Saturday, November 01, 2003


coffee party

so today i was privileged to host an awesome coffee party, which turned into the ultimate-home-espresso-machine fest and a great discussion of the scaa c-membership.

the goal was to showcase home machines, but naturally i had to have a pile of coffee. too much coffee, almost. fortunately we got to try every one.

when the reporter called originally, he discussed krups and capresso. oh no, i said, we need to show you some real home espresso machines. . .

the party was supposed to go from 2-4pm, but actually lasted until nearly 7pm. (sorry!) it was one of those moments you had to thank david dallis for -- he and jim munson have the kind of vision to put these things together.

there's absolutely no denying that dallis bros. has been among the lead supporters of the c-member initiative, for which i'm deeply grateful. i hope to be able to work with david dallis, jim munson, and steve schulman many times in the future.

the reporter came for lhj. he was very nice, and realizing that we had even coffee, kindly brought a bottle of glenlivet. as usual, i was planning to serve pistachio biscotti and assorted dark chocolate bars: korkunov, 2 kinds of bernard castelain (the intense 77% and a hazelnut milk chocolate), as well as a michel cluizel 65% dark single origin from sao tome.

however it was protested by attendee don schoenholt of gillies that this intense chocolate would not be great for tasting the espresso.

thus i broke open a bottle of passito d'albana tre monti and one of clos de paulilles banyuls. these dessert wines are excellent with chocolate and biscotti.

we had many more machines than i had thought: the silvia, the expobar, as you would expect.

but also todd of wholelattelove brought a gaggia and matching grinder, while jim p. of 1st-line equipment brought la valentina, the spidem divina superautomatic, and an olympia cremina lever.

jim munson didn't come empty handed, either. he brought an extremely cute faema faemart with matching grinder, the family.

i had never seen one of these machines before. pictures don't do them justice. they're sweet! i think you can buy them from dallis direct.

the family grinder has great ergonomics, i thought. i loved the big ball on the dosing lever. the attached tamper foot on the opposite side could be heavier, but actually didn't do a bad job, tho' you had to hold the grinder down with the other hand to get a firm tamp.

on the other hand, the faemart espresso machine -- similar in size say to a starbucks barista -- had some advantages, such as the machine doesn't slide when you lock the portafilter. even my silvia moves a bit.

also the slanted portafilter is easy to get off and on, although it was odd at first since it locks from right to left. most of the machines lock the other way. it's small enough to fit on anyone's counter.

i'd love to have this machine for my cubicle at work, actually! jim brought the new dallis blend, new york espresso, in a cool package. i loved the label: listing the aromas and tastes, one of which was "burnt cookie." that was great!

also in attendance was mike white, a pro barista with gimme! coffee. he's a latte artist, and poured two nice rosetta lattes, as well as dialing in piles of shots from gillies carioca, intelligentsia's black cat (thanks mason!), batdorf's dancing goats (thanks holly!), the dallis blend, and his own platinum blonde espresso.

i started pulling shots and then thought: what am i doing? mike is sooo much better at this. . .

he's a great guy, a barista with a future, and also has an extremely elegant tamp. i have flat reg barber tamper, and while he prefers the convex ergotamper, he managed to make do. . .

jim brought some segafredo and esse whole bean and palombini pods, "pods that don't taste like pods." even don was surprised at how well this coffee came out of the superauto divina.

the coffee master was todd, who brought his java joe kona espresso, some malabar gold, and some supreme bean palermo.

we spent tons of time dialing in the carioca, because of course we were as usual misjudging how much stuff we had to do! and then my mazzer mini briefly jammed. fortunately, mike had brought along a monster mazzer robur, which we quickly swapped in! that's beautiful, but gigantic.

so plowed through a lot of coffee on that, while discussing the difference between the concepts of conical burrs and parallel ones. the reporter took the gaggia grinder home to play with.

we tested out the gaggia and faema grinders, but we were losing time dialing in so much coffee for so many machines. when mike pulled a great shot, we served it to don, who was tasting with the reporter, and also giving his usual amazing history-of-coffee spiel.

jim munson -- who's quite talented with a camera actually -- served as event photographer until his battery went wonky. i hope he will email me pix of this to add to the blog in a couple of days.

what i was hoping to do was impress on the writer the importance of a great grinder as well as a great espresso machine. and i wanted to show him a range of cult espressos, as well as talk with him about the beauties of coffee appreciation.

i mean, i even dragged out lingle's cupping book, as well as a coffeekids brochure. the poor man was overwhelmed, but hopefully educated in my brooklyn kitchen. i mean, we even showed him a zach & dani!

with so many machines, we had to invade the dining room; my travertine marble dining table seats 8, but was completely filled with machines and equipment.

i love these kinds of coffee parties, and i hope we scaa members, pro and consumer, can work together more often to bring our message to the broader public.

when everyone left, i had to stare at the ruins: the water in the hallways, the grounds between the wooden floorboards, the many cups of all sizes completely coated with syrupy espresso. . . .

my husband looked around, with a glum expression. then he smiled, and handed me the vacuum cleaner.

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