As a commenter on our blog also suggested a while back, we have done a bit of testing of our espresso on a medium-level home espresso machine: Linus' five years old Isomac.
Loaded up with Copenhagen city water (quite bad and very hard water quality) and coffee ground on the matching Isomac grinder we engaged the testing. Linus pulled the shots from fresh ground and properly packed coffee. As you can see from the image, we didn't bother to clean much before we began.
To be honest none of us were expecting much, being so used to our high-end La Marzocco set-up.
To our surprise the shots actually came out quite well. The pours were a little fast for the usual standard, but any slower and too many bitters would probably have come out. The crema was tiger flecked and nicely brown, but not as thick as we would usually have liked.
The taste was surprisingly good. The mouthfeel was there, heavy yet creamy. The sweetness was there too, although not as intense as with the GS3. And there was no unnecessary bitterness. It was great to experience that the acidity and bitterness didn't come out over-powering, which was our biggest worry before the test. Instead the taste balance was rather good. What it did miss, however, was a lot of the aromas that usually characterize our espresso and the aftertaste was not nearly as long lasting either.
Overall it was a pleasing experience and interesting to see that we could still pull espressos of a better quality than you are served in 95% of the Danish cafés and coffee shops (there, I said it!)
Now I think we'll have a french press to celebrate :-)
Friday, November 2, 2007
Home espresso
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6 comments:
nice! that shot actually looks kind of pretty
Nice to see you pulling a demtise from the mortal's machine. I came to some training in Cape Town @ Origin. i'm still using consistantly some nice methods you and Sigga showed us. comming back down south?
Ben Carlson
Now I feel honored :)
Recently, I tried an old Krups espresso maker with my Cimbali Junior grinder and had a drinkable espresso-like espresso, that tasted, well, okay, not ugly bitter and not ugly sour, not a hint of blueberry despite it having a large parte of harrar in it, had a body and all that, it just lacked all the things that make espresso drinking so interesting. No subtleties whatsoever!
Hi Ben. Great to hear from you and that you keep practicing your skills with good techniques. We currently don't have any plans to go to South Africa. A couple of places have contacted me, though, for some training and seminars, so hopefully I will be back before too long.
Hi Ben. Great to hear from you and that you keep practicing your skills with good techniques. We currently don't have any plans to go to South Africa. A couple of places have contacted me, though, for some training and seminars, so hopefully I will be back before too long.
When you do make your way back here let me know (ugcoffee@gmail.com) and I'll be sure to make my way to see you and attend any additional training sessions you are giving.
I'm currently helping a couple of Durban coffee shops on their espresso and Baristas. Also am looking into any cupping/estate trips in Africa so next trip your team makes if you don't mind an extra I'd love the experience.
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