The last two days they served the coffee in a famous coffee house in Vienna, with latte art and special drinks made by Fabian Schmidt. He was Nr. 3 at the German SCAE Barista - Championship 2003.
I drank a melange with latte art, and Gerald - my husband had a cappucino passionata ( I think that was the name of that drink) - with Amaretto, whipped cream and crumbled pistachio nuts.
As there was not so much stress behind the counter, I took the chance to talk to Fabian, 36 year young German who looks like an Italian
He bought an old Faema E 61 and repaired it - that's how everything started. He trained the latte art all by himself and is proud to be someone who makes his own rules. Today he builts wonderful espresso machines together with Kees van der Westen. They are both responsible for the design and the technique.
They make custom designs (like for La Marzocco the Mistral) and the famous Mirage, which you can purchase for 7500 €uro.
One interesting speciality at the mirage is that you can activate the steamwand with your foot, using a pedal. That let's you use both hands on the pitcher. >sweet<
Talking about technical stuff I found out that his opinion about temperature is to adjust the boiler pressure to 1,1-1,3 bar for hotter water. Well, at my La San Marco mine makes the perfect temperature at 1bar - I have to try it with more, but I think it depends on the rest of the machine how it can loose/keep temperature until the water is at the group, and of course on the coffee we use (how it's roasted, too).
So I'll give it a try, but I stil think everyone has to find out for him/herself and the specific machine. - IMHO!
Then we were bitching about gastronomers who only use 4-5grams of coffee per shot.
I said I use an 8gram sieve for a single (a little bit more fits inside
), and he said he manages to get 12 gram inside a 7gram sieve by grinding finer and tamping harder. Hmmmm.
I said if I grind finer and tamp harder to get much more inside my water just doesn't make the way through in the desired time....
He ment that might be because my La San Marco sieves/PF baskets are 55mm and deeper. I, for my part think that this is a great advantage over other PF's because in tests it proofed that the water get's more flavours out of a narrow and deeper PF then a flat and wider...but that's another subject
I had fun talking with him about that - it showed me that there will always be different opinions about techniques, but the most important thing is that we both have the same ambitions = making the perfect cup!
What else did we talk about...he is in the business since 2 years (only!wow.), has never been a waiter or barista before, does work with Kees most of the time and travels a lot because he gets invited to coffee events very often (Dubai, Mautitius for Tschibo, Vienna for Davidoff, and I forgott the other destinations, I'm sorry
) - and obviously makes a good living with that. His daily rate is 600 €uro, if you plan to engage him for your next party 
Asking him if he drank some good coffee in Vienna I got the answer I expected: "No." >sigh<
And I totally share his opinion about coffee houses who don't even make the correct recipies, don't use enough and crappy coffee, but that's also another subject....
He had to work on one of these new Faemas E 62, the light blue one that looks like a Cimbali (because Faema is married to Cimbali?) and was not very happy about it. The steamwand with 4 huge holes didn't do it's job well, he said. But the latte art I got was fine to me. Very fine. See pic below.
One more thing - He sells his own coffee, too, in his region in Germany. It's called Crema de Grotto, and he gets it roasted in Italy, according to his demand.
If I wake up in the night because I've forgotten something I will add it, I promise. And now I will get the pictures from my digital camera.
Here are his and Kees homepages:
http://www.la-potenza.com
http://www.keesvanderwesten.com/
This was not a declared interview with Fabian, just some private small talk, I forgot to ask him if I may post his picture here - but I guess as this is a private forum and I am just talking about my experience today - he will forgive me. All things considered I'm making some free promotion for him, and as he is a good looking guy he can't be mad about the photo either
Yours
Joey
