Sunday, August 03, 2003


volvic is the answer

regular readers know that recently i have been using an expobar automatic espresso machine nicknamed carlos.

since this is a heat exhanger (hx) machine, it's difficult to descale -- that is, lime deposits in the water can build up on the inside and ruin it.

with the rancilio silvia, it's easy to remove these lime deposits by just running some cleancaf through. this isn't possible on an hx machine.

so water quality and hardness is a concern. i have been using a variety of very soft, very low mineral bottled waters.

and the entire time my husband, mr. right, has been complaining that the coffee tasted "watery." i myself disliked the coffee, believing the machine to be too hot.

(this lead me to partially disassemble the machine last night in a failed search for the pressurestat. . .more on that later. . )

this morning i reached for some water and found all i had about was bottle of volvic. so i popped it in carlos' water reservoir.

then i made italian-size cappucinos with batdorf's dancing goat as usual. and wa-llah!

mr. right turns to me and says, the coffee's better today. what did you do differently?

nothing! to make sure this wasn't a dream, i broke out don schoenholt's gillies lovely deluxe dark 2 espresso, an amiable comfort cup for the perfect double espresso. it was better, despite my continuing temperature concerns.

water does make a huge difference in coffee flavor. it's noticeable to the average person, no doubt.

let's just hope the volvic doesn't destroy the machine with scale! what's volvic got?

a "total dissolved solids" mineral count of about 110. remember that illy sez 80-100 is best for espresso; cirqua sez 125; doug zell of intelligentsia in chicago prefers 150.

but 150 is probably mega-scale! that might be too much to be safe to use at home, unless you're committed to taking the boiler apart every so often and cleaning it with citric acid. . .even the volvic worries me. . .

not mention it costs an arm and a leg!

posted by fortune | 3:25 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments