kingseven

I love my Zass, I just have that and a small Chemex at home. It seems to hold the grind very well, and the grind profile seems great as well - not too many fines.

this isn't really the traditional cappuccino ratio - just something of a well propagated myth. Most Italian cappuccinos are around 5 or 6 fluid ounces with only 1 fl oz of espresso. What they have worked out is not only how to put a decent shot in the bottom, but how to get the best out of the milk (keeping the temp below 70C) and how to achieve a suitable texture (they use the wand to add most of the air to the milk only at the start of the process). They are more discerning, some speculate, due to having a cafe culture - cafes being where most of the social hours are spent therefore competition is based on quality of beverage, not necessarily price. Its a big ole topic and I have a feeling I've left half of the relevant info out but I am at work and probably shouldnt be writing huge posts...

I know Schomer's writings quite well. What amazed me was how different his coffee tasted to what I expected - I had one from him at the SCAA show in Seattle. (intriguing bit of scandal going on in the SCAA, no?) Its amazing just how many people have never tasted real coffee, frightening. Not even just espresso but a good cup of single estate, freshly roasted, freshly ground coffee. I have a book called "Coffee" by Claudia Roden that has a lovely opening passage about how delighted she is that people are starting to buy coffee from microroasters, are grinding at home and how the tide may final be turning away from instant coffee. The amusing/amazing thing is that it was published in 1976! How things change....

Without a doubt a well made espresso, full of naturals and the like will have a wonderful sweetness to it. However for me putting sugar in coffee is not bastardising it. I drink espresso every day repeatedly as its part of my job. I don't put any sugar in it because most of the time I drink it to diagnose it, not to enjoy it. If someone likes sugar in their coffee then there is nothing wrong with that. We all taste things differently. Flavour preference and the like is too complex, certainly with something like coffee, to be dicatative about. As a small aside coffee will never taste quite like its smells as many of the flavour components of coffee are non-volatiles.

I've seen people find it too hard to push easily, then apply massive force and then "boom" coffee everywhere. It takes a special kind of someone.

There is a manufacturer doing the lift as opposed to press thing: La Cafetiere Tirra As for the finer mesh - the concern with a press pot is that the mesh gets jammed meaning you have to press harder until you have sufficient force to overcome the blockage. This will usually lead to a bit of an explosion of very hot coffee all over you. Which these days equals lawsuit. The grind of your coffee is very important, not only to prevent problems with the mesh, but also for the flavour profile of the drink. You need to be using a burr grinder really. Blade grinders not only pulverise the coffee into useless fragments but they alse generate what can only be described as coffee dust which will clog filters, espresso machines and anything it can. Annoying stuff. Personally all blade grinders are good for is breadcrumbs. As for the perfect press pot - some better visual guidelines for people so they actually put enough coffee in. I can't stand it when people waste a great coffee by making it far too weak (having ground it too fine or too poorly).

When doing a great deal of tasting do any of you have any tips or tricks for refreshing your palate when you have a great deal of wine to taste. Water just doesn't do it for me. What do you eat/drink/chew/swill?

From my time in Italy and from my experience working for Italians there is no hard and fast rule about sugar. Whatever is to hand is usually about it. From my point of view taste has to be your only guide. There are so many different sugar products, some genuine some awful. I rarely use sugar (though I put far too much in tea!) but sometimes i will use a little Xylitol (its the same sweetness rating as sugar, but actually fights cavities - its the stuff they use in all those candies that claim they are good for the teeth.) I enjoy my coffee too much to use sugar which tends to mask tastes. Well textured and properly heated milk foam has that extra sweetness so I never really need it in a good milk drink. If the coffee is bad, for me, there is nothing even a pound of sugar can do for it.