Beto

The best, most comprehensive book I've seen to date on coffee has to be "The Book of Coffee and Tea" by Joel, Karl, and David Schapira.

Whenever I set up for an event, I always take my Bunn pourover brewer. I've found it to be perfectly adequate, yet not too expensive nor unwieldy to work with. I have the CW15APS model.

Here's a set of Pantone cups that I have:

Find a good local roaster and buy just enough to last you a week. Where are you located?

The roasted corn tea is called ok-susu cha. Ginseng tea is quite popular in Korea also.

One thing to consider when making press pot coffee in such great quantities is that the sediment will build up on you. Especially when poured into thermoses and left to settle, the bottom will be total sludge. If you have an old drip brewer laying about, it might be possible to use the funnel as you would a Melitta-style one cup brewer, only directly into the thermos. Or you could just use this.

If you're near Philly, you might want to give Chestnut Hill Coffee a try. They are serious about good coffee.

Barrett knows of what he speaks. Another decent grinder in the ~$100 range is the Capresso Infinity. I truly haven't seen a burr grinder in the $50 range that was worth anything.

Great... just great. Not only is this show NOT airing in the U.S., but the freakin' FoodTV.ca website won't let me see a preview of it 'cause I'm not in Canada!

Why don't you give Hopson Coffee a call? They are located in Houston.

I can save them cab fare. Right across the street from the convention center is Corduroy. This gem of a restaurant is arguably one of the best that DC has to offer. But don't take my word for it, see what the folks here have to say about it. Tom Sietsema, of the Washington Post recently reviewed Corduroy.

Actually, barista is either masculine or feminine. Thus: il barista ("the barman") and la barista ("the barwoman"). Le bariste would properly describe a group of barpeople that is comprised exclusively of women, whereas i baristi would describe a group of barpeople that includes at least one man. It's worthy of pointing out that none of these words refers exclusively to people who work at a coffee shop and/or operate expresso machines. The guy shaking your Daiquiri is a barista, too. ← I should just stick to Spanish.

In Italian, barista is masculine, bariste is feminine, and baristi is the plural form.

I was just about to post a thread then saw this... Any ideas on which are best? I bought one from Whittard's but it consistently produced terrible coffee (however it was the large model). My parents had one from a few decades back which was very good, but we lost the filter If there's something on Amazon.co.uk or equivalent that delivers coffee with thick crema and full aroma without tasting like molten rubber, please let me know! (PM or this thread or both) ← It may be the coffee that you are using. Robusta coffee has the distinct smell and taste of burned rubber.

It kind of felt like an hour-long commercial for the BMW X6. Any more product placement and we might as well be watching reruns of "The Restaurant!"

Controversy was stirred up in Spanish gastronomic circles when Santi Santamaria, himself a 3 Michelin Star holder, criticized Ferran Adria of "unethical" cooking practices related to his extensive use of gelling and emulsification agents. Link to article.

Get one of these and you'll never regret it.

Around $10,000

Holy cow, is that how much they are charging?? I roast, grind, and french press my coffee too, but there is still that curiosity factor working... ← I don't think that those prices are the norm. I was charge ~$3 for my cuppa. Some of the top-placed Cup of Excellence coffees may cost in the $8 range, but they also cost well over $30/lb.

I've had coffee prepared on the Clover at Cafe Grumpy in NYC. It was a great cup. However, it was a great coffee to start with, prepared by someone who knew what they were doing. The Clover is a brewing device. No more, no less. Despite what some of the recent hype in the press has implied, it doesn't perform magic. Where I believe the Clover excels is in preparing coffee to order while giving the operator the ability to control many parameters. But without a good understanding of those parameters, the operator can just as easily screw up a great coffee.

The only decaf that I roast is processed by the Swiss Water method, and the surface of the bean is always darker and more oily than its full-caff counterpart. If you take a knife and slice one of beans in half, you might find that the inside is lighter in color than the surface. I really don't know what it is about the decaf process that causes the darkening and oiliness, but the beans are exposed to temperatures in excess of 175 deg, which to my mind, has to somewhat "cook" the coffee.

Bingo.

A fellow roaster of mine is in Houston: Hopson Coffee Bill's a quality-focused guy who has a nice selection of coffees.

According to this article, Fermin is the only company that can import jamón ibérico to the U.S.

I can wholeheartedly recommend Woodberry Kitchen.