Five Senses Coffee Blog

The Precision Shot Brewer

richard.muhl — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:07:36 +0000

I’ve been spending quite few hours testing and evaluating various burrs and baskets recently and I have come to realise that a purpose built, highly stable shot brewer would be a useful tool. It may be my metrology background but I am always looking for ways to remove uncertainties and subjectivity from my test procedures so a Precision Shot Brewer is now top of my wish list.

The machine will be, in essence an espresso machine without any facility for producing steam or hot water. It will of course need to be very stable in terms of brew water temperature and water pressure and it must also have the ability to replicate the pressure profile of the Synesso Hydra as found in many of our clients cafes. I think I should also have the ability to collect and digitise temperature, pressure and flow rate data for analysis and lastly but very importantly, it must look cool …

For a base to build it all on I am chopping up a chassis from a new three group Synesso Cyncra that had been dropped from the back of a truck and written off. My stainless steel welding skills are best described as ‘amateur hobbyist’ but with enough tries and plenty of grinding I manage to get something to hold together. The overall plan is to have everything from the hydraulic system to the electronic circuit boards fully out in the open or behind perspex guards so we can be mesmerised by the blinking LEDs while we wait for our espresso shot.

If you want to see ALL the pics, check them out at our Five Senses Flickr Site …

Precision Shot Brewer - where's it's up to now

The SynessoMac Mark II is born

ashbrian — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:50:23 +0000

What was 18 months in the making is finally complete and stands proud on my kitchen bench — the SynessoMac Mark II.

My home set-up including the SynessoMac Mark II

It’s been about two years since Richard finished and installed the original SynessoMac at his home and after a few months or constant pestering, late night sms’s and post-it notes on his fridge, he finally agreed to go around the block again and create a Mark II of his original creation.

Once I got the nod, I raced my machine into the service department ready for its conversion. Richard assured me it would only take about eight weeks … ok, maybe it got dragged out just a little a bit, but I guess a few slightly more important projects like green bean lifting machines, roasted bean mixing trays and a 90kg Giesen roaster install were a little more important to bump my little machine further down the priority list.

Alrighty, enough about those other projects … a mere 18 months in the womb and the SynessoMac Mark II was born. It’s almost identical to the original with a few small differences: blue PID (at my request), a custom-made double walled cooltouch steam wand (thanks Synesso, you guys rock!) and the pump was mounted externally under the bench (making the internal area much easier to work around).

It came home just before Christmas, which was gold!!! … seens as it was holidays. I’ve been experimenting with different coffees, different temps and even dosing levels, which has been a lot of fun. I’ve been looking for something that’s chocolaty and super sweet. I really don’t know whether it’s possible to beat our Colombian Monserrate at 96°C, which is what I’ve been tasting for a few days now. I started at 92°C and one thing that I’ve definitely found is the shots get sweeter as I drive up the temp. Next up is to try some of our blends.

For all the technical details of Richards original project, check it out here: http://blog.fivesenses.com.au/category/project-x/

And just for the record … the wait was totally worth it.

Close up of the Synesso grouphead

COE winners are grinners … off to Sul de Minas Gerais

jen.murray — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:58:13 +0000

The Brazilian COE has only just come to an end, it was a busy week and most certainly a very intense last couple of days. It’s exciting, draining and lots and lots of work for everyone involved, but most importantly, an invaluable experience and program for producers, buyers and consumers the world over. I’ve always had a soft spot for Brazilian coffees and it’s probably the reason why I originally chose Brazil as a jury I wanted to be on. I’m not sure if it’s because I find them often misunderstood as I often hear “I really don’t like Brazilian coffees” from speciality coffee buyers, drinkers etc. Being here, learning and tasting super fresh Brazilian coffees has proven to me once again, that Brazil has a lot to offer the speciality world, especially (but not exclusively) the espresso market. Caramel, juicy, fruity, clean, sweet, spicey, chocolately, malty, citric … need I go on.

Jules (Juliana Nobre) and I have packed our bags once again and are now in Sul de Minas Gerais (South of the state of Minas) … a very well known coffee growing region in Brazil. We are surrounded by rolling hills of coffee and spending the next couple of days of the Santo Antonio Estates, where for the first time this year, our fresh crop Brazils are coming from. In fact, they are due to land in Australia just around the corner in early December. We are also spending time on some of the estates we get our micro lots from, Samambaia, Villa Boa, Pinhal as well as some new ones. The air is fresh, the coffee is sweet and those warm cheesy buns straight out of the oven are absolute heaven!!

We saw two Toucan’s yesterday … I couldn’t believe my eyes!!

The final days in Brazil

Zee best of zee best!

jen.murray — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:56:55 +0000

We’ve spent the last two days further narrowing down the original 60 coffees … things are starting to get really tight and it’s like comparing lots of great apples with apples but we’re still trying to pick out the best apples in the process! Today is the finale, a nice reward for a week of hard / fun work … I’m about to run down to the lab to taste our top ten picks, some 90+ coffees (in my opinion) so this is going to be a real treat.

More news soon …

Check out this vid for some thrilling cupping action:

Brazil COE — Dia numero Dois (that’s doi-ce to you!)

jen.murray — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:23:50 +0000

Official sipping, slurping and spitting is in full swing and the first real day of the competition is under our belts. We cupped 30 coffees today, and as you would expect, the standard was pretty high with a handful of “ exquisite” coffees showing up that you can almost guarantee will make it into the top ten. Lots of personalities in the room, most notably Andreas “the Gatekeeper” Hertzberg from Norway, who’s doing his best to make sure only COE auction worthy coffees make it through to the next round. His philosophy is that to give a coffee a score of 84+ (a pass to the auction) it must be a coffee you’d be willing to bid on, can’t argue with that. It means international buyers can trust the winning lots and also the Brazilian farmers get a clear indication of what we, the speciality buyers, feel is a example of an exemplary coffee. We did a mini field trip this arvo and visited a large well organised farm, Fazenda Palmeiras in Santa Marina, a couple hours from the city of Londrina. A well oiled machine, literally, and an example of a large Brazilian farm that has been in the same family for three generations, originally from Switzerland. Another long day and time to hit the hay … another 30 coffees to go tomorrow.

Seedlings at Fazenda Palmeiras in Santa Marina

Juliana cupping

The crew in Brazil

Brazil COE — Day 1

jen.murray — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:02:38 +0000

We’ve all arrived safe and sound in the city of Londrina in the state of Parana. It’s nice to see so many familiar faces from all over the world … US, Poland, Japan, Korea, Hamburg, Norway, Australia (Ross Quail and Juliana Nobre) UK, Guatemala as well as a whole bunch of new ones. We had a massive day today starting with the standard calibration rounds; first with solutions representing different acids, combination acids and sugars, body, astringency etc .. an exercise that’s light and easy as well as a great way to draw focus to the fundamentals of cupping and the character (good and bad). The next three rounds are the same eight coffees three times over, a chance to evaluate your own consistency as well as how calibrated we are as group. By the end, I think we zoned into a good rhythm and there was a clear direction with scores. Lots of food, talks, welcomes and ceremonies to kick things off … we’ve all wet our whistles with a couple of standout coffees today and I think most of us are keen to put our serious cupping hats on tomorrow morning and do our best to select the top lots of the competition. Interesting fact we learned today was that Londrina used to be considered the coffee centre of Brazil until a major frost hit in 1975 and decimated the trees in this region, many of which were never replanted.

Brazil COE day 1

Q Graders at ABA

tom.beaumont — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 05:43:17 +0000

The Q grading course came to a close today with 15 out of 21 people becoming Australia’s newest Q graders! Although there are a disappointed few, there is still an opportunity for these folks to retake their section/s at another grading. More importantly everyone agreed it was a great week of learning and every participant can now speak a common language among the specialty coffee world. The scoring part of the Q grading, where participants needed to rate coffees out of 100 proved to be the strongest area. Everyone passed this with very high scores which reflects their cupping ability. Once again the sweet, sour, salt tests proved to be the toughest part as did some of the olfactory (nasal senses) tests.

I am not sure how many cupping bowls were used this week, but it’s fair to say it was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and perhaps a few more hundred. Big thanks go out to Andy Easthope and Chei Wei for all the hard work cleaning, entering scores and tidying up back of house. Craig and Chris from Atlas again ran an incredibly motivating and educational course and were just great guys to have around! If you asked the participants one of the best parts of the Q grading, they would tell you it was listening to Craig’s coffee knowledge and stories from around the globe.

Being able to watch some of the Q grading this time and not stress out with all the tests I could see just how much work goes into this. There was a huge range of specialty coffees shipped to ABA and each sample had been meticulously roasted. Every cup was weighed and ground. There were 21 people that needed to be focused (and fed) for an entire week and every day had to run smoothly. Jen Murray was the orgainser of this event and the feedback from the Atlas guys are that it was the smoothest course they have ever run. Props to you Jen!

The week was also filled with lots of fun. There was singing and guitar playing, fun runs after hours, drinks and plenty of laughs. Goodbye to Craig and Chris and have fun in PNG!

Action on the last day of Q Graders

Green bean grading

The smell test

Day 4 of Q Graders course is about to wrap up

andy — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 07:09:54 +0000

This year there were five people from Five Senses represented. Here are their experiences of the past four days, wrapped up in four adjectives…

Adam: happiness, joy, excitement, nervous
Brydon: nerve-racking, informative, frustrating, validating
Ron: fun, exciting, tiring, summertime!
Ian: exhausting, tiring, fatigued, awesome
Jacob: intensive, educational, relational, challenging
Megan: informative, exhaustive, relationship-building, nostalgic

Watch this space for a post course wrap-up. It is sure to be, exciting, fun, informative, nostalgic…….

Cuppers in action

Could this be Australia's next Q-Grader?

The kids are alright!!

shaughan — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 02:30:48 +0000

After trading emails for the last couple of years the planets finally aligned and I managed to be in Bali at the same time as Jeff Neilsen. Jeff is a lecturer and academic at University of NSW and specialises in markets and supply chains in rural areas with a special interest in Indonesian coffee production. Jeff is definitely one of the good guys, a fluent Indonesian speaker and passionate humanitarian and it was great to finally show him our projects in Bali.

I also had contacted a Balinese based photographer Tommy Schultz. Tommy was raised in Virginia in the US, completed a degree in environmental science and spent some time working on aid projects with the Peace Corps in the Philippines. Tommy is one of those rare individuals who has a creative and humanitarian heart and one of the sharpest business minds I’ve come across.

We all shared the common trait of offering our opinions freely and with conviction which made for a very entertaining and stimulating day as we criss-crossed the high country of Bali!

Once we all piled into the car, accompanied by “our man on the ground’, the newly married Komang Sukarsana and Bali’s best driver, Made Mertiasa we started the journey to Git Git to check in on the progress of our nursery at the Tri Karya Subak Abian. It was super exciting to see that our tiny seedlings had now been transplanted from the beds into poly bags and stood proudly in long, neat rows. The plants looked healthy and strong and we now have to wait until February when the mammoth task of getting them into the ground begins. Each plant require a hole 60 cm deep and 30 cms in diameter. With some 7,500 plants to go into the ground, that’s going to take some digging!!!

There was a very tangible air of excitement at Tri Karya about getting stuck into this coffee project. The plan is to plant out around 25 hectares of coffee (somewhere around 40,000 trees!!) over the next couple of years. It’s fair to say this is a very ambitious project and has the potential to have a profound effect on the security and wellbeing of this area. Tri Karya are currently very dependent on clove production for their livelihood and any dip in prices or production would see them in some trouble.

We then moved on to meet our old friends at Kerta Waringin and Ulian Murni, the car was alive with “vigorous” and informed debate. Tommy managed to come up with an online business strategy for anything and everything we discussed whilst Jeff rightly pointed out some of the “holes” in our relationship with the coffee farmers of Bali. Time to revise our game plan a little and start to share the risk a little bit. It’s very much a trust model with FSC exposed to most of the risk!!

One of the highlights of the day for me was when Made Sukerta, the always smiling and hospitable head of Ulian Murni, proudly told us how he declined the offers from some “Aussies”, who tracked them down through our blogs and stories and tried to buy the coffee he has stockpiled to be shipped to us in Australia. Maybe our trust model is not so bad after all!!

Coffee Seedlings

Rows of Seedlings

Jeff at the nursery

Coffee flowering

Day One of the 2012 UAE National Barista Championships

brydon — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:51:40 +0000

The 2012 UAE National Barista Championship has provided me with the opportunity to travel to the Middle East, drink some interesting coffee and meet some coffee fanatics in Dubai. Given that this is a perpetually hot city which is surrounded by desert, a surprising amount of coffee is drunk in this part of the world. As Head Judge for the competition, I conducted a two day judges’ calibration workshop at the start of the week with Ross Quail of Sensory Lab. The UAE competition historically relies on international judges. The competition is now in its third year, so it was great to see many local industry professionals giving their time to be involved. After much scrutinising of the rules, tasting of interesting coffee and practical judging assessment, we came out the other side with a strong team, ready to provide the foundations of a local judging pool for this year and next. It was particularly encouraging to see past competitors giving back by stepping up to judge.

The coffee industry here in Dubai is still very grounded in the old school Italian model of espresso, with the likes of Illy being key shapers of coffee appreciation. Lots of super dark roasting, heavy robusta blends and very long extractions. Chain franchises rule the roost with much coffee being consumed in the mega-malls of Dubai, malls so large they contain full size aquariums, ice rinks and even a ski slope! Select local roasters such Coffee Planet, however, are attempting to redress this a little by bringing in better beans and sliding the roast profile as far towards a lighter style as local palates will allow. We visited their roastery with Head Roaster Rosco (a fellow Kiwi) and owner Richard, and were hugely impressed with their operation. They transitioned from a 12kg to a 120kg Probat roaster to meet the incredible growth they’ve experienced, and the roastery was an absolute model of cleanliness and efficiency; three guys shipping out ten tonnes a week without a speck of dust or single errant bean to be seen.

I don’t think another barista championship in the world can match the UAE for location. The competition is being held at the Meydan Hotel which is wrapped around a race track. It is also one of the longest buildings in the world — a monumentally spectacular building. We have 21 baristas competing over two days of heats, followed by a final Top Five on Saturday. Day One was yesterday and ran very smoothly thanks to our international judges who stepped into the fray straight after some very long flights. Most of the competitors are first time entrants thanks to the very transient nature of the workforce here, but we saw some very encouraging talent and barista passion emerging. Somewhat uniquely, the competition here runs from 3pm to 9pm, so sleeping patterns continue to be somewhat shattered. However I am off to review some local cafes today, so caffeine will be working its glorious magic in no time.

Day one of the UAE Barista Comp

A view from my hotel