Archive for the 'Coffee' Category

Tiger of a Tuesday

Published at October 14, 2009 in Thailand, Coffee, food and State of the raph. 0 Comments

I starter writing this last night, but started nodding off from sheer exhaustion.

first nights sleep was interrupted by a  mild case of reflux. This minor reflux was somewht affected by the green curry i had had earlier, to basically mean RED HOT reflux. Had a peppermint and some water and was ok.

The next morning, up at 5.45 (hey its sounding like a work day) shower and get dressed and rachy and I head down for the hotels buffet breakfast. Turns out the breakfast was incredibly good. Rather glad of that, as the long days tour was ahead and a big boy like me, needs to keep fueled.

So at 6.45am we board the tour bus for our River Kwai, Death Railway Museum and Tiger Temple tour.   First stop was a museum dedicated to those that had build the railway from Thailand to Burma, including the rail bridge over the river Kwae, I had been aware of the fact the Japanese had used POW’s and labourers to build the railway, but the sheer enormity of the task had never been clear to me. Thousands died during the construction. The mind boggles at the Japanese idea - hey we are fighting a war on multiple fronts, but we need a way to get to burma that isnt by sea… LETS BUILD A RAILWAY. The fact that they got the 300km railway built and were using it while at war, is incredible. The cost in human life cannot have been worth it.

On the way through, we stopped at a thai service station, my need for caffeine overtook my good coffee sense and I purchased nescafe in a can. To my slight chagrin, I liked it. Much better than a big m ice coffee, not as nice as  a decent latte, and way too sweet, but eminently drinkable.

We then went to the bridge over the river Kwae. Full of tourists, as expected, and the locals there very insistent on selling you their touristy books. We were approached at least 10 times by the same woman. It leads me to suspect that the tactic is to keep coming back until you buy the books just to stop them coming. I did however purchase a straw hat (pictures will be put up on facebook later). We then boarded a train to travel that line. It is mildly disconcerting to be given a certificate to say you have been traveling on the Death Railway. The train lurched and rattled quite a bit, and we were glad we had spent a little extra for the “VIP” seating. These had cushions on them to shield us from the bumps. We also made acquaintance with another melbourne couple who were on the tour with us, so had nice conversation for the 1.5hr journey. Some of the views were spectacular, but it was a little like being on Thai Puffing Billy. After the train ride, we adjourned to a nearby restaurant for a nice Thai buffet lunch. After this, another 30 minutes on the bus and we arrived at the tiger temple. We were told that for an extra 1000Baht donation, we could have special photo with a tigers head on one of our laps. Initially I was not going to do this, but upon finding out that all donations go towards building a better habitat for the Tigers, I changed my mind. I will admit that the idea of getting so close to these huge beasts is one I really like. So we got taken through to the first tiger, as I sat down for the photo op, the tiger appeared to get a little aggressive and we were hurriedly moved to another tiger. These animals are absolutely magnificent, and I can now also report, they are much heavier than they look. For the 1000Baht donation we got the “special photo” with a Tiger head in my lap, and also a walk around patting each tiger individually and a photo op. The tigers are kept with very large metal collars, and I question whether it is cruel to hobble them so, however, all the tigers in the temple are bought in by the people for the monks to care for, and would likely suffer a much crueler fate if they had not been so, and the monks take duty of care seriously and the tigers are well exercised, so I do take some small comfort in this.

I also had the obligatory photo op of standing friendly with a genuine monk. One that Rachel politely declined, because as a girl, she would have to stand about a foot away, as monks are not allowed to touch females.

After that, the tour ended and the bus took us back to Bangkok. From a pre-7am start, we made it back to the hotel at around 7pm. After freshening up at the hotel, we headed back out to MBK for some more shopping and dinner. We ended up having dinner at an incredibly good  Japanese restaurant on the 7th floor. I cannot remember the name, but the food was very very good, the service was excellent.

Also, I had my first beer in over a decade. It was a Singha beer, yes there is photographic evidence, and yes, i liked it.

This morning we once again enjoyed a buffet breakfast, and are now ensconced in our room, planning for the days activities.

Tonight we will write some postcards, and I will once again fill in the boring details of the day.

Wow! Stuff! (things have been happening.)

Published at October 12, 2009 in Thailand, Coffee, food and State of the raph. 0 Comments

So, ok, I suck at updating here with any regularity. The main problem with having a vanity site, is, well, I am just not that vain. I get passionate about something, rant, rave, move on. The passion may stay, but the urge to shout it to the world tends to die down a bit.

That said, I don’t really have any new passions to rant and rave about, however I have a lot of things going on, so I guess I should share with the world.

I guess, the first big item on the agenda is that I have left my old place of employ. After four years at Adairs, it is time to move on. An opportunity arose, with an up and coming fashion retailer, that is more in sync with the direction I want to be moving. So leaving the comfort of the old, to the new future that awaits. I cannot really talk much about it, as I have not started yet, and as those that know me already are aware, I am not much given to reflections of my work life. I am a big proponent of the idea that discussion of work, should remain at work. That still holds, even when you take work home with you.

So, yes, I have already left Adairs, so why have I not started my new position yet?

Well, I am glad you asked.

This morning, 6am Thai time, the lovely Rachel and myself landed at Bangkok Airport to start 10 glorious days of Thai goodness. This is both of our first time in Thailand, and we are really taking to it.

Highlights of day 1 include (in no particular order)

  •  Seeing a Ronald MacDonald statue giving the wai
  •  The 2009 Miss Poland conference appears to be being held at our hotel, she is rather pretty, and VERY tall (we saw her get out of the lift as we were entering)
  • Wandering laps on all seven floors of MBK - this took over five hours.
  • Catching a cab to a different area just to try out a restaurant.
  • Finding out via empirical evidence that decent coffee in Thailand is hard to come by.
  • Watching tuktuk drivers get mad at the fact we don’t want them.
  • Fending out little thai ladies can really push me about.
  • Haggling to save what you then realise works out to be $1 on a $50 transaction, watch other people haggle longer, louder and harder, to save less on a significantly larger transaction

Tomorrow we are off to the tigher temple and river kwai tour. Early morning, and I am tired now, so will get back to this tomorrow

night.

More updaes then

Tassie Tassie Tassie

Published at December 7, 2008 in vacation!, Coffee and Life. 0 Comments

Well that was a nice weekend away.

A while back, Tiger airlines was offering a discount on their normal (already cheap) flights around Australia, and Rachel and I decided to do a weekend away in Tasmania as neither of us had been there before. So, flights were booked. Total price for the flights between the two of us, return, was $91. So a lot closer to the trip, a random motel was chosen, near Port Arthur, which we wanted to see, for a single night, car rental booked. (ok so when you factor in motel and car rental, a cheap trip is not so cheap anymore, but hey who thinks these things through properly?) and off we went.

I must start at the outset and say Tasmania is breathtakingly beautiful. We drove the 80km from the airport to Port Arthur and were stunned at the landscape. Also, we drove from the airport to Port Arthur and did not see anything that remotely resembled city or even suburban life as we are used to.

We got to Port Arthur with no problems, checked into our motel in Nubeena (10k out of Port Arthur), drove towards the historic site there, stopping at the Eucalypt Cafe for a meal and coffee.

An interlude here dear reader, as you may know, I am a little bit of a coffee snob and am not big on drinking coffee outside of my home, but this little cafe, in the middle of nowhere, had a menu that told me they certainly know their coffee. In fact I am not sure if I have ever seen a cafe with ristrettos and dopios on their menu ever before. So, if you are a coffee snob, and want a decent coffee in tassie, try the Eucalypt cafe in Port Arthur

Back to our main tale, we got to the Port Arthur historic site, and it started to heavily rain. We wandered into the information center, only to see that the pricing was a little steep to be wandering around a few ruins, especially in the rain. I mean yes, we could see it from the lookout and it did look pretty, but $28 each, to wander around some ruined houses, not an overly great proposition to us, especially in the rain.

Rachel particularly wanted to see the memorial site from when Martin Bryant shot a large number of people, becoming Australias biggest ever murderer. (some people refer to him as our biggest serial killer, but serial killers kill over multiple time periods, he just went on one big rampage. Does that make him a parallel killer?). So she asked at the information booth there, only to be told in hushed tones that they dont really talk about it, and handed a pamphlet with less info than might be garnered on the back of a cereal box. She also received unclear directions to the memorial, which we were then unable to find.

So in the rain, we drove to a lookout point not far from the historic site, where we once again took in the magnificent view, and then back to the motel for a quick nap.

It was still raining when we finished napping, so the decision was made to head into Hobart to check out the restaurants. 90Km later after a drive through rain soaked beautiful countryside, we made it to the CBD. It really had that country feel to it, and at 6.45pm on a saturday, was deader than a doornail that had twice been shot dead. We could not even find a place for a decent meal. So, several phonecalls later, to friends and family, we established that North Hobart may be better, and managed to find our way there.

Elizabeth St, in North Hobart seemed a little like a toned down version of Fitzroys Brunswick st. A massive variety of restaurants, lots of people walking up and down. We chose a lovely indian place whose name currently escapes me and had a very nice meal. In fact, I would rank their naan breads up there with the best i have ever had.

After dinner, we had the lovely drive back to our motel, 90kms away. In the dark, with no street lighting to speak of, along windy country roads, some unsealed, in a rent-a-car that i was not too familiar with. We were also tailgated for about 70km of that drive. FUN!.

 Oh i forgot to mention, anything further out than 30ks from Hobart, and we had no mobile phone reception, no voda wifi internet reception. For a couple who are as connected as us, this was mildly freaky.

Motel was comfortable enough for us, and sleep was had.

Next morning, back to Eucalypt for coffee and breakfast, and then back to the airport for our home flight.

A couple of notes on the flights and tasmania airport.

1. A food court is not 2 cafes serving exactly the same fare as eachother at exactly the same price. Please take note of this Hobart Airport

2. Tiger Airways has more room in their seats than Jetstar

3. Tiger Airways planes shudder a lot more than any other airoplane i have been on.

4. They also land in a more scary fashion.

5. Dont offer us the roomier seats only to take them away when we sit down. If you deem us unsuitable, thats fine, but nothing changed from when you offered them to us until we sat down.

All in all, the trip was much fun, and a much needed getaway. Will definitely go back and hopefully spend much longer there, soaking in the scenery and relaxed atomsphere.

More Coffee

Published at November 23, 2008 in Coffee. 0 Comments

Ok, before i start posting further on the ways of the world, and whats been going on in general, here in the land of raph, my coffee obsession has slowly been settling down. I have gotten significantly better at roasting my own beans, to the point where i can even successfully roast a indian monsoon malabar type bean. My coretto roaster is setup quite nicely, after i bought a tripod on which to balance my heat gun. Its an almost entirely hands free operation now. Three batches yields approximately 1Kg of roasted coffee. I have also started roasting for my brother, so I have a second voice to tell me if I am doing it write or doing it wrong.

I have also started using one way valve bags for my roasted coffee. This prevents oxygen coming in but lets the CO2 out. Initially I was not convinced it would make much of a difference but it really has. Especially with beans left for more than three or four days to rest after roasting, the flavour is noticeably better.

As far as coffee gear is concerned, I did end up upgrading. In the end, through ebay i got a Compak K6 grinder and through the buy and sell pages on Coffee Snobs, I got a very well cared for Nuova Simonelli Oscar. Dont get me wrong, the Gaggia Classic was a lovely machine but I was ready for the next level, especially given the fact that I often like to make coffees for friends and the unfortunate reality with the classic is that it just does not have enough oomf to steam milk for more than two coffees at a stretch.

oscar and compak together!

Having been using the Oscar for about three months now, I have become fairly proficient in using it. The large one litre boiler and the fact that it is a heat exchange coffee machine means that I never run out of steam power and can make many coffees, always enough for guests, without any annoying pauses. People seem to have two gripes about the Oscar, one that it has no hot water spout, and two, that it has no vacuum breaker, so when turning it on, it requires that you open the steam wand up to allow air out. Now, when i want boiling water, i use the kettle, so not having a hot water spout is no issue for me, and while I have considered adding a vacuum breaker to it, I have decided that it is such an insignificant issue in the use of the machine that it is not worth it.

Probably my only gripe with the Oscar is that it seems to have been designed by a southpaw who didnt have the strength of conviction to go all the way. The steam wand is on the left side, but the portafilter also swings in as per standard, left to right, so you cannot place it on the group head, nor remove it without bumping into the steam wand. This little idiosyncracy is easily forgiven though. The steam power coming out of that wand is formidable, so much so, that the first time i used it, I nearly blew all the milk out of my milk jug.

As for the Compak K-6, i got it for an excellent price off ebay, and the maxim that the best upgrade you can get for your coffee machine is a better grinder, is totally true. The K-6 grinds consistently,quietly and quickly. Whilst the EM0480 was excellent, this is better. It is really hard to quantify how much it improves things, but suffice to say if you made five espressos with the k-6 and five with the EM0480you would notice the difference.

All told, money well spent.

As for the old gear, having spent hours modding and cleaning up the gaggia, I am loathe to sell it, so it is currently sitting in my spare room. I will probably force myself to part with it some time shortly. I need the money, however in the meantime, it is out to pasture. Oh to be able to put it out to stud, so it could just enjoy its retirement years :)

The EM0480 is also there, but mainly because i suspect I will use it as a travel grinder next time I go away for any length of time. We shall see.

Till next…

Here is a pic of my setup.

COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE

Published at August 14, 2008 in Coffee. 0 Comments

Hi!

 I know its been a while but i have been busy.

The story so far 

Boy have I gotten passionate about coffee lately. With no small help from the guys down at CoffeeSnobs I have gone from making an ok coffee at home, to making a pretty damn fine one (if i say so myself, and i do, often). Sure theres room for improvement, but isnt there always. I have gone wild for everything coffee.

As per earlier post, I was saving money by drinking coffee i make myself as opposed to buying it every morning. Ive gone one step further and roast it at home as well. Initially i started out with an air popper. Fairly easy and cheap. The main problem was volume. Actually two different types of volume. When roasting coffee, you listen out for what is known as the first crack and second crack. These audible clues will tell you that your coffee is nearing the stages you want it to be in for however you like your coffee. In a air popper, i was limited to roasting approximately 100 grams at a time, and because of the noise of the popper, i could nor properly hear second crack. Solution, make a corretto roaster. A corretto, named after the coffee snobs user who came up with the idea, is essentially made up of two parts. The first being a heat gun - obviously used to apply heat, and a bread maker - the basket of which can handle high temperatures and also agitate the beans while doing so. The advantages of this are again volume and volume. The bread machine is less noisy than the popper, and also allows me to roast between 300 and 400 grams of coffee at once. Another advantage is that the roasting times take a little bit longer. This allows for richer flavour as the caramelisation process is more drawn out.

I still need to add a thermometer to the mix so i can get better consistency out of my roasting but as it is, its pretty damn fine. I have had much success with many varieties of bean. I tell you, green coffee beans do not much look like the final product, and i would not recommend trying one raw :D

So aside from roasting coffee, I have also obtained some ibriks (also known as cezve) to start experimenting making turkish coffee at home for that real zing. (no i will not also install a hookah though it is tempting).

Finally, in a bit of a risky call, i have taken the ebay plunge again and bought a commercial level grinder (should be here next week). Thought he EM0480 is pretty good, i need something a little better. As they say, the best upgrade you can do for your coffee machine, is upgrade your grinder. With a little luck, I shall see an improvement in what I am drinking.

