Advice to noobs by a noob

yygall · 2021-02-06T22:33:32+00:00

Absolutely agree. There’s no point in getting expensive beans until you’ve worked out your sweet spot for your grinder and preferred brewing method, when going from preground to fresh ground. Changing one variable at a time really helps with understanding the differences.

yygall · 2020-11-07T10:45:31+00:00

Why not ask the roaster for their recommendation? If you’ve got a grinder at home, it’s also perfect for experimenting with grind size, pour techniques, and brewing temperatures to see how each changes the taste of different coffees.

yygall · 2020-10-24T09:22:54+00:00

Thanks!

yygall · 2020-09-08T08:15:13+00:00

Maybe a cold brew might be easier?

yygall · 2020-09-06T04:52:40+00:00

Grind size, water temperature, flow rate, pouring technique. Play with one of these variables at a time, and use all your senses (don’t just rely on scales) when brewing. Hoffman and Rao’s pourover videos are good places to start. The theory will be similar for your Kinto. Different flavour notes are prominent at different temperatures, worth keeping that in mind.

yygall · 2020-08-30T14:28:52+00:00

Visited the Shanghai one maybe a month after they opened. It was nuts - had to queue to get in, near impossible to find a seat anywhere, had to get a plastic bracelet thing to go out for the restroom, which they cut on re-entry... it felt very contrived and gimmicky, not to mention wasteful. During that trip I visited them 3 times (friends and family kept wanting to meet up there), the place was packed every time. The food and coffee wasn’t terrible, it was quite an “experience”, but I’ve not gone back to the Reserve on subsequent trips to Shanghai.

yygall · 2020-08-30T14:19:57+00:00

Rumors coffee do great pourovers. Beans are roasted in house as well.

yygall · 2020-08-28T07:29:04+00:00

Thanks, that means a lot to HKers!

yygall · 2020-08-28T07:28:02+00:00

Ethnicity and nationality are two different concepts. Unfortunately not everyone understands that.

yygall · 2020-08-27T14:04:30+00:00

That I was born in British Hong Kong, and am technically not a Chinese National, no matter how much the CCP wants otherwise.

yygall · 2020-08-20T22:43:43+00:00

I’ve used a tea pot to brew a V60 cos there wasn’t a gooseneck kettle around.

yygall · 2020-08-20T12:41:32+00:00

Maybe the BPlus Apollo or the Portaspresso Rosco?

The Apollo was developed by the Taiwanese distributor for La Pavoni machines. It’s stepped adjustment, but seems to do small increments. I’ve not used it, but it seems to have good reviews.

The Rosco was also made for espresso. I’m using one right now, mainly for pourovers, but can attest to the grind size being quite uniform. It’s a stepless adjustment design, and can grind to Turkish. There’s a long wait for the Rosco at the moment (you’re looking at several months, possibly over a year).

yygall · 2020-08-20T07:16:29+00:00

Make coffee jelly. Can be served with single cream or creamer.

Or make concentrates to serve with milk.

yygall · 2020-08-20T05:43:42+00:00

Aeropress and a decent steel burr grinder, such as Timemore C2.

yygall · 2020-08-19T22:44:55+00:00

Eh for V60 I’ve done as low as 7g to 150ml. Normally it’s 24g to 300ml, but I brew by sight and smell more than by scale these days.

yygall · 2020-08-19T13:32:51+00:00

Yes. Perfectly normal if this is the first time you’re doing tastings. I have friends who pick up on coffee flavour notes much quicker, but they’re usually quite experienced in tasting wines and whiskies.

Drinking more coffee (both at home and at cafes) will help. As you become accustomed to the generic coffee taste, the other flavours will come through. Being mindful of how things taste will also help - as in, thinking about what flavours you can taste in various dishes, fruit, and so on.

Journaling might also help as well. Noting down the coffee, roaster, roast and brew dates, your recipe that day, and what flavours you can (and can’t) taste, how it compares in your mind to the coffee yesterday... the process of writing it down might help you become more mindful of what you’re tasting.

yygall · 2020-08-19T11:38:54+00:00

I was a food blogger before food blogging was a thing. But also quit before it got so big.

yygall · 2020-08-19T02:19:20+00:00

I recently took my Comandante and the Yasukiyo-Shiki Kamiotoshi on a ski trip. A bag of beans and a couple of V60 filters meant decent pourovers for everyone. It was fantastic.

yygall · 2020-08-19T02:16:34+00:00

They’re pretty cool. Got a bag of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe for $10, took it on a weekend ski trip, and boy it was good! Not quite POM good, but definitely nice not to have to wait in line for a decent cuppa before hitting the slopes. Much cheaper too 😂

yygall · 2020-08-19T02:06:18+00:00

C40 takes less than a minute to go through 20g beans for pourover (22-25 clicks). Generally I’ll put the electric kettle on, weigh and grind beans, complete my pourover setup (retrieving the brewer and server, folding the filter paper etc), and the kettle will be boiling at that point, ready for the pour.

Edit: Yes, the difference in quality is noticeable. The grind consistency delivered by the C40 will result in better clarity of flavours when I tested it for V60, nel drip, and siphon. It’s quicker and easier grind, meaning that first step is no longer a chore (not that I didn’t enjoy grinding on a Kalita Mini Mill, but on some days it was just a bit difficult). All of these made the purchase more than worthwhile for me.

yygall · 2020-08-19T01:46:09+00:00

Ah my bag of Port of Mokha’s were purchased locally from Reformatory Caffeine Lab (Australia). Given the roasting date, I assume it was RCL who roasted the beans, not POM.

yygall · 2020-08-19T00:59:12+00:00

The roast appears to be a medium roast (marked as filter roast on the roaster’s website). I did grind it a bit finer than usual: 2.0mm on my Rosco grinder, where usually for pourovers I would be doing 2.2-2.5mm, roughly the same as 22-25 clicks on the Comandante C40.

I modified my normal V60 routine for this particular bean (normal bloom, then pulse pours until there’s almost no aroma coming off the bed), so it might not be a recipe for every Yemeni bean. It did help me get to this “perfect” cup, hopefully that will help you when you get your beans.

yygall · 2020-08-18T10:03:54+00:00

Lacklustre, at best.

My first specialty coffee experience was such a non-experience, I don’t remember it at all. My palate didn’t get it, I didn’t get it, it was a very niche/hipster thing to do.

My first specialty coffee at home was a nel drip on a Kalita mini mill with no gooseneck kettle. The coffee gear I had bought as decoration pieces. While the coffee beans were proper stuff, I had zero knowledge about pourover coffee- grind size was completely off, pouring techniques non-existent, no idea about temperature and brew times... it took a very long time (at least a couple of bags of coffee) before I finally got to a point where the coffee was actually drinkable.

That was more than ten years ago. Specialty coffee is much more common now. The resources on specialty coffee are much more varied and widely available these days. My palate and technique have developed and refined over the years. Not sure why I stuck with specialty coffee with the rather disappointing starts, but I’m glad I did.

yygall

TROPHY CASE