Sunday, July 13, 2003


the spoon & i

so after waaay too much detailed correspondence, it does appear as if nyc tap water is probably fine for expobar.

i might not even need to pop it through a brita, tho' i'm still determining that. however, since i don't want to take any chances, i think i'm going to stick with bottled for a while. . .

this points out an entire area of heat exchanger (hx) commercial/semi-commercial machine usage for us coffee lovers at home. do take the time to check out your water quality!

unlike silvia, you can't just run cleancaf for 5 minutes through the hx machine to descale it. the process is more involved.

in the absolute worst case you have to take the machine apart and soak its parts in acid. so don't even start down that road!

you have to make sure your water is good lest you literally clog your machine with lime scale deposits. thus the obsession with water quality.

it now seems like the best water has a low hardness, say somewhere around 3, a ph of 7 or very close, and about 80 mg per liter of calcium. this should meet the criteria of little/no scale and good coffee taste.

of course, if you're tired -- as i certainly am -- of this maniacal concern with water, you could just take the advice of long-time alt.coffee guy jim schulman, author of the famous insanely long water faq, and use volvic or crystal geyser.

i think i'm going for the volvic personally, but after actually reading the official city water report (adobe acrobat required) and discovering what's really in nyc water, i went out a bought a little pur water pitcher. a little knowledge is a scary thing. . .

on the whole, carlito is just fun to use. the espresso plops from his portafilter in heavy discreet globules of red crema. all good.

my only complaint with him so far is that his drip tray is a little narrow front to back, meaning it can sometimes be hard to fit 2 shot glasses on it. this is due to his "column" at the back of the tray. however, since it's more common to put the shot glasses side by side, it's not a serious issue by any means.

i was also afraid that i would burn myself on his partially exposed thermosyphon, e-61-style grouphead. so far that fear seems to be unfounded.

however, if you have a child or spouse, you might need to warn them about it since it does get quite hot. there seems to me to be no doubt that it's easier to make good coffee off the bat with expobar than with silvia, all other things being equal.

the milk steaming however -- that's still the rub for me! my milk is still too thin or stiff. this is i think (pray) merely a technique issue for me.

i need practice! i need to have more coffee parties!

speaking of coffee parties, i want to remind all you west coast people -- or those with frequent flyer miles -- that the scaa consumer membership homecoming coffee event in long beach, california is next weekend. book your ticket on jet blue!

finally, yesterday's mail brought the promised picture of myself with stuart allan's (of allann bros. coffee) cupping spoon. on the back, in a spidery, hurried hand, stuart wrote:

"yes indeed 2 think you are an excellent cupper -- ! no? doubt about it -- 2 think you hit the Eth.[iopian] right on the NOSE kind regards, stu, 09.03"

stuart, i know you're busy, but it was june, my friend, not september! but still, thanks so much and i'm glad you're a guy who keeps his promises. now the last person who owes me a cupping spoon pic is former scaa president steven colten. . . .

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