Merry Christmas and Chappy Chanukkah!

Hi, everybody! I guess I didn't need to say Happy Chanukkah because I only have one reader AFAIK, and he's Christian. Oh well, the show must go on.

First things first, how do you like my video on the sidebar? Is it annoying? Sweet? Questions? Well it better be good because I spent forever finding an mov to wmv converter that worked without giving me a 2fps framerate. I ended up converting to mpeg2 using Xilisoft, then converting from that to wmv and chopping out the proper sections of the video using Ulead, then compiling it all using Windows Movie Maker. THEN I blew the dust off of my html and put it to work, adjusted to size, and I was done!

In other news, I just tried a blend today which was 3 or 4 days out of roast (hell no I don't remember, I'm on "non-denominational time of celebration but chanukkah does not count break"). Here is the blend for those who want a good backbone for a blend that requires a ridiculous amount of coffees.

Full City + (in one batch)
25% Organic Fair Trade Sumatra Gayo Mountain
12.5% Ethiopia Longberry Harar Horse
12.5% Yemen Mokha Ismaili

Full City (in another batch)
16% Brazil Daterra Villa Borghesi
10% Uganda Bugisu AA
12% Monsooned Malabar
12% Galapagos

Okay, now before you start passing judgement on this blend, keep the following in mind:

An unnamed roaster has an espresso blend, which I'd bet would be approved by 99% of coffeegeeks who make espresso, that has contained 8 beans in the bast, and from what I gather usually contains at least 5. Furthermore, the sumatra gayo maountain, although semi-washed, is not as acidic as even I expected, but it lended some really nice flavours to the blend and the body was amazingly syrupy and stringy.

This blend is just stellar. The crema is very weird. It is elastic and will "repair itself" with ease. However, it seems to have the monsooned malabar effect of having perfectly flat crema in the cup taht looks like somebody took a picture of a great shot, printed it on matte finish paper, and put it in the cup. However, when you tilt the cup to drink the shot, you find that it is very flexible despite that appearance. Also, when making a cappuccino, it poured really funny. It was easy to get art on it for starters. Second, the crema showed one of its lifeless rigid cardboard traits. When I poured the milk, it went through the crema, but the rest of the crema did not react at all. It was like one of those Sealy non-motion-transferring mattresses. The milk marked the surface just fine, but the crema seemed to be overlapped by the milk, but not moved by it. It was strange. I guess I'll post some pictures later when I've gathered 2 or 3 readers. I'm out, and MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY CHANUKKAH!

First Post... what to say...

Well, what can I say? I've finally got a blog. This is the inevitabely boring first post, so I'll just get right into what's going on here. I'm 15 years old and I live coffee and anything related to coffee. No, I don't fantasize about my next visit to Starbucks, I hope there never is a "next visit". I'm not a sociopath who hangs around a café all day long reading "intelligent literature" and fondling my numerous piercings. I'm not "that guy". No, I dwell in something special... the art of preparation of coffee, and the ultimate goal: pure enjoyment.

I guess I'll start off with what's going on with me right now.

First of all, I am working at a wonderful place called Elysian Coffee & Tea. I mainly do bussing there, but it's not like I haven't made a drink or two for a customer when Alistair (the owner/proprietor/boss/ultimate coffee guru) isn't looking :-P I've been working there since August of this year and have been enjoying it along the way. Throughout my numerous shifts, I have met other coffee lovers such as John Sanders of Hines Public Market Coffee, Robert Goble (Dasein, formerly Jesus on the CoffeeGeek forums), Mark Prince (site owner at CoffeeGeek AND Coffee Kid), Brad Ford (owner of Wicked Café), and many other specialty coffee enthusiasts in my area and from slightly abroad. We get our coffee for espresso from Hines Public Market Coffee and always have a variety of single origins for french press from them and also from Intelligentsia Coffee Roasters.

What does coffee mean to me?

To me, coffee is a wonderful taste experience. The gustation of coffee is a culinary art in itself, completely separate from the preparation. This, to me, is part of what differs coffee from other forms of cuisine, if that's the right word. Not only that, but coffee has over 800 identifiable taste variables which can range in intensity and complentariness. Also, the nasal passages are able to "taste" the coffee. You can smell it. You can taste it with your tongue and nose. You can feel it gracing your tongue. Clearly, there is more than sweet, sour, salty, and bitter to coffee.

What's been on my mind?

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about espresso; namely, the equipment. I have a Gaggia Espresso, which is a single boiler home machine with red plastic casing. It has a 58mm grouphead and traditional 1-hole steam wand. It is acceptable considering the fact that it can be had for US$200. Some positives include the adequate steam power, heavy brass portafilter, large water reservoir, 58mm grouphead, and a flathead showerscreen screw (that's for a later post). Negatives are the fact that it is a single boiler, so I have to wait to steam after brewing, it has a huge hysterisis so temperature stability is out of the question, the grouphead runs way too hot, and the pump pressure is literally unrestricted. The over pressure valve is not adjustable AFAIK, so that kind of screws me over. Lately, I've been fixing these issues but opening the steam wand a small crack during the shot to let off a bit of pressure and turning the steam switch on and off in quick bursts during the shot to maintain temperature. Nothing's worse than hitting the bottom of the boiler cycle during the shot and having the temp ramp up by 12 degrees. That is a recipe for distaster... also known by coffee geeks as a sink shot.

Thankfully, I've alotted myself a large sum of money to build my own machine, which I will write about in excess a bit later.

That's about it for now as it's past 3 AM here on the west coast and I'm 15. You all know how parents are about this kind of stuff.

Who the hell are you?
I'm JakeTheCoffeeLover, nice to meet you.