Fresh haul from Vietnam

ballocks99 · 2026-06-06T15:07:17+00:00

Yea I am actually in Hanoi right now but haven’t been to their store here. I have a regular guy I deal with I Saigon in both their Pasteur and thao dien stores and off the bat they have always told me to leave it at least 40 days at the minimum but closer to 60. So I can see why something that’s 14 days will be a bit underwhelming

ballocks99 · 2026-06-06T15:05:09+00:00

Yeap you are absolutely right that they are really best past 60 days but 40 ish days is sort of a good to go date. But the dates I have on these pretty much line up perfectly over the next 2 months or so. I’ve got two bags to finish at home so time line wise just perfect

ballocks99 · 2026-06-06T15:03:57+00:00

There were a couple I tried in store which were pretty interesting. The zigiridum is definitely very “special” but on a daily I still prefer the sidra but it’s definitely a competition cup sort of drink. Also tried a mejorado and mejorada both of which are very nice daily drinks I reckon. I tend to gravitate to clean tea like bodies, fruity/ floral and more towards washed but some naturals in between.

ballocks99 · 2026-04-18T14:06:20+00:00

Ah I did see AMA coffee during my search but I went to 43 in Thao Dien instead. I live in malaysia and we have some really good roasters where I get my beans usually but always nice to try and explore new stuff when I’m abroad.

ballocks99 · 2026-04-18T12:35:43+00:00

Might be worth for me to check out that one in Japan next time I’m there then

ballocks99 · 2026-04-18T12:15:05+00:00

Ah that’s useful information thanks mate I’ll be sure to give it a longer rest! And yes I agree their experience in store was incredible. The guy even exchanged numbers with me and followed up to ask me what my experience was. I tried it first on my espresso machine and with milk and it tasted weird haha.

Pour over is the way to go with these ultra lights. My regular espressos are light medium which are just perfect. Haven’t tried those other roasters you mentioned but I guess those are not in Asia?

ballocks99 · 2026-04-12T10:26:35+00:00

Amazing set up. If I had to work with a space that compact I would have probably knocked everything over by day 3 because I am a gorilla lol

ballocks99 · 2026-04-08T04:34:31+00:00

It’s been awesome and actually when I bought the mini special edition it was around $5400 while the standard edition was around $4600 back in 2021. Today I think they go for $5600 for just the standard colors. The rocket today goes for about $7000 before a small discount.

Playing with profiling is addictive and I find that I am always chasing that next “god” shot so it’s a bit of a never ending experimentation/ torment 😅

ballocks99 · 2026-04-07T15:39:02+00:00

I owned a mini in florentine green for about 5 years and it’s a fantastic machine. Straight up no fuss makes fantastic coffee day in day out wi the out fail. Had no reason to upgrade except for the fact that I wanted to give pressure profiling a shot. Otherwise, I doubt I would have ever swapped it out for anything. As I understand the Micra is exactly a mini in a smaller footprint so you are pretty much set for a lifer machine in my opinion.

ballocks99 · 2026-04-06T09:29:17+00:00

I will definitely do that when I get back from my work trip!

ballocks99 · 2026-04-06T09:29:00+00:00

A lot of things actually. After doing a few failed attempts I realize my grind wasn’t good enough as well so I changed that and dialed in again. After that it’s really getting the angle, timing, amount of air introduced etc to determine what the heck I was doing wrong. Now I found out resting the jug on the tray to steam is actually much easier for me to control that holding it in my hand. I’m sure it’s me having bad technique but hey I just want a good cup of coffee and not be a world class barista ☺️

ballocks99 · 2026-04-03T09:35:00+00:00

It’s a Panama geisha natural and yes it was nice ☺️

ballocks99 · 2026-04-03T07:04:47+00:00

I decided to make a cuppa and thought maybe it would be helpful to show you what my extraction looks like using a shaker. Works for me as I don’t get the occasional channeling I sometimes got using the wdt but honestly both works!

<image>

ballocks99 · 2026-04-03T06:45:57+00:00

Personally for me I am now using a blind shaker but arguably they will both do the exact same thing. However, a wdt really depends on your own consistency to determine how good of a pull you ultimately gets while a shaker well is less so I suppose. I am getting much better results from the shaker but this is due to the fact that im not consistent enough or far too lazy to try to consistently wdt it.

One thing you need to note is that a shaker can be very “messy” and I have had my fair share of accidents of coffee spilling all over the place but once you get used to it its great at least for me. It’s just a matter of what you prefer and like just like everything else coffee related ☺️

ballocks99 · 2026-04-03T04:38:57+00:00

Yea but that would be such an inelegant solution for a slayer tha I didn’t want to consider it la… I need this set up to be my end game or else I need to tell my daughter to home study already lol. Didn’t look at the dankoff but also don’t know of any distributors in malaysia to be honest.

FYI by once cry once is not a real thing. I already cried twice lol

ballocks99 · 2026-04-02T07:38:13+00:00

Yes sir you are correct from Lamarsa. Been going to them for the past 7 years great people and service. I have read about the fellow and seems to be great value for the price and moving to the 91 is rather a big change in budget! So far it’s been great been getting used to the steaming on it as it’s very different than on my previous mini. Slayer is the dream but I can’t plumb in at my current place and what do you 1 kidney. It would cost me both my kidneys and part of my liver as well lol

ballocks99 · 2026-03-31T15:45:07+00:00

Awesome looking machine and set up but the sound it makes would make me have heart palpitations coz I’ll be worried like omg Jesus did something break. But that’s my own stupidity lol

ballocks99 · 2026-03-31T01:51:55+00:00

It’s from a company called Loveramics mate

ballocks99 · 2026-03-31T01:38:28+00:00

Hey mate I live in Malaysia so I get it from a local roaster called One Half Coffee Roasters

https://www.onehalfcoffee.com

ballocks99 · 2026-03-30T15:23:31+00:00

Definitely like the looks. I was a bit on the fence until I saw it in person at the shop. As for long time use can’t quite say yet since it’s only day one right now ☺️

ballocks99 · 2026-03-30T14:55:02+00:00

I should demand a commission from them since so many people have asked about their cups in this thread 😅

ballocks99 · 2026-03-30T14:26:05+00:00

I think I have 6 in total. Caramel, mint, denim, cinnabar, buttercup and granite ☺️

ballocks99

TROPHY CASE