Brett H wrote:
Nicely played Dr Pat! Before KK tells me to stay on topic what's the initial feedback from staff?
well... It was just me and Mich on the tools yesterday, (Michelle is my manager and head barista), and she's used the same machine before at Degraves Espresso It was a bit of a steep learning curve for me at least at first - in terms of functionality we set the machine up with similar presets to what we've been working with, but frustratingly, if the groups havent been used for a while they tend to underextract quite badly, unless you do a considerable purge I spoke to the tech about this today and its something which is not supposed to happen and in theory can be fixed, so we'll be all over that on Monday Also the steam takes some getting used to, as with lots of curves in the steam wand, moisture tends to gather, and a good purge is required before each extraction, otherwise that added moisture ends up in your milk, diluting it and making it less creamy but the foot pedal is great to use for steam on demand and it frees your hands up to do other things as well, and its great for show as I tell my customers that the machine runs on voice prompts and that it only responds to a kiwi accent, and that it loves St Kilda, but not Collingwood, as demonstrated by a lack of resolve to do anything when the C word is mentioned... but onto the coffee... its a really interesting machine to work with, not the least of all because, although the groups are at the 'usual' height, the rest of the machine is chopped down, featuring a very low profile, and this combined with the exposed groups, means that the feel of the machine is very accessible, and hands on: you are meant to get in there and to interact with it and even though its a shiny beast with lots of linea edges, the coffee it produces feels very 'soft' I dont really know how to quantify this except to say that the water softness with the amazing filtration system really makes more of a difference than I would've otherwise anticipated, and the slow-ramp (line pressure?) pre-infusion in the groups means that its a good 10sec plus before each extraction starts to pour, and when it does it comes out at a slow, measured trickle building to a more continuous and 'solid' pour and the first thing that you notice is that the coffee is a lot redder (more red!) than what I'm used to - even more so if you're using a single origin Costa Rica, or Equador coffee, as I did yesterday - but also with our blend which has a fair smack of El Salvador in it... And the hot water tap has a cold mixer put through it - I'm not sure if its adjustable or not but the water that comes out is perfect for long black coffees, and for making tea, but its just a tad too cool for preheating the cups, for my liking also the switch for the water tap is just a single tactile push button on the far right of the machine, which acts as an on / off button - so you have to control the volume of the pour each time, which can slow you down a bit (but not as much as I thought it would) - but it does require added concentration and focus, when I'm used to having three programable buttons for my hot water tap: one for preheats, one for long blacks, and one for tea but its the shot quality which is the main thing that I'm excited about - you dont expect it to be exponentially better than what you're used to working with - but it is in intangible ways its not something which you stop and thing about too much, and I dont intend to, except to say when you try the coffee that the machine, in conjunction with the operator, produces, you're (hopefully!), forced to stop and take notice I had about six coffees from the machine yesterday ranging from half lattes (same amount of coffee with half the usual amount of milk), to espresso and long black With the Costa Rica Farami Geisha (which I bought retail from Proud Mary for $112 for a kg!) - the flavours were unbelievable - its like a strawberry and chocolate fruit bomb exploded in your face! Both an espresso and a long black of the above provided pronounced fruit flavours combined with balanced acidity, and a silky and complex mouthfeel, which sounds like BS, I know, but they're flavours which make you stand up and take notice, and the same can be said to having an espresso of our Thursday's Child, house blend In short the machine is capable of producing exceptional coffee, the quality of which is tangibly an improvement on what I've been used to working with (which I already thought was pretty good) - so I'm hoping if it grabs my attention to this extent, then I'm not going to be the only one to notice Had a coffee aficionado yesterday describe his long black of the geisha yesterday as possibly the best coffee he's ever had, and he's had the same coffee elsewhere, so that's pretty high praise I reckon!
