peterj wrote:HI Zix.
Interested in your rating on the Vibiemme. Hear there's a bit of a coffee revolution going on up there in Scandinavia. When l visit, it's social and family no time to explore.
NOW you
really got me started. Oh dear, oh dear.
Quick Vibiemme Domobar rating before longwinded speech (ratings may still change)
• build quality 9/10 - only thing I want is a little thicker front plate otherwise it is perfect
• coffee quality and consistency 10/10 - for a vibe pump home machine that is
• usability 8/10 - if it was a HX it would have gotten a 9. I make more lattes for my wife than I thought I would, one almost every day.
• personal verdict: I love it!
Longwinded coffee revolution speech:
Well if you mean revolution as in "the big boys take over" anarco-commercialistic revolution, then yes, that´s what is happening over here. Ooops, that sounded a bit too much perhaps. Really, there are some positive things going on here coffee-wize, but of course the european SCAA (SCAE?) is in deep on this, and so is Arla and other dairy products companies, who seem to think it is a good thing for the milk sales. (And it sure is, according to what I have heard -
warning, didn´t check the facts here - they sell about 20% more milk in Sweden nowadays because of all the lattes and cappucinos being served.)
As another part of the swedish coffee revolution we have the swedish version of starbuck$, Espresso House, who always seem to be there first on every new possible café spot, and on many of the old ones too. Started in Lund where they soon got 3(! yes, three! in little Lund) cafés opened. Then they went for Malmö and soon there was pretty much nothing else left there than Espresso Houses. (If you go to Malmö, be sure to visit da Aldo or Nesta, by the way. Those are good, non Espresso House cafés and have - so far anyway - made it because they have very good espresso + the italian look and feel). There are 7 EspressoHouses in Malmö, so far 3 in Göteborg and they have started to infiltrate other cities too. I don´t know how much this swedish espresso fling means for Kraft Foods and Nestlé locally, but it seems they are keeping an eye open for it.
On the positive side: yes, many people have got wind of this espresso thingy, mostly because of all the new hip cafés in the big cities, and more moka pots are being sold. Young people who start drinking coffee are now hooked on cappas rather than drip coffee with milk and sugar, and even better: they go out of their office/school and into the local café on their lunch breaks rather than "pouring from the boring" at their jobs/school office. More positives: Zoegas have started selling at least one rather OK espresso blend in the supermarkets, and on the west coast we have the Kahls and the Bergstrands roasteries who both sell espresso blends wholesale and directly to companies.
Machines are... well, people don´t´know a lot about them yet, mostly. Best value espresso machines are Gaggias, it seems, you can find them in several places in the big cities. One small design shop here in Göteborg,
Magasin 11, has started selling Isomacs, the entire consumer product line.
Green beans are still a bit hard to get, but we do have good ones (Lovely that you found your way to the venerable Mauritz Kaffe, Richard, I go there every other week to buy beans
)
Xpressivo (Presso tampers) , aaah the sunshiney success story of our little coffee revolution! They really do make good tampers! I´m happy for that guy, talked to him the other day and he has a LOT to do nowadays. He has stainless steel tampers too now, almost the same profile as the Barista v.2. If you get to try one, please do. I think the Barista v2 tamper is
very good.
To sum it up, now is a better time than ever to start your own specialist coffee bar in Sweden. In a suburb or in a smaller city perhaps. So I guess in a way we are facing the same kind of evolution in coffee drinking as they do in the USA. Me and wifie visited London last autumn, you seem to be following (or have already followed?) the same course of events too.
I don´t know, perhaps this has become global. What do you guys think?