Too Much Coffee

Do we put too much emphasis on roasting?
Personally, I like it the way it is.
But it seems to me that others are more into hardware. You know, the best grinder, the best espressomaschine with the most gadgets, etc.
CG distributes the postings quite wide among the topics.
In www.kaffee-netz.de roasting is nearly a non-issue. There was a poll recently, about how much each spends on 250gr of coffee. 52% were in the Euro 3,10-5,00 bracket, 44% in the 5,10-8,00 Euro one, so the quest for quality is obviously there. But try to raise a discussion about or only mention home-roasting and everything is silence.
Typically german, or are there other national foren (correct plural?) with a similar character?

Well if you want my opinion (and you did ask ) then we all do our different things. We're not a CoffeeGeek clone, and in fact we much prefer not to be compared to them (as if we could be anyway ).

This site is about coffee. We all love coffee.

We don't spend a huge amount of time yakking about hardware. If we've got something to say we say it, but frankly for a hardware reviews CG is a very good source indeed and unless certain information is specific to Europe or someone has an interesting experience to relate then I don't see a huge point in us going mad doing "me too" hardware reviews.

I dunno, maybe it's a national characteristic but you've seen for yourself how roasting your own coffee is the best route to the widest range of the most interesting coffee tastes. I like the way we do lots about coffee (and thereby roasting).

Of course that's just me. What do other people think?

Interesting question Moccafaux. BTW, most people would say forums although I have the sneaking suspicion that pedants would say fora. Then again languages are ultimately defined by usage.

I dont think that theres too much about roasting here. If anything it was one of the things that attracted me to the site. I've browsed several forums over the last year or so and never found any of them who really cover home roasting, so I think we are unique in this respect. I was never really a fan of CG there seems to be a very wide spread of topics to post in, and I could never get too far in before the boss starts to come around the office to chat. If we were to do reviews, we could do a home roasting thing from £10 to £500 to show it doesn't cost the earth to get good results.

phil wrote:We don't spend a huge amount of time yakking about hardware. If we've got something to say we say it, but frankly for a hardware reviews CG is a very good source indeed and unless certain information is specific to Europe or someone has an interesting experience to relate then I don't see a huge point in us going mad doing "me too" hardware reviews.

Nevertheless I would love a good hardware review about a Hottop, as my savings are growing and growing... and the day I can buy one is coming closer and closer...

I too think that this forum doesnt spend ages talking about hardware. More so its a community where I think its a bunch of friends chat about somthing they love

The Hottop article is in preparation Michel.

In some ways, this is why I was drawn to TMC. The minutiae of hardware detail that is picked over in a.c and CG on hardware is astonishing. I do admit to being a devourer of specifications and comparisons BEFORE I commit to buying hardware but once its in and I've played with it, I tend to move on.

My desire is to learn more from the more experienced members on this group on items such as bean and blend choice, whats hot in the European scene, and basically any discussion which improves my enjoyment of coffee which I can share with others.

Richard

As some of you will know I'm not into espresso....yet! My first interest has been roasting, but I can see myself been drawn into other areas before too long. One of the attractions, of TMC, for me is the range of coffee related areas covered.

I think we have got a good mix here, all coming from slightly different angles, and with varying levels of expertise (or is it stupidity in my case? ).

I think this is a case of if it aint broke don't fix it!

chrish wrote:I think this is a case of if it aint broke don't fix it!

It's not broken, and the weakest link is up to it's task and strong enough: (namely me ) The only thing which concerns me is that we need to give tmc the power-boost it needs. I think this could be done by: first of all: patience (as we don't want it to be just for everybody), second: endurance (a bit of a Zen-alike attitude: enjoy what we do, while we do it the best we can... and the good (as far as they aren't present at the moment) things will follow automatically), and third: more newbies, which means People who are interested in coffee (with the restriction that they are friendly too), but do not know that much about it...
And the last point especially is crucial, as we don't want to be a bunch of people agreeing with each other all the time. We need new flesh as some sort of motor to keep things going... (as you can see on the two best visited sites about coffee in the world: alt.coffee and cg (created/owned and screwed up by my good friend mp ... it's the 'newbies' who give... by putting aside their ego's and really wanting to learn something... In the mean time giving the 'seniors' the oportunity to 'really' help somebody - while disagreeing with the other 'experts' at the same time...)


Michel
P.S. To stay in tune with the original poster, I think we need to put more weight to roasting too. It's a topic covered nowhere very good (not even in the homeroast mailinglist from Tom - Sweet Maria's - although there's a lot of info to be found there and people really know what they are talking about... But not being an open forum (and a forum visited by experts only), I think TMC can develop (over the months/years) to become thé site about home-roasting and/or roasting in general...).

P.S.S. We need to take a look at our weak points (not enough members... but that's mainly due to the fact we don't want goofball's disturbing the place, which is a strong point in itselve... imho) and our strong points (a lot of expertise on roasting and of course our kindness and friendship...). Furthermore/concluding: we need to eliminate our weak points (which means opening up the site, or at least open some forums - btw, is creating a guest forum a possibility Phil?-) and strengthen our strong points (more coffee-reviews - I'll start myselve filling in the roasting-forms next sunday - more roasting reviews in general, also about the hardware 'as we need to cover the whole procedure'... So, More content and less agreeing (and even if we agree, which we most of the times do, we need to keep the 'chatting' going on, and explore our imagination, trials and errors, to the far most point...).
To conclude: We need a 'devil' or a 'lamb' in the house... (preferably more than one...) - as a devil or a lamb (which is necessary in any 'company' too function well - giving ideas, tighten friendships, explore new horizons aso-) is just as important as the manager, or the toilet-madam to make things work and worthwhile in the long term...

Am I missing the point here? Why do we need to get new members quickly? why do we need lambs or devils? As a forum I think in general its working (just need a few more posts from every one).

All this talk of we must improve we must grow, let it happen natrually and dont force it. As an open forum it has been going not that long. By being selective, friendly and not in a rush we have managed to get people who are like minded. The main reason I participate is that its not Alt coffee or CG. I have no time to answer questions about which is better is better kenco or lavazza.

My two cents worth any way

Eeffoc wrote:The main reason I participate is that its not Alt coffee or CG. I have no time to answer questions about which is better is better kenco or lavazza.

That's why we need to put more weight to the (home-)roasting part...

I agree with you when you write: 'By being selective, friendly and not in a rush we have managed to get people who are like minded' but on the other hand I like to talk to not like minded people about coffee too...
It's like when having a friend over. You drink, ' smoke' play chess and talk... And as he's your friend he's like minded, so most topics talked about are like a babbling stream... But being a different person, there are alway's topics that you disagree... and strange but true - imho - I like the disagreeing part very much... It opens up the world for a different view at things... and a lot of times I have to revise my convictions and beliefs... As I have to admit you're right when writing: Why do we need to get new members quickly? why do we need lambs or devils?

Yay Eeffoc, now what do really think? Don't pull any punches

Actually, I generally agree with Eeffoc with one caveat:

I would really, really like more members from mainland Europe. Preferably natives. Our ex-pat Aussie and American members are all top people, blinding blokes every one. BUT as a European community I think we're getting a bit anglophone in our membership. I know it's an English-language site so that's partly to be expected. However a quick poll of our membership yields (from memory - apologies if I miss anyone)

• One Belgian (Neku)
• Four Dutchmen (Sunnyfield, Michel, HV, Richards), one of whom is UK resident anyway
• One Swedish guy (Tommy) who asked for and was given membership and hasn't been heard from since
• One Austrian (Joey)
• One German (Moccafaux)

Sure it's great to take things slowly, and on the whole it's the right thing to do. However, we're gettig awfully British/Australian (and we have a token American too). Do you think this is putting other non-British Europeans off, or is it the language thing, or what?

I admit to being quite concerned. I want us to be European

No worries, Phil, we'll get there. The reason why we're not getting more members from mainland Europe is that we're simply not well known enough, I think. I have e-mailed a few websites lately to ask them to put a link to our site on their site, but haven't had much luck lately. Maybe we could all drop a line to some of the websites we know? By the way, Phil, you're a member of the SCAE, can't they provide a link to us?

Yes, please everyone. What Neku said. Moccafaux has already done sterling work in this area. If anyone else can help, please do.

Neku, Sunny & I tend to add the site url as part of our signature when we post anywhere else. It would be great if other members could identify themselves in this way when they post elsewhere too.

I didnt think that I would start a rather long thread! I asked my question, because of my way of thinking (working in a shop leaves its mark).
We think tmc is good, but what if it is not what others (=huge amounts of potential new members) acknowledge as being good, too.
Do we want to reshape tmc to make it more interesting for others, if that is what is needed?
Or do we stay with it the way it is, because we like it exactly that way?

I am a technoweenie as much as the next man, but I would hate to become as much hardware-orientated as Cg. And, as mentioned before, our emphasis on roasting might not make us that interesting for germans.
So, the question arises, "whether `tis nobler in the mind to endure..."
and so on, forgot the rest but you get the gist.
Personally, I like the contents as they are.