Well, like so many things in life, the answer is 'it depends'.
It depends on how prominent the acidity in the coffee is. So called 'higher quality' coffees will exhibit a lot more acidity, and we suggest you give these coffees up to 3 weeks to rest after the roast date before opening, unless you like your coffee to scour your palate, in a manner similar sipping neat lemon or lime juice, and in our view, about as pleasant.
It also depends how much acidity you like in your espresso. You'll want more if you can't kick the milkie habit, as milk tends to smoother the delicate elements in fine coffee. Personally we seek espresso that is smooth (low acidity), but with as much complexity as possible. A tall order when you aren't resorting to blending, but perpetually pursuing better and better single origin coffees.
Many of the coffees that are graded as 'high quality' are done so on the basis of the cupping system of evaluation and that is fine, but the trouble is the system was developed for the evaluation of coffee when prepared by the filter process, not espresso. Remember that until fairly recently high quality coffee was primarily consumed in the more affluent northern countries of continental Europe, and always as filter coffee, never via the espresso process. Espresso was only drunk in Italy, and generally used a high proportion of low quality robusta coffee beans, the blend becoming less expensive the further south you travelled; a simple reflection of economic reality. [NB: Do not take this to mean that all robusta coffee is dire. The best Italian roasts use very high quality robusta beans, and you can expect to see Londinium looking to emulate this.]
We now find ourselves in a slightly out of tune world where roasters are clamouring to procure coffees that have been awarded the highest grade and are expecting to be able to produce a wonderful espresso roast from them. For what it is worth, we think its a case of selecting the wrong tool for the job.
By way of parallel, Lamborghini make wonderful, eccentric (although less so since VW bought the dead hand of mass production and reliability to Lambo) sports cars. This doesn't mean you would select a top of the range Lamborghini sports car to plough a field. No, you would procure a Lamborghini tractor, if you absolutely had to have a Lamborghini, complete with air-conditioning, surround-sound, etc. And so it is with coffee.
The reason Londinium Espresso exists is to discover green coffee beans that lend themselves to preparation as a single origin or single estate espresso, but many of them don't. Some of the coffee that we have discovered isn't regarded by the industry as being of a particularly elite grading, indeed some of our coffees are the relatively common SHG (strictly high grown) designation. Whilst these are good quality coffees in the sense of being graded to an even size and shape, not containing too many beans from cherries that were too ripe or unripe, they are by no means of the standard achieved by some of the microlot coffee that typically makes its way into the cup of excellence.
The trouble is they deliver what we consider is an exceptional espresso. So, we use them. And this is our modus operandi; we are no respecters of industry grading. Why? We've proved time and again the brokers and growers notes are only good for starting the fire; the only arbiter is our tongue. This means that not everyone will agree with our taste in coffee, but at least you can be assured that Londinium is distinct, and instantly recognisable as being free from what we like to refer to disparagingly as corporate mediocrity. We'll never release a product that is designed to placate the maximum number of people on a committee. If perchance you don't like what we have sold you just get in touch & we will issue you with a prompt refund in full.
If there are coffees that you have enjoyed previously and are struggling to find, get in touch and we will source them for you.
The Brazil Specialty Coffee Association (BSCA) offers not only estate coffees and varietals, but also an Espresso blend that is available throughout the year.
We are reliably informed that the BSCA espresso blend is made with some of the finest naturals, pulped naturals and fully washed coffees produced in the Bahia, Cerrado, Mogiana and Sul de Minas regions of Brazil, and carefully mixed to enhance body, aroma and natural sweetness.
Over the last couple of weeks we have been experimenting with a bag of this coffee. We thought it might give us another fine single origin coffee from Brazil, but in truth it is just too insipid. It works well when deployed as the base in a blend. As a result we have decided not to offer this coffee for sale.
"The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a low price is forgotten"
Benjamin Franklin
do you find yourself drawn towards record players like the guys at Coolgales sell, instead of itunes?
do you prefer to shave with an old fashioned brush and find it curious that while twin edged safety razors from people like Merkur, or single edge cut throat razors, stay sharp for ages yet Gillette with its vast resources only seem to be able to produce expensive blades that dull curiously quickly?
then, you'll probably like Londinium
come and try our old-fashioned ways, where we refuse to sell throw away consumer grade junk, even though there is more margin in such products
all the equipment we sell will serve you for years and years, and if anything should fail the parts are available to make it as good as new again
despite the pervasive subliminal messages from the marketing departments of the multi-national corporations remember this: new does not necessarily mean better. it often means it just cost less for the manufacturer to make and wears out quicker so you can be sold the same junk next year, but in the 'latest' colour
sorry to pop the bubble for you, but 'fashion' and 'environmentally friendly' are mutually exclusive. this is the internal contradiction of our modern consumer driven world. at some point we are going to have to face this fact.
come back to the future with Londinium.
Apologies for taking far too long to release this coffee for sale.
You can find it here
For the moment you just need to know that it's good, very good
I will try to put a slightly more informative description up in the near future
If you want some idea of how to envisage our single estate Costa Rican coffee relative to our standard Costa Rican coffee, think of it as Costa Rican coffee backdrop with a distinctive 'taste stamp' of the particular estate inlaid over the top, and immediately visible in the foreground
It is possible that your Bacchi does not issue a shrill whistle, which it should.
If this is because your Bacchi isnt generating sufficient steam pressure because it is escaping from the body somewhere then refer to our earlier articles in this blog on how to lubricate your machine.
But if your Bacchi isn't leaking steam and isn't whistling it may be that the 'whistle' valve isn't performing as it should.
You may have read elsewhere of the steps to take in order to remove one, or more, of the valves and service them.
All I want to suggest here is that you can save yourself a lot of time and hassle by trying something less drastic first. It doesn't always work, but it works often enough to warrant trying.
Instead of removing any valves, simply undo the 3 hex head screws on the piston assembly with a 2.5mm Allen/hex key to gain access to the piston. The middle of the 3 valves is the one that whistles. You will notice that it has a 'flat' side on the centre pin. This will allow you to pinch the centre pin between your forefinger and thumb, and turn it around a few times. Turning this centre pin in the manner described here does not affect the pressure at which the valve opens and whistles. For this reason it is a low risk manuoerve that oftens gets your Bacchi whistling. You will notice that this pin is sprung loaded, so jiggle it around too. You are just trying to ensure that it is free from grit or dirt and able to open easily.
Reassemble.
This is a 5 minute job, will often get your Bacchi whistling, and doesn't run the risk of altering the pressure at which the valve is set to open.
I strongly suggest this less dramatic approach is worth a try before embarking on removal of the valves.
On the morning of Friday 8 April 2011 we received an order from a customer in Singapore.
Just after 15:30BST in central London our couriers collected a Mazzer Robur electronic single phase from us, bound for Singapore.
The customer received his Robur at 10:59, local time in Singapore, on Monday 11 April 2011 (03:59 BST, Monday 11 April 2011)
Come and experience what Londinium's global reach can do for your business.
Considering the length of time we've had our Bosco, we've spent precious little quality time with it. Your know the sort; uninterrupted solitude allowing you to just amble about, try different roasts, different pre-infusion times, different temperatures, and so on.
Rightly or wrongly, we make the assumption that the manufacturer's settings are the place to start. On that basis we started with the boiler set to 1.5 bar. We have come to the conclusion, for our style of roasting at least, that a boiler pressure of 1.5 bar is too hot. We are down to an 'indicated' 1.3 bar on the manometer, and may go lower.
We are also developing a 'plug & play' non-destructive temperature probe that will plug straight into your Apple computer via a USB port. This device will capture the data for you and record as a .csv file, allowing you to open in Excel and plot away as you see fit.
We have also progressively whittled away the pre-infusion time from 8 seconds to around the 3-4 second mark and are now obtaining crema so deep we could bathe in it. To make life easy we are also running a standard dose of 14g. We're not opposed to over-dosing, but we're not sure the Bosco is particularly suited to the task; we suspect she considers such methods rather undignified!
However we think the Bosco is the best tool for the job when it comes to single origin espresso. The best anology we can think of is an optical prism breaking white light into all the colours of the spectrum. It really breaks out the individual tastes into clearly identifiable threads on your tongue.
This is so much fun. The Bosco makes our Costa Rican Zamorana Estate taste like manuka honey; its a wonderful machine.
We've really enjoyed this coffee sample over the weekend. The Technivorm Moccamaster made it sparkle without even trying. Our lingering impression now that it has all gone is: sweet, sweet, sweet.
... the Technivorm Moccamaster would be banned. It would be considered cheating, such is the ease with which you can obtain the optimum taste from your coffee of choice. It is just so straight-forward. Fill the 1.25 litre reservoir with Volvic water (unless you have a descaling fetish, which we certainly don't). Add ground coffee to the Swissgold KF4 filter that fits perfectly in this unit and we include in the advertised price. Turn on. Wait 5 minutes. Perfect coffee.
The insulated jug is far superior to the glass carafe commonly fitted to filter coffee machines, with an element underneath. The element quickly turns even the finest micro-lot coffee to tar. The insulated jug, having no element underneath it does not.
Even if you are working alone, the insulated jug allows you to make your coffee at the start of the working day and it will keep hot until lunchtime without having additional interruptions each time you feel the need for another cup of coffee.
Similarly, we can supply the Technivorm Moccamaster with additional insulated jugs, providing an economical way to prepare larger volumes of coffee. The coffee is brewed so quickly it is perfectly feasible to buy 4 additional insulated jugs, allowing you to brew 5 insulated jugs of perfect coffee in 30 minutes. The insulated jugs will keep the coffee at the correct temperature for more than 2 hours when full.
