It has been quite a couple of days. I thought I was done with the saccharin thank-yous and recaps, hence this. However, it would be remiss of me not to properly acknowledge everyone who helped me out with the IBC this year. It all came together very late, but I just found a willingness all around me for friends to pitch in.

Firstly my roaster, Peter James, of James Gourmet Coffee. I’ve never met Peter, we’ve only exchanged emails and phone calls. The UK is currently blessed with a number of excellent coffee roasters and Peter stands among them. I wanted to use funky naturals this year, and I knew Peter had some amazing ones, and I’ve long been an admirer of his roasting. The first blend he sent me contained 4 different naturally processed coffees from all around the world. It was to be called the Interplanetary Natural Bomb. It was good, very good but what followed was better, an 80:20 split of the Ethiopian Shilcho OCR Sidamo Natural and the Costa Rican Las Lajas Natural. Strawberries and apricots and natural funky town all day long, chewy, big, sweet. It won best espresso. Thanks Peter – you rocked it! (more…)

Dear Marie, Fergus and Paul:

It is without sincere regret that I must inform you that your employment with DAVID™ as Logistics/Support/Strategy Technicians will be terminated immediately.

Due to gross incompetence and failure to meet key objectives your services are no longer required. (more…)

I’ve found the Coava Disk filter for the Aeropress to be a very impressive piece of work. It produces an adequately clean cup (comparable to Clover type brew in my opinion), different in character from paper filtered and also allows different techniques to be employed during brew – such as pulling up (without making a balls of the filter). Check out the video. Notice the weirdness at the end. Thoughts?

As many who read this and who know me personally will be aware, I am a scientist. I have spent most of my adult life in active research, both during my PhD and subsequent work. For the last number of years, as this blog and other activities will testament my passion for speciality coffee has grown exponentially. There are times when this ate up so much of my time that it became like a second job (albeit without the pay) and the aspect of my life that tended to lose out was that with my (terribly understanding) family. This was never desirable for me, and as my young family has grown it has become less and less acceptable. Something had to give.

It has long been my desire for this consuming passion to somehow coincide with my work. I’m delighted to announce such an opportunity recently arose, and on January 4th I sit down for work at my new desk in the Marco R&D Department. (more…)

Writing this now, without a clear grasp on its final direction, I fear I may stray into self-indulgence. My apologies in advance if it goes that way. It was for me in many ways a significant year, bittersweet at times, a lot was learned.

This time a year ago, 3FE was very much finding its feet in the most unlikely of venues. On the day its doors opened though, it immediately set a new standard for this country. Looking at it a year on, I’m delighted to find a thriving coffee shop, and orbiting around it, the first green shoots of a putative scene emerging. (more…)