a million k-mart brewer owners slapping their foreheads.) Anyhoo, 15g of ground coffee and 250mL of water right off the boil seems to yield a tasty cup in something like a minute. Comments welcome.

The cup profile is very clean; totally sediment-free because of the paper filter. The cup changes a fair bit as it cools; at the beginning it is too hot to taste anything, then you hit the optimum temperature to get a flavour explosion, then it cools down and all that you can taste is brown and acid. It's kind of like Clover ... although that statement seems to be pretty cool since the big green mermaid plucked the little green plant.

Drip Tasting Notes

Over the first few days, the 5* simply tasted ashy and quite acidic. Surprisingly, letting it sit for a week improved it immensely - something that I expect for espresso, but not for anything else. After a week, the cup was clean, relatively acidic and had an interesting potpourri-like character that I can't quite put my finger on. I was quite surprised to see that subtlety emerge after a week, as opposed to retreating.

Espresso

The roast must have been quite close to second crack, so I decided to give it a shot through the Maver. The resultant espresso was quite bright, very sweet and very clean. It actually reminded me quite a bit of Klaus Thomsen's WBC winning blend. It did an admirable job in milk, with little body to speak of, but a fair bit of caramel. I only wish that I had left myself enough to experiment with lowering the dose.

# Update 27 April 2008 #

I found myself with a little 5* left over from the last roast and decided to experiment with a lower dose, as I alluded to in this post. It turned out to be a good call. The resultant espresso was a bit less sweet this time around, but it presented a fantastically balanced shot, with the elusive floral/potpourri flavour from the drip brewed shots making it through into the cup. The shot was light in body, but otherwise exceptionally rounded and complete. Perhaps the most interesting feature was a distinct bitterness that was not at all unpleasant.

While I Was Away ...

2008-04-10T00:32:00.003+10:00

OK, so heaps of stuff has happened since my last update. Heaps. In brief:

*Back from Sydney. (Miss y'all, Mecca.)

*Lots of training and behind the scenes stuff for the Vic Barista Comp.

*Super Jolly went missing; slumming it with a Kony.

*Robur becomes a permanent addition to the bench at work. That thing is so good that I'm embarrassed to have ever served coffee without it. We have had a heap of different grinders on the bench, but I'd trade all of them for a single Robur.

*Currently drinking the first iteration of Andrew's new blend for Maling Room. It's a simple, chocolate-bar style blend, done very well. Clean, but not afraid to stand up to milk. I respect Andrew's take on just going with the basics in times where fruity coffees are disappointing.

At the moment, I have mixed feelings about a number of trends happening in the coffee industry. When we talk about raising the bar, we are always implicitly talking about raising two bars; the lower one, representing the average standard, and the higher one, representing the state of the art. The lower bar usually represented establishments that quite overtly didn't give a damn, whilst the higher bar was usually held up by people willing to invest serious time and money. On the one hand, I'm concerned that we're starting to see a flocking to the middle, in which people are talking the talk, but failing to even put in a decent effort at walking the walk ... if not cynically ripping people off. On the other hand, we are also seeing an increase in establishments pushing up the top end. This blog will focus on the latter, as will I.

Until next time, when I hope to talk about some dudes who are doing it right, a teaser ...

... guesses welcome.

Yep. You Guessed It. MORE Eating Out.

2008-01-15T22:33:00.000+11:00

Exciting news. My machine finally arrived, sans grinder, a bit beat up and rather later than I had intended. The best laid plans of mice and men. Fortunately, Renzo from Di Bartoli has fixed me up with a grinder to pull me through 'till I get back to Melbourne. I owe him some grumblecakes. All of this means that the Eating Out series is coming to an end. Yaay!

Saturday proved to be a nice opportunity to catch up with Matt, coffeegeek extraordinaire, who was generous enough to take me on a tour of a few little haunts that I would probably never have otherwise gotten around to ... I really ought to take notes, as I am already having difficulty remembering what I had for breakfast this morning, let alone what I did on the weekend.

Ringa's Cafe, Marsfield (?)

A neat little place in a university type suburb. The , particularly the funky water bottles. In the spirit of internet-stories-cum-reviews getting stuck into relatively inconsequential minutii, I have to say that I hate the font Comic Sans with the fiery passion of ten thousand suns. Glad I got that off my chest ;P (It will make more sense when/if I get around to uploading photos for this adventure.)

Matt and I started off with an espresso. It struck me that the flavours were oddly separate ... almost as though there were two liquids in the cup, sitting side by side. The shot ended with an intense cocoa flavour that persisted for quite a while. This was cocoa proper, not chocolate - it was somewhat dry and savoury. In a good way. However, the shot began with a flavour that I can only remember as being rather unpleasant. I seem to remember it being a bit sour to start off with or something like that. Hopefully Matt will post up if he remembers. Matt and I followed the espresso with some milk drinks of some description. I do remember that the first sips started with the same let-down, but the cocoa flavour certainly came into its own.

Kafenio, Cronulla

Yes, we drove to the other side of the city! Kafenio reminds me of some of the old-school cafes in Melbourne, like Mario's Coffee and Candy. I am quite sure that if I stared at their sign for long enough I would be transported back into the 1950s. (Again, wait for the photo.) The shop itself is quite tiny. A constellation of random espresso cups from all over the place peppers the walls. (Reminds me of the drawer beneath my espresso machine ;P) Some bright spark had the idea of putting an office style water cooler by the front door to ward off the heat. Perhaps they're hoping to stimulate conversation.

We took a seat outside and ordered some food. Fortunately, there was plenty of seating on the sidewalk. In contradistinction to the actual shop, lunch had generous proportions. In fact, watching six dishes come out at the same time was like watching a clown car trick at the circus. The plates looked like they were bigger than whatever kitchen area they have! And man I love bacon. (Hmm ... bacongeek.com isn't registered ...)

Espresso on a hot and sunny day is bound to disappoint. In this respect, Kafenio didn't disappoint. (Think it through ... continue reading ... good ...) The first sips were quite violent, reminding me of cheap and nasty stale coffee. Fortunately, once the crema was aside, what was underneath was simple, rich in mouthfeel and somewhat sweet. In hindsight, I ought to have also ordered a coffee with some moo juice in it, but at that stage my dreams were porcine, not bovine.

