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…you’ll need a decent coffee grinder…”

As Patrick would say.

(What he actually said was “Now that you’re a farmer, John, you’ll need a tractor” which is why I’ve got a 1957 Ferguson FE35 sitting on 3 hectares in New Zealand..)

But I definitely need a decent coffee grinder, which is one of the things that Martin Meyer who owns and runs the Molino Cafe in Wiesbaden told me on Sunday night when he showed 10 of us the basics of barista-ing.

Excellent, informative evening.

I didn’t know, for example, that increasing the proportion of Robusta beans in the blend gives you a better crema. (Gives it a more sophisticated taste IMHO too, in case you’re asking.)

And that Nestle pads its Wellness product with unroasted coffee beans (Marketing blurb: bursting at the seams with antioxidants etc), , so you charge more (because it’s so GOOD for you) and lower your costs (because unroasted beans are untaxed)

But I also learned how to texture milk properly (after wasting the best part of Daisy’s daily output trying..).

And that you need exactly 7 grams of coffee for a single shot and that it needs to take around 25 seconds to pour through the filter group.

Which is why I need a decent coffee grinder, because the pre-ground stuff flies through in about half that time and tastes vaguely naff.

Mind you, I’ve had LOADS of time to research, given that it’s now Wednesday and I haven’t slept a wink since Sunday.

That’s what happens when you sample everything that’s placed in front of you.

I lost count at 24 singles…..

19 May This entry was published on 19 May, 2010 at 11:00. It’s filed under Culinary and tagged good guys, NQM. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.