Saturday, June 28, 2003


report: day 1 of nyc scaa membership event

such an incredible day! yes, today was the day a wonderful bunch of people from everywhere: montreal, california, philadelphia, long island, connecticut all got together and shared their love of coffee in support of the scaa's new consumer membership category!

we just owe an incredible debt of thanks to david dallis, jim munson, and steve schulman of dallis coffee, as well as ken nye of the coffeeshop higher grounds and jeff and guy of kudo beans.

we also have to thank chipper harris of coffekids for the buttons and t-shirts, as well as wholelattelove for its gift coffee.

we got seriously started by 10:30am, when david dallis gave us an excellent tour of his entire operation. all attendees were fascinated by the commercial roasting process. david is just such an excellent speaker, and quite willing to get into the technical depths the more machine-minded folks wanted to hear.

david's eyes danced with joy when owen egan, of montreal, produced his fluke therometer and thermocouple to measure machine temperatures.

steve schulman fired up the diedrich drum roaster and showed everyone how to roast. he did two batches of african coffees, including a yrgacheffe.

we sampled these and an earlier kona in the french press, before moving on to the stone cupping table and actually getting down to the slurp and spit ourselves. david demonstrated the use of the agtron to look at roast levels, but also talked about how to use your senses to judge a correct roast.

there was a short discussion on the merits of the two batches of african coffees we cupped, which was better and why.

after that, we pulled shots on the faema e61 legend (flash required). well, actually, i couldn't keep my hands of the thing!

i was pulling shots all day whenever i could get near the machine. after years of pulling shots on my rancilio silvia, i had to stop every now and again to break old habits.

but i have to say that the faema is a delight to work with. i've never pulled shots so good, and the machine just makes good coffee seem effortless.

it truly makes you wonder why most coffeeshop shots are so bad -- i can't imagine that with a good fresh coffee and a decent grind you couldn't pull consistent perfection from such a machine.

all you need is a little attention to detail and a pure heart. then the coffee is beautiful!

throughout the entire event there was so much laughter, you could just feel the joy in the air. i felt supercharged not from the coffee, but from the camaraderie that is a natural part of the coffee community.

everyone is endlessly positive, idealistic, so willing to share. and you see that in triplicate with the people at dallis coffee. after 3 hours at dallis, we piled into the van and went down to see nyc's best barista, the coffee artist ken nye. perfect latte art drifts effortlessly from his wrist.

sadly, he was having a water line problem and could pull only a few drinks. but his rosetta latte art shone in each one. after about 30 minutes of everyone quizzing ken on latte art technique, we hopped back into the van and had lunch at kudo.

charter scaa consumer member david westebbe, of boston, was much taken by the tiny bodum timers that fit on the stem of the kudo press pot, so you never let the coffee sit too long. press pots after all are the kudo specialty.

wendy jensen of the scaa, who had come from california (you go, surf babe!), talked to the consumer members about the association. i'm pleased to say that everyone who came was a member -- delia konzett had actually joined in advance!

long-time alt.coffee member and scaa charter member richard freilich talked with wendy about the kind of educational opportunities he hoped the scaa could provide consumers.

maddy page, from philadelphia, was just a joy to meet! what a laugh she has. . .and we also had a dallis customer, a local, mark, who came down just to try shots. steve bookman, another new yorker, is my hero, since he came to my previous event last weekend and made it today as well.

the final great moment: watching everyone try to teach wendy from california how to hail a cab in the east village. hilarious!

owen, maddy, richard, steve bookman, steve schulman, and myself are all meeting for the second day of this incredible event at 10am at the fancy food show tomorrow. there we intend to descend en masse on all the espresso and coffee exhibitors, as well as taste chocolate!

stayed tuned for day 2!

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