Grind, Cronulla

A stone's throw from the beach, it was kind of odd to find a cafe without outdoor seating. The guys running the place obviously enjoy themselves; the walls are plastered with photos of people around the world holding up signs saying "I'd rather be at Grind," and the specials board asks "are you a goose or are uganda?" Perhaps what you'd expect from a place that has a sign that looks like it came off a 1980's T-shirt. (I figured that I should mention signs again; I seem to be on a roll.)

The Ugandan robusta that we tried first was interesting. Massive crema bubbles, monster mouthfeel and less of a medicinal/chemical type taste than I have had from some of the Indian robustas. Good fun, but the taint wasn't quite kosher. Or perhaps that was just a hangover from the bacon. The main blend was a better experience; balanced and heavy in mouthfeel, but I can't for the life of me remember any more about it than that, other than wondering whether the main blend also contained robusta.

Of the shots that I had on the day, I'd say that Grind was the prize pig. This is odd, seeing as most of the time people seem to remember coffees from earlier in the day as being better. Judging from the latte art photos on the wall and the espresso shot, it looks like Grind's milk drinks bring home the bacon, but unfortunately there's more chance of pigs flying than of me fitting another trip to Cronulla into my schedule. Fortunately, having been reunited with my espresso machine, I am pigging out at home. Nearly half a kilo of coffee pucks attest to my tragic binge, but for the moment I'm as happy as a pig in mud.

OK, I need a BLT.

Still Eating Out ...

2007-12-18T21:30:00.000+11:00

OK, so y'all are in for a bumper crop, this being an amalgamation of things that I had previously written up for my December activities in Sydney. Unfortunately, difficulties using the Macs at my disposal had made completing this a very difficult task. Having misplaced my USB cable, I think that I will just omit further photos and let y'all deal with giant slabs of text.

Coffee Crawl - Saturday 8th December

Introduction

This weekend was a nice opportunity to catch up with Stephen Frame. Stephen is one of a number of home coffee roasters who has been contemplating going pro for a while. It is my hope that outing him in this post will make it that much more difficult for him to resile from his plan >;) Stephen deserves particular credit for his open-mindedness, humility and dedication. He has been home roasting and making espresso at home for years, but still insists on taking the point of view that he knows very little. In fact, he is probably at the forefront of the emerging crop of domestic roasters turning to professional micro roasting. Long ago, Stephen made the commitment to buy a two group linea for home, built a sample roaster that functions like a commercial drum roaster and started ordering coffees from a variety of roasters across Australia and the world to compare with his own. Stephen has even gone out of his way to send samples of his stuff to people across Australia for comment and I count myself fortunate to have been one of the taste testers. I imagine that this is a level of thoroughness on par with even the best commercial roasters. So go pro, already!

Sass Bar, Erskineville Road

I'm a bit of a prick, sometimes. Emily Oak has been a barista comp judge and the southern hemisphere coordinator for the World Barista Championships for quite some time. She also has a roasting and consulting business called Fresh Ground. We knew that she was being charitable enough to fill in a shift at Sass Bar at the last minute, so Stephen and I swung around to judge her coffee. After much ribbing, Em delivered the goods. Sass bar's custom blend isn't something that I personally would choose, but it made for a somewhat nutty and strong latte with a distinctive savoury finish to it; I seem to remember a touch of liquorice or aniseed. Sass does a very generous all day breakfast, so I have been back a few times.

Danks Street Depot

A quick pit stop for breakfast at an iconic cafe and then onwards. In hindsight, I should have chanced the coffee, for fun if nothing else. Did you know that the Hillsong church has an ECM Veneziano with their own logo on the backlit glass plate?

Morgan's Coffee, Emu Plains

No, that's not a typo. I had some green coffee samples to drop off to Dean, so Stephen and I decided to have a bit of fun and make the trek down to Emu plains. We arrived just in time to sit back and watch whilst Dean finished cleaning up after a domestic espresso class, then serious time wasting began. Dean indulged my geeky desire to fiddle around on his Mirage Bastone. Conversation covered a few topics, from logistics of setting up a roastery, to chocolate, to blending and, before we knew it, several hours had passed. I picked up several kilos of coffee to send back to the Melbourne Mob and some hot chocolate for myself.

Coffee Crawl - Saturday 15th December

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. In Sydney, the local CS chapter go on cafe crawls, and there was a bit of a monster crawl organised for the 15th. It was an interesting mix of seasoned vets, many of whom were just in it for breakfast at Cordial, and relative newcomers, who were keen to check out as many different places as possible. Our story starts at ...

Cordial, Carillion Avenue

I have mentioned Cordial before on this blog. Cordial is a sentimental favourite for many purely because Sonny and Dave from the Golden Cobra, their roaster, are amongst the nicest guys on the planet. When Sonny heard that we were coming, not only did he forego his day off to come in and get behind the machine, but he also brought in a number of sample bags of a new blend for us to take away and try.

Whichever blend Cordial is using strikes me as a very good cafe blend. It is not hugely complex, but it is low in acidity, relatively chocolatey and it seems to be extremely forgiving. An alarmingly long double espresso a week or two ago actually tasted fine, albeit a little lower in mouthfeel than usual.

Sunshine, an hour or so of conversation, eggs benedict, chocolatey double espresso and it was on to the next stop.

Campos, Missenden Road

There was some debate as to whether or not it would be worthwhile hitting up Campos. I love the place, but not the coffee. The rest of the group fell into two camps - those in favour of skipping it and those who had never checked it out. We decided to go for the benefit of the latter group, seeing as it is only a hop, skip and a jump away from Cordial. (It strikes me that this is perhaps the first time that someone has ever described Campos' location with reference to Cordial, rather than the other way 'round.)

As usual, Campos was pumping. As usual, the staff continued to set the bar for coffee professionalism. Money changed hands and spoons, plates and dice were laid out to communicate our orders to the baristi. We melted into the crowd and stalked the benches, pouncing on any seats that happened to become vacant. Roburs whirred, dosers clacked, steam wands hissed. Drinks were delivered directly to us, despite our best efforts to confuse the staff by playing musical chairs.

