Immersed in coffee

Not literally. I would probably get badly burned. Kinda’ like the McDonald’s incident with hot coffee, only much worse. Hmmm . . . . Perhaps that’s an untapped opportunity! The place with lovely golden arches was sued and put a multi-lingual disclaimer on their coffee cups, but I think the person that sued them got some $ first. Coffee roasters don’t put a warning on the bag advising against taking baths in hot coffee, do they! Okay, ridiculous, and something I would never do (I’m not the litigious type), but funny, no?

The immersion I’m referring to is the amount of black gold I’ve consumed in the past 48 hours and the experience. Not that it compares to what some other coffee geeks drink. I made a trip to Mike’s house in Vancouver, WA on Saturday afternoon with my espresso machine (Anita) in tow. The reason for our jaunt was that he had a borrowed Scace thermofilter, I’m a relatively inexperienced home barista and not sure of my flushing technique, even with Eric’s adaptor mounted to my e61. (If you’re completely lost by all this, don’t worry, it won’t get any better for this post. But I promise that all of my posts will not be pure coffee-geekery, and there will be interesting things to view in the future and sometimes past. — ? — Whatever . . . .)

A brief history: I had emailed Mike because I saw in a thread on Home-Barista.com that he now has the same thermometer adaptor (made by Eric) mounted in his Bricoletta that I have in Anita; I met Mike once before during a POETS meetup at the Albina Press; I emailed him, a discussion ensued, and he invited Anita and I to his house. I drove up with my girl in the back seat and Michelle in the front, but only because it’s her truck.

So we got set up, learned that my Italian girlfriend is finicky and doesn’t seem consistent with her temperature profile, adjusted my boiler pressure to it’s maximum setting and had some excellent coffee. Mike pulled a cafe crema with some Ethiopia Misty Valley Idido that was really nice and as good as or better than the same coffee brewed in a French press or Aeropress. A little bit later, he pulled a shot of his “Winter Solstice” blend that was pretty good, and then he pulled a shot of some Black Cat that was vacuum-packed in the freezer. It was the first time I’d had that coffee, and I understand a lot of what people say about it in online forums now. Powerful.

After leaving the house of our gracious host, we stopped by the house of some friends in North Portland and had a few beers and some very yummy food. Anita was still in the car, unfortunately. I was jonesing to play around using what little I had learned during the day. It had to wait until the next morning when I loaded some Rwanda Musasa from Stumptown in my grinder and starting pulling shots.

I tried to emulate Mike by making a couple of cafe crema americanos for Michelle and I. They turned out all right, but I’m not sure if it’s the best I could do. They seemed very bright — almost sour. Then I adjusted the grind and started pulling straight shots of espresso. The temp was high and the crema was flowing. All of the shots were still very bright. I don’t know if that’s just how it’s going to be, I’m doing something wrong, the coffee was too fresh or if it’s just not meant for espresso, at least for me.

So that was this morning, and then we went to the Stumptown Annex for the 3 ‘o’ clock cupping. They had six Kenyan coffees lined up: Karimkui, Kaiguri, Mirundi, Marua, Gaaki (flats) and Gaaki Peaberry. It was only the second cupping I’ve ever done, so I’m still trying to develop my palate and learn differences in coffees. The last time, the coffees were more varied rather than being from just one area. I also felt like maybe all of the shots from the morning had affected my tastebuds. In short, I felt like I didn’t taste as much as I should have. I need to cup more often.

Now I have a 1/2-pound each of Rwanda Musasa and Hair Bender resting a few days before I pull any shots. I also picked up some of Batdorf & Bronson’s Dancing Goats blend at a local market so I would have something ready to pull and not so fresh. It’s a great time for me, and I hope I can learn more and more as I go.

First post

I know, real imaginative Title and first post. Tough. I’m a little burned-out right now, but wanted to get something down. I couldn’t decide on a name for my blog, but settled on “The Daily Grind” because it alludes to my passion for coffee, my day-to-day and I think it sounds cool. At first I was going with “Fresh Start” because I started a blog elsewhere (which I won’t be importing or linking to) and, for various reasons, decided I needed to start a new one on a different site. I might have to change it again. I think it’s a bit of a ripoff, honestly.

Okay; it’s definitely a ripoff. I just searched on Google for it thinking it was a local coffee shop (edit: It is . . . and more). Turns out it is some big chain, and there are other blogs with this title already. I guess that just speaks to how hard it is to do anything original anymore. Not that I was trying. I was being lazy. But think about it . . .

I’ll change it to something else when I think of it. If you want to know about me, look at my profile (edit: Or check out my “About” page). I’ll fill in the blanks later.

Look

Yeah, I know the look of my blog is kinda’ lame, too. I wish I knew how to write code and do a sweet, custom look. I’m sure it’ll get better. You might think I’m a pretty negative person based on my description of this blog as being about things I hate. I guess I should just admit it right now . . . I’m a hater sometimes. Oh, well. It’s something I’m aware of, I’m working on and I should be unapologetic about it.

UPDATE: I’ve changed the look, the name and the description/subtitle thing, so my comments about negativity above aren’t relevant. See? It’s just that easy to change perceptions! And I don’t think I’ll be doing a custom page any time soon, as I don’t have the code-writing skills and it’s not important enough to actually pay for. Perhaps if people ever actually read my blog . . .