Wake Up and Coffee
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@don_pipone @Tago-Mago and I just drank mine. Sorry!
“His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.“
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@ARNC it‘s always the right time for another one
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@don_pipone it’s coming along — definitely a bit of a learning curve with it, for sure. So far I’ve been able to pull decent-ish shots, but there’s a ways to go.
The biggest thing has been dialing the grind size and getting the pressure right. The shots I’ve been pulling haven’t had enough resistance, so they’ve come out really sour. I need to keep moving a click or two down until it works out. Obv temp affects this too, so I need to figure that out.
What’s hilarious is how much stuff online varies. One early suggestion was that I use 5 clicks on the Comandante (this is before I got the Red Clix upgrade), and I friggin swear I was grinding the beans for 10 minutes haha. I was like “shit I made a mistake by buying this thing — I’m not gonna be able to do this every day.” Once I tried to pull the shot with a grind that fine though, seeing that the arms on the Robot were literally immovable, I realized I needed to go a lot coarser. Things got better after that
All in all I’m really digging it though. It’s great how fast it is, really just takes a couple minutes for the kettle to heat up and for me to grind the beans, cleanup is basically nothing, and I don’t have to worry about some thing that cost a couple thousand bucks getting ruined by the wrong water or whatever (one big thing that gave me pause about buying an espresso machine, though I’d love to have one someday).
Lastly, I do think I’m gonna get a J Ultra grinder and save the Comandante for pour over.
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@popvulture Great read. Honestly, all the experimenting and dialing things in at the beginning is one of the most fun parts of getting into espresso. Sounds like you made the perfect choice with the machine and are enjoying the process - and hopefully many many cups from now on.
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@Cymro said in Wake Up and Coffee:
How do you like the new Paragon setup @Chap ?
Received it yesterday and did only two brews yet. Will have to make some adjustments and get used to it. I used the same coffee I had in my prior rotation. What I can say for the moment is that the result seemed to have a more precise taste, the brew is very clean and clear. Handling needs more attention.
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@Chap thank you, have fun experimenting!
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@ARNC sooo surprised to see bolivian coffee make it to fellow IH-forummites cups!
Caranavi is our TOP quality coffee region. If I ever make it to an IH meet where you show up I’ll take some local buys for you.
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@motojobobo thanks! I’ve never seen Bolivian coffee in the UK before, but the write up from my usual coffee merchant was intriguing. It sounds like the grower and his family are involved in supporting the wider industry in Bolivia and developed the coco natural process in house. In case you’re interested, here’s an extract:
“ Pedro Rodriguez runs his farms with his daughter Daniela, and son Pablo under their company ‘Agricafe’. Their business is committed to preserving Bolivia’s coffee production, which had been in decline for the last couple of decades. Yields were falling due to outdated farming practices, lack of government support, as well as a wave of Coffee Leaf Rust disease in 2008 which devastated much of Latin America’s coffee farms. Many farmers opted to stop growing coffee in favour of other crops. Concerned that Bolivian coffee production would cease altogether, Pedro started cultivating coffee on his own plantation in 2012. Later, the Rodriguez family created their ‘Sol de la Mañana’ programme, which helped other farms learn and adopt better farming techniques such as pruning, cherry picking and fertilizing. Their La Llama farm is their highest-altitude farm, named as a homage to a llama they encountered when they first looked to purchase the land.”
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