Unfortunately, the coffee failed to impress. I thought that my espresso had hints of grass and iodine, thin mouthfeel, an unpleasantly high acidity level and slightly burnt crema. Any of these flaws on their own wouldn't have been a deal breaker, but the combination of the lot of them was quite disappointing. Wild speculation amalgamated from all guesses was that the coffee was a bit too fresh and brewed at a temperature slightly too high. Those who ordered milk drinks didn't seem much happier and we actually left with a few cups only half-finished.

I think that it would be extremely unfair of me to write this post without noting that this experience is certainly not characteristic of my past Campos visits. Usually, the baristi do an extremely good job of staying on the right side of the knife-edge between acceptably high acidity and sourness. On this occasion, they fell foul of their own blend. This has piqued my curiosity in trying their blends out at home.

(Update: I went to Campos on the weekend, enjoyed a very good, simple flat white, whose only fault was a slight instant coffee type flavour to the crema. I'm looking forward to trying out a bag of their "Dark City" blend, which isn't actually that dark I hope will be more to my tastes.)

Toby's Estate, City Road

Toby's is the roastery with the big mainstream reputation for quality. I seem to recall that Paul Bassett even worked there (corrections gladly accepted). Seeing as cutting down tall poppies is part of our national identity, I was concerned to give them a fair go. Only part of the reason why I wore my World Barista Championship T-Shirt was because I am a bit of a wanker. The rest was because I thought that it might be a subtle way to communicate that I have relatively high expectations. At Toby's, not only did this plan not work, but I suspect that it might even have brought down the wrath of god; such was the implausibility of what was to transpire ...

We were told that a Cuban single origin was on offer for espresso, with the fair trade organic blend. I have played around with the latest Cuban lot and never had much joy with it as an espresso, but, nonetheless, I ordered an espresso and a mince tart. Well, it was like there was a party in my mouth. And everyone was butting their cigarettes out on my tongue - something that Castro would no doubt find ironic. Even the mince tart provided no respite; it tasted like the baker made it with equal parts sultanas, fat, sugar and spite. I don't think that I was alone in my opinion. Demitasses littered the table, each one with barely a sip taken out of it.

I thought that I really ought to be fair and tentatively reached for a glass of water. Fortunately, it is pretty hard to screw that up. I went up to the counter, wanky WBC shirt on display, and asked if it would be possible to have an espresso with the fair trade organic blend, thinking that perhaps it might be a problem with the single origin. Though this was slightly better, the overwhelming flavour was as though the staff had neglected to scrub out the portafilters for quite a while.

As we got up to leave, one of the staff had the temerity to say that their espresso is pretty good, hey? Given that less than a single espresso had actually been consumed out of the half dozen espressi on the table, it struck me that the whole experience was so absurd as to come out of Lemony Snickett's A Series Of Unfortunate Events. Except that some lemon juice certainly would have improved the mince tart.

To be absolutely fair, I have to admit that both the Cuban and the fair trade organic blend had an impressively heavy mouthfeel, as though they had a whack of robusta or monsooned coffee in them. Perhaps this is partly due to the use of e61 group machines.

The last time that I was at the Woolloomooloo store, everything was several orders of magnitude better, so, again, I think that it would be unfair to write off Toby's on the basis of this experience. As at Campos, my interest in Toby's is piqued as a result of the experience.

Mecca Espresso, King Street

After Toby's, lunch at Mecca sounded like a plan. Food settles the stomach after so much coffee.
The guys at Mecca allowed us to reorganise the tables outside to suit ourselves and coffee started to flow. My first espresso had a slight bitterness in the crema, but then showed good mouthfeel and some floral ferment. My flat white, pictured above, also had a slight bitterness in the crema, but the rest of it was very good, with memorable Harrar type flavours - some sort of floral flavour. John, whose experience selling aromatherapy was starting to pay off, took a sip and commented that the flat white tasted of orange blossom, whereas the piccolo tasted of rose. The next round tasted very similar, except that the bitter crema had disappeared. We later found out that the first round was made using coffee five days older than the second. Perhaps there's something in having your coffee transported around in styrofoam organ donor boxes.

Ironically, I dropped by Mecca yesterday and they, too, have coffee to hand out to people.

Luxe, Bondi Junction

I understand that some of the people behind this place are the same people who were behind the place of the same name in the CBD a few years back (now called Elixir). This one was a bit of a head-scratcher. Much was ordered from them, but it was mainly fruit juice and cakes. There were only two coffee orders - John's latte and my espresso. The latte came out at "here's one we prepared earlier" speed and did not inspire confidence. The espresso seemed to take an eternity, but wasn't bad. Following on the theme for today, the crema was rather burnt. The espresso itself was totally single-note; I couldn't pick anything except for generic chocolatey flavours, which is not a criticism at all. The espresso also had great viscosity; really, they seemed to do a better job at what Toby's were trying to deliver. The various cakes and things were good, too.

Di Bartoli Espresso Centre

Though Di Bartoli's main business is the sale of espresso machines, they also sell roasted coffee and espresso drinks. I gather that the coffee is roasted by Hazel at Coffee Alchemy. Somewhat amusingly, they only use domestic grinders to prove the point that they're perfectly capable. Perhaps this was responsible for the interesting trick that was played on us - John and I each had an espresso made with whatever El Salvadorean bean was on offer. Both were thin in mouthfeel and somewhat sweet, but we scratched our heads and swapped espressi. One tasted distinctly like almonds; the other tasted more of hazelnuts ... and yet they were two halves of a pour from a double spout.

Epilogue

The day's ordeal was, literally, a day's ordeal. From 9am, the day was entirely taken up with drinking coffee, eating and travelling to repeat the process. At 4pm, when we finished, the coffee was definitely starting to take its toll. I felt a strange sense of satisfaction that none of the troops let loose a technicolour yawn.

The Cheese Room, Henderson Rd Alexandria

Waiting for my espresso machine to be shipped up has been made significantly easier by the Cheese Room, a cheese shop a few blocks from home that happens to have a decent espresso set-up. They are one of what seems to be an unending legion of new Campos accounts and I'll go out on a limb and say that they are delivering coffee on par with the mother ship, albeit service is much slower, seeing as they don't have a gagillion baristi, machines and grinders.

Eating Out

2007-11-27T22:48:00.000+11:00

It has been a hectic past few weeks, what with end of exams and moving up to Sydney for a few months. As a result, I have been abdicating my self-imposed coffee responsibilities - roasting and extracting. And it hasn't been all bad. I thought that my readers might be interested in a comparison between two very different, but equally great, CBD coffee places. Particularly seeing as they are in different cities and therefore not very easy to compare.

Brother Baba Budan, Melbourne

Brother Baba was just the sort of laid back place that I needed to get me through my exam period. For one reason or another, I always had things to do that left me stuck in the city for a few hours. Or maybe I inadvertently organised it that way ;P The crew at brother baba were very hospitable during this time, grinning and putting up with me taking up one of their precious few seats for an hour at a time. But, to be fair, I consumed a hell of a lot of coffee!

There are usually only two people working at BBB at a time - one barista and one person taking care of the retail coffee side. Seeing as there are always two espresso offerings, one or two clover offerings and a galaxy of different roasted coffees, BBB does a fantastic job of exposing people to the coffee equivalent of a sommelier. Laid back beats create an environment that is easy to relax in. Perhaps a little too easy - they have less than a dozen seats, so perhaps I ought to be more considerate and move on faster!

Mecca, Sydney

In many ways, Mecca and BBB are polar opposites. Whereas BBB has a million different offerings and thereby almost draws attention to the roaster, at Mecca the focus is clearly on the barista. Tony at Rio in Adelaide handles the single blend on offer. Meanwhile, in Sydney, in an area the size of a postage stamp, you have a Kees van der Westen Mistral, a two group Synesso (for when it gets busy), two Roburs and a Swift. More impressive than that, though, is the people behind the machine. The baristi have an incredible mix of experience, competition results and raw talent that has to make them one of the best teams in the world. In fact, you can bet that even the guy behind the cash register could run rings around your average barista.

With one blend and multiple espresso machines, the focus at Mecca is on getting coffee out quickly without dropping the quality. The guys do a pretty good job of it, too. Though the serving area is often overflowing with marked takeaway cup lids and saucers with cryptically arranged spoons and dice, the wait is seldom more than a few minutes.

The Machine Review - Makin Espresso's Maver Marte

2007-11-15T21:44:00.001+11:00

Introduction

It has now been over a year since I made the step up to a "prosumer" class HX machine. During this time, I have tried not to say much about it online. After all, fanboy reviews are irritating enough, let alone reviews from someone who sells a product! (Avid readers will note that for the same reason I have never posted much about the blends that we sell at Veneziano)

I have decided to write this review for two reasons; first, I have had a few people politely nudge me towards doing it and, second, there is very little written on this machine online, with the exception of Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen's rather excellent review. However, Thomas' review concerns the Maver Marte as it was before David Makin got his hands on it. So if there's to be any sort of information available to people, it looks like I'm going to have to write something.

To be clear, readers of this review should note that:

I work for a company that sells this machine and part of my job is selling it.
I was given a discount on this machine (although I could have gotten a discount on basically any machine through work).

I will endeavour to provide as much hard factual information as possible. This is relatively easy for the milk steaming section, but the section dealing with espresso will necessarily have a lot of impression to it.

Also, readers should note that this review has been written bit by bit; it's quite piecemeal and generally could use a bit of editing. In fact, I might even do that at some stage in the future. For this reason, I have gone through and summarised each section under each heading. The first three sections are really just background information, so feel free to just skip right to the section titled "Espresso."

[Edit 1: Upon posting this review, I realised that it just looked incredibly long, so my first update has been to slash the first three sections down to the summaries, which really detail all of the important information.]

The Machine's Story

EDIT: I have been asked to edit this section. Seeing as who manufactured, designed, shipped, etc. this machine has no bearing on anything that is said in this review, having this section here means much less to me than it means to the person who asked me to take it down. Part of the reason why I have been asked to take this down is, as far as I understand it, because the person who made the request felt that this review was commenting about more than the Maver. For the avoidance of doubt, I want to point out that I was at pains NOT to divulge the names of any of the other prosumer machines against which the Maver competes, specifically because the aim of writing this piece was to provide information about the Maver, not about other machines. However, I found it utterly impossible to write anything meaningful without making some reference to other machines. In addition, the veracity of what I had said in this section was questioned. Frankly, based on a fair bit of evidence, I think that what was here was true and correct. But the balance of convenience lies in favour of simply editing this section.

Anyhoo, I hope that the following edited summary is uncontroversial:

Summary: David Makin decided to import this machine after seeing it when passing through Italy on the way to competing in the 2006 World Barista Championships. David has had quite a bit of involvement in how this machine ticks.

My coffee background

Summary: I have had a number of coffee gadgets, including the popular Rancilio Silvia and Rocky combination. I have also been lucky enough to use some very nice espresso equipment at my various jobs. Throughout this review, I make passing reference to the La Marzocco FB-80 that I currently use at work.

What I was looking for

Summary: This review does not take the paradigm frame of reference of someone buying their first espresso machine. Rather, I am interested in espresso machines that mirror what I am used to at work, both in terms of cup profile and convenience. Specifically, I was after a machine that would help me to build up my palate by making it easy to extract espresso with decent clarity of flavour.

Deciding to buy the machine

Summary: Despite my initial scepticism of a machine with a 1.3L boiler, the Maver performed well when used head to head with some relatively good commercial machines (a Linea and a WEGA Polaris). So I decided to buy it.

Espresso

Summary: The machine produces espresso that is characterised by reasonable body and quite good clarity of flavour. Just as importantly, it does so quite predictably and with a minimum of fuss. The consequence is that the barista is left to focus on truly important factors, like the coffee itself and its grind size and dose. I had difficulty coming up with a reasonable way to give a qualitative impression of how it performs, but basically said that although top notch commercial equipment seems to me to deliver better shots, the Maver is surprisingly not outclassed.

Characteristics that I like in espresso

Without spending too much time on the subject, it is worth noting that there are lots of different styles of espresso. I like to think that you could almost put them on a continuum, with descriptors like full body, syrupy mouthfeel and low acid at one end and descriptors like acidic, fruity, sweet and watery at the other. In my mind, the difference is usefully summarised by examining the brewing ratio. A higher ratio of coffee to water results in shots with the first group of characteristics - I'll call them "body" - whilst a lower ratio of coffee to water results in shots with the latter group of characteristics - I'll call them "clarity." If you have an espresso machine, a useful experiment would be to extract 60mL of espresso in 30 seconds, switching cups so that you catch the first 20mL in one cup, the second 20mL in another and the third in the last cup. The first 20mL should have more body, whereas the second should have more clarity of flavour. (The final cup, to me, often ends up devoid of anything of interest and sometimes even sour.)

Generally speaking, I think that it is more difficult to extract shots with clearly defined flavours than shots with lots of body. I used to find it relatively easy to extract a gooey, chocolatey shot on my silvia, but significantly harder to extract a sweet and acidic shot. However, this wasn't the case with the Synesso or the FB80. I didn't find it much harder to extract a full-length, flavoursome espresso on those machines than it was to extract a short and potent espresso. Ristretti were usually pleasant, rich and chocolatey. In fact, they were invariably pleasant, rich and chocolatey, regardless of what coffee I was using. By contrast, a proper espresso had an interesting and elusive element to it - I found it easier to taste the differences between different blends and origins at this brewing ratio.

I don't think that an espresso or a ristretto is necessarily better; usually the choice will depend on the blend or origin being used. But I do think that it is more difficult to extract a decent espresso than it is to extract a decent ristretto. This meant that in deciding to buy the Maver I was particularly concerned to avoid the following traits:

Excessive pre-infusion: I found that a long time between flipping the switch and seeing the first drops usually seemed to result in a shot that was either burnt or high in body and low in clarity of flavour, regardless of the extraction time and volume.
Accelerating extraction rate: Some machines seemed to start off at a trickle and quickly move to a gush. This made it difficult for me to stop the extraction at the point that I wanted.
Difficult temperature management routines: It is difficult enough to find the right grind setting. If you have to worry about the machine being at wildly fluctuating temperatures, all of a sudden you are chasing two variables around when trying to dial in a new coffee.

Espresso From The Maver

I am sitting here, cappuccino in hand, and I find myself with very little to say. I think that this is because much of my concern in brewing espresso is in liberating the coffee from negative flavours imposed by an espresso machine. That is what struck me and continues to strike me about this machine.

Going back to the espresso flavour spectrum, the Maver's shots strike me as having a good balance between body and clarity of flavour. Different blends and origins taste like different blends and origins. At the same time, I have never felt that my shots have been lacking in body or mouthfeel because of the machine. However, I have had shots that have been unpleasant because I have roasted the coffee badly. On the Silvia, the difference would not have been quite as marked, simply because most of the best extractions that I got on that machine were of the type where increased body obscured the actual flavour of the coffee to some extent.

Having this machine around has certainly helped me to develop my palate quite a bit. For example, during October I can honestly say that the various beans that I used had hints of blueberry (or cantaloupe), rose and nuts.

Yes, but how good is it?

Now, I guess that I ought to try to quantify how good the espresso actually is. This is something that every review that I have read has struggled with. Part of the difficulty is the fact that most espresso machine reviews seem to either declare the machine being reviewed as the "best" or they try to use some sort of numerical rating. Whilst I appreciate those that try to use the latter method, even at the top of the specialty coffee tree, cuppers disagree about how coffee should be rated. Accordingly, I have tried to focus more on describing the espresso rather than evaluating it. Nonetheless ...

... drawing on the machines that I have used, I would have to say that I like coffee from the Maver a lot more than coffee from the Silvia, but I find the FB80 to be the best of all - to my mind the good shots have similar body and greater clarity of flavour. The Maver is a lot closer to the FB80 than it is to the Silvia. So much so that, on occasion, I have actually either been at work or visited a friend's cafe and come home to have a nicer shot. I am not sure how helpful that is to anyone, but I can't think of a better way to do it!

Ease of Use and Tricks

The internet is overflowing with articles about how machines that use heat exchangers are difficult to use; evidently the importers/manufacturers dropped the ball and did not tune the thermosyphons as their markets required. The result, for those machines, is that one needs to develop a meticulous routine of running a certain amount of water through the group head at a certain time before brewing in order to get the water to the right temperature to brew the coffee - this is commonly referred to as the "cooling flush." Since David made sure that this machine was tuned how he wanted it in the factory, the cooling flush is a simple exercise. I simply flush water through the group head for two or three seconds, then extract my espresso. Sometimes I will do my cooling flush before grinding my coffee; it doesn't seem to make too much difference. The water that comes out almost never seems to hiss and splutter. Indeed, shots brewed without a cooling flush often taste fine - although I would always flush just for cleanliness.

Temperature management deserves a brief mention. The machine has a hole for easy access to the pressurestat. This allows you to change the boiler pressure which, in turn, ought to change the brew temperature. In practice, whilst changing the boiler pressure a few tenths of a bar does seem to have an impact on flavour, the difference has never struck me as large enough to be worthwhile bothering with the pressurestat. Accordingly, after about a year of experimentation I basically leave the boiler pressure at 1.25 to 1.3 bar at the top of the cycle. Letting a lot of water run through the group head - something like 10 seconds' worth - does seem to alter the flavour slightly. Again, I don't do it much. This is odd, because I tend to muck around with brew temperature a fair bit on the FB80.

Wishful thinking?

As I said in the introduction, evaluation of espresso is necessarily quite subjective. To try and work out whether or not my impressions were fair, I grabbed half a kilo of coffee and made 12 shots in a row, including a few sink shots. The results confirmed my impressions above:

Three shots made with my normal routine were identical.
Two shots made without flushing at all tasted the same as the normal shots, but one of the two had a slight bitterness to it.
Two shots made with a ten second flush were similar to the normal shots, but slightly sourer and with a slightly more watery mouthfeel, which was offset by a vaguely more floral flavour.
One shot made with a lower dose tasted both more floral and more sour than the normal shots. I also extracted less volume and it was more watery.
Two shots were thrown away in dialling everything in and one was thrown and two shots after that were thrown away due to errors in dosing. (I'm not particularly embarrassed to say that; indeed, I think that it underscores the often overlooked importance of consistent dosing in the whole espresso process.)

That experiment isn't particularly good science - the sample size is too small to be statistically significant and I knew what variations I had made - but I find it comforting.

Photo: Not actually from this round of testing, but the mess was similar!

Important and Unimportant Considerations in Espresso Brewing

A brief digression. There are a myriad of factors that make a difference in making a decent shot. Some make a huge difference. Some make no difference. Some will make a difference only in some circumstances. There is a whole galaxy of writing out there on the internet that deals with various factors in isolation, but very little that gives a reasonable account of the relative importance of each of the factors under the barista's control, hence this short note.

Let's remember that the most important thing is the coffee. Not just the freshness, but also the roast level, roast profile and the blend used. Garbage in = garbage out on any machine. Factors that are also of great importance are consistent dosing of coffee, machine cleanliness and the volume/time of the extraction (determined by grind and dose). I think that these are the important factors for anyone to focus on. These factors are the difference between an acceptable and an unacceptable shot.

There are then a number of factors that will make a huge difference if they are way off, but only a considerably smaller difference if they are taken care of within the tolerances that you would expect of a reasonably competent barista with reasonable equipment. These include tamping, amount of coffee dosed, brew temperature, brew pressure, portafilter baskets, preinfusion and a whole plethora of other things. These are the difference between a good shot and a great shot.

Finally, there are some oddball factors that either make no difference, or very little difference, or are only of relevance to correct something else. This category covers a number of elaborate techniques that are discussed all over the place.

So the point of saying all of this is to highlight that the Maver holds up its end of providing a consistent point for the barista to work from. The machine does not take care of things like the coffee, the dose and the grind, but it means that the barista can focus on those things rather than worrying about the machine.

Milk

Summary: The current Maver steam tip seems to work best when the steam wand is aimed almost straight down and positioned half-way between the centre of the jug and the edge. The tip is suited to producing microfoam and is very easy to clean, but I have a bee in my bonnet about it; I am more comfortable with steam wands that perform best when on an angle. My nominal steaming times are 16 seconds to make a single cappuccino and 26 seconds to make two. For reference, the La Marzocco FB-80 at work takes 11 and 16 seconds, respectively, to texture the same amount of milk. Those who want to experiment can change the steaming characteristics of the machine by changing the steam tip.

I have always thought that it is much easier to get decent milk than it is to make good espresso, so I basically completely ignored milk steaming for the purposes of deciding to buy the machine. That said, the way that this machine steams milk is the aspect of this machine that I least enjoy.

Steam Tips and My Comments

When it comes to milk steaming, the $15 steam tip at the end of your many thousand dollar espresso machine is basically determinative. The first thing that I did when I got the machine was to get hold of a few different steam tips to try them out. The machine seems to have a standard 10mm thread, so there are a fair few different steam tips available. Whilst lots of different steam tips will fit, they will not all necessarily fit flush against the steam wand, which can make them difficult to clean.

The various steam tips performed as follows:

Old Maver tip (ie. now obsolete): Suited for what the "dry" cappuccini that Italians seem to like. This means that it could produce a lot of bubbly foam easily, which obviously rendered it fairly difficult to create the smooth microfoam that is popular in Australia. Very easy to clean.
Generic four-holed commercial tip (seemed to me to be the same as what Synesso use): Made great microfoam with two of the four holes plugged up when inserted into the jug at an angle, but I thought that it let the steam out quite quickly, making it relatively difficult to control what was going on. Lots of straight sides making it relatively difficult to wipe down, plus it didn't fit flush with the steam arm.
Generic two-holed domestic tip (possibly used by Isomac): Easy to get microfoam with, but exceptionally slow. Seemed to cut the steam flow to a trickle. Ridges on the tip were magnets for caked on milk, making it almost impossible to clean.

After the first batch of machines landed, David organised for the machines to be switched to this tip:

Current Maver tip: Sensibly matched to this machine and designed for microfoam, not "dry" foam. Because the tip is designed to go with the machine, it fits on to the steam wand so that it can be cleaned very easily, with a single wipe. BUT, like a few of the common steam tips on domestic machines, it seems to be designed to work when the wand is aimed straight down. I am used to steam tips that work when the wand is put in the pitcher on an angle. As a result, I have suggested to David that he should source a different tip that will allow the same technique to be used as on a La Marzocco, et. al. David likes the current steaming action and thinks that it will suit most people; ie. I'm in the minority. One oddity with this steam tip is that if you introduce too many large bubbles at the beginning, it is best to let them sit on the surface whilst you continue steaming and then to pop them by rapping the jug on the counter. With a commercial machine, it is usually best to move the wand slightly to suck them under. For some reason, I never really got good results doing that.

Despite my dislike of the current Maver tip, I'm forced to admit that it is what I am currently using. The inconvenience of sometimes forgetting what I'm doing and starting to steam with the tip on the wrong angle is outweighed by both the ease of cleaning the tip and the fact that I would have to put effort in to find some other tips to try!

A quick note; whilst it is, of course, possible to brew and steam at the same time, I tend to brew first, then steam immediately after. That way, if I want to do the shot again I do not also have to throw out a jug of steamed milk. Instead of steaming, I tend to pull out my pastry brush and clean up my bench whilst the espresso is pouring.

Milk Steaming Times

For the results below I timed how long it takes me to steam milk for a single coffee in a 350mL jug and two coffees in a 600mL jug. I didn't measure the amount of milk in each case, but I filled each jug to the same level, being the level that I usually would fill it to. The 350mL quantity is sufficient for a 210mL drink with not much milk left over or a 170mL drink with a little bit of milk left over.

