What's news?

We've added DeLonghi bean-to-cup machines to our lineup to broaden the appeal of Londinium to coffee lovers who don't want to acquire a hobby in order to access Londinium espresso.  We offer a machine for every budget, and you can find them here.  You may also be an espresso enthusiast who is looking to upgrade the dire coffee you currently serve at work

We've been watching the CHF/GBP exchange rate closely as it recovers from miserable lows and we are pleased to announce that as it has touched 1.5 in the last day or so we have repriced the Cremina at the current spot rate.  This has taken about GBP70 off the price, which we appreciate isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it might be enough to sway your decision

We're also conscious that we need to get our hands on some new green coffee that we haven't offered before.  We're working on this.  Rest assured as we go further on our coffee journey we are looking to raise the bar, and tastes that appealed in the past may no longer appeal, so we will be looking to freshen this up

• Reiss Gunson
• 2012 May

Londinium Espresso gives your retail food venture an edge

At Londinium we don’t just sell you the coffee and leave you to your own devices. We have a vested interest in ensuring that our coffees are prepared in the optimum manner. In essence, what’s good for your business is good for ours. At the commencement of the relationship we will send our engineer out to ensure your equipment is in good working order, both machine and grinder. We will then send out our trainer to train your staff in the Londinium way of coffee preparation. Finally, we will monitor your coffee throughout our relationship to ensure the quality remains consistently high.

Finally, it is important to understand what you are selling. You are not selling coffee. You are in the entertainment business. Think of yourselves as having more in common with a health spa than a supermarket. Image is everything. You are trying to create an oasis of calm in one of the world’s largest cities, or you are trying to create a cutting edge place to see and be seen. Or you are trying to create a hang out for artistic types to mingle, or a place for business people to grab a moment of sanity out of the confines of the office cubicle. It doesn’t matter what your target market is, but you need to have identified it and taken all steps possible to meet their needs to a greater extent than any of your competitors in the local vicinity. This is what makes a successful coffee retailer. A scruffy place, with a tired shabby interior, and not cleaned until it shines on a daily basis is not going to make the grade. However the rewards for those who are genuinely committed to providing their target market with all they desire are significant. It all comes back to the concept of perceived value. If you are perceived as offering value by your target market you will succeed.

Another common mistake is a lack of design. If you don’t feel confident in this area you need to acquire expert help. Perception is everything in retail. You must create a mood that meets the needs of your target audience. This might require a significant investment, but it is a key contributor in the likelihood of your success. Once you have created this environment you need to acquire staff who know how to serve. You are in the entertainment/service industry, your customers are coming to be entertained, to feel good about themselves, to step away from the hum drum for a moment. If you can achieve this for your target market you will succeed.

There are other factors that have a strong influence on your success to, such as location. Retailing success is largely a function of footfall, or the density of pedestrian traffic. Without this you can expect to struggle. That said, some retailers develop such compelling retail experiences that people travel considerable distances to go there, although this is stacking the odds of success against you and you can generally expect to have to survive a much longer period of time before your target customers learn of your existence and get in the habit of making a special trip to see you. The primary driver for such a strategy is if you consider the rent in prime retail locations to simply be too great, in which case you might be able to identify a niche location in an area with much lower footfall. Successful examples that come to mind for a café might be near a school, petrol station, gym, beauty salon, hairdresser or other facility that your target customers are already in the habit of making regular visits to.

Get in touch with Londinium today. We have the experience to help make your coffee retailing venture a success.

• Reiss Gunson
• 2012 Apr

New MA-TER pressure-stats now in stock

Order yours here to optimise the performance of your Olympia Cremina

• Reiss Gunson
• 2012 Apr

Bosco boiler pressure, and indeed all espresso machines

In our factory where the temperature spends a good six months of the year at or below 50F we have the boiler pressure of the Bosco set to 1.1 bar, as previously advised in an earlier post on this blog.

If you have your Bosco in more temperate conditions, for example, your kitchen or a cosy cafe then it is likely that you will want to reduce your boiler pressure further, down to 1.0 bar.  Happily 1.0 bar is the same pressure as the Olympia Cremina that we have at home, although the indicated pressure on the Cremina gauge will often show a number more like 0.85 bar in my experience.

The group on most conventional espresso machines is designed to act a heat sink.  however the group will run significantly cooler if the ambient temperature is significantly lower, or if the machine is operating in an area with significant air movement, or in the most extreme situation, outdoors.

until i conducted a series of experiments measuring the temperature of the water exiting the group with the machine placed beside an open window in winter i completely under estimated the extent to which the ambient temperature, and air movement, impacts on the temperature of the water exiting the group.  it has a significant impact that you need to be mindful of if you frequently move your machine into different operating environments.

even a machine in a kitchen that is essentially 'warm' will cool sufficiently to be able to 'taste the difference' if you move it to sit right against a window with single glazing in winter, for example

If you are running your Bosco out side, indeed any espresso machine, in cooler temperatures especially, you are going to have to wind up the boiler pressure or the water temperature during extraction will be too low.

• Reiss Gunson
• 2012 Apr

Delonghi bean-to-cup (fully automatic) espresso machines demonstration at Harrods

This Saturday the 21st of April the DeLonghi concession at Harrods is having a demonstration of their bean-to-cup espresso machines using coffees from around the world.

If you are considering purchasing a bean-to-cup espresso machine and have only looked at Jura, Miele, Gaggia/Saeco, or WMF, you might want to taste the espresso from a Delonghi as I think they produce one of the best tasting espresso of all the bean-to-cup machines on the market.

DeLonghi are the number one seller of bean to cup machines in the UK, by both volume and value.

If you are one of the 93% in the UK who are still drinking instant coffee at home, or are looking to move up from the taste of a Nespresso machine to experience real espresso from freshly roasted beans, but still need something fuss-free that the whole family can use then a bean to cup machine is for you.  Bean-to-cup espresso machines are also ideal for small offices.

We've roasted three Londinium roasts for this event and they were laid down to rest a week or so ago to ensure they are at their best this Saturday the 21st of April.

This event commences at 10:30am and if there isn't a prize for actually finding the stand in the labyrinth that is Harrods then there should be.  It is at the western end of Harrods, near the front of the store (Old Brompton Road) on the second floor in the kitchenware section of the store in the 'Tea and coffee room'.  If you get really lost ask for directions as there seems to be a small army of store personnel on hand for that very purpose.

I look forward to seeing you there.

• Reiss Gunson
• 2012 Apr

Getting the Ethiopian Amaro Gayo natural process roast to perform

We've had some requests for guidance on this coffee as a number of you have struggled with it.  I've revisited it again this morning with a bag that was roasted on 17 March just to check it is as good as we have previously claimed it to be.  It is.

Here are a few notes on how to make it perform.

How do you know if you haven't got it right?  Well, if it tastes murky, dead, heavy, thin, or too floral with tea like tannins then you need to give it a tune up. Here's how:

Dose: 16g
Grind: super fine! (the correct grind is determined by gradually adjusting your grinder finer until you are able to achieve an extraction time of 27 seconds (as defined below) with a dose of 16g)
Water temp:  hotter than our other coffees like - I'm guessing around 95C, instead of the typical 92C
Extraction time: 27s from the moment coffee begins to flow from the spouts and stopping as soon as blonding arrives
Age: 21 to 35 days after the roast date ideally
Be sure to pre-heat your cups with boiling water 10mm from the top for 10 seconds

Wonderful complexity that your taste buds luxuriate in is the reward for getting this coffee right.  Well worth persevering with.  Note that the age of the coffee after the roast date is significantly greater than our other roasts too.

Nicely weighted, floral notes flattened off a bit to give a smooth complexity to the cup.  If you're struggling get in touch.

Some roasts are quite fault tolerant, and don't really reward the baristas for fiddling around to get it just right.  This one rewards you abundantly for your efforts to get it on song.  You can order some here.

• Reiss Gunson
• 2012 Apr

Delonghi Prima Donna S ECAM26

You'll have to overlook the grim looking cappuccino or whatever its meant to be in the shot above, and bear with me as this is a machine that's worth investigating.  A couple of weekends ago I was in Peter Jones/John Lewis to test their top of the range bean to cup machines.  I was told the Miele free standing bean to cup machines, which John Lewis also offer are in fact Juras in drag, a claim which I need to substantiate, but such practices are common with many goods these days that it wouldn't surprise me if it were the case

Without wishing to be accused of defamation, it is my personal opinion that whilst very well marketed, and therefore very expensive relative to the quality of the espresso they produce, Jura (Swiss) bean to cup machines produce what the Swiss like to drink, caffe creme, as opposed to 'proper espresso'.  In my opinion the espresso from a Jura bean to cup is under-extracted in my opinion, even after i have optimised the settings, and I think many people have tarred all bean to cup machines with the same same brush.

I have also tried fairly extensively the WMF bean to cup machine of a friend of ours which I think outperforms the Jura significantly in terms of taste, although i find the menus on the WMF machines more difficult to progress through than the jungle

With these experiences in the back of my mind i tried the Delonghi Prima Donna S ECAM26 at Peter Jones.  If you go to the peter jones website (www.johnlewis.com) and enter the product code 85508825 their website will take you to the exact machine i am referring to here

While it is easy to criticise bean-to-cup machines for not delivering the same quality of extraction as a lever espresso machine, we are not blind to the fact that the vast majority of the population are looking to make good espresso at home but are busy, and the last thing they need is a(nother) hobby.  You just want a 'good' espresso

I took with me two packs of our costa rican beans so I was working with a bean that I was familiar with.  The first few cups were not pleasant, a little sour and grassy, but this was easily addressed as the brew temperature can quickly and easily be adjusted on this machine.  The change in taste was instantaneous and significant.  The shot became sweet, with a pleasant nuttiness

Grind setting 4 seemed to work best for these beans and we lifted the dose one notch to 'strong', having decided this was the optimum after working through many combinations of different grind and dose.  Like many grinders it is important to only move it to a finer setting when it is in operation otherwise you run the risk of the coffee grinds between the burrs binding the burrs together

It takes 2 grind cycles for any changes to the grinder to flow through into your cup, which is an important point to note if you don't want to end up chasing your tail as you dial in the grinder

The crema was rich, deep, and dense; not a pale, insipid imitation.  The brew temperature is easily capable of being adjusted so it is just right for your roast (we only went up one notch on brew temperature, there were several more settings hotter than this should you be running third wave lemon juice, or roasts with a lot of robusta).  Whilst it didn't bring out all the nuances in the roast, I have no hesitation in saying it produced an espresso that 90% of espresso drinkers would be very happy to drink

This model has a brushed stainless steel casing which is what pushes the price up.  I believe there is a similar model with a plastic casing, but most of the same features as this model is also available at a considerably lower price point if this was important to you

This model has the ability to make 2 drinks at a time which i think is really important to most people when they have visitors around and don't want to take half an hour to get the coffee made.  If you do a lot of entertaining this is the machine for you

The brew group is height adjustable so you can fit cups of different heights under it with ease

Whilst I didn't spend a lot of time on the milk texturing capabilities of this machine, it has the latest design solution to this problem.  That is, the milk in the receptacle is not heated by the process, only the milk that is drawn out is heated.  The advantage of this is the milk container just clips off and can be placed back in the fridge for next time with no milk being wasted

The machine also undertakes a cleaning cycle before and after each cup which i think is an important feature as hygiene is critically important in any machine like this where milk is involved

I found the menus very intuitive and typically provided at least 5 settings, unlike the WMF, Jura, and other machines that typically provide only 3 settings which I find inadequate

The machine is also very compact (23.8x44.1x34.5cm(wxdxh)), which is important to most city dwellers

I almost forgot to mention, this machine has two thermo-blocks.  One for the espresso, and a second one for steam generation running at a much higher temperature

• Reiss Gunson
• 2012 Apr

Water temperature and pressure in espresso machines

I think most of us have by now come to accept that the doctrine of the need to present water to the espresso puck at a constant pressure has proven itself to be bogus

As we see in a spring lever espresso machine, the pressure reduces as the extraction progresses.  This ensures that as the coffee becomes 'poorer' (as the desirable elements are extracted out) the pressure is reduced to protect against extracting the undesirable elements within the coffee

Given the relationship between temperature and pressure, I can't help but wonder if the current mantra of 'constant water temperature' is also balls

Whilst it is clear that optimum espresso needs water to be presented in a fairly tight temperature range, I am increasing of the view that better results are achieved if the water temperature drops as the extraction progresses

Again, this is what happens within a lever group

Im not saying that water temperature doesn't need to held within a fairly tight range, but I don't accept that it should be held at a constant throughout the shot

If constant pressure and temperature were a prerequisite for exceptional espresso then lever machines would not be capable of making exceptional espresso.  We know this isn't true

• Reiss Gunson
• 2012 Apr

Finally got around to buying a tripod mount for my phone

This should leave me with no excuse for putting some very rudimentary videos up on this blog.  By popular demand one of the first clips will have to be a 'how to use an Olympia Cremina'

• Reiss Gunson
• 2012 Apr

Indian plantation A, Sarathy Estate

This coffee, a relatively recent addition to our green bean stash, is winning consistent praise from our customers.

• Reiss Gunson
• 2012 Apr