Crema de la Crema: an espresso blog

Rituals. You have your japanese tea ceremonies. I have my daily morning coffee ritual.

First thing when I wake up,

1)  Turn on the Gaggia Espresso machine.

2)  Set my Bodum Pavina glass under the portafilter.

3)  Wash up.

4)  20 minutes pass and my machine’s all heated up. I run through 3 shots of water. This takes approximately 5 minutes. Both portafilter and glass are heated up this way.

5)  After the green ready light goes off, meaning the boiler starts up, I select my choice of coffee, set my grinder and measure out 20 grams into the grinder. Start grinder.

6)  By the time the grinder stops, the green ready light will turn on, signifying the correct brewing temperature has been reached.

7)  Unlock the portafilter, and wipe it clean and dry. Careful, it’s hot!

8)  Dose the portafilter. Tap the portafilter and dose again until the grinder’s empty.

9)  Level the grounds in the portafilter. Almost none of the grounds get wasted most of the time.

10) With a pressure of 35 lbs, the tamping begins. I tamp with a clockwise downwards screwing motion, and adjust the portafilter with the handle pointing at 8 o’ clock once, and at 5 o’ clock once. I ensure that the tamper/portafilter is level before locking it into the grouphead.

11) I turn on the water for a little bit to get rid of steam. No PID here.

12) Portafilter locked and loaded! Discard the water in the glass and set it under the portafilter. Turn on the flow. Start the clock.

13) I time it so I won’t exceed the 25 second mark, all the while watching the colour and noting the speed of the flow from the naked portafilter. Time overrides colour. Speed of the flow (size of the funnel) will determine my 2nd shot’s grinder setting.

14) Nothing like a nice tiger-striped chocolate coloured coffeespout (as opposed to waterspout) to greet you in the morning. The beauty of a naked portafilter. You lemmings drinking $tarbuck$ don’t know what you are missing. And the Pavina is a work of art too. End the flow when it looks right, remove the glass.

15) Espresso without crema won’t look nor taste right. Down your glass of guinness, and prep for next shot. Problem with the Gaggia Espresso is it doesn’t have a 3 way valve, so I have to wait a few minutes, and ease the portafilter slowly to not have coffee splattered across the wall. The Gaggia Sneeze!

I had a mini meetup at Kai Seng’s yesterday. When asked pointblank why he shouldn’t be hosting the next meetup, he replied that his place was too small. Oh PUH-LEEZE! All that concerns the CGSG in me is the company and the coffee. Of course, the only other major factor would be GOOD coffee. And Kai Seng’s HX machine is way better than my Gaggia, which I subjected many of the CGSGers to when I hosted the 2nd meetup. It was pure torture. I’m sorry. The ones who didn’t make the 2nd meetup were spared luckily. Hmmm…  maybe that’s why Steve declined to turn up, after having tasted the swill from my machine a few days earlier when he helped me diagnose its faults.

We pulled the KS blend, which was so endearing it followed me to work later on the day. Endearing because it had this wonderful lingering fragrance. I wonder if it’s the Ethiopian Idido Misty Valley. Wonderful, you must try KS’s blend. He blended 4 different coffees into it. WOW!

I pulled my Zambia Malabar blend. He tried some and said it was one-dimensional. I tried some, and to me it wasn’t. I’m so used to the crappy swill that comes out of my equally crappy machine, that when it comes to pulling the same from fellow CGSGers’ high end machines, I basically can taste the BIIG differences in the coffee.

As for Kai Seng’s remark about his small place, it’s unwarranted. He probably just doesn’t want us to raid his coffee collection. (Just kidding. KS.) He offered to let me take some beans home. What a guy! Tell me why KS shouldn’t be hosting the next meetup. :)    ;)  KS Blend over Highlander blend anytime, anyday.

2 things that came up yesterday:

I suggested that we should try and design a logo for CGSG and make some cotton drawstring bags with the logo. Wouldn’t that be neat? I know everyone in the group should need cotton bags to age or store their coffee. After all, Singapore is the place to age coffee. We have the right humidity and temperature working for us in Singapore.

KS suggested going over to Keith’s restaurants during a less busy day/time to try some of his brew after I harped to him about Keith’s espressoes. I’ll be arranging this for the next next meetup after the Highlander’s and KS’s (if there is one).

I’m roasting the world’s best coffee beans and I was so excited I forgot to time the roast. I stopped the roast at the verge of 2nd crack. I should’ve stopped it before hitting 2nd crack. You know, after roasting espresso roasts most of the time, you just have a knack of stopping it at or after 2nd crack. I’m not used to roasting medium roasts.

As I opened the bag after 2 days’ rest, this familiar chocolate hazelnut fragrance hits me.  Hmmm…  Vivace Dolce a blend of Gesha and  Monsooned Malabar??  This would really explain why Espresso Vivace puts like 95% monsooned beans in their blend.

I know I know. I should be french pressing this, but I couldn’t resist the ease of the aeropress. So, here’s my first Gesha aeropresso.

I did not use the aeropress scoop, I dosed my usual 20 grams (my daily dose in the triple basket.) I would think the aeropress scoop, which is about 1 1/4 times more than a normal scoop would be overkill. This coffee is just super fragrant, and I don’t wish to overload my senses.

Here goes… Hints of chocolate, smells of hazelnut, tastes very tea-like, smooth. Methinks it would be better if I try an americano next. Why oh why am I not making a french press? Because my french press looks really crudded up, and I don’t want to mix in freaking expensive to high hell coffee with jurassic crud in the french press.

I even cleared out the grinder in between grinds. Nothing must mess this ritual up. OK now, on to my next. It’s ok. One thing there is to note about drinking your own roasted coffee is never ever overextract your coffee just because it costs as high as US$130 a pound. It’s ok. 25 seconds or 2.5 ounces of water later and you dump the 20 gram puck. IT’S OK. 25 seconds or less. I’ll try for a americano ristretto this time, did I get that right, a restricted americano. IT’S OKAY.

MDF set at 3. This is not malabar. Malabar’s cool at 2. DO NOT OVEREXTRACT. Whoa. Good tiger-striping.  Ok, I see white and off the flow now. Oh wait, there’s still crema leaking into the drip tray. NOOOOOOO…… The drip tray gods must be happy today. Please bless me with good sales at work today so that I may continue to feed good coffee into thine drip tray.

I just couldn’t resist. Gesha espresso, especially with quite a bit of crema, though not as much as malabar vivace. Oooo. It’s like drinking unadulterated perfume. Spill some on me. Cheaper per ounce than Chanel. OK, americano here we go.

OH DRIP TRAY GODS! If I thought the aeropresso was EDT, this americano is like drinking perfume, despite diluting it with water 2:1. Imagine if I were to bring this over to Steve’s or Kai Seng’s, OMG! This is Yirgacheffe multiplied 20 times! I can’t even begin to describe the fragrance to you. You just have to dump your Apple shares and buy this Gesha. (One AAPL share = one pound of Gesha)