I have also gotten significantly better at milk frothing. I am certainly no latte artist (yet) but my microfoam (its all about the microfoam) is getting pretty good.

Where too from here? is the next question, and the answer lies in the next level of machine. Its probably out of my budget range right now, but i will soon be arranging to meet up with Chris from Talk Coffee to have a look at the pointier end of coffee machines. The gaggia classic is a fantastic machine at its price point. But when making more than 2 coffees, especially if doing milk based drinks, it struggles. So I am considering a better machine, one that has heat exchange and a larger boiler so that volume of steam is never an issue. Also, the higher end machines have better thermal stability, which in theory will enable me to do an even better shot.

The conclusion 

Am I obsessed? Sure. I would agree that yes, I am. But hey, coffee is the second most traded commodity on the planet after oil. So i doubt I am alone. Being more snobbish about my coffee has changed my drinking habits. Its not only to save money that I drink most of my coffee at home, I cannot stand the taste of some of the cafes produce. They burn their coffee, have the coffee ground too early before pulling the shot, scald the milk, use old beans and any other number of things. My taste buds have become ridiculously discerning on the subject. Also, though i used to be a strictly milk with coffee all the time kind of guy, my improved espresso shots see me drinking more and more short blacks or ristrettos. Its a beautiful thing. I love my coffee, and with a little effort, my coffee seems to be loving me.

(more coffee posts to come - i am sure)

Coffee - How i went from a drinker to a maker.

Published at May 25, 2008 in Coffee. 0 Comments

So I used to have a daily coffee from a place called Coffee Max. I highly recommend them. They are in Camberwell, on Burke rd, next door to the JB HiFi there.  In particular, the blend known as Brasilia is divine. They roast their own beans on premise, and Dino pulls one of the best coffees you can ever have.

That said, $4 a day, sometimes twice a day, while not ridiculous, was an expense I wanted to pair down. In addition, having a 50 minute commute to work in the morning, I decided I should make my own coffees and drink them on the way in.

To this end, I initially invested in a Vac Pot - a Bodum Santos 6 cup, and proceeded to learn how to make a damn fine coffee with it. Vac Pots are for the coffee purist who loves a long black. Very little bitterness, and a beautiful full bodied flavour.  It does take a bit of fiddling to get right however, and the process is tricky when half asleep. I do heartily encourage anyone who loves a coffee to at least try a Vac Pot at some point, and when making coffee for several guests now, the Santos always comes into play, and everyone is always very appreciative.

In order also to improve the flavour of my coffee, it was around this time I also invested in a new grinder. After a fair bit of research, in order to suit my budget needs, I invested in a Sunbeam EM0480 grinder. This is where I learned that my old Delonghi machine would no longer serve my purposes as a decent grind would essentialy block up the group and spray water everywhere.
So  I decided it was time to get rid of my old DeLonghi semi auto coffee machine and get a real coffee machine. You can make an ok coffee with a semi auto, but for a truly awesome coffee, you need a manual machine. After some research, it really boiled down to a choice between the Gaggia Classic and the Rancilio Silvia. The Classic was more easily available secondhand at an affordable price, so after a week or 2 on eBay, i scored one for $250.

Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately for me, the machine was not as advertised on eBay. It was not in Very Good Condition, as stated in the auction, it was in fact, quite poorly. Water only poured out of half the group, it came out dirty and stale tasting, and I could not get a decent crema.

This is where some online research paid of handsomely. Machine’s like the classic have many users and there are massive coffee communities out there, coffeesnobs.com.au and coffeegeek.com are two to mention to start with.

With help from these communities (also the help of a friend with a dremel), I stripped the classic down completely, ordered some spare parts  (in total $40 worth) and cleaned it all out, put in new gaskets, shower screens etc and voila, as good as new. All of a sudden I am tasting coffee heaven. Absolutely wonderful coffee.

I ordered a new tamper to go with my machine - the old tamper was a 53mm tamper, catering for the smaller basket of the delonghi, and the new tