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Monday, August 04, 2008
barismo coffee: notes
I saw this photo and it reminded me to take a moment and breathe. This is a photo of some of the first Guatemalan coffees to exit Guatemala in something other than jute. We are proud to have a hand in that process and look forward to seeing more lots exit the country that way. Guatemala is such a great place for good coffees. I am told the 18th of this month, our premium Kenyan coffee arrives which is also vacuum sealed at origin. We were lucky on this one because someone else already established the demand. We were all set to have our pick flown in at what is a pretty high cost until we found out vacuum packaging was ready and of course we jumped on it.
People talk a lot about quality but if you really look at the handful of people who have pushed progressive packing, that set the bar for me. Anyone can fawn over 2 buck chuck or overpay for the right to have paid the most but I respect those who put the money into preserving the coffee. How much of that proverbial 90pt+ coffee faded on the boat over bagged in jute? Who is legit if they ignore that, stuff the green in a hot and humid warehouse, then pitch you a romantic story? There is a lot of showmanship and you have to dig deeper to feel out what's behind the bravado.
This is a fun week. Profiling and working on the big roasters. Waiting for coffees to arrive. I owe a lot to Simon Hsieh for giving us a starting point to work from. I don't disrespect the influence he has had among others.
Roasting is complicated. Imagine working three variables: drum speed, air flow, BTU(heat). Now imagine you had no base, how long would it take you to find the right drum speeds, air settings, and gas settings for one coffee? If you apply true scientific method(which almost no professional roasters do), you would only change one variable at a time and test each single variable independently.
Tedious.
Take a basic profile and then test variations with a scientific process and you can progress very quickly gathering a mountain of data quickly.
We have a special roaster which was a great burden but I really believe it will be something great. It is a 4 kilo called a direct flame but it's really a hybrid. The drum is solid cast iron with a couple thousand holes drilled in it so it's not the mesh of traditional direct flame drums. This overcomes a lot of issues in the roast inherent in traditional direct flame roasters. The profile is a combination of an air roaster with a solid drum slash direct flame. You can get explosive aroma, deep sweetness, and the acidity can be decidedly candied instead of sparkling or the more common sharpness. The air flow is amazing and patented by the way. I won't post photos but the mfg developed a manner to make the airflow fairly linear. It operates, in essence, like a camera aperture. Gone are the dorky damper style flaps which are often limited to open, half, or closed where one quarter may not really mean one quarter. The custom air flow has 10 settings of which I use about 5 during a normal roast.
Other specs: variable drum speed, gas gauge, digital bean probe with measurement to one tenth of a degree(can be ported and data logged), and an analog probe in the exhaust. All of those components are controlled on a box that is located about chest high which beats bending over to adjust/log or having a stand with cords you can trip over. The flame pilot and lighting sequence is absolutely b-spec, automated with a flame sensor, timed lighting sequence, and the gas valve has an auto shutoff sequence when it reaches the over temp alarm. The kicker is an external chaff collector which is massive and completely unheard of for a roaster this size.
There were definitely some growing pains but thankfully I had been working the baby version of this, affectionately called the Mini, for half a year previous. The profile scaled up very well so it only took a dozen roasts to get comfortable. Though, honestly, I don't think we will ever stop long enough to really get comfortable so it's all relative.
All I can say is that for the first time in months, I had one of those moments the other day where I was smiling and goofy instead of deep in problem solving mode. It's a good feeling.
Labels: barismo, gear, green storage
¶ Jaime van Schyndel 1:37 AM 5 Comments
Friday, September 28, 2007
"Barismo Spec" EC/EP Hybrid Tamp - LTD LMWDP Version
"Barismo Spec" EC/EP Hybrid Tamp - LTD LMWDP Version - 3" Tall Handle & Brass Bezel
Now available to the public through EPNW
From Espresso Parts: "Well they say great minds think a like... I don't know if we qualify but the Barismo guys have a great mind for coffee and espresso alike.
First and foremost, what is the "B-Spec" or "Barismo Spec" Tamper? Well currently our version of the "Barismo Spec" Tamper is an matte finished Espressocraft tamp handle and custom brass bezel mod'd to fit the classic Espresso Parts height convex piston."
Having been lucky enough to participate in the HB tamper road show (thanks to Dan and others who helped organize) and get a feel of several prominent tampers, we did a review. After analyzing them, there was not a clear winner. There were handles that were nice and a base that worked but there was a lack of the complete package. Take into consideration that we were thinking of a cafe prototype rather than a home user tamp and you can understand some of the choices made as Ben C. put together the mod. Our first evolution arrived and we had a pretty comfy if not absolutely gorgeous tamper.
There was a lot of discussion about the piston height and we had a strong interest in having pistons that came level with the basket if the dose was correct which came to a satisfying conclusion. One more piece in consistency relative to our espresso OCD solved. After some mucking around and grabbing a few early versions of B-Spec from ESPNW, one more mod was added to really put it over the top. Ben decided on a sand blasted matte finish that added a comfy feel to the grip. We highly recommend you also get the EspressoParts S.S. 58mm convex base machined to a "c-flat" hybrid shape then mirror polished if you want to be hardcore and follow Ben's B-Specs.
¶ Jaime van Schyndel 8:59 PM 3 Comments
"Barismo Spec" EC/EP Hybrid Tamp - LTD LMWDP Version - 3" Tall Handle & Brass Bezel
Now available to the public through EPNW
From Espresso Parts: "Well they say great minds think a like... I don't know if we qualify but the Barismo guys have a great mind for coffee and espresso alike.
First and foremost, what is the "B-Spec" or "Barismo Spec" Tamper? Well currently our version of the "Barismo Spec" Tamper is an matte finished Espressocraft tamp handle and custom brass bezel mod'd to fit the classic Espresso Parts height convex piston."
Having been lucky enough to participate in the HB tamper road show (thanks to Dan and others who helped organize) and get a feel of several prominent tampers, we did a review. After analyzing them, there was not a clear winner. There were handles that were nice and a base that worked but there was a lack of the complete package. Take into consideration that we were thinking of a cafe prototype rather than a home user tamp and you can understand some of the choices made as Ben C. put together the mod. Our first evolution arrived and we had a pretty comfy if not absolutely gorgeous tamper.
There was a lot of discussion about the piston height and we had a strong interest in having pistons that came level with the basket if the dose was correct which came to a satisfying conclusion. One more piece in consistency relative to our espresso OCD solved. After some mucking around and grabbing a few early versions of B-Spec from ESPNW, one more mod was added to really put it over the top. Ben decided on a sand blasted matte finish that added a comfy feel to the grip. We highly recommend you also get the EspressoParts S.S. 58mm convex base machined to a "c-flat" hybrid shape then mirror polished if you want to be hardcore and follow Ben's B-Specs.
¶ Jaime van Schyndel 8:59 PM 3 Comments
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
How I'm Livin' - A Ben Kaminsky Memoir
After weeks of having Jaime constantly breathing down my neck about this, I finally present to you the hardly brief story of how I came into coffee and also my first blog entry anywhere...ever. Now you can all say you were there when I started blogging.
I was first introduced to coffee by my good friend R.J Glass about four years ago. We were always looking for things to delve into, and he told me that there was a whole other realm of experiences to be had, and a serious cult subculture that obsessed over it. However, I was hardly hooked from the beginning. While I was always down to try new things, with the exception of my occasional visit to Caffe Trieste (San Francisco, born and raised), I was the guy who got the blended iced mocha from the local coffee shop on a hot day. I thought 'coffee is coffee, what else is there to know?' I never drank drip coffee black because it just tasted bad; it was burnt and bitter, lacking any real flavor whatsoever besides, um... "coffee". Needless to say, I've come a long way.
We took a field trip to sweet Maria’s because we were lucky enough to be local and went crazy. We bought all this different green, split a little Fresh Roast Plus and started roasting as per their instructions with results that were enough to sell me on it. I was hooked. Later, we realized that there was a coffee company in Oakland roasting their own stuff with a little kiosk and espresso cart in San Francisco called Blue Bottle. When we went, the barista on bar was this bearded teddy bear of a man named Steve Ford. He pulled my first real shots of espresso. From that point on, we made an excuse to head down to the kiosk everyday. About a year later when I switched schools and needed a job, I figured I would give barista life a shot. I went to the first shop closest to my apartment with a la marzocco (a place called 1369 Coffee House in Cambridge), gave them the coffee nerd speech and got the job.
At this point, coffee really transitioned in my life from fun, part time hobby to borderline obsession. I simply needed to know everything, so I hit the internet... hard. Different sites, podcasts, articles; if I got my hands on it, I read or listened to it. I was able to pour latte art within my first couple of hours on bar and talked about coffee to anyone who would listen at work or otherwise. I quickly became the 'coffee guy' at my shop and I hit the ceiling within a couple months. I knew there was so much more that we could be doing to make our coffee better, including --but not limited to- switching roasters and serving better coffee. So I went to the management and picked my battles but all my words of advice and recommendation fell on deaf ears. They had a successful shop that worked for them, and unfortunately was one that focused more on atmosphere than quality in the cup. I knew there was better stuff out there... people who were more concerned with quality and not the bottom line, so I gave my notice, took my leave, and started having my espresso at Simon's.
After quitting my first barista job, I knew that if I wanted to take things to the next level, I would need real training, so I turned to the best barista I knew - Steve Ford. I flew home for a couple weeks and drove up to Santa Rosa to visit Steve who was now roasting at Ecco Caffe. While it was a murderously busy roast day, he still managed to give me a big shove in the right direction. I'll always be indebted to Steve for this and he remains a sort of mentor for me and despite the fact that we seem to be heading down different paths; though I hope we will have similar destinations.
When I first met Jaime, he was on bar at Simon's. We started talking all things coffee. He was just kinda shocked that there was barista in the Boston area who cared about coffee that he wasn't aware of or in contact with. He later invited me to the cupping group meetings and to be a barismo contributor. I was introduced to Silas, Ben Chen and Judson shortly after my first encounters with Jaime. Ben was skeptical of me in the beginning, probably for the same reasons as Jamie, but we got along great. He's was so into modding and reengineering everything he owned; his technical prowess blew my mind and made me want to get inside his head. Silas was the first tea connoisseur I ever came across. Tea was another thing I had never really investigated beyond your average bagged, over-steeped cup of English breakfast. Silas showed me the parallels between coffee and tea, and lets just say I now have one more thing I'm extremely picky about.
When I eventually began at Simon's I found Jaime offered a different perspective that was the perfect compliment to the training I had received from Steve. Where one leaves off, the other picks up, and visa versa. It's really ideal.
For now, I'm still at Simon's trying to refine my skills as best I can with no one but myself as a judge. And while many others are busy preparing for competition (something I really haven't made my mind up about yet), I find myself preparing for the day I can return the favor of a life changing shot to Chris Owens or Steve should they happen by our bar, because I think this is the only real measure of a barista: how good the shots are when they're pulling them back to back on a busy bar. I'm also really looking forward to whats ahead for the group. There are so many things which we hope to accomplish and are just beginning to be able to approach many of them.
The people I've been privileged enough to meet, the friends I've gained and the sensory experiences with both coffee and tea that I've had since joining the group have simply been both incredible and life changing. It is for these reasons that coffee will be part of my life forever. (I tried a million different ways to make this sound less cheesy, but it wasn't happening.)
I was first introduced to coffee by my good friend R.J Glass about four years ago. We were always looking for things to delve into, and he told me that there was a whole other realm of experiences to be had, and a serious cult subculture that obsessed over it. However, I was hardly hooked from the beginning. While I was always down to try new things, with the exception of my occasional visit to Caffe Trieste (San Francisco, born and raised), I was the guy who got the blended iced mocha from the local coffee shop on a hot day. I thought 'coffee is coffee, what else is there to know?' I never drank drip coffee black because it just tasted bad; it was burnt and bitter, lacking any real flavor whatsoever besides, um... "coffee". Needless to say, I've come a long way.
We took a field trip to sweet Maria’s because we were lucky enough to be local and went crazy. We bought all this different green, split a little Fresh Roast Plus and started roasting as per their instructions with results that were enough to sell me on it. I was hooked. Later, we realized that there was a coffee company in Oakland roasting their own stuff with a little kiosk and espresso cart in San Francisco called Blue Bottle. When we went, the barista on bar was this bearded teddy bear of a man named Steve Ford. He pulled my first real shots of espresso. From that point on, we made an excuse to head down to the kiosk everyday. About a year later when I switched schools and needed a job, I figured I would give barista life a shot. I went to the first shop closest to my apartment with a la marzocco (a place called 1369 Coffee House in Cambridge), gave them the coffee nerd speech and got the job.
At this point, coffee really transitioned in my life from fun, part time hobby to borderline obsession. I simply needed to know everything, so I hit the internet... hard. Different sites, podcasts, articles; if I got my hands on it, I read or listened to it. I was able to pour latte art within my first couple of hours on bar and talked about coffee to anyone who would listen at work or otherwise. I quickly became the 'coffee guy' at my shop and I hit the ceiling within a couple months. I knew there was so much more that we could be doing to make our coffee better, including --but not limited to- switching roasters and serving better coffee. So I went to the management and picked my battles but all my words of advice and recommendation fell on deaf ears. They had a successful shop that worked for them, and unfortunately was one that focused more on atmosphere than quality in the cup. I knew there was better stuff out there... people who were more concerned with quality and not the bottom line, so I gave my notice, took my leave, and started having my espresso at Simon's.
After quitting my first barista job, I knew that if I wanted to take things to the next level, I would need real training, so I turned to the best barista I knew - Steve Ford. I flew home for a couple weeks and drove up to Santa Rosa to visit Steve who was now roasting at Ecco Caffe. While it was a murderously busy roast day, he still managed to give me a big shove in the right direction. I'll always be indebted to Steve for this and he remains a sort of mentor for me and despite the fact that we seem to be heading down different paths; though I hope we will have similar destinations.
When I first met Jaime, he was on bar at Simon's. We started talking all things coffee. He was just kinda shocked that there was barista in the Boston area who cared about coffee that he wasn't aware of or in contact with. He later invited me to the cupping group meetings and to be a barismo contributor. I was introduced to Silas, Ben Chen and Judson shortly after my first encounters with Jaime. Ben was skeptical of me in the beginning, probably for the same reasons as Jamie, but we got along great. He's was so into modding and reengineering everything he owned; his technical prowess blew my mind and made me want to get inside his head. Silas was the first tea connoisseur I ever came across. Tea was another thing I had never really investigated beyond your average bagged, over-steeped cup of English breakfast. Silas showed me the parallels between coffee and tea, and lets just say I now have one more thing I'm extremely picky about.
When I eventually began at Simon's I found Jaime offered a different perspective that was the perfect compliment to the training I had received from Steve. Where one leaves off, the other picks up, and visa versa. It's really ideal.
For now, I'm still at Simon's trying to refine my skills as best I can with no one but myself as a judge. And while many others are busy preparing for competition (something I really haven't made my mind up about yet), I find myself preparing for the day I can return the favor of a life changing shot to Chris Owens or Steve should they happen by our bar, because I think this is the only real measure of a barista: how good the shots are when they're pulling them back to back on a busy bar. I'm also really looking forward to whats ahead for the group. There are so many things which we hope to accomplish and are just beginning to be able to approach many of them.
The people I've been privileged enough to meet, the friends I've gained and the sensory experiences with both coffee and tea that I've had since joining the group have simply been both incredible and life changing. It is for these reasons that coffee will be part of my life forever. (I tried a million different ways to make this sound less cheesy, but it wasn't happening.)
Labels: barismo
¶ Ben Kaminsky 12:31 AM 1 Comments
Monday, September 18, 2006
Profile: Silas Moulton aka 'the Tea Cupper'
Silas formerly was a purchasor for whole foods and also does cuppings with Mark @ MEM teas. Silas currently toils away at Peet's until something better comes along. Silas met up with us shortly after the Globe article hit and has been the most enthusiatic group member. He intially sought me out because he couldn't believe there was a good barista in Boston(his own words there). Silas will begin participating on the blog a bit to touch up his writing skills for his tea blog... I'm thinking... Terroirist tea blog! -Jaime
So a month or so after I met Jaime, I got an invite to taste some coffees with him and "some friends". To be honest, I thought his coffee tasting friends might be old men with mustaches and crazy stories about cupping kenyas in the glory days, when coffee wasn't so complicated. Well, It just so happens, we are all fairly young and none of us really care for facial hair. So after getting off work, smelling like Peet's dark roast, I went to meet up with Jaime, Judson and Ben. Ben was having issues with his tricked out home machine after messing with it too much, so we headed over to Asim's to pull some coffee shots. On the way Ben explained the difference between a chow hound and a foodie and of course Jamie was practically coming to tears of joy over the thought of having tegu coffee shots. They had been hoping earlier to pull some coffee shots on Ben's machine but they couldn't get it working. By now they were anxious for the coffee they had been waiting for all day and I was still curious what the hell these coffee shots were gonna be like. So when we get to Asim's place, we come to find out his machine isn't working either. This kick-ass, awesome $8000 espresso machine just couldn't get enough pressure. So Ben and Asim start taking the thing apart and trying to figure out what was wrong. They found out the thing wasn't building enough pressure cuz there was scale build up. Ben asked Asim where his cafiza was and Asim said he didn't know what it was. So now Ben was scolding Asim and just pissed that Asim doesn't know what cafiza is. They never ended up getting it working, and Asim had other plans. So the whole walk back to the T, Ben was ranting about how Asim didn't clean his 8000 dollar machine. I thought he was crazy cuz he had been practically yelling at Asim about it. We finally just went back to Simons and pulled some shots there. Then I tasted the Terroir yirg (2005) coffee shot..... and I was hooked!!
Well it turns out Ben is a pretty cool guy and Asim should just clean his machine. Now my mouth waters at the mention of coffee shot. We taste coffee pretty often now and I am known as "The Youth Project" or "Silas the Tea Cupper". I think I would prefer Flavor Cupper though...
Silas (flavor cupper)
Silas formerly was a purchasor for whole foods and also does cuppings with Mark @ MEM teas. Silas currently toils away at Peet's until something better comes along. Silas met up with us shortly after the Globe article hit and has been the most enthusiatic group member. He intially sought me out because he couldn't believe there was a good barista in Boston(his own words there). Silas will begin participating on the blog a bit to touch up his writing skills for his tea blog... I'm thinking... Terroirist tea blog! -Jaime
So a month or so after I met Jaime, I got an invite to taste some coffees with him and "some friends". To be honest, I thought his coffee tasting friends might be old men with mustaches and crazy stories about cupping kenyas in the glory days, when coffee wasn't so complicated. Well, It just so happens, we are all fairly young and none of us really care for facial hair. So after getting off work, smelling like Peet's dark roast, I went to meet up with Jaime, Judson and Ben. Ben was having issues with his tricked out home machine after messing with it too much, so we headed over to Asim's to pull some coffee shots. On the way Ben explained the difference between a chow hound and a foodie and of course Jamie was practically coming to tears of joy over the thought of having tegu coffee shots. They had been hoping earlier to pull some coffee shots on Ben's machine but they couldn't get it working. By now they were anxious for the coffee they had been waiting for all day and I was still curious what the hell these coffee shots were gonna be like. So when we get to Asim's place, we come to find out his machine isn't working either. This kick-ass, awesome $8000 espresso machine just couldn't get enough pressure. So Ben and Asim start taking the thing apart and trying to figure out what was wrong. They found out the thing wasn't building enough pressure cuz there was scale build up. Ben asked Asim where his cafiza was and Asim said he didn't know what it was. So now Ben was scolding Asim and just pissed that Asim doesn't know what cafiza is. They never ended up getting it working, and Asim had other plans. So the whole walk back to the T, Ben was ranting about how Asim didn't clean his 8000 dollar machine. I thought he was crazy cuz he had been practically yelling at Asim about it. We finally just went back to Simons and pulled some shots there. Then I tasted the Terroir yirg (2005) coffee shot..... and I was hooked!!
Well it turns out Ben is a pretty cool guy and Asim should just clean his machine. Now my mouth waters at the mention of coffee shot. We taste coffee pretty often now and I am known as "The Youth Project" or "Silas the Tea Cupper". I think I would prefer Flavor Cupper though...
Silas (flavor cupper)
Labels: barismo, tea, tea leaf
¶ Silas Moulton 10:22 PM 5 Comments
Monday, August 14, 2006
Homeless Barista...
I came to Simon's by way of luck really. It was close to my apartment and I needed something to fill the extra hours. I was working another job full time and took it on part time because it was right in front of my house. After a few months I was working @ Simon's full time. Somewhere along there I got the bug. Pouring through sites like coffeegeek and blogs like Tacy's. I really owe Mark Prince a lot for that site. It gave me a lot of information once you sort through the noise. It is the ultimate resource for the beginner. Tacy too has been a large influence on a lot of us. His snarky opinions and rants are often more true than not. His willingness to challenge things most people consider sacred... well maybe I got a little bit of that in me too... Sometimes it took me longer than I'd like to admit to find out how right he often was.
I want to thank Nick Cho and Michelle Campbell and the people who do the competitions and the BGA. I really defer to those who put the highlight on those who really care about their craft. Nick, who I thought might be a bit of a joker for hanging out with people like Jay :) it turns out is a pretty decent guy whether he knows it or not. The revered Cho.. hehe, why not? If it weren't for those competitions, I wouldn't be blogging about all the details that fire me up. I wouldn't be trying to create other passionate barista. I wouldn't have the voice I have today. It was those competitions where I really found some friends. Ben and Asim supported me and fired me up to 'go get kicked around in the competitions... because this is part growing pains... and because this is the path I have chosen so it's sooner or later.' They both stuck by me when I was getting little help from anyone else. Ben's words in particular were a piece of foreshadowing. It was at that time I found out simply put who my friends were. Ben is still what I consider to be my strongest supporter and I don't over look that or underappreciate it. My friends Judson and Silas, my conscience and my palate. Hong, my support and my foundation. I feel lucky in so many ways. The people I have worked with, Simon, Andy, Colleen, Dragana, Maric, Denez, Alexis, Kristin, Brett, and Jin. It's been cool knowing each and every one of them and I picked up somethng from all of them.
There is one more though. Peter Lynagh of Terroir. He had a great influence on my initial development in coffee. His influence is a big part of why I can't enjoy muddy coffee and crave clarity from my coffee. We may be at odds at times personally but I will always fall on his side of the fence when it comes to green quality. I appreciate that in many ways I can't express to him. Sometimes you have to have some distance to get perspective on things though.
I really feel like I have been a part of something special these last two years. A journey of growth and self realization in many ways. Simon's has been a place where I really felt appreciated by customers. I could name a couple dozen people, but I really appreciate so many of them. I will miss the espresso drinkers the most. Especially the ones who have been with me since the tastings way back when. You know who you are. The people I see everyday who challenge me to keep going, pour it left handed, and challenge me to come up with effective descriptors for a new espresso. The people who tipped me well for pulling a good shot, gave me sox tickets, or just said 'Jaime has high standards'. The people who complimented me for my latte art and my passion. For everyone who told me thank you or complimented me, I say thank you.
It's been one wild ride in Cambridge, MA. I enjoyed it on my side of the counter and hope everyone enjoyed it on the other. I guess this is leading to something quite obvious at this point. I gave Simon my notice the other day. Another three weeks at the most linear coffee shop in Boston and I'm just a memory. Stop in and say hi, get a double espresso and catch up. Wow. It's been a lot of fun and I will miss it.
Watch the blog for news. Judson, Silas, Hong, and I are planning some things with the support of Ben and Asim. I am looking forward to regional competitions and to meeting up with RichW, ChrisO, AndrewB, the Revered Cho... and getting a chance to bring my friends to this event to absorb the atmosphere and meet their peers. Maybe sometime I will finally see JasonH in a competition, and who knows what is yet to come. It's all wide open from here and I am anxiously looking forward.
-Jaime
I came to Simon's by way of luck really. It was close to my apartment and I needed something to fill the extra hours. I was working another job full time and took it on part time because it was right in front of my house. After a few months I was working @ Simon's full time. Somewhere along there I got the bug. Pouring through sites like coffeegeek and blogs like Tacy's. I really owe Mark Prince a lot for that site. It gave me a lot of information once you sort through the noise. It is the ultimate resource for the beginner. Tacy too has been a large influence on a lot of us. His snarky opinions and rants are often more true than not. His willingness to challenge things most people consider sacred... well maybe I got a little bit of that in me too... Sometimes it took me longer than I'd like to admit to find out how right he often was.
I want to thank Nick Cho and Michelle Campbell and the people who do the competitions and the BGA. I really defer to those who put the highlight on those who really care about their craft. Nick, who I thought might be a bit of a joker for hanging out with people like Jay :) it turns out is a pretty decent guy whether he knows it or not. The revered Cho.. hehe, why not? If it weren't for those competitions, I wouldn't be blogging about all the details that fire me up. I wouldn't be trying to create other passionate barista. I wouldn't have the voice I have today. It was those competitions where I really found some friends. Ben and Asim supported me and fired me up to 'go get kicked around in the competitions... because this is part growing pains... and because this is the path I have chosen so it's sooner or later.' They both stuck by me when I was getting little help from anyone else. Ben's words in particular were a piece of foreshadowing. It was at that time I found out simply put who my friends were. Ben is still what I consider to be my strongest supporter and I don't over look that or underappreciate it. My friends Judson and Silas, my conscience and my palate. Hong, my support and my foundation. I feel lucky in so many ways. The people I have worked with, Simon, Andy, Colleen, Dragana, Maric, Denez, Alexis, Kristin, Brett, and Jin. It's been cool knowing each and every one of them and I picked up somethng from all of them.
There is one more though. Peter Lynagh of Terroir. He had a great influence on my initial development in coffee. His influence is a big part of why I can't enjoy muddy coffee and crave clarity from my coffee. We may be at odds at times personally but I will always fall on his side of the fence when it comes to green quality. I appreciate that in many ways I can't express to him. Sometimes you have to have some distance to get perspective on things though.
I really feel like I have been a part of something special these last two years. A journey of growth and self realization in many ways. Simon's has been a place where I really felt appreciated by customers. I could name a couple dozen people, but I really appreciate so many of them. I will miss the espresso drinkers the most. Especially the ones who have been with me since the tastings way back when. You know who you are. The people I see everyday who challenge me to keep going, pour it left handed, and challenge me to come up with effective descriptors for a new espresso. The people who tipped me well for pulling a good shot, gave me sox tickets, or just said 'Jaime has high standards'. The people who complimented me for my latte art and my passion. For everyone who told me thank you or complimented me, I say thank you.
It's been one wild ride in Cambridge, MA. I enjoyed it on my side of the counter and hope everyone enjoyed it on the other. I guess this is leading to something quite obvious at this point. I gave Simon my notice the other day. Another three weeks at the most linear coffee shop in Boston and I'm just a memory. Stop in and say hi, get a double espresso and catch up. Wow. It's been a lot of fun and I will miss it.
Watch the blog for news. Judson, Silas, Hong, and I are planning some things with the support of Ben and Asim. I am looking forward to regional competitions and to meeting up with RichW, ChrisO, AndrewB, the Revered Cho... and getting a chance to bring my friends to this event to absorb the atmosphere and meet their peers. Maybe sometime I will finally see JasonH in a competition, and who knows what is yet to come. It's all wide open from here and I am anxiously looking forward.
-Jaime
Labels: barismo
¶ Jaime van Schyndel 10:30 PM 6 Comments
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Going full circle...
Ben did his full intro post as a new contributor to the blog(AKA Open Barista Project)and I realize I never introduced myself.
My name is Jaime.
I started working at Simon's in Cambridge about 2 years ago. Simply put, it was a block from my apartment at the time. I had no interest in coffee. In fact, I thought coffee was a nasty habit and avoided it like the plague. I just applied because it was convenient (part time job) and the place I was working at was a train wreck of bickering ex's who got into the food business because of misguided reasons.
I'm a picky person. I try to make things happen. I don't know when to leave things alone and like to tinker. I can also be very stubborn and abrasive. When I first got into Simon's there were some serious personalities to deal with, serious lack of direction, and general confusion about a lot of things. I knew nothing of coffee, so I couldn't speak about the drinks at that time. As I got training on the line, I realized something. This shouldn't taste so bad. I mean, why are so many people drinking this if it is so horrible. I then began to set out to figure out what was wrong here. Why did the espresso taste so bad?
At first, I thought it was me. It must be my lack of skills or in the very least some little bit of information I had missed. I searched for help from the roaster at the time. They came in and gave us a sales pitch about the company when all we wanted was training. I wasn't feeling good. I started paying attention to the roasts coming in for espresso. I noticed one week it was oily, dry the next and very inconsistent in how it looked. This set Simon into motion and I was given permission to search out comparable espresso options. I scoured the internet for information. Logging everything from coffee geek to espresso research and expressivo. It was on coffee geek that I locked into Gimme, Intelligentsia, and Metropolis. Another worker suggested barrington coffee. Simon preferred Gimme and I preferred Metropolis. We narrowed it down to those two. It would come down to who could get us brewers and service. I still have a lot respect for Tony and Jeff at Metroplois for the personal way they handled themselves but fate would intervene. It was as we were evaluating these coffees that I sent an email to the enigma that is Peter Lynagh(who in all sincerity, I respect a great deal) at Terroir. I wanted to sample the Terroir coffees but really thought they were too expensive to sell at Simon's. He promptly and with little discussion sent John Flynn down from Terroir with some samples. We were sold. The espresso tasted good. It really tasted good. It was not long after that we switched to Terroir.
At that time, and after some personel changes, I became the manager at Simon's. I convinced Simon to change grinder blades, change bad habits, and begin focussing on quality as a theme of the business. Our focus on quality and struggles with the old Rancilio HX led us to grabbing a 4G LM and a new grinder. We began serving guest espresso and focussing training on only the full time people.
Our first three months with Terroir was rough. We couldn't figure out the drip coffees and we were losing lots of customers. Simon knew there was a transition period but the weird thing was espresso sales climbed and continued to climb whereas drip sales took a hit and diverged. When things stabalized, we were doing 3/4 of our coffee as espresso drinks and selling lots of straight shots. From 3 a day to 3 dozen a day. After a good struggle and lots of tinkering, the drip coffees regularly sing. I learned how to diagnose them and adjust the brews to get the most. Simon is learning too and we are very happy with the drip from Terroir. Simon is now investing in upgrading his grinders to Mazzer majors and the first one arrives next week. Overall business is up and things were looking good since the Globe Article...
No wait, go back a bit... The one turning point for me personally had something to do with my cohort Ben here on barismo.com. I met Ben through a thread on CG. We were both starting to get hard core about coffee. It's hard to pin it down exactly, but he was the first kindred soul I met in this espresso fanatacism. We were able to share knowledge and expand our experiences together. It would eventually lead to Asim who was the guy with all the cool toys and Judson (the scenster barista) becoming part of our regular group. Hong (the chef) regularly comes and we are about to invite two more (professional barista and hopefully)regulars to the group. Sometimes work mates and friends will drop in but we are now very clear these days that it's about having fun and making friends and the coffee is the medium.
Tired as usual but happy that I got the support of my friends.
-Jaime
Ben did his full intro post as a new contributor to the blog(AKA Open Barista Project)and I realize I never introduced myself.
My name is Jaime.
I started working at Simon's in Cambridge about 2 years ago. Simply put, it was a block from my apartment at the time. I had no interest in coffee. In fact, I thought coffee was a nasty habit and avoided it like the plague. I just applied because it was convenient (part time job) and the place I was working at was a train wreck of bickering ex's who got into the food business because of misguided reasons.
I'm a picky person. I try to make things happen. I don't know when to leave things alone and like to tinker. I can also be very stubborn and abrasive. When I first got into Simon's there were some serious personalities to deal with, serious lack of direction, and general confusion about a lot of things. I knew nothing of coffee, so I couldn't speak about the drinks at that time. As I got training on the line, I realized something. This shouldn't taste so bad. I mean, why are so many people drinking this if it is so horrible. I then began to set out to figure out what was wrong here. Why did the espresso taste so bad?
At first, I thought it was me. It must be my lack of skills or in the very least some little bit of information I had missed. I searched for help from the roaster at the time. They came in and gave us a sales pitch about the company when all we wanted was training. I wasn't feeling good. I started paying attention to the roasts coming in for espresso. I noticed one week it was oily, dry the next and very inconsistent in how it looked. This set Simon into motion and I was given permission to search out comparable espresso options. I scoured the internet for information. Logging everything from coffee geek to espresso research and expressivo. It was on coffee geek that I locked into Gimme, Intelligentsia, and Metropolis. Another worker suggested barrington coffee. Simon preferred Gimme and I preferred Metropolis. We narrowed it down to those two. It would come down to who could get us brewers and service. I still have a lot respect for Tony and Jeff at Metroplois for the personal way they handled themselves but fate would intervene. It was as we were evaluating these coffees that I sent an email to the enigma that is Peter Lynagh(who in all sincerity, I respect a great deal) at Terroir. I wanted to sample the Terroir coffees but really thought they were too expensive to sell at Simon's. He promptly and with little discussion sent John Flynn down from Terroir with some samples. We were sold. The espresso tasted good. It really tasted good. It was not long after that we switched to Terroir.
At that time, and after some personel changes, I became the manager at Simon's. I convinced Simon to change grinder blades, change bad habits, and begin focussing on quality as a theme of the business. Our focus on quality and struggles with the old Rancilio HX led us to grabbing a 4G LM and a new grinder. We began serving guest espresso and focussing training on only the full time people.
Our first three months with Terroir was rough. We couldn't figure out the drip coffees and we were losing lots of customers. Simon knew there was a transition period but the weird thing was espresso sales climbed and continued to climb whereas drip sales took a hit and diverged. When things stabalized, we were doing 3/4 of our coffee as espresso drinks and selling lots of straight shots. From 3 a day to 3 dozen a day. After a good struggle and lots of tinkering, the drip coffees regularly sing. I learned how to diagnose them and adjust the brews to get the most. Simon is learning too and we are very happy with the drip from Terroir. Simon is now investing in upgrading his grinders to Mazzer majors and the first one arrives next week. Overall business is up and things were looking good since the Globe Article...
No wait, go back a bit... The one turning point for me personally had something to do with my cohort Ben here on barismo.com. I met Ben through a thread on CG. We were both starting to get hard core about coffee. It's hard to pin it down exactly, but he was the first kindred soul I met in this espresso fanatacism. We were able to share knowledge and expand our experiences together. It would eventually lead to Asim who was the guy with all the cool toys and Judson (the scenster barista) becoming part of our regular group. Hong (the chef) regularly comes and we are about to invite two more (professional barista and hopefully)regulars to the group. Sometimes work mates and friends will drop in but we are now very clear these days that it's about having fun and making friends and the coffee is the medium.
Tired as usual but happy that I got the support of my friends.
-Jaime
Labels: barismo
¶ Jaime van Schyndel 12:29 AM 3 Comments
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
A Retrospective by coffee_monkey
First of all, let me appologize for my crappy writing style. I am not a writer. I am an engineer who likes to use passives and long sentences. I also have the tendency to deviate from the main discussion for time to time... So if this bothers you... then that is just too bad!
Anyway... For my first post, I thought it will be nice for me to take a quick look back on my "history" with the whole espresso thing. It will give you a good idea of where I came from and how my current views toward coffee have formed.
I think for most ppl, coffee + internet = coffeegeek. Yup, I started out as a coffeegeek as well. Looking back to my old posts, the first one I wrote was on April 23, 2004 asking to purchase a non-pressurized portafilter.
Actually let me step back a bit... My obsession with coffee started in late 2003/early 2004. I was looking for a new hobby to do and for some odd reason, I decided coffee is cool (don't remember, don't know why). But I didn't want "normal" coffee. I wanted the good stuff. So, as any good consumer does, I went online and read.... I ended up with a Bialetti Brikka 3 cup , a Bodum "fake froather", and started to use stored roasted, store-ground Allegro that I got from Whole Foods (I think was still Freshfields back then). The mokapot makes some pretty nice strong drinks, and with milk, it tasted much better than any drip stuff. This was the time when I "found" coffeegeek.
When I first read coffeegeek, I thought all the ppl on that forum were insane. I mean, who in the right mind would call a $250 grinder "cheap" (Rocky), let alone using one that looks like a monster and costs a bundle (Mini). I decided I WILL NOT get an espresso machine because it costs too much (CG mantra = good grinder + cheap machine = sucess!), but will get a nice grinder to improve my coffee. After a long struggle, I bought a Maestro Plus and it was a very expansive grinder for me back then. I never spend so much on coffee stuff and was really disappointed at the piece of plastic toy I got for $150. Nevertheless, fresh ground stuff at home really tastes nice.
As my coffee improved, so did my appetite. The next step was home roasting so within a couple of months, I had a freshroast +8 and a few pounds of greens from sweet marias. I also started to read coffeegeek religiously and the desire of getting an espresso machine grew everyday.
I finally broke down and upon much research, the cheapest "solution" I arrived at was getting an old Estro Vapore (aka Starbucks Barista) from ebay. I got mine for $80 and aside from some minor rust on the frame, the unit I got was clean and functional. I did all the research I could to get the most out of this thing (unpressurized portafilter, temp surfing, etc) and realize that I finally have to face what I was trying to avoid when I got my mokapot - a serious grinder.
So, more money was charged on the credit card and shortly after the Estro Vapore, I have a Rocky doserless. And then all hell break loose. Soon after the setup was changed to an Isomac Rituale (E61 HX) and a used Super Jolly. I also bought just about any form of coffee maker including a Hario vaccum pot, a Bodum french press, a vietnamese coffee maker, a Presto drip maker, and most recently, an Aeropress. The only (worthwhile) thing I don't have is a manual drip and a ice-drip.
So where was I... yeah, coffeegeek. So you see, coffeegeek was a big influence on me. I have gained a lot of information from it. HOWEVER, I felt that I also gained a lot of mis-information from it, and did not realize this until I stepped outside of the online-world.
You see, back then, espresso to me is all about getting that 1 ~ 1.5 oz double restretto. In my head, it should taste thick, syrupy, chcolatey, smooth and SEXY (sorry... a little inside joke...). I mean, that was what EVERYONE was talking about on coffeegeek, so it must be right, right? And I worked very hard toward that. The shots from Vivace and Zoka when I visited Seattle in Summer of 04 further re-enforced the idea what "god shots" should be like.
With the purchase of my "nice setup", I went on to try many of the famous online blends: Vivace's dolce, Zoka's paladino, Coffee Emergency's code brown, Intelly's black cat, Cafe Fresco's Ambrosia, and Terroir's Northern. Even though I struggle with making great shots as I refine my skills, I manage to produce many drinkable shots from most blends. The only oddball from the lineup was Terroir's coffee. No matter what I try, I could not make it taste good. It was very sour and thin and shared none of the traits of other blends. It really puzzled me as it was quite well recieved online. Then an opportunity came along in spring of 05. I attended the first (and only) espresso seminar at Terroir and was really shocked at the difference of Nothern pulled at the warehouse versus what I tasted at home. I learned that my brew temp was too high, my dose too much, and my tamp too hard. I also learned that espresso can taste good at a full 2oz, medium body, and with tons of acidity.
But this experience also confused me. Because to get to that cup, I have to abandon "THE WAY" of making espresso as learned from coffeegeek. That is, overfill and leveled dose is good. Bigger basket and more coffee is good. 1.5 oz, thick, drippy ristretto is good. Chocolatey, smooth, non-acidic is good. Terroir's Northen is none of that!
I played around with Terroir's Northern a little bit more, but ultimately abandoned it since it was too difficult to repeat my experience at the Acton warehouse. Plus it tasted too different than all the other espresso I had previously tried and maybe it was not to my taste. So I continued to work on my ristretto style pulls in hope to get to those "coffeegeek god shots".
Then I met Jaime. It was the definitive turning point of my espresso hobby. At our first meeting, I tasted something that blew my mind. An espresso shot that actually matches the flowery descriptions on the bag!! An espresso that actually had multi-layers of taste yet smooth from start to finish. An espresso that tasted good and it was a full double?! It was at this exact moment that I realize I have been doing it all wrong all these times because the same exact bean tasted like crap on my home machine. For the first time, I have a "real world" benchmark to work with instead of the imaginative, description words online.
Since then, it's been an exciting journey. His pro-perspective helped me to advance my knowledge in understanding, brewing, and tasting coffee; and my home-perspective helped him to see more things outside the shop. And that is what I hope to bring to the blog. A home user's candid perspective that the pros might not have see from their environment. I also look forward to test/experience many of the things written online. Because.. as there is much good information online, there are also MANY mis-information that could lead many down the wrong way.
Btw, is the celebrated overdose ristretto style wrong? Not really... it depends on the coffee...
First of all, let me appologize for my crappy writing style. I am not a writer. I am an engineer who likes to use passives and long sentences. I also have the tendency to deviate from the main discussion for time to time... So if this bothers you... then that is just too bad!
Anyway... For my first post, I thought it will be nice for me to take a quick look back on my "history" with the whole espresso thing. It will give you a good idea of where I came from and how my current views toward coffee have formed.
I think for most ppl, coffee + internet = coffeegeek. Yup, I started out as a coffeegeek as well. Looking back to my old posts, the first one I wrote was on April 23, 2004 asking to purchase a non-pressurized portafilter.
Actually let me step back a bit... My obsession with coffee started in late 2003/early 2004. I was looking for a new hobby to do and for some odd reason, I decided coffee is cool (don't remember, don't know why). But I didn't want "normal" coffee. I wanted the good stuff. So, as any good consumer does, I went online and read.... I ended up with a Bialetti Brikka 3 cup , a Bodum "fake froather", and started to use stored roasted, store-ground Allegro that I got from Whole Foods (I think was still Freshfields back then). The mokapot makes some pretty nice strong drinks, and with milk, it tasted much better than any drip stuff. This was the time when I "found" coffeegeek.
When I first read coffeegeek, I thought all the ppl on that forum were insane. I mean, who in the right mind would call a $250 grinder "cheap" (Rocky), let alone using one that looks like a monster and costs a bundle (Mini). I decided I WILL NOT get an espresso machine because it costs too much (CG mantra = good grinder + cheap machine = sucess!), but will get a nice grinder to improve my coffee. After a long struggle, I bought a Maestro Plus and it was a very expansive grinder for me back then. I never spend so much on coffee stuff and was really disappointed at the piece of plastic toy I got for $150. Nevertheless, fresh ground stuff at home really tastes nice.
As my coffee improved, so did my appetite. The next step was home roasting so within a couple of months, I had a freshroast +8 and a few pounds of greens from sweet marias. I also started to read coffeegeek religiously and the desire of getting an espresso machine grew everyday.
I finally broke down and upon much research, the cheapest "solution" I arrived at was getting an old Estro Vapore (aka Starbucks Barista) from ebay. I got mine for $80 and aside from some minor rust on the frame, the unit I got was clean and functional. I did all the research I could to get the most out of this thing (unpressurized portafilter, temp surfing, etc) and realize that I finally have to face what I was trying to avoid when I got my mokapot - a serious grinder.
So, more money was charged on the credit card and shortly after the Estro Vapore, I have a Rocky doserless. And then all hell break loose. Soon after the setup was changed to an Isomac Rituale (E61 HX) and a used Super Jolly. I also bought just about any form of coffee maker including a Hario vaccum pot, a Bodum french press, a vietnamese coffee maker, a Presto drip maker, and most recently, an Aeropress. The only (worthwhile) thing I don't have is a manual drip and a ice-drip.
So where was I... yeah, coffeegeek. So you see, coffeegeek was a big influence on me. I have gained a lot of information from it. HOWEVER, I felt that I also gained a lot of mis-information from it, and did not realize this until I stepped outside of the online-world.
You see, back then, espresso to me is all about getting that 1 ~ 1.5 oz double restretto. In my head, it should taste thick, syrupy, chcolatey, smooth and SEXY (sorry... a little inside joke...). I mean, that was what EVERYONE was talking about on coffeegeek, so it must be right, right? And I worked very hard toward that. The shots from Vivace and Zoka when I visited Seattle in Summer of 04 further re-enforced the idea what "god shots" should be like.
With the purchase of my "nice setup", I went on to try many of the famous online blends: Vivace's dolce, Zoka's paladino, Coffee Emergency's code brown, Intelly's black cat, Cafe Fresco's Ambrosia, and Terroir's Northern. Even though I struggle with making great shots as I refine my skills, I manage to produce many drinkable shots from most blends. The only oddball from the lineup was Terroir's coffee. No matter what I try, I could not make it taste good. It was very sour and thin and shared none of the traits of other blends. It really puzzled me as it was quite well recieved online. Then an opportunity came along in spring of 05. I attended the first (and only) espresso seminar at Terroir and was really shocked at the difference of Nothern pulled at the warehouse versus what I tasted at home. I learned that my brew temp was too high, my dose too much, and my tamp too hard. I also learned that espresso can taste good at a full 2oz, medium body, and with tons of acidity.
But this experience also confused me. Because to get to that cup, I have to abandon "THE WAY" of making espresso as learned from coffeegeek. That is, overfill and leveled dose is good. Bigger basket and more coffee is good. 1.5 oz, thick, drippy ristretto is good. Chocolatey, smooth, non-acidic is good. Terroir's Northen is none of that!
I played around with Terroir's Northern a little bit more, but ultimately abandoned it since it was too difficult to repeat my experience at the Acton warehouse. Plus it tasted too different than all the other espresso I had previously tried and maybe it was not to my taste. So I continued to work on my ristretto style pulls in hope to get to those "coffeegeek god shots".
Then I met Jaime. It was the definitive turning point of my espresso hobby. At our first meeting, I tasted something that blew my mind. An espresso shot that actually matches the flowery descriptions on the bag!! An espresso that actually had multi-layers of taste yet smooth from start to finish. An espresso that tasted good and it was a full double?! It was at this exact moment that I realize I have been doing it all wrong all these times because the same exact bean tasted like crap on my home machine. For the first time, I have a "real world" benchmark to work with instead of the imaginative, description words online.
Since then, it's been an exciting journey. His pro-perspective helped me to advance my knowledge in understanding, brewing, and tasting coffee; and my home-perspective helped him to see more things outside the shop. And that is what I hope to bring to the blog. A home user's candid perspective that the pros might not have see from their environment. I also look forward to test/experience many of the things written online. Because.. as there is much good information online, there are also MANY mis-information that could lead many down the wrong way.
Btw, is the celebrated overdose ristretto style wrong? Not really... it depends on the coffee...
Labels: barismo
¶ Ben Chen 9:04 PM 3 Comments
