Simply put, there are a lot of coffee sites and few of them update regularly. It's hard keeping track and you can easily say I hardly participate in the forums much anymore. At this point, there's a lot of work to be done rather than the 'joy' of debate in forums.
Get on a feed reader people. If you aren't already, it makes life so much easier to track all these blogs. Get updates delivered when they update rather then going to each site and checking for updates.
I'm headed out to Bellingham Friday. Kaminsky is already in Seattle now while Silas, Judson and I leave tomorrow. It's highly likely to prove more difficult than we wanted. Getting the butane burner to Seattle proved not possible for Kaminsky.
Hopefully, I will have better luck with it or we have to find something as an alternative quick. Ben C. is staying behind for varied reasons, polishing some new stuff and working on an experiment and using the saved cash for a new special toy.
Speaking of things that wowed me. I had a really bad shot the other day that tasted like salty baguette. I kid you not, it was a medium-light roast Brazil blend (from one farm) that tasted bready at 8.5bars but when upped over 9.5bars, it was salty and bready. I would laugh but it was straight up disgusting.
Honestly though, that was one of a dozen shots lately that have underwhelmed me with blah. It's not that there is no good coffee but a myriad of reasons has left me with some pretty average to blah espresso lately. I don't even do espresso when I go out simply because coffee is work right now and I need to unwind with out being too critical of what is being offered.
Speaking of which, I find it odd how people take our blog and attach it to a roaster or to a shop as if we were following some grand scheme someone else laid out. More or less, we float from thing to thing in search of a great cup. We borrow, question, research, critique, and generally are completely disloyal to following any one roaster's ideals. We got burned by that before and won't do it again. That's a narrow path I'd rather not travel. There is no plan, no standard, no rules and strangely I am content with that. 'I know this is not how you thought it would be, no whips, no chains just tasting, tasting, tasting...'(CYHSY reference sorry;-)
Which reminds me that as a site like this grows, you have a few options as to direction. We are still mulling ours. Then again, I am happy with where it is and the content that we put up however not as frequent these days due to travel.
Speaking of which, looking forward to:
The next B-Mag;-)
Spending time with Eddie, Gabe, Richard, the Scott family and maybe meeting some new friends or putting a face to some people in the business.
Writing about the whole experience for print, probably Kaminsky and/or Silas will get Barismo duty for details on this B-Ham Jam puppy.
My B-Spec tamper with a touch up addition and new finish possible logo'd.
Bringing vac pots in tow and looking to spring some Simon style coffee on these guys on the west coast.
Thoughts on coffee, things are busy, the barismo blog is trimmed up for those not on feed readers who click through and can see it. A bit cleaner, like the way I like my coffee.
