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Welcome

Postby phil » Wed Mar 24, 2004 10:49 pm

I've just seen that zix (our latest member) has logged on for the first time.

Welcome to our first (but hopefully not out last) active Swedish member! I say "active" because Tommy joined just after Christmas, but I've yet to see any sign of activity from him. I have no record of him ever logging on even. :-(

Anyway, welcome to our group zix.

Phil

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La Spaziale Spazio 2 group semi-auto

La Spaziale Lusso grinder (espresso),
Macap MC4 shop grinder (brewed coffee)
Three Thor tampers
Two Hottops, first since Feb 2003
No partridge, no pear tree either
Conas, Zassenhaus hand grinder....
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Re: Welcome

Postby zix » Thu Mar 25, 2004 12:37 am

phil wrote:I've just seen that zix (our latest member) has logged on for the first time.

Welcome to our first (but hopefully not out last) active Swedish member!

Wowsers :D ! I feel very welcome! Phil has already been engaged in an email conversation with me, and now this! Thanks Phil, and hi to all of you coffee lovers in here.
I guess I might as well put a slight rework of the things I wrote to Phil about myself here.

It was really nice finding out about this european coffee website, I don´t know why I haven´t found toomuchcoffee.com until now, but anyways, here I am, another european caffeine nerd addict freak.
I like DIY audio too, but the coffee hobby is altogether much more easy to maintain having three small children and a full time job...
After ten years of moka pot brewing, the Vibiemme Domobar is a great joy to use. Sunnyfield and neku have both been helping me out already in the AC newsgroup - I bought the VBM without a manual and they helped me get started. Hi to you both! The VBM works like a charm so far. I really really like it and consider it my best investment in years.

Also recently switched from oven roasting to heatgun roasting. Lots of new things to learn here and in roasting and blending for espresso. Considering I was extremely cheap when choosing heatgun (a "Costech" for 85 SEK/9EURO ) it works surprisingly well. There has been some quirks and surprises for me, like the sensitivity to batch size - in the oven this hardly matters at all - and to surrounding temperature. But I have come to like the way you can easily change roast speed/profile by varying HG nozzle distance and stirring, and this is a step up from oven roasting for me.
Evading the ubiquitous evil consumerism-dressed-up-in-elitism scheme (UECDUIES) otherwise commonly appearing in hobbies like this one is another good thing I think. It sure saved me a lot of money for a roaster! (didn´t evade any kind of UECDUIES for the espresso machine or the grinder though...)
Right now I roast in a sphere-shaped cheap old stoneware bowl, March has been to cold for the heat conductive metal dogbowl where I live. I have some ideas for variations with the HG too... more low-tech non-UECDUIES coming up soon if I can persuade my friend with the welding equipment.
So, hi again to all of you and special thanks to Phil who made me feel welcome from the start!
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Postby Raf » Thu Mar 25, 2004 8:53 am

Glad to hear you like the VBM! Wonderful machine. And welcome from me too: I look forward to reading your posts, zix :).
This week I am eagerly anticipating the first god shots from my La Spaziale machine....

La Spaziale S1, Vibiemme Domobar (retd), Mazzer Mini Electronic, Behmor 1600 230V
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Postby Sunnyfield » Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:51 am

Hi Zix, I remember you now. I was hoping you would join us when I replied to your posts on a.c, and there you are! The VBM is a very nice machine, but you have to know how to treat her, or she will cheat on you.

Welcome!
La Marzocco GS/3, Elektra Nino, Feima 800N solid drum gas roaster
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Postby quink » Thu Mar 25, 2004 12:25 pm

Welcome aboard Zix. Would love to know what you have planned for that welding gear.
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Postby alans » Thu Mar 25, 2004 3:48 pm

Hi Zix, I've been thinking about having a go with heat gun roasting (I have green beans, I have a heat gun and I have many bowls so why not!) so am very interested in your experiences. Of course I have a popper and an Alp so it may be a while befor I do actually give it a go!
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Postby Steve » Thu Mar 25, 2004 6:22 pm

Big Hello from me too, glad to have you on board and I look forward to your posts
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Postby zix » Thu Mar 25, 2004 10:27 pm

jeez, youre on it, guys! Very energetic! Just a moment...
‹• Bezzera B3000AL • Strietman ES3 • Chemex • Cona C size • Aeropress • Vev moka • Bialetti Brikka • Espro • Cezve • Bacchi Espresso • Arrarex Caravel •
• HG-1 • Lido 1 & E-T • OE Pharos •
• oven • hot air gun • Behmor •›
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Postby zix » Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:21 pm

Neku wrote:Glad to hear you like the VBM! Wonderful machine. And welcome from me too: I look forward to reading your posts, zix :).


And me yours! ´been thinking of adding another VBM review on CG so there will be three of them. But I want to take a closer look at a Zaffiro/Amica before that so I can use that as comparison (not absolutely sure, but I think they are very similar on the inside, perhaps also in cup quality)

Sunnyfield wrote:Hi Zix, I remember you now. I was hoping you would join us when I replied to your posts on a.c, and there you are! The VBM is a very nice machine, but you have to know how to treat her, or she will cheat on you.


Yep, here I am, just a bit late as usual. Four months or so after you putting me on the right track at A.C. :?
Usually won´t get to forumposting and newsgrouping until late in the evening either, got three kids and a job to keep me busy the rest of the day. Just so you don´t think I am ignoring you guys if I am a bit late in answering.
Sunnyfield, I saw something about your VBM having pump problems on A.C., hope you managed to solve the issue? It got me kinda worried, that...

quink wrote:Welcome aboard Zix. Would love to know what you have planned for that welding gear.

basically "Theres a hooole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza" and "theres some cooooffeee on toop dear Liza dear Liza" but we´ll see what gives.

alans wrote:Hi Zix, I've been thinking about having a go with heat gun roasting (I have green beans, I have a heat gun and I have many bowls so why not!) so am very interested in your experiences. Of course I have a popper and an Alp so it may be a while befor I do actually give it a go!

Go for it if you feel like it!
If you don´t make any big investments in heatgun(-s) you can just try it out without thinking too much of how to do it. Thats´s what I did, and it worked out. I have no idea how HG compares to your Alpenrost, but to me even after just a few roasts I do slightly better than what I did before, which was oven roast. Mind you, I have roasted in the oven for ten years, so I know how to do that (yeah right, it´s veeeery hard) and I get good, even roasts contrary to what some people claim (most of them probably haven´t tried it themselves anyhow).
I am very new at HG roasting but this is what I do so far, alans:
* I use a wooden fork (or anything else that doesn´t burn easily) for stirring.
* I stir more in the beginning, to avoid hot spots when most of the beans are cold.
* Before first crack I stir only intermittently, and move the HG nozzle closer to the beans. This is to bring up the temperature a little faster to help first crack on the way.
• between first and second crack, bring nozzle away a bit again and stir more. This is to even out heat dispersion again and avoid hot spots. Also, it slows down the roast a bit. The beans "even out" a lot after a couple of minutes here.
* Second crack comes. I just do the same thing: watch the beans, see how they are doing and act accordingly. I do not make the roasts as dark with the HG, didn´t like the HG darkies as much as the oven darkies. Try to keep total roast time at around 20 minutes, preferably a bit lower.

Eeffoc wrote: Big Hello from me too, glad to have you on board and I look forward to your posts

likewise! Glad to be on board. You seem a friendly lot!
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Postby EricC » Fri Mar 26, 2004 7:00 pm

Hi, and glad to have you on board. :)
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Postby cleverdic » Fri Mar 26, 2004 8:31 pm

Hi Zix and welcome,

I see you are from Göteborg. My wife and I took a cheapflight from Scotland a couple of months ago to this city for a weekend break and had a great but cold time. During our visit, we discovered some Kaffes selling green and ended up buying 2Kg of green from Maurice Kaffe in Fredsgatan. In case you think my memory is wonderful (which it isn't) I'm reading this off the bag :wink:

We found a couple of places where they obviously take their coffee seriously. I saw the Presso tamper in use which I had never seen before and when I got back, discovered it gets a good name. I believe it is Swedish and CG gives it a good review.

Enjoy the group,

Richard
Last edited by cleverdic on Sat Mar 27, 2004 9:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby peterj » Fri Mar 26, 2004 10:25 pm

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.
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Postby zix » Sat Mar 27, 2004 12:45 am

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?
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Postby phil » Sat Mar 27, 2004 12:47 am

Mmm, you do know you're surrounded by a number of SCAE members don't you?

Me, PeterJ, Eeffoc, CarolynB.

We're not all bad.

The rest of the rant I'm still absorbing.
La Spaziale Spazio 2 group semi-auto

La Spaziale Lusso grinder (espresso),
Macap MC4 shop grinder (brewed coffee)
Three Thor tampers
Two Hottops, first since Feb 2003
No partridge, no pear tree either
Conas, Zassenhaus hand grinder....
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Postby zix » Sat Mar 27, 2004 12:50 am

phil wrote:Mmm, you do know you're surrounded by a number of SCAE members don't you?

Me, PeterJ, Eeffoc, CarolynB.

We're not all bad.

The rest of the rant I'm still absorbing.

[Editing: Sorry, getting tired and unclear. Had to edit this one a bit /zix]

Oh to be sure! My favourite espresso bar owner in town is an SCAE member - in fact, he is the chairman of the swedish SCAE. He is very down-to-earth and a real espresso evangelist.
Zoégas and Gevalia, although big boys and owned by even bigger boys, aren´t bad people either. But they *are* big boys, and big can in some cases become overwhelming.

P.S. The only reason I am not yet a member of the local SCAE is I haven´t yet sent them the membership fee. It´s still right there beside the family computer... D.S
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