Over the past couple of months I’ve had the opportunity to use the Kinu M47 handheld manual grinder. Even though manual grinders are not exactly new, there is a lively market for them. Often, they are far better than their similarly priced electric counterparts as well.
Read MorePeople have been finding clever and creative ways to use the AeroPress to make Cold Drip coffee. There’s one group of people that are trying to make things a little bit easier with the PUCKPUCK on Kickstarter.
A while ago I reviewed the first Smart Scale by Brewista. The scale surprised me with its comprehensive feature set at an unbeatable price point. I’ve been using that scale ever since for every single brew. Recently Brewista made a new version called, hold on, the Smart Scale 2 or Smart Scale II. Brewista sent me one to review and compare against the original.
Yesterday, Friday, was the first day of the 2017 edition of the Amsterdam Coffee Festival. The venue, once again, was the Westergasfabriek and the Gashouder in Amsterdam. In this (very) short recap I will show you that not much has changed, but everything seemed to be vastly different at the same time.
Last weekend was the weekend a lot of Dutch coffee lovers had been looking forward to for months. The 2015 edition was great but it couldn’t hold a candle to the 2016 edition of the Amsterdam Coffee Festival.
The key to making great coffee is to control all the variables. The variable that often has the most variation is tamping. Traditionally tamping was the process of compressing the grounds in the filterbasket which consisted of a few steps. First you press the coffee down, then knock the side of the portafilter to knock stray grounds loose which were then pressed into the coffee puck by tamping again. And for good measure spin the tamper like a spinning top to polish the surface. All of those steps contribute to tamping being one of the least controllable variables.
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I would like to thank each and every one of my readers for the incredible year this has been. I moved my blog to its own domain, started posting photos on Instagram and opened up my very own Facebook page. I’ve received more emails than I can count and had some great conversations along the way. For 2016 I hope to write more articles, review more products, create some new stuff and drink less MORE! coffee.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,
Sebastiaan
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