Siliconslave's how to make espresso thread

Razor-BladE said:
I tried coffee from James Gourmet, Square Miles, Black Cat, Rave, Wogan, Bristol Coffee, Clifton Coffee, North Star, Extract, Pact, Coffee Compass, Redber, UE, Horsham, Union, Origin, Caravan, Dark Woods and Ozone.
Click to expand...
great list there :)

Personally I tilt more towards the fruity, lighter roast end of things, but other places i'd suggest trying are:


finally not one for your taste buds, but long and short are back and do some amazing light / fruity roasts https://longshortlondon.com/
 
Last edited:
Kainz said:
Just accidentally went to the start of this thread. It’s amazing how everyone has progressed on their espresso road trip since that initial pictureless post :p
Click to expand...
oops - my google storage is at 95% so was clearing out photos only the other day, forgot they were linked to here! Might be time for a new set of photos :)
 
Last edited:
In town so popped into Qima for some Yemen coffee - Bait Yasin Deep Fermentation - £80 for 175g beans, or £4.40 for a long black :eek: still one of the best take away cups i've used
R6hu4iCl.jpg


Nice, very smooth coffee with some great florals, but I'm not sure it gives more flavour than an anaerobic processed coffee. Certainly not going to be buying any beans at that prices, but defiantly an interesting thing to try.
 
Last edited:
Advantages are you can get green beans very cheaply, you can play with the roast levels to your hearts content and it can be a fun new hobby.

Disadvantages are that it's hard to get consistency with a small roaster like that, you never quite know what your going to get each time, and can't easily replicate it when it goes well. You end up with a lot of waste. Green beans are generally sold in big batches and the good stuff is snapped up by the roasters.

It can be fun but adds annother, massively complex, layer in front of making a coffee :)
 
Last edited:
as Iron Monkey says most of the sage machines prioritise warm up speed over temperature consistency so aren't a bad option, higher up the market the ECM CASA V or Puristika are pretty quick to heat up (5-7 min & around 12min) but don't know of anything as 'on demand' as Tassimo / Nespresso style machines.
 
Feels like you need a filter machine rather than an espresso machine, or do you want to steam milk as well?

boiler water isn't generally the best, in fact it's almost always horrible and putting a whole cup of water through the puck is even worse.
 
Last edited:
Its good practice to take out the shower screen every month (assuming average home use) and give it a clean with soapy water - a decent cafe will be soaking it nightly.dropping the shower screen out should be super simple - may need a tea spoon handle to leaver it out.
 
The shared office space the company I use in London sometimes has some very good bean to cup machines that retail around the £5k mark, they are regularly maintained and use decent beans (from https://caravanandco.com/). They universally make pretty horrible coffee, although weirdly if you get a jug for a meeting they'll brew you some and thats 1000x better.

Bean to cup machines are trying to automate too many complex and messy things, grinding beans, compacting the grounds, pushing boiling water through it at pressure, steaming milk etc. As such they compromise massively and totally ignore all the variables (ie the beans age and roast).

If you want a super simple coffee i'd probably suggest either a pour over machine with a grinder, or a nespresso style machine with specialty pods...

although purely for the craziness of its advertising get the delongi one
 
worth noting that the tamp pressure makes pretty much no difference to the pour time. Only things that really matter tamp wise is that its even & flat to prevent channeling (when you get a direct 'hole' through the puck.

Changing coffee is a pain when it comes to dialling in, and as the coffee ages the grind size will need to change as well, but its a-lot less pronounced - the upside is, over time you'll get better at it, but unfortunately you'll always waste coffee getting it right (or accept less than perfect shots while you get it right)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom