Obsessive Compulsive Coffee Disorder » Rants and Raves

James Hoffman follow up re: Espresso and Crema

admin — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:19:59 +0000

James offers a response to his first video regarding his opinion about espresso and crema. I have to admit that I never thought of it this way and it’s a very interesting discussion. If you missed the first video, click here, then watch his response below.

James Hoffman on crema

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:49:53 +0000

James Hoffman explains why crema is overrated. Would love to hear what others think about this! *UPDATE* His followup to this first video can be viewed here.

Café Crawl – july 4 weekend 2009

admin — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:24:02 +0000

4th of July 2009 gets off to a good start. Sophia, Janice and I explored Greepoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, then made our way over The Williamsburg bridge to the East Village section of Manhattan. A great way to understand a neighborhood is to walk around in it, eat the local fare, and indulge in it’s coffee culture. That’s what we did.

The café crawl begins at Gimme! in Brooklyn. Ristretto, triple basket, 1oz.

Sophia cups frothed milk with 3 drops of crema at Gimme!

Sophia saw a display of carniverous plants at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. She agreed to this tour with the condition that when we were finished touring neighborhoods, we would buy a Venus Flytrap for the apartment, but keep it out of her room so it wouldn’t eat her at night. She also liked the fact that she would get a Sophia style-cappuccino – frothed milk with 3 drips of crema. Not a bad deal for a 4 year old!

After Gimme!, we stopped by for some spro at Ninth Street in the East Village.

Janice samples the Ninth Street spro, Sophia looks on.

Just when I thought the fun was ending, it continued.

In need of lunch we visited Mercadito Cantina, a couple of blocks from Ninth Street.

Inside of Mercadito. Great service and delicious food!

Sophia enjoys her passion fruit bubbly at Mercadito Cantina.

Fourth of July weekend, Day 2. From Brooklyn.

Getting shorted 4oz.

admin — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:16:50 +0000

I’ve noticed a new trend recently that I’m not pleased about. Why is it that if I buy a bag of beans from a local cafe or store, the good stuff is sold in 12oz bags instead of a true 1lb. bag? I’m paying on average $13/12oz. That’s 4oz (120grams) less which means that if I dose at say ~ 20grams/double, I’m getting shorted 6 less doubles from a bag. What gives? If I order it directly from the roaster, I get a full 16oz bag, but then I have to pay shipping costs AND wait for it to arrive, so in the end, it’s more economical to get it from the cafe. BUT, if you drink as much coffee as we do in my househould, then it means we’re blowing through a 12oz bag in under a week. Maybe I should start a petition to bring back the 16oz bags in the local cafes. Don’t pinch from my bag! I guess it’s not all bad though. I enjoy visiting local cafe’s and having shots pulled from a La Marzocco instead of my X5.

The FeedRoom now serving Intelligentsia

admin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:24:27 +0000

How cool is this? My place of work is now buying Intelligentsia Coffee!!! Previously, The FeedRoom, pioneer in online video communications, had a Flavia machine and guess what was served? That’s right. Flavia coffee in those individual serving sized, foil packets. Flavia is close to the worst coffee on the planet. The packets had a strength indicator to let you know which one was stronger. To me it indicated which one tasted worse. The aroma was lacking. I only drank it on record setting, bone chilling winter days when the walk down Canal St. to La Colombe, the nearest decent coffee house to work – before I found out about City Girl Cafe, was all but impossible.

One day, a Starbucks Interactive brewer machine showed up to replace the Flavia. A vast improvement. The Interactive brewer makes a single cup at a time and does hot chocolate as well. It has a bean hopper (left side for caffeine and right side for decaf beans) and grinds fresh for each cup. You can also tweak the temperature setting to fine tune the brew. The only problem now was that we were using Starbucks beans and the burnt flavor, which has rightly earned them the nickname Charbucks, was dominate in the cup. I couldn’t get past it. I tried to contain my coffee geekdom, but this machine had potential to make a decent brew and I was way to curious to see how some Intelli beans would taste in there. I recommended we try Intelligentsia and after some research, an order was placed.

A huge improvement once again – props to The FeedRoom for being such a cool place to work and to think about the coffee well-being of the employees. Currently I’m still tasting a bit of the charbucks burntness in the cup, but the profile from the Intelli Brazil Agua Preta is in there. The decaf hopper still has Charbucks beans, so the charred residuals are lingering in the machine, invading the freshness of the Intelli beans. Eventually though, it will all flush out and the deliciousness of Intelli will shine through. Things are looking up! Who knows, maybe one day a technivorm will magically show up?