Favourite Coffee

Good beans are the key. I use Brew-Ha beans, a local raoster/coffeeshop in Subiaco. Fortunately they sell their beans at a few delis around the place. I have a very coffee unsnobbish Saeco automatic. Makes coffee better than 90% of the coffeeshops around so I'm pretty happy. To take the unsnobbishness one step further I occasionally drink Nespresso coffee and that is better than 99% of the coffee shop coffee. I know pre-packed (expensive!) coffee pods is like a red rag to a caffeine hyped bull, but I have to admit that it works.
 
Definitely correct on the beans.

Also, spend decent money on the grinder. That can make more difference to the taste of the coffee than the machine you end up buying.
 
I love coffee.

Sadly I have been diagnosed with a caffiene intolerance and can no longer enjoy even a cup.

Which completely sucks because I have a De Longhi pod machine and a box 'o' pods sitting idle.

sigh.
 
JugV2 said:
I love coffee.

Sadly I have been diagnosed with a caffiene intolerance and can no longer enjoy even a cup.

Which completely sucks because I have a De Longhi pod machine and a box 'o' pods sitting idle.

sigh.
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That would suck big time!
 
It sure does. I now drink green tea.

Yay.

2
 
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eggbert said:
That's the dual boiler one isn't it? If it is, it looks like quite a piece of kit for that price.

I haven't read the coffeesnobs forums much recently, but that was getting some rave reviews about the time it got released.
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The breville 900 I was looking at is a dual boiler, (alway wanted one of them or nothing - vintage or new, doesn't matter - but I said to myself years ago if I was going to splash out it would be a dual boiler), but got pretty wary of anything in coffeesnobs forum, it's sponsored and a commercial endeavor so there's a financial interest by the owner on any views expressed, that's why I was searching other forums too.
But haven't pulled the trigger yet, you know that I like the research and learning part better than the part where i part with cash I don't have. Also what piqued my interest was your vintage machine, I had no luck so far, and got distracted on the breville 900 dual boiler by looking at vintage manual lever machines!

Jugs, sorry to hear about the green tea, it sucks. Seriously I tried black, green and white teas over the past few years, I couldn't do it, I'd rather have a cup of stock and pretend it's a soup. :blink:
 
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Mate at this stage I'm happy drinking Milo.

Green tea at work, Milo at home.

It is absolutely not by choice I avoid caffeine.
 
Pulled the trigger and bought a breville dual boiler last week, should arrive wednesday I think.
Now to research grinders. Might get a hand grinder, really considering it.

I did consider pricey electric grinders, but backup plan as I now feel poor is the sunbeam cafe (if really cheap), or breville smart grinder (if under $190).
I kept an eye out on ebay for ages for big name italian grinders second hand, but nothing came up, so I'm moving on from that line of thought.

Didn't shave today, so only non shaving related things to say!
I promise I will tomorrow lol.
 
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pablo_h said:
Pulled the trigger and bought a breville dual boiler last week, should arrive wednesday I think.
Now to research grinders. Might get a hand grinder, really considering it.

I did consider pricey electric grinders, but backup plan as I now feel poor is the sunbeam cafe (if really cheap), or breville smart grinder (if under $190).
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Nice! Congratulations on what looks to be a nice machine.

I lived with a hand grinder for quite a while (kyocera). They are ok, but not really up to the job of grinding consistently the same size and subsequently your espresso suffers for it. Under pressure (your 9 bar pump), the water will find the shortest route through the coffee grinds in the portafilter/ grouphandle* resulting in an uneven extraction, with often an over extracted taste as all of the water will follow the path of least resistance. This can be seen in channelling in the portafilter after you have made the coffee, and often (from memory) a wet puck.

However that isn't to say you can't get a decent grind out of a hand grinder, just that a bit more effort will have to go into it. By the way, handgrinding does get to be a bit of a chore after a while.

I may be slightly biased as I own one, but of the two cheap grinders you mention I would definitely recommend the smartgrinder over the sunbeam. The coarse grind teething issue of the first batch of smartgrinders has been fixed, and in the rare case you do still have an issue with the machine not being able to grind fine enough, shims are available from the aussie distributor for the cost of an email.

I picked mine up for $150 on special at Good Guys about a year ago, which was an amazing steal. I would say anything less than $200 is a good buy, and I think it would be streets ahead of the sunbeam offering.

I have recently moved house, and am yet to get into my shaving/coffee fu. Even my seedlings keep dying.
 
I'm looking for a machine at the moment.