Maver Marte Makin Espresso Edition:

350mL jug - 16 seconds
600mL jug - 26 seconds

La Marzocco FB-80:

350mL jug - 11 seconds
600mL jug - 16 seconds

There is one final number that I think is of use; the amount of time that it takes for boiler pressure to drop below 0.7 bar with the valve fully open. This is important to me because I find it difficult to steam milk well with less than that much pressure. On my Maver, it took about 1 minute and 25 seconds for the boiler pressure to fall from about 1.25 bar to 0.7 bar.

Results

Next up was the photo challenge. The idea was to photograph nine coffees in a row to give y'all some idea of what I typically am producing at home, including embarrassing coffees like the middle one in the top row. Note that that coffee was a result of me starting to steam with the wand on the angle that I would use at work.

Obviously I'm not a pro photographer, nor a latte art guru! The irony, of course, is that I have been pouring nicer looking latte art as a result of paying attention to my mistakes during this exercise. However, the idea was to present the reader with some photos of typical coffees, not the best ones, so there you go.

(nB: All of those cappuccini were about 170mL in volume.)

Cleaning and Maintenance

Summary: The Maver ought to be treated like any other espresso machine - keep it clean and well maintained.

Photo: Why windex is good.

This section will be brief, seeing as I can't imagine that there is any real difference between the Maver and similar machines. Skip over it if you are familiar with cleaning and maintenance of prosumer espresso machines.

Often

*Keep a cloth near your steam wand and wipe down after every use. I think that the microfibre cloths are really good for this; others like chux cloths.

*Clean water backflushing is never a bad thing. The machine came with two portafilters, so seeing as I don't have much interest in single espresso shots I keep the blind filter in the other permanently and it lives on the bench next to the machine. A clean water backflush is, thus, painless.

Weekly

*Chemical backflush. The only hint that I have here is to leave the blind filter containing dissolved detergent sitting in the group for a few minutes to really dissolve all of the crud behind the shower screen - a tip that I learnt from Andrew. It ought to go without saying that the pump should be off at this time.

*Windex. Chrome = dirt magnet. It can get irritating. While the blind is sitting in the group soaking I tend to spray and wipe the drip tray and the panel on which the group is mounted. The sides tend not to get very dirty, so it's not usually necessary to clean them weekly. Apparently microfibre cloths are also really good for polishing chrome - but for crying out loud don't use the same one that you use for the steam wand!

Occasionally

*Scale (calcium carbonate) tends to build up inside espresso machine boilers at a rate dependent on the quality of your water. Scale forms preferentially at the water level line. I gather that autofill probes function by switching the machine off when the level touches the probe, allowing for current to be transmitted through the water and the probe and switching off the pump and boiler fill solenoid. Scale happens to form on the probe and I gather that it prevents this conduction, with the result that over time the boiler fills more and more. This, in turn, means that there is less steam in the boiler. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong and I'll update the post.) Then there's the fact that excessive scale build-up can eventually clog the various bits and pieces that water is supposed to flow through. So descaling when it is necessary is pretty important for all domestic espresso machines, unless you have a pretty hefty water filtration system. Descaling involves draining the boiler of as much water as possible, filling it with a descaling solution, running the descaling solution through the group several times, then draining and flushing the descaling solution out of the boiler and heat exchanger. Typically, the difficulty is that you need to open up the machine and do some shenanigans to get the machine to over-fill. I did that when descaling, but in doing so I noticed that tilting the machine 45 degrees or so will also make it overfill slightly. I imagine that this might be sufficient and, if so, it is a neat little shortcut.

*Wearing parts. The rubber O-rings in the steam and hot water tap and the gaskets will need to be replaced every so often. The teflon gasket between the steam tip and the tip of the steam wand might also need replacing - I'm not sure. I gather that pressurestats, pumps and brain boxes all eventually need replacing on most machines, although we are probably talking very long term there. Steam valves seem to need to be rebuilt every so often as a matter of course on commercial machines, so there's another thing to watch out for.

*Water filter. I gather that these things are supposed to be replenished occasionally by soaking them in a glass of brine, then running water through them. I have been completely negligent in this regard and will try to find out what the story is there.

Random Other Stuff

Summary: I talk about various things in this section that aren't of particularly great consequence to what's in the cup.

Forgive me, but I'm going to use bullet points to get through the random stuff that doesn't affect the cup and about which I have (comparatively) little to say:

Information overload: I guess that the front of the machine might make it look unduly complicated, but everything serves a purpose. The various lights indicate the element being on, the machine being at temperature and the power being on. The power light goes out when the weight sensor beneath the water tank detects that there isn't much water in the tank. It would be nicer to have some sort of gauge that gave you a reading of how full the tank is, but so far no manufacturer of "prosumer" machines has managed to do what sunbeam et al find quite simple. I don't look at the brew and boiler pressure gauges all that much any more, but it is nice to know that everything is as it should be.
Fit and finish: I think that it looks great, but, as I said, all of these shiny chrome things are hard to keep clean. I have dismantled the machine and put it back together a few times; occasionally a lack of care when putting the central piece of metal back in place will mean that everything doesn't fit flush.
Cup warmer: The good part is that it is easy to lift on and off, thanks to the rails. The bad part is that the cups at the back, above the water reservoir, don't get as hot as those at the front. I wonder if any prosumer machine manufacturer has solved this problem.
Drip tray: The Silvia had a drip tray that held about half a litre, but that was difficult to remove without spilling stuff everywhere when full. The Maver drip tray seems to hold something like a litre or a litre and a half and slides in and out easily. The wire grid supporting the cups is best removed before pouring the contents out. It is possible to pour the contents out through the grid, but everything will need a wipe down afterwards. Thanks to both the large capacity of the drip tray and the tiny cooling flush that this machine requires, I only had to empty the drip tray once, at the very end of the marathon shot-pulling session that I conducted for this review. That's including all of the water used to give the group a chemical back-flush before beginning!
Hot water: The hot water wand on this machine is unusually long. It's really six of one and half a dozen of another as far as I'm concerned - I don't use it that much. The long wand seems to have the neat little consequence that the first little bit of hot water loses a bit of heat heating it up; if you stop after the first 30mL, you can actually put your finger in it. After the first 30mL, the water is very hot and splutters a little bit when it comes out of the aerator. I guess that this is kind of cool because it means that I don't get the water causing the crema on a long black/americano to fade away as quickly as it otherwise might. If I drank a lot of long blacks, I might consider keeping a bottle of water with a pour spout on it around - a nice trick that Corey from Epic Espresso used when he had LM Lineas. Within reason, the colder the water, the longer the crema will last. Letting the water sit in the cup for a while whilst grinding seems to work, too.
Water reservoir: It seems to be pretty standard. It is clearly intended to be removed to be filled and it is pretty easy to do so. But I'm lazy, so I just pour water into it. This would be easier to do if the reservoir had a larger opening or if I condescended to use a funnel. That said, pouring isn't exactly rocket-science!
Navigating through the machine: I am not a huge fan of the way that this machine is put together - there is a piece of metal that supports the reservoir and shields the boiler and electronics from errant water. I am told that this is a safety feature, and probably quite a sensible one. However, I like to tinker and this means that there are more bolts that I need to worry about than there would be on a commercial machine.
Part replacements: It would be remiss of me not to mention that I have replaced a heating element, a pressurestat and have tinkered with the pump mount on my machine. It would be equally remiss of me not to mention that this was all because I am an obsessive tinkerer and I am too cool to actually read the manual. So if I you learn three things from this review, let it be these: (a) follow the machine filling procedure detailed in the obligatory poorly translated manual so as not to let the element melt when not properly immersed in water, (b) if your pressurestat adjustment screw won't turn further, it is because you have reached the limit and, finally, (c) if you tinker with the pump mount for no good reason you might well have to then try to reverse your tinkering for no good reason. Anyhoo, I had fun and I learnt a fair bit about how machines work ... or don't ... in the process!
Version 2: David has talked to BFC and Maver to make a few changes for current models of his machine. The only one that is immediately apparent is that he swapped the old Maver portafilter for the same one that Peter is using on the BFC commercial machines that Veneziano imports. These portafilters have a sloped handle (like mine), a deep bowl and open double spouts. In fact, they are quite reminiscent of the La Marzocco portafilters. Inside the machine, the frame has been strengthened and the OPV has been moved to a more easily accessible location. These modifications join the other two that David made after receiving the first shipment; the hole above the pressurestat for easy access and the new steam tip. Of course, the thermosyphon and preinfusion characteristics haven't been messed with! Not to be outdone, I have a few ideas for random stuff that I might muck around with, but I won't have time to chase it up for a while.

Conclusion

It is customary to conclude a review with some sort of overall assessment. I presume that this is really for people who skip to the conclusion, rather than people who actually read the review and, so, know what the reader thinks of the machine. I guess that my one sentence evaluation would simply be that half an hour after coming home from using the FB80 at work, I make myself coffee at home. That probably doesn't sound like much, but I think that it is pretty impressive, considering that the FB80 is something like eight times the price!

In terms of my goal of improving my espresso palate, I am quite pleased with how this whole thing has worked out. I used to drink far more espresso at work than at home when I had the Silvia; at home I drank mainly milk-based drinks. Now, I drink about the same ratio of milk and black drinks at home as I would at work. And I'm a lot more confident in describing flavours in espresso.

This concludes my attempt at writing a useful review. I fear that it won't be that helpful, but you can always ask questions in the comments.

Resources

Links related to various sections of the review:

Introduction

Thomas' Maver Marte Review

The Machine's Story

BFC Srl

Maver

Makin Espresso

Veneziano Coffee

Single Boiler vs Heat Exchanger by Jim Piccinich

E61 CAD Diagrams by Lino Verna

What I was looking for

La Marzocco FB-80 (no, that's not what I was looking for, but I referred to this machine a bit throughout)

Espresso

Understanding Espresso by Chris Tacy

Brewing Ratios For Espresso Beverages by Andy Schecter

Errors in Temperature and Pressure Measurement by John Bicht

The Home Barista's Guide To Espresso by Jim Schulman

Some Aspects of Espresso Extraction by Jim Schulman

Milk

Milk Frothing Guide by Aaron De Lazzer

Caffe Latte Art in the 21st Century by David Schomer (pdf)

Cleaning and Maintenance

Cafetto

HB's How-To

The Insanely Long Water FAQ by Jim Schulman

Bad Weather, Bad Coffee and Bad Latte Art

2007-11-11T13:56:00.000+11:00

Every year summer threatens to slaughter the Melbourne coffee scene. Those 30C+ days absolutely slaughter coffee if the heat can get to them. My coffee setup is, unfortunately, somewhat exposed to the dry and hot weather outside, so I'm bracing myself for it. First Pour is open to the elements via the roller door and the sunlight belting down on the corrugated iron roof doesn't exactly make things easy on the barista. Over a four hour shift, I have had to make many, many changes to both grind and brew temperature to keep everything tasting right. Meanwhile, Andrew is experimenting with storing his coffee in a wine fridge at Maling Room. I will probably experiment with some styrofoam esky storage at home.

Yes, it's red alert time and everyone is battening down the hatches, bracing for impact and sipping from porcelain demitasses with raised pinky fingers. So far, it seems like everyone is staying on top of things and, indeed, over the last month I have been drinking exceptionally sweet espresso on a more regular basis than ever before. Wierd.

In honour of the dawning of the "everything goes to $#!t" season, I have decided to start fooling around with double rosettas at home. I have always thought that these things look particularly ugly, and learning to pour them results in ugly pours even by regular double rosetta standards. I seem to be able to get the second one to come out looking OK, but blobby. But, in doing so, the first one gets mangled. Observe:

That's about the best that I have been able to do. The left one was poured first. I would welcome any tips from the seasoned vets out there. What works for you? Do you like to let the milk sit, or do you pour straight away? Do you lift up the spout after the first, or just move it over? Do you like the milk thinner like you would stretch it to create large, delicate leaves on a single rosetta, or do you like it thicker to make it easier to get shorter leaves on your second rosetta? I'm interested in all opinions that do not involve going over a 170mL/5oz cup.

Hopefully at least if and when bad coffee sets in I will be able to enjoy good latte art.