Kostverlorenvaart

Yesterday evening, the HQ of Sanremo in The Netherlands hosted a Barista Hustle with international speakers: Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, John Gordon , Ronny Billemon and Danillo Llopis. A very inspiring time it was! Jan van der Weel and I will work on a more elaborate report to be published shortly. ( PS here it is:  http://kostverlorenvaart.blogspot.nl/2016/02/think-coffee-out-of-box.html ) Vimeo version: Dutch Barista Hustle @ Sanremo 28 January 2016 from Frans Goddijn on Vimeo . Sanremo hosted a very pleasant barista meeting with a number of expert speakers: Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, John Gordon, Ronny Billemon and Danillo Llopis. Jan van der Weel and I will post more soon, on our blogs.

Two friends of mine have been roasting cocoa recently and one of them, Marko Luther, has produced quite delicate and delicious bars of artisan chocolate, some of which were sold in a Parisian popup store last year. The other, Jan van der Weel, has recently brought along a thermos flask of the most delicious hot chocolate I've ever tasted. So I wanted to try it as well. It looks like I won't pursue it much though. The roasting is easy enough. I bought 500g of raw cocoa nuts and put them in the oven at 120ºC for 30 minutes. After cooling I peeled of the hard outer skin and while I was doing that, most of the beans crumbled. I know I can use the broken bits, the nibs, but it's not easy to make sure all the skin is absolutely separated so I just threw away all cocoa nuts that were broken. This yielded a little less than 150g of roasted cocoa beans. My plan is to put them in the blender and mix with hot milk. The alluring sweet smell of cocoa beans and the surprising eas...

A brand new clip from our friend in Budapest: Measuring brew pressure with the Cremina from Kavekalmar on Vimeo .

Watch 2:13 -- 5:20 in the clip below by Jeroen Veldkamp. It's in Dutch so people from The Netherlands and Belgium will benefit most from the dead simple instructions by Jeroen. He has given lots of training to baristas in the past years. Mind you, he says, it's not the most sexy way to create microfoam. Many baristas want to show off very special skills. But this is teh easy and fool proof way. Step 1 : fill the jug halfway with milk. Step 2 : Make sure you have blown the condensed water out of the steam wand. Step 3 : set the jug down on the counter with the steam tip  a little (1cm)  above the milk, a little (1cm)  away from the side of the jug. Step  4 : open the steam flow on full. Some bubbles of milk can be seen the first two seconds. No splashing, that will occur if the steam tip is too far above the milk. Step 5 : hold the jug with your hand and make sure the milk does not get too hot. If the jug gets too hot to hold , the milk is too hot to drink ....

Guatemala Finca El Triangulo  by Roemer Overdiep on Vimeo . Pulling an espresso using decaf Guatemala beans from LONDINIUM, with the L1-P lever espresso machine . Grinder: Compak E8. Scales from Acaia. Tamper from Londinium. VST filter baskets, VSTlabs refractometer, VSTlabs Coffeetools PRO app. Hockey pucks. Camera and editing: Roemer Overdiep. Music: Vera Westera and Martin Fondse Groove Troopers. YouTube version:

Hot Sebenza Soup Recipe from Frans Goddijn on Vimeo . A hands-on high speed demo how to make a vitamin rich healthy organic savory low fat fresh soup. Using a blender and a Londinium espresso machine. And a Chris Reeve Sebenza knife. Youtube version:

(Jan van der Weel and I prepared & wrote this article together and you can also find it on his blog ) Many coffee roasters use roast color meters to monitor the quality and consistency of their roasts. Furthermore, calibrated roast color can be used for productive communication between roasters and coffee traders. For instance, a trader could provide a target roast color for a specific coffee. Also, coffee roasters around the world could share information about the roast color they find best for certain beans. What does the color of a roast tell you? It tells you about certain things to expect in the cup. A few examples. A lighter roast is associated with a more bright flavour profile and a very dark coffee can taste pungently smoky. Aroma and flavour compounds like flowery, fruity and caramel appear in relation with roast color. Roast color is also used to select brewing methods. Certain very light roasts could be difficult to extract properly with an espresso mach...

Organic Bolivia in the early am from Frans Goddijn on Vimeo . Making myself an espresso in the very early winter hour. Using a light roast of Bolivia Marcelino Katan, organic, roasted by Londinium, a COMPAK E8 "Lucidate Red Speed Burr Set" grinder, Londinium tamper, VST 18g basket, Acaia scales for coffee, Londinium L1-P espresso machine, VST refractometer. Repeating a recipe that came out as the best during the previous afternoon of tasting with Jan van der Weel . VST TDS measurement for this shot improved over a previous one, thanks to specific hints and tips by Vince Fedele of VSTlabs (thanks!). Youtube version: The previous afternoon, Jan van der Weel and I also compared a number of shots coming from two different Compak grinders, the E8 (featured in the videos above) and the R120. Jan took the notes (see below). We aimed for identical flow and beverage weight from identical weight of grinds. With a near identical extraction % in TDS measurement, t...

Londinium Brazil Fazenda Passeio from Frans Goddijn on Vimeo . Pulling an espresso from Brazilian beans, using beans roasted by Londinium , the "Red Speed Burr" version of the COMPAK E8 grinder, a ridgeless 18g VST basket , the LONDINIUM tamper, Acaia scales , a LONDINIUM L1-P lever espresso machine, VSTlabs refractometer and app. Dosing just a little less than 18g and taking a but more than 30g of espresso produces an open, sweet and spicy shot. Very tasteful and more fascinating than most Brazilians coffees. YouTube version: