Home roasting for the masses?

Home roasting of coffee beans is a funny business. Indeed there are many reasons why people take this task upon themselves and some of these reasons hold more weight than others. I know a lot of people state cost as a factor, that buying green beans works out cheaper than commercially roasted beans. That may be true to some extent, but there is often a lack of consideration for factors that reduce the apparent cost benefit, such as the difference in weight between green coffee and roasted coffee and the inevitable roasts that will go wrong from time to time, not to mention the cost in terms of time to do the roasting (how valuable is your time?), and the cost investment of a roaster. So while cost may not entirely hold water, it can be a useful tool to convince a loved one that the introduction of a coffee roaster to the home is a sensible decision. Another factor that is often claimed is the ability to always have the freshest possible coffee. To a certain extent this is true, but many home enthusiasts quickly get over the buckets of gassy crema produced by a one-day post roast bean, and realise that you can have coffee too-fresh. With that realisation, there certainly are options for getting adequately fresh coffee outside of home roasting. Quality and variety of bean is one I actually tend to agree with to a larger extent. At least in Ireland, variety can be somewhat lacking. Hasbean for example offer 50-odd different beans as greens, ranging from CoE winners all the way down to robusta filler. Sweet Marias in the US and kaffeespezialitaet.at in Austria also offer excellent selections of greens, and while many of these are stellar quality greens, home roasters must concede that while they can probably do these beans justice on a good day, the product will probably never be as good as a top quality commercial roaster at the top of his or her game. A reason that is rarely considered or given by someone entering home roasting, but is often given by those experienced in it is knowledge. If you devote the time and attention, you can learn so much about the coffee bean, about particular origins and varietals, how they react to levels of roast, how it influences the cup. Whether by design or not, fresh insight, and a deeper connection to the process is learned.

Modest looks, immodest performance.

My home roasting journey started about 2 years ago, with a small fluid-bed air roaster called the iRoast2 (from hereon referred to as the iRoast). Probably my primary reason for jumping-in was freshness. I knew that the crema created by stale beans tended to be thin and pale, and crema being one of the measures I was trying to improve in my espresso, I took action. This isn’t intended to be a review of the iRoast, but it fell down in certain areas for me, chief of which was the taste. Everything seemed to be marked towards a bitter, burnt flavour, even if the roast was stopped at a medium point. Only being able to roast 150g of green coffee was another nuisance, especially when you consider that weight goes down to about 120g after roasting. If you dose 20g of coffee each time you make an espresso, one roast gives you about 6 cups. The noise from the iRoast was also nothing short of deafening, like 5 hairdryers on the go at once. It was just possible to hear first and second crack, but it was a strain. On the plus side I think my hearing has improved immensely with the routine of this aural workout.

Simple digital display counts down the remaining time.

Upon realising that professional roasts of much lesser beans were resulting in a more pleasing cup, the iRoast got put to the wayside, along with several kilos of green beans. For a number of months, I exclusively used commercially roasted beans, and I had some great cups, and nearly gave up on home roasting. I knew of course that there are better roasters available than the iRoast, but at the time for the price it was the right roaster for me. Had money been no object I would have bought a Hottop roaster, and while I don’t doubt the quality of craftmanship that goes into a Hottop, the high price coupled with the small (although better at 250g than the iRoast) batch size wasn’t ticking enough boxes for me.

The control panel.

In the summer of 2007 the US home roasting community got a new champion – the Behmor 1600, based on a Ronco rotisserie oven, extensively modified by creator Joe Behm for coffee roasting. It was to be a full 1lb drum roaster for only $299. In the interim period much has been said about this roaster, the vast majority positive, though some have questioned its ability to roast a full 1lb as well as  drawing unfavourable comparisons to the programmable Hottop in terms of customising the temperature profile. On this side of the Atlantic, we could only sit back and watch in envy as no european model was available. However, in late 2007 / early 2008 it became apparent that Hasbean Coffee were in talks with Behmor to bring the roaster to market here, with the major obstacle being a long CE certification process.
About 4 months have now passed since Steve Leighton of Hasbean sent me a preproduction model of the EU Behmor for testing. In that time I have roasted more coffee than in the previous 18 months with the iRoast. I’ve roasted pre-blended espresso beans, single origins for espresso and for filter, peaberrys, pacamara, monsooned, small beans and big beans. My aim here, following this obscenely long-winded introduction is to distill my impressions of those 4 months with the Behmor.
Taking the Behmor out of the box, you can’t help but be struck by the aesthetics, and without wanting to be too unkind they are not it’s strongest feature. The Behmor looks somewhere between a microwave oven and a toaster oven, though both longer and shallower than the former. It’s also lighter than it looks. The upside of the reasonable weight should mean shipping costs remain low, but also moving it in and out of a cupboard, or off of a shelf becomes a minor issue. Having been accustomed to pictures of the US version, one obvious difference was also immediately apparent – the door handle. The US handle is more flush with the door, while there is a defined separation in the EU model. This had to be changed in order to meet CE certification. I prefer the looks of the US model, but more importantly the pronounced “jutting-out” of the handle makes it vulnerable to abuse from less than careful delivery men. All in all though the looks don’t bother me, it’s a utilitarian device, form meets functions. I wouldn’t buy a coffee roaster as an ornament for my kitchen.

Open door showing the chaff collector.

The Behmor could (but shouldn’t) be operated by a child. Open the door, remove the chaff collector, remove the bean cage, open the cage, put in the beans, close the cage, insert the bean cage, insert the chaff collector, close the door, select the weight, press start. The roaster will default to profile 1 unless instructed otherwise. This profile delivers 100% power for the entire cycle, and I’ve found it to be the cycle I always try first starting with a new bean. By and large, keeping an eye (and ear) on the progress, and ending the cycle at the desired point will deliver good to great results. You could easily and happily only ever do 1lb, P1 roasts on the Behmor. The one drawback with P1, however, is that it gains an enormous amount of momentum, and you can easily jump from 1st crack straight into 2nd crack, and before you know it you’ve passed your desired roast level. P2 attempts to address this by reducing the power to stretch out the gap between first and second crack. This is achieved, but perhaps not to as great a magnitude as the profile graph might suggest. In roasts where 1st and 2nd ran  into one another on P1, on P2 1st crack tended to be quiet and fleeting, with 2nd appearing about 90s to 2mins later. All of this is somewhat academic, and really is only important the first time roasting a certain weight of a certain bean on a given profile, because with accurate weighing repeated roasts hit 1st and 2nd within very close times.

The bean cage.

Eventually I felt I need a more gentle roast profile, and moved on to try P4 and P5. These profiles gradually build the intensity. My early roasts using a full 1lb on these profiles hit first crack at 20mins in. While I was aiming for a light roast on these particular beans, this kind of length was approaching baked territory. So I simply adjusted the weight from 454g to 350g, and first crack hit about 17mins in. It’s a simple solution, though some might argue unnecessary, the 454g batch came out well. The particular bean will govern whether this is of benefit or not.
On a taste basis, I tended to prefer P1 roasts for beans intended for espresso (again – it depends on the blend profile), whether pre-blended (Hasbean CoE / Brazil Perfeito) or single origin (Brazil Fazenda Cachoeira / Cuba Turquino Lavardo etc) this profile quickly became my go-to profile for espresso. The Fazenda Cachoeira in particular highlighted this for me, on P1 it was nutty, chocolaty, lots of body – superb SO espresso, on P5 though there was a sour note, the nuttiness was diminished, it was all round a poorer cup. The Cuba Turquino Lavardo on the other hand highlighted how good the Behmor could do a roast compared to the iRoast. The Cuban actually was one of the more reliable beans for the iRoast, it coped with the abuse from the iRoast better than most. However, out of P1 on the Behmor, it quickly became clear that the product of the iRoast was only an imitation of what Turquino Lavardo could be – sweet, syrupy, deep, an immense SO shot. Strangely, not something I found with this bean on the iRoast, out of the Behmor, Turquino Lavardo needed a whole week rest to come into its own.

Empty innards.

For french press / filter roasts, I initially had a little difficulty due to overshooting the roast level. I love lots of acidity in my filter coffee, so bringing for example Kenya Gethwumbini into 2nd crack was really muting that. This is one of the down sides of doing 1lb roasts, if you don’t hit your mark the first time, it can be a long week of drinking something you know is not as good as it could or should be. Luckily for me, the Gethwumbini brought to that level was quite nice in a 50:50 with the Brazil Fazenda Cachoeira as an espresso. Subtracting 30-90s from the total roast time of the previous roast in these cases, brought me to where I wanted to be. I also found P5 to be quite useful with these lighter roasts, there was a more pronounced gap between first and second. In the end I had no problem getting to my goal of big, juicy filter coffee bursting with acidity. I knew air roasting like on the iRoast tended to pronounce acidity to a big degree, so I was a little concerned that the Behmor (a radiant heat / drum type roaster) wouldn’t bring out this quality, but other than overshooting the desired roast, this just wasn’t a problem.

The exhaust at the rear.

Moving on to more practical matters, and this is a big one for a lot of people – smoke. The Behmor handles smoke venting quite well, I found 1lb roasts on the Behmor to have a similar if not lesser effect on my kitchen than 150g roasts on the iRoast. For most of the roast in fact, there is no apparent smoke, only the smell of roasting coffee. Once you start heading towards 2nd crack, however, the smoke starts to appear. For me, it means still having to crack open a window, and having to close the door to the hall where the smoke alarm is. Opening the door for quicker cooling, also releases more smoke into the room than leaving it cool with the door closed. The cooling is not immediate, not like a Hottop where the beans drop out of the drum and are cooled very quickly. As you can imagine, opening the door speeds this process somewhat, but releases more chaff and smoke into the room. Once I was familiar with the roast progression of a particular bean, I was able to allow for the slower cooling and keep the door closed.
For the most part I had no problem with the bean cage, in the US a smaller grid cage is offered separately. The standard one I received allowed chaff to exit readily, and only with particularly small beans (Yirgacheffe for example)  or broken beans did a small number of beans fall through the cage. When I say small, I mean less than 1%, a non-issue for me.

The new handle.

Monitoring roast progress on the Behmor is really about audible cues. While you can see into the drum, the colour of the light, as well as the grid of the chaff collector make it difficult to determine roast level on appearance alone. Really it’s about identifying those 1st and 2nd cracks. As there is little noise from the Behmor during roasting (I’ve had PCs that made more noise) this is easy.
The Behmor profiles can be adjusted to a certain degree, though nothing like the programmable Hottop. There is a somewhat convoluted explanation given on how to alter the percentage of the overall roast given to the different legs of the profile, but as far as I was able to ascertain, the first and middle leg durations are set based on the time when the roast is started, and any additions or subtractions of time after the roast has started are added on or taken away from the end leg. A great tool to visualise this somewhat abstract idea is BehmorThing. It allows you to make these additions and subtractions virtually, and see the effect on the profile. The use of the BehmorThing goes far beyond that as a tool for keeping track of all your roasts, using it alongside the Behmor it’s a superb (free) addition to the roaster. My only problem is that it’s Windows only, and having recently migrated to Mac, it’s one tool I sorely miss.

Some technical stuff.

What is and what isn’t the Behmor? The Behmor is practical, affordable, capable of producing excellent results, and importantly capable of roasting a full 1lb of green coffee in one batch. It is a tool to learn about different coffees. The Behmor is not pretty, not fully programmable and not a tool to play at master roaster at home, if that’s what you want this is not the tool for you. It’s not without its flaws, such as the slower than ideal cooling. However, for the amount of coffee I consume on a weekly basis, the ability to roast a full 1lb, coupled with the relative affordability make it the roaster that best meets my needs. If there was some glaring flaw with the beans produced, that would override all other considerations, but there isn’t. You may not fool a seasoned cupper, but it’s definitely capable of producing roasts that do not stand out from professional roasts like a sore thumb, such as those from the iRoast. CE certification has been granted, so it won’t be long until the 220-240V version is available to buy, no final price has been set yet, the current exchange rate fluctuations, particularly the weak pound are playing a role in this, but the hope from Hasbean is that it will come in under £200. If that is achieved it will be a great price for those of us in the eurozone, equating to an outlay of less than I paid at the time for the iRoast against a strong pound, when you consider the programmable Hottop goes for £530 the message comes into sharp focus.
It has been a long time in coming to these shores, there were times in that period where I considered importing the US version and trying to arrange an adequate power supply (there’s a whole issue beyond mere voltage that becomes potentially very important with a roaster – cycles or hertz of the power supplied). I also considered going for the analog Hottop, but I knew I was still going to want to be able to roast greater volumes. There is enough tweakability in the Behmor to allow room for experimentation with particular beans, but there is also enough simplicity, to just start a roast and hit cool at the desired point. Four months in, I haven’t come close to trying out all the permutations the Behmor has to offer, I’ve had some batches that weren’t great, either the roast went too far, I overcompensated and cut it too short, or the profile didn’t suit, but at no time did I feel I couldn’t make the necessary changes for the next roast. Until the time when I feel I cannot make those changes, the Behmor is my roaster.

For a video run-through of a roast from start to finish check out the Behmor Video.

Sincere thanks to Steve Leighton from Hasbean for providing the testing unit.

The Anfim Haus Self doserless burr grinder.

Every grinder involves a set of compromises. The general trend is that these compromises can be reduced in correlation to the amount of money forked over. Having gone through 6 or 7 grinders in the last year, I am all too aware of the pitfalls. Currently I have two grinders on the go, a Macap M4, which I use for espresso, and a Nuova Simonelli Grinta which picks up the slack when it comes to all other grinds. While the Grinta could also be used for espresso there were certain drawbacks which I felt necessitated a dedicated grinder. Clumping is probably primary among these drawbacks.  Clumping, for those unfamiliar, generally affects fine espresso grinds, on flat-burr grinders. As the grinds are ejected from the burr chamber they adhere to each other in little balls. This is a problem as it creates an uneven density of grinds in the puck, which leads in turn to uneven extractions and channelling. Of course there are ways to alleviate this effect (such as the Weiss Distribution Technique), but I was unhappy with having to introduce this extra step. So I bought the Macap which has a doser that conveniently breaks up any clumps prior to entering the portafilter. Another issue with the Grinta is grind retention in the region between the burr chamber and the exit chute. This leads to unnecessary waste, having to grind several grams through the grinder if there is more than a couple of minutes between shots (to avoid stale grinds). To a greater or lesser extent this is a problem with nearly every grinder.

The side profile emphasises the angular spout.

I recently spent a couple of weeks with Anfim’s entry level grinder – the Anfim Haus, generously loaned by Coffee Angel, who are now selling them in their new online store. More specifically, this model, the Haus Self, refers to the version without a doser. Anfim, while perhaps not as much a household name as Mazzer, have certainly been making grinders for as long as Mazzer, and recently much noise has been made about the commercial Super Caimano model. Applauded for it’s dosing, distribution, and lack of waste it has become a popular choice in the industry. In losing the doser, the Haus Self misses out on one of the qualities that makes Anfim a popular choice for espresso, but gains a multitasking ability, making it suitable for other types of grind. The combination of doserless and stepped is most likely the one you would want to go for if you are going to have one home grinder for several uses.

A simple plastic tray, but it helps keep things tidy.

Out of the box I was immediately struck by how solid the Haus was, it’s built like a tank. Apart from the doser and power switch there is little plastic on show. The body is metal coated/painted with an acrylic veneer, and feels nigh on indestructible. Aesthetically the grinder is distinctly Italian, 60s/70s Italian at that. Although the 50mm burrs place the grinder in the Gaggia MDF / Rancilio Rocky category, the build of the Anfim makes it feel like a scaled down commercial grinder. I’m still not sure if the angular metal spout is in keeping with the overall look and feel, and I’m torn between loving it and feeling it’s out of place, but most importantly it seems to perform it’s task well, delivering a narrow aperture, directing the grinds into the portafilter. Only when the basket is approaching fullness do stray grinds start to overflow, but I found a couple of settling taps of the portafilter mid-grind alleviates this. A plastic grind catching tray is provided with the machine, which slides in and out under the bottom. It’s a minor addition, but a useful one.

This microswitch activates the grind. There's a nice tactile feel to it.

There are two switches on the body, the main on/off power switch at the side, and a portafilter (or finger) activated microswitch under the spout. Having only the Ascaso I2 to compare with regards to this type portafilter activation of grinding, I found the Anfim’s switch to be more responsive, with just the weight of the portafilter sufficient to activate. On the I2 in comparison, the light grinder body, coupled with the need for directing pressure in towards the grinder body meant that I had to strike a balance between applying enough pressure to activate the grind, but not so much as to move the grinder. The portafilter rest, however, unlike a Mazzer Mini E will not hold the portafilter on its own, and requires one hand on the handle during grinding. Of course unlike the Mazzer which has an auto on/off timed grinding, you’ll have to remove the portafilter once the desired dose is reached, so hands-on during grinding is a necessity in any case.

Though I initially experienced some clumpage when dialling in the grinder, at the correct grind setting, the grinds came out light, fluffy and more or less clump free.

When I started dialing in the grind for espresso I was initially concerned by evidence of grind clumping, fearing the worst. However, these shots also more or less choked my espresso machine, and once I coarsened the grind to desired level, the clumping was reduced to a minor level. Again, I found a couple of mid-grind taps were sufficient to break these up. In little time I started achieving shots comparable with those from my Macap M4 – although I did notice a tendency for the Anfim shots to blonde earlier, suggesting perhaps that some more intensive distribution might be of benefit. Grind time depending on fineness to 14g was about 25-30s, which is perfectly respectable in a home setting (although my Macap is about 16-18s).

Adjusting the grind is straightforward enough. The upper burr carrier is locked into position by a pin on the left side (as you face the grinder from the front). A tab on the hopper provides a lever to move left (finer) or right (coarser). I initially found that it was very easy to skip a step, and adjust two steps at once, so a little care is needed. On a 14-15g dose, one adjustment step equated to about a 7-8 second increase or decrease in shot time to 2oz. Not nearly the fine control of a stepless grinder, but it’s just within a workable range for espresso. Updosing or downdosing can of course refine this even further (eg adding an extra gram or two to slow down the shot). It’s part of the trade-off in getting a multifunction grinder, trying to strike the balance between too fine an adjustment as to make the procedure of switching grinds too much effort, and too coarse an adjustment as to make dialing-in espresso shots cumbersome. I was able to dial-in shots in the 25-30s range, but in truth I would have liked a finer adjustment.

The nice Anfim badge, cleverly hidden at the back, where you'll never see it.

In terms of grind retention, my tests (clearing the grinder, inserting a weighed dose, weighing the ouputted grinds) revealed that the Haus holds about 2-3g between the chute and the burr chamber. Better than the 3-4g the Grinta holds, and the 4-5g the Ascaso I2 holds, but still not that holy grail of zero. The shape and angle of chute also means that it’s not possible to sweep out these grinds with a brush or poke them out with a skewer, so some waste is inevitable. In fairness to the Haus, this is a relatively small amount, but still requires grinding a couple of grams between shots to clear this out.

This is also very important when switching between different grind types, as for example, left-over espresso grinds would make a french press extra sludgy, while left over french press grinds would create channels in an espresso puck. Apart from this, jumping from espresso to french press and back again was consistent. Once returned to the same setting for espresso, the same resulting shot was produced, meaning not having to redial the espresso grind. I had no issues with grind quality for French Press, the Haus actually seems to produced less sludge than a similar grind on the Grinta, suggesting fewer fines/dust. However, some thought must go to the position of the spout and the portafilter rest for access of grind receptacles. The rest obstructs the region immediately below the spout, requiring a near 45 degree angle for positioning of any receptacle taller than about 2 inches. If you grind directly into a deep 8 cup French Press this is not an issue, and the grinds will slide to the bottom, but if you grind for example into a mug, the angle will allow the grinds to build up on the sloped wall of the mug, to the point where they are touching the spout. It might sound like I’m getting a little overly analytical here, but it just makes the spout a little messy, and perhaps highlights that the ergonomics of use beyond espresso were not of primary concern. The portafilter rest can be removed easily, however, by removing a single nut, and a portafilter can still adequately balance between the microswitch and the human arm at the other end.

While the portafilter holder necessitates the 45 degree angle, it only becomes a (minor) issue when grinding into a shallow vessel, unlike here, into this 8-cup French press, where the grinds can slide freely to the bottom.

One thing I did miss was a sliding trap door on the hopper. If you want to change beans and there is still some beans in the hopper, you either have to invert the grinder with the hopper attached (muscle building), lift the hopper allowing the beans to spill out (messy), or my preferred move, lift the hopper slightly and slide the stray grind tray between the hopper and the burr chamber, before dispensing the beans into a suitable container (sneaky). Again, it’s a minor detail, but worth noting.

Comparing the Haus to the Grinta, the Ascaso I2, the Rocky or the MDF, may be a little unfair, as the Haus at €329 comes in more expensive than all of those. The premium price of course is for the build quality, which a cursory glance easily separates the Haus from I2, Grinta and MDF. The Rocky is closer in terms of build, but I’d still give it to the Haus. However, at €329 you have passed the point where you can buy the stepped, doserless Macap MC4 (note MC4 not M4) online. This is a much sterner rival to the Haus than the aforementioned grinders. With the Macap you gain bigger burrs (58mm), quicker grind, and from other reports (though I have not personally used this variant of the Macap) slightly smaller steps, though you lose the ability for one-handed operation (with a portafilter), and with the Macap’s bag-grinding style spout I’d give the aesthetics to the Haus also.

Peering into the throat of the Haus. The top burr is mounted in machined aluminum, while the bottom burr is mounted on a substantial mass of brass.

Comparing Coffee Angel’s price to various online prices it’s refreshing to see a lack of gouging (while the Rocky can be bought for €250ish online, I’ve seen it being sold in Dublin for €350ish). Of course an advantage the Haus has for an Irish consumer is that you can make your way down to Coffee Angel in their location on the quays at Dublin’s IFSC, and have a look before you buy, and have them near at hand should an problems arise (though I doubt that would be an issue for this grinder). In the end I found the Haus grinder to be a good all-round performer. In terms of clumping and grind retention, the Haus performed well, and while the adjustments were on the coarse side, in truth I found it more than useable. I wouldn’t sell off my Macap in favour of the Haus, but had I bought the Haus instead of the Grinta I may not have felt as urgent a need to buy a second grinder.

(Update Feb 09 – with currency price fluctuations the Sterling price for the Anfim is now very good, with Happy Donkey at £185 being the best)

Bags from Supreme

I guess the website, and my ramblings on various forums give away the fact that I like coffee – a lot. At this stage in my learning of making coffee, I am quietly confident I won’t ruin the coffee I use to brew too much. Stephen Morrissey discussed this in his recent talk at the Dublin SHOP Expo. It is so easy to make a potentially phenomenal coffee taste mediocre, or worse. The thing that has driven me in learning and improving have been those glimpses along the way of something better. Whether it was by French press, espresso or other brewing technique, once I tasted something better than I had previously, I wanted to be able to attain that consistently. Right now, I’m happy with the coffee I can make, but in a year’s time I may look back with a mix of embarrassment and curiosity at something which I might no longer deem acceptable. There is, however, a level of acceptance to be had when the issues are technique. Recently I got a glimpse of something better, something which left me speechless. However, this “advance” was not due to a better technique or some mysterious process; it was due to a particular coffee. That coffee was Aricha #17 from Supreme Roastworks in Oslo.

Is there anything as great as free goodies in a coffee order? Yes. When one of them happens to be an espresso blend that blows your socks off.

I placed an order from Supreme Roastworks based on their inclusion in Square Mile Coffee’s Taste of Norway event. To be honest I knew little about them, but I ordered a bag of their Air Element Espresso blend, a bag of Daterra Sweet Collection, and a bag of Aricha #17 Yirgacheffe. Aricha is a word I’ve been hearing more and more in coffee, but not one I completely understand. As far as I can ascertain it is a result of unprecedented care and attention to the coffee processing on the farmers end, such as picking only fully ripe cherries, discarding anything sub-optimal. The coffee is dry processed (it is allowed to dry with the outer cherry intact – this requires careful attention as this can spoil easily). This is undoubtedly a massive simplification, but when done really well the result is nothing short of revelatory (the previous Aricha I had was roasted by Novo in Denver, Colorado).

I know you can nit pick at the blonding in the crema, but the taste, being driven by that Aricha was phenomenal.

The bags of coffee arrived from Supreme with some goodies. The first was a nice big pin-badge (although my pin-badge wearing days are over, I stuck it to my fridge), the second was a mysterious “special” espresso blend. I had to email Supreme to find out what it was, and they told me it was a 50-50 of the Aricha and the Brazil Dattera. As it was roasted a little earlier than the other coffees I tried it first. I try not to overdo the superlatives, but this espresso will forever be burned in my memory. Blueberries, sweet ripe, juicy blueberries, were dripping like a jam out of a buttery pancake. I expected sharpness and a gum receding acidity, but there was none, just blueberries and a sweet deep chocolate finish. It is to my shame that I didn’t make a cappuccino or latte out of these beans, but I didn’t want to risk wasting a single bean if that flavour was diminished by milk.

The Air Element Espresso blend was somewhat overshadowed for me by the Special blend, this blend, however, should not be underestimated.

The single origin Aricha made just as an amazing French press coffee. For a little while I forgot that all coffee wasn’t this amazing. The notes were so pronounced, so accessible. My wife, who does not drink coffee, could identify blueberry smell from both the whole beans and the brewed cup. So often with family and friends it can be frustrating to try to communicate subtle nuanced flavours in coffee. With this coffee, however, it is not necessary. The mouthfeel was heavy and there was a terrific sweetness to the cup. I couldn’t get enough of it, I unearthed a Starbucks “venti” mug I had “obtained” years previously as it was the only mug I had big enough for the quantities I wanted to consume. I was no longer using the small 3 cup French press when making coffee just for myself; I was using the 8 cup model.

Sweet, light, creamy. Very tasty.

Under normal circumstances the Air Element blend would be the star of this discussion. Indeed it is a very accomplished blend in the Nordic style. Grapefruit / gooseberry acidity up front, balanced by a toasted almond middle note. I could not discern a bass note, often dark chocolate or pungent spice. However, I suspect that is somewhat the point of “Air” – to be light, bright and sweet. Similar to the Square Mile WBC blend, I found that a really tight ristretto unbalanced the cup to acidity, but I still favour it pulled slightly short. In milk it is delicate and bright, enhancing the sweetness of the milk. I was surprised at how well it stood up in milk.

The mouthfeel left me somewhat wanting as an espresso. In the French Press, however, the Dattera delivered.

The Dattera Sweet Collection, despite being a component of both espresso blends, didn’t make for a great espresso on its own. The flavours were there, they could be identified from within the other blends, but the mouthfeel was too light for me. It had brightness, sweetness, a kind of green grape juicyness, finishing on a mild nuttiness. It just seemed to lack that velvety, syrupy consistency you want from an espresso. In the French press it was toffee apple, again with some nuttiness. When I say toffee apple, it would of course be some kind of mutant toffee apple, where the apple is the size of a golf ball and the toffee about an inch thick – because the caramel and toffee flavours really deliver.

I was going to wrap this up by saying that Norway (and Denmark also) is a country with a roughly similar population to Ireland, but in the speciality coffee league table they are pushing for the Champions League, while we a struggling to avoid relegation (well maybe mid-table mediocrity). Having decided not to say that, I will instead say, these are great coffees, the Aricha in particular (and the blend it was in) is a coffee that should be tasted by anyone who claims to love coffee. Shipping of €30 on €36 of coffee makes this somewhat prohibitive for regular purchases, especially in hard economic times. However, for a better appreciation of coffee, to learn new things, gain new experiences, sometimes this is necessary. Whether it be from the UK, the US, Norway, Denmark or other places, the gauge by which we judge coffee in Ireland should be external rather than internal. Supreme are a great example to look to, they are only a recently founded company, but their enthusiasm can be seen in the coffee, in the swag, and in the jovial email responses to my questions. For me, the €30 shipping was money well spent.

Priorities... Priorities

I feel like I’m going to develop a music analogy theme on these bean reviews that I may not be able to dig myself out of. Nonetheless for the purposes of this review it’s all too apt, but I’ll try not to overplay it. Here we go. Was there ever a band or an artist that people kept telling you to listen to, but through a mixture of either lack of effort or preconceived notions you didn’t get around to it? For me that artist was Bruce Springsteen. My impressions of Bruce Springsteen (before I really listened to him) were of a bombastic, catchy songster, occupying the same creative space as say… Garth Brooks. I , like many before me, had fallen into the trap of thinking that his best known song Born in the USA was a vulgar pro-American pop tune (not helped by Ronald Reagan using it in his 1984 campaign). Of course if you listen to the words of Born in the USA it is an indictment of the USA in Vietnam. When it comes to Ristretto coffee in Co Down, people had been suggesting it to me for some time, but I never got around to it. Also a part of me probably thought that this until then unknown (to me) roaster in Northern Ireland probably hadn’t much to offer me. Bruce Springsteen now ranks among my top 5 artists of all time.

Dark striping, thick, unctuous espresso, pulled tight.

I like the gold valve bag. You don’t see gold very often and it looks cool. More to the point, however, is that the

roast date is bang slap on the front and it was roasted to order and shipped on the same day. As of now that is a unique selling point on this island. A £4.95 flat shipping rate to the Republic is nice if you’re going to order a few bags, but for a single bag it’s a bit steep. For me, a 250g bag of beans won’t last long, so I could happily order 4 bags safe in the knowledge they’ll all be devoured within 2 weeks. For others though the shipping cost needs to be weighed up against how long it will take to consume the beans to get that cost vs. freshness balance just right. Of course you could always freeze the beans. The Ristretto website says all the right things for me. Emphasis is placed on freshness, seasonality, organic practices and a mature discussion of ethical trading that doesn’t kowtow to the Fair Trade bandwagon.

Handsome crema.

My consumption of the 250g bag took less than 36 hours. I was cognisant that they were still very fresh, and maybe a rest of another couple have days may have allowed the flavours to settle. Throwing caution to the wind, however, I started pulling consecutive shots that led to a gluttonous consumption of the bag. The style of the blend is very much traditional Italian. Despite the lack of a robusta component that is common to most Italian blends (Illy being a big exception) the Ristretto blend would sit comfortably in the motherland. Low acidity coupled with big sweetness defines this style. The sweetness is the first thing that hits you, followed by a deeper cocoa type, slightly astringent flavour, fading into peppery tobacco note developing into the aftertaste. The crema was abundant (almost bottomless) and dark, and the body and mouthfeel were thick and syrupy. There’s no filler in this blend, the three components that comprise the mix are all single origin lots from Brazil, Guatemala and India. All three origins contribute to the flavour, and all are allowed make their presence felt without one dominating. At the same time it feels like an album rather than a compilation (there’s that analogy again). In milk the peppery tobacco note really shines through. It could easily be an everyday espresso, delivering a balanced espresso that is at home straight up as it is in milk. I’d favour the shots pulled slightly ristretto, but definitely not lungo.

That this coffee comes out of a small speciality roaster in Banbridge, Co Down is quite remarkable, and speaks to the hidden gems out there in Ireland. It’s actually quite difficult to find criticism with this blend. If I absolutely had to say something negative it would be that there are no particularly bright notes in the blend, no fruit or floral notes. Then again none of the Italian blends I’ve come across go down this route either. It would be like criticising Bruce Springsteen for not being Bob Dylan. Of course I’m not going to stop listening to Bob Dylan either but Bruce has become a regular feature of my playlists.

Ristretto Web Shop

Very shiny. Fingerprints beware!

Surely Bodum are the Apple of the kitchenware world. The Danish company seems to have an innate ability to combine the best in design with the best in functionality that makes many of its competitors seem devoid of inspiration. A quick glance around my kitchen reveals no fewer than 14 Bodum items loitering about, including but not limited to two French Presses, a Santos vacuum brewer, 4 Pavina glasses, an Assam tea pot, and a travel mug. You could say I’m a Bodum junkie. Specifically in relation to coffee, Bodum has been making their French Press in its various design refinements since 1974, and I have not come across a better implementation of this type of brewing. Of course to make a really great cup of French Press coffee (or any other type of coffee really) you need a good quality grinder. For people getting into making great coffee at home this is often the biggest obstacle, as while €300+ may seem to make sense for a fancy espresso machine, something that turns big bits of coffee into little bits of coffee doesn’t seem like as much value. In an ideal world I’d tell everyone to go out and buy a Macap or a Mazzer, but in reality most people will start with a €20 whirly blade grinder or maybe a €50 Krups “burr” grinder (burr is in exclamation marks for a reason). Normally I would say that the minimum you need to spend on a decent introductory grinder would be about €120, which would get you a Solis 166 (aka Starbucks Barista), or maybe an Iberital MC2. However, Bodum have a conical burr grinder called the Antigua, which can be bought new for as little as €60. This lead to a conflict in my thoughts: Bodum = good / €60 grinder = bad.

In principle an adjustment dial that tells you what grind is good for what brew is a great thing. I like the idea of it, if it works.

The Antigua is a light grinder, compared to my Macap M4 it feels like a toy. It is also about two thirds the height of the M4. In fact though, in this chrome iteration of the Antigua design it looks well beside the similarly chromed M4, and for most people the small size is a huge advantage, minimising the impact on precious counter retail space. The chrome effect is somewhat cheapened by the very light and plasticky grind collection bin at the front, although the plastic hopper is tamed by the chrome lid. Controls-wise there are two buttons and one knob on the Antigua, one power switch at the back left (as you look at the front of the grinder), one grind start/stop button at the front-right, and one grind time adjustment knob. The inclusion of timed grinding seems like a really good feature for a budget grinder, although the grind can be manually stopped by pressing the start/stop button a second time. The grind fineness is adjusted by turning the hopper clockwise (finer) or anti-clockwise (coarser). The hopper has a red indicator arrow attached which points to a scale on the body of the grinder indicating the level of fineness. The grinder is a stepped although unlike say a Gaggia MDF is does not rigidly click into these holes. Along the eleven point scale there are about 25 points of adjustment. This scale is very thoughtfully illustrated with images of a French Press, drip brewer, and espresso portafilter indicating the corresponding grind settings. The grind bin is held in place by a springy plastic nub underneath the bin, this seems to have been introduced in response to complaints in earlier models that the bin had a tendency to come loose mid-grind resulting in a mess of errant grinds. On that front it certainly seems to work as the bin did not budge once during grinding for me, however, it does make putting the bin back into the grinder a little tricky, requiring a wiggle from a particular angle. The hopper can be removed by rotation anti-clockwise past the coarsest setting, and then lifting upwards. This gives access to the upper burr which can be easily removed for cleaning.

This is the redesigned grind bin. You can see the tab at the bottom which holds it in. Works well but makes putting it back in a little tricky.

Starting out using the Antigua, having read various consumer reports on coffeegeek and elsewhere my initial thoughts were concerned with whether it would grind fine enough for espresso. So I adjusted the setting to the finest and attempted to use the grinder like a doserless grinder by removing the collection basket and placing the portafilter under the grind chute and grinding directly into filter basket. This quickly brought on two realisations. 1. With a standard 58mm portafilter the space under the chute is too tight to get close enough to avoid stray grinds missing the filter basket. 2. From a factory set point of view the Antigua will not grind nearly fine enough for espresso use, in fact it will not grind fine enough even for moka pot use. While the former point is no great deal, the latter seems like a major falling down. There are eleven points on the scale on the grinder body, and although point 1 is marked for espresso and point 11 is marked for French Press I found that point 3 produced a grind that I would typically use for French Press, while all points above 6 produced massive boulders of coffee that would be useless for all common brewing methods. This result was not completely unexpected, and has been mentioned before on various online sources, indeed a workaround exists where the two halves of the body can be separated and the grind adjustment ring can be moved a couple of clicks tighter to in effect properly calibrate the settings. However, as you may notice from the pictures the newest model of the Antigua does not have a two-half outer body like the old models. Upon further investigation it turns out that this one piece body is held together by a tamper-proof security screw (triangular recess screw or TP3). I had nothing remotely adequate to try to open this, and although these bits can be sourced on the internet, they are not cheap and the delivery time can be long. I’d also question the merit of spending extra money on a €60 grinder, when that money could have gone towards a grinder that will perform these functions off the bat.

This is the grind adjustment from above. The portafilter symbol is borderline false advertising unfortunately.

With espresso ruled out I considered the grind performance in French Press brewing. To my relief the grind was even, devoid of clumps, static and dust. In fact the grind quality is easily the equal if not better than my considerably more expensive secondary grinder the Nuova Simonelli Grinta grinder. The Antigua also grinds about twice as fast as the Grinta, and the timer and collection basket means you can be prepping the French Press while it is grinding and it will shut itself off when the time has elapsed. In the cup the brew was even and balanced and the sludge at the end of the cup was similar to that I’ve seen with much more expensive grinders. Another positive note is that the Antigua hardly retained any ground coffee. This can be a major pain in grinders costing far more than the Antigua, and this makes the grinder ideal for low volume home use.

New and old. I think the chrome is nice, and the improved grind bin is welcome, but in going from the split body to the one piece with tamper proof screw Bodum have severely handicapped the consumers ability to get the most out of this grinder.

The quality of grind that was evident for French Press brewing highlights that Bodum got the hard part right, namely good quality burrs. The major problem is that the machines are just not calibrated correctly. It would be so easy for Bodum to take this into account in the factory, it only requires tightening the burrs a couple of notches. As it stands more than half of the already limited grind range is useless. For €60 maybe you could expect these kinds of problems, but it wouldn’t cost Bodum any more to make that adjustment. Having said that if you happen to have a TP3 screw bit and don’t mind voiding your warranty you could probably make these changes yourself and end up with a great budget/starter grinder. If you only ever intend on brewing French Press, or you are looking for a second grinder to supplement an espresso-only grinder then I’d wholeheartedly recommend the Antigua. For most people though who want a versatile grinder it looks like we’re not quite there yet with the sub €100 dream.

Addendum (Jan ’08): Having in the past number of months, reevaluated grind sizes, mainly due to Square Mile Coffee’s excellent tutorial / videocast series – if you follow their instructions, the Bodum can adequately grind for filter, french press and moka pot. Separate to this, I have found it more than adequate also for Vac Pot / Siphon brewers. Though, it remains unable to get near espresso grind. For the price, however, and the grind quality, which I rate highly, it remains a bargain.

Great logo!

Not since members of Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds and The Hollies came together has so much been expected from something so new. Stephen Stills, David Crosby, and Graham Nash each a superstar in his own right, came together to form a supergroup, redefined music for a generation and spawned countless imitators. Hoffman, Moldvaer and Morrissey like CSN have individual legacies prior to their union under the banner of Square Mile Coffee Roasters. Stehpen Morrissey: buachaill Éireannach, 2008 World Barista Champion. James Hoffman: 2007 World Barista Champion. Anette Moldvaer: 2007 World Cup Tasters Champion. Impressive awards, but they only underline the years of industry experience each member brings to the table. The newly opened webshop offers access to the fruits of this ménage a trois. Will it be a Déjà Vu masterpiece, or a Live It Up debacle? I took delivery of some of the WBC espresso blend to find out.

Reviewing a now sold-out and not to be repeated espresso blend might seem like a fool’s errand, but I hope it might lend insight into what is to be expected from this fledgling company.

I was really pleased to find badges, stickers, and some detailed information about the blend in the package. Nice touch.

This is the blend Stephen used to win the World Barista Championships this year, a simple 50:50 ratio of Rwandan Nyamagabe and Guatemalan El Bosque. At the time of order the blend was being sold until the stock of the component parts was exhausted (this has now come to pass). The packaging accomplishes originality and a sense of design that many roasters overlook. They come sealed in the requisite one way valve bags, and also have tie-clips for use once the bag has been opened. The roast date is stamped on the front, which is great, it’s prominent, it’s important. Square Mile roast to order, so beans going stale on shelves, and the pressure to ship off slightly older beans is removed from the equation. Orders are shipped and roasted (same day) on Mondays and Thursdays. I’d recommend for Irish customers to get the orders in before 12 noon on the Monday to avoid the beans sitting in a post depot over the weekend with a Thursday order. My order took 2 days to deliver, the shipping rates were very reasonable (£7.50 for a 3 bag order), and a delightful selection of stickers, badges, and information was included in the package.

One of the 40ml ristrettos.

The roast is quite light, maybe surprisingly so for those accustomed to darker roasted espresso beans. Opening the bag reveals quite a sweet aroma with fruity notes aplenty. The dry smell from the ground beans was similar, intensely fruity with lots of high notes. Over about a week I pulled various shots using this blend, with a varied dose of coffee and brew water. In most cases the high fruity notes hit me first; I placed these notes somewhere between apricot and blackcurrant. Then next a malty toasty flavour follows, bringing you down from the high notes to a rounder sweet mid note. This finished with a deeper cocoa powder bass note. I found a 40ml/18g/30s double ristretto to get the balance best for me, lower volumes made the high notes overly intense, while higher volumes muted these notes (of course this may be particular to my machine setup). In milk, the stars of the show – those high berry flavours are hugely diminished. The mid and low notes do carry though, and are very pleasing. The sweet milk and the malty toast flavour seem to combine well particularly, giving the sensation of butterscotch. For me the best of this blend is in the straight up espresso, it will give a good performance in milk, but I’d feel like I was masking some of the defining flavours.

Bainne. Avonmore as in Copenhagen.

There you have it, a quite interesting blend, but now sadly no longer available. What conclusions can be drawn about the future direction of Square Mile based on this? Certainly I would say the style of this blend places it closer to Norway than Naples. I found it at times a little tricky to get the right brew settings to get the best out of it, but that should not be taken as a criticism. No doubt it would be all too easy to create a forgiving, please-all blend. The WBC Espresso blend though is joyously unforgiving and even the most unbalanced of the shots I pulled were hugely interesting. I wouldn’t necessarily expect the next Square Mile Espresso blend to resemble the WBC blend. The whims, curiosities and moods of the Square Mile crew will be too changeable to be limited to one flavour profile. I do expect the next blend, however, to be fascinating. Perhaps it won’t be to everyone’s taste, and may not be the blend you always want to have in your grinder, but it will probably be one you want to play with, one you want to make 3 or 4 shots of in a row to try to recapture and define that one flavour you can’t quite place.

The history of CSN is fractious. Many factors contributed to the break-ups: the introduction of Neil Young to make it CSNY, David Crosby’s legendary drug use, Stephen Stills’ megalomania. For a time, however, they were untouchable. They were new, fresh, original. Pioneers. In these terms you might say Square Mile are still in the first studio rehearsal sessions, but I expect great things.

Looking Forward.

Earthy you say...

I wasn’t sure if I’d write this review. In fact, I had completely scrapped it. In the introduction / mission statement of this website I said it was the intention of this site to draw intention to what we thought was great, not to criticise what we didn’t like. At a certain point though, if everything is positive, there is no context and it becomes one big generic advertisement for coffee. We didn’t seek out some coffee so we could break our negativity cherry; there are far more obvious targets for that. Instead we ambled down to the M&D stall in Georges Arcade fully ready to buy some nice fresh coffee beans, make a few cups of this and that, and start singing the praises. Reality got in the way though.

M&D (Moynihan & Dent) operate a stall in the funky Georges St Arcade. They sell a veritable plethora of

Doesn't look half bad here. Didn't taste half bad either. Not half...

beans and teas, and have probably the best selection of Moka pots and other quirky little brewers in Dublin. They also have a stall in the Farmer’s Market in Howth on a Sunday (and possibly elsewhere on other days). We wandered in anyway, and asked for a suggestion of something that would work well for espresso. The Cuban blend, which to me is one of the darkest, oilest roast I’ve ever seen, was not something I was eager to put in my grinder (the oil would linger imparting flavour on subsequent coffee). So the Java blend was suggested. I asked when it was roasted, and was told 4 days ago. Great I thought.

Bodum Vac Pot Top bowl of the Bodum Santos vac-pot with the Nuova Simonelli Grinta grinder in the background.

The beans, residing in big bins, were weighed and transferred to a plastic bag which was sealed. The bag had no valves, so I was slightly concerned that if it was 4 days post roast, the beans might still be degassing, and could cause a problem. Not the prettiest of containers, but functional. The sticker on the bag describes the blend as “A strong, dark roast coffee with an earthy flavour, lovely in the morning!”. The word Java has maybe lost its meaning in recent times and has merely become a synonym of coffee, or worse still a computer programming language. This Java, however, refers to the Indonesian island from which the coffee originates.

Vac Pot Brew The final stages of the vac pot brew. The heat is removed and the resulting vacuum draws the coffee down into the bottom bowl.

Normally we’d dial in the grinder and make a double espresso and a latté, but we didn’t get as far as the latté this time. On first inspection the espresso looked good; the colour was dark with some mottling. On closer inspection though, the crema was very bubbly, big bubbles instead of the expected microbubbles, and it seemed very thin for a coffee roasted only 4 days previously. Something was awry. To describe the taste as “rough” would be generous. The overriding flavour characteristic was earthiness (as promised), the body was thin, we debated whether there was a hint of sweetness and some brighter notes in the background, but we struggled hard. The thought crossed my mind that I’d been slipped a bag of robusta surreptitiously. We didn’t bother with a latté, and we didn’t finish the espresso. Instead we thought, maybe this really should be filter only, and we got the vac-pot out of the press to test this hypothesis.

Oh how I love my vac-pot, except when it clogs, which is frequent enough. On this day though, it behaved itself. Vac-pots (also known as siphon coffee makers) fall into the broader category of devices for making filter coffee, which includes press-pots, drip filters, and others. The basic principle is that you have two bowls separated by a filter. A long tube from the top bowl penetrates towards the end of the bottom bowl. In the top bowl you place the ground coffee, in the bottom bowl the water. Then you apply heat. As the water heats in the bottom bowl, the increasing gas pressure forces the now hot water up into the top bowl. You keep the heat on for a couple of minutes to brew the coffee, and then remove the heat. As the bottom bowl cools the gases contract creating a vacuum. This vacuum draws the coffee through the filter leaving the grinds in the top bowl and beautifully smooth tasty coffee in the bottom.

At least that’s the theory. No matter what you’re brewing with you can’t improve the bean you start with. As a filter coffee M&D Java seemed somewhat more suited. Still though, it wasn’t great. It all tasted a bit flat, apart from the aforementioned earthiness. In fairness to them, they say on the front of the bag that it’s “earthy”. It’s earthy at the expense of nearly everything else though. Some people like Marmite, so maybe I can appreciate the possibility that this is to someone’s taste, but neither of us liked it. If you had told me someone put some soil in the end of my cup, I might have believed you, and that’s where I’ll finish flogging these beans to death.

Perhaps it is unfortunate that this is the first coffee from M&D we have chosen to review. I don’t want this review to paint them in a bad light; I think they do some interesting coffees. The Cuban coffee I mentioned before, I have had previously, and I’ve seen merit in it. It’s roasted to the point where the roast flavour is very prominent, but there are some cool funky flavours lurking in there too (you just might have to clean your grinder when you’re finished). We’ll endeavour to look at another M&D bean sooner rather than later and see if we have some kinder impressions to offer.