At this stage, I want something like the Silvia - and there are a few on Fleabay with grinder & tray for about $600, although secondhand. Still, good enough for me.
 
That's what I started my search with, a silvia, happy to buy s/h too.
But coffee machines are normally pick up only, and none going for sale in Perth.
The other thing was many people with them seemed to think the temperature not quite right or consistant (italian electrics LOL), so they were buying digital thermostats (PID controllers) which was a few hundred for the kit and if you wanted a fancy box for it I think.
Couldn't find one s/h, and about $600 new, a few hundred more if you want a digital temp controller like the breville dual boiler had. So I caved in as I always wanted a dual boiler even if a vintage model.

But you'll probably have more of a chance of getting a s/h machine than I did, and I would have bought one if they were available s/h for under $400
 
Don't get me wrong, would love a dual boiler but I live in an apartment and there is not that much kitchen bench space. For me something which is petite but espresses a great shot is more important than anything else.

I used to work in an Italian Restaurant in my Uni days, and learnt my Barista skills from an older Italian gent. We roasted our own green beans onsite, and that was 1997-1998.
 
I got it delivered today!
RM it's only 390mm wide and 300mm deep, not that big.
I went to my old neighbourhood where I knew they sold decent coffee and bought some reserve limited release 5 senses beans (Colombia - Los Naranjos) that I bought because the roast date was 26/6.
Could not find a breville smart grinder though, no electrical shop in ozzie park stocks them.
But I've got some old manual grinder that I spent and hour grinding. Very consistant anf fine grind, problem was that it's hard to get the beans from the hopper to want to go down, so turning and turning in vain for beans to eventually get eaten up in the crusher. Even tried a drill on the handle. If it was more efficient at starting the grind I'd be happy with just that because the grind is good, but it's just dumb luck the beans end up in the grinder in the first place, so lots of wasted time turning the handle even with a drill, so my search for a grinder continues...

edit:

Oh, and I shaved with the horsey, tabac and the SE Micromatic clog pruf, drank some coopers and now I'm calling it a day!
:-)
 
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I am more of a fan of the Sunbeam EM480 grinder. Best one of the 'consumer' level that is widely available, BigW stock them! Decent quality, consistent grind.

Past that you are looking at Rancilio Rocky, which is double the price but you can spec with a doser which is nice.
 
We have the Sunbeam 6910 cafe series twin thermo machine and the 480 grinder.

I really feel like you have to spend a lot more money than this to get a noticable improvement.

My brother in law is a barista at an Italian shop that has a full house commercial machine ~$10k and he prefers texturing the milk on our little sunbeam.
 
Coffee.......now there's a way to drive one's self completely bonkers searching for the nivarna of grinds.

I roast my own from green using a coretto (fancy way of saying a home rig - using essentially a modded breadmachine for agitation and a heat gun for....well you know that bit). I highly recommend this to anyone who is passionate about their coffee....uber-simple and cheap. Very little downside to it and honestly its very easy to do if you follow a few basic concepts. Beats dropping $600+ on a home roaster that has all kinds of other problems.

Have done a bunch of home espresso machines.....haha I had a Nespresso right back when they first came out (over a decade ago!)...then did a Krups, several Breville and Sunbeam's.....culminated in a Rancilo Silvia.

Lovely machine but the cleaning and stuffing around for a single coffee did my head in......plus you had to drop the big $$$ for a Rocky or similar grinder etc......1/4 of my entire kitchen bench was gone!!!!

Took a shot and tried an Aeropress + a Kyocera handgrinder and liked it so much I sold the Silvia & Rocky. Added a coava disk......but then found that the Aeropress due to its design had some flaws (lots of the extracted oils get stuck in the grinds as they come out last due to the bottom extraction).

Hence I took all the very valuable info that the Aeropress use had taught me (proper grind size, proper water temp, relatively short steeping times) and applied these to use with a plunger/french press. Happy days......

90% of the flavour of an espresso machine but without the messing around etc. Now I REALLY miss my textured milk BUT I find this is the happy spot for my coffee needs at present. :-)

IMHO coffee prep shares some elements with wetshaving as the end results are not so much about the equipment you use but rather the technique applied. As plunger coffee is generally very looked down on.....why? Well because every Mum & Dad has a plunger and they absolutely murder the brew by making mistake after mistake in making it...hence it tastes like pig swill. But if you apply some really basic common sense to the making it gives very good results and all with a minimum of messing around, elec. used and also capital outlay......oh and next to no footprint in the kitchen. :-)
 
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The wife just went and got an (deLonghi) Nespresso. It's good.

We've had a Saeco fully automatic for about 8 years, but the coffee has become really Meh and not much above lukewarm. I'm not 'into' coffee and the ritual of making it, I just like a decent cup in the morning and the Nespressos fill that want. Perhaps the autos have limited life. All we know is the coffee has been thin and tasteless for a long time. I've tried different and stronger beans, but they all taste the same.

I sort of looked down on the Nespressos because of the POD thing, and didn't think they could be that good. But the coffee is, and they're really simple. The Saeco needed a service every year and went AWOL for 3 weeks, plunging us into plunger hell. How tastes change, plunger coffee used to be really good. But back then it was only competing with Nescafe gold blend. I'd rather go without coffee than drink instant.

Coffee people know all about the Nespresso, but basically there's about 16 pods of different strengths and flavour. They're about 70c ea? (haven't bought any yet still got the freebies). It's a bit more per cup than buying beans, but not much. I like the separate milk frother, just pour in, turn on, and pour on. The Saeco had to warm the steam, then be frothed and spouts cleaned out regularly. Plus if I was half asleep, no barista froth, just warm milk.
 
Nick has the right of it on the plunger. If you know what you are doing you can make good coffee.

I have NFI how to go about it but I have had some good cups at a blokes house who knows what to do.

My efforts are the usual brown dishwater :evil:
 
Nick the Knife said:
I roast my own from green using a coretto...

Took a shot and tried an Aeropress + a Kyocera handgrinder and liked it so much I sold the Silvia & Rocky. Added a coava disk......but then found that the Aeropress due to its design had some flaws (lots of the extracted oils get stuck in the grinds as they come out last due to the bottom extraction).

Hence I took all the very valuable info that the Aeropress use had taught me (proper grind size, proper water temp, relatively short steeping times) and applied these to use with a plunger/french press. Happy days......

90% of the flavour of an espresso machine but without the messing around etc. Now I REALLY miss my textured milk BUT I find this is the happy spot for my coffee needs at present. :-)
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I used to roast my own in a coretto, but am now living in an apartment, and can't really allow all that lovely chaff to float down over my neighbours gardens, so I am sitting on 7.5kg of green beans bought from coffeesnobs about a year ago. I will have to see if I can hit up one of my colleagues to borrow their garden in return for giving them some coffee.

I found aeropress and plunger give more of a syphon type flavour, and would prefer to use a stovetop if I didn't have my 1970s Bezerra Lever (see previous page for photos).

The major pain in the arse while I was using the aeropress was using the kyocera grinder. I just got to the stage where I couldn't be bothered to use it, so tailed off drinking coffee for a while.
I was still using that combo at work until one of my colleagues threw one of the aeropress components out by mistake 6 months ago.
 
I'm afraid I don't have a great respect for the pod machines themselves (let me stress as I try and explain below I have no issue with folks using them - but just the machines do irk me a tad, though I see their relative attraction). And alas my beloved Aldi's Expressi forade has really brought this dirty little concept to the masses.

The whole Pod coffee phenom is a really funny one as like I said they've been around for a LONG TIME but really struggled to get any market penetration at all. Then a few years back I noticed they were pushing them again and now with the MAP and Aldi machines they're very front and centre for Mr & Mrs Joe Average.

Now before folks think "What a coffeesnob/wanker!" (oops should I'm STILL TOO late? ;-) - let me say these are a great fit for a lot of people and deliver consistantly reasonable coffee to people with a minimum of fuss. Essentially they've targeted two crowds....those who would otherwise drink instant/similar and those who had entry level espresso machines but didn't like the stuffing around with them. For them it works and the vast majority of them think the results are fantastic.

By anyone's definition this is a good product for these consumer.

And my god, if the markups on coffee itself aren't good enough, I can only imagine the margin that the pod makers get on each pod - especially the legit Nespresso ones. So there's a reason why they try and sell the machines relatively lowly priced - same as the games console methodology (make a loss on the console but big $$$ on the games).

All this said the real grudge I have against them is their terrible packaging waste....dunno if any of them are using 100% biodegradable materials for their pods but this use and discard type product is kinda a shame in 2012.

Haha coffee and hifi are funny areas where you really can get uber-snobby about things (as well as spending an obscene amount of coin chasing a mythical BEST result) ...I guess there's a few more areas like this, but I find them quite fascinating - as long as you can know when you've reached the 'sweet spot' for yourself. :-)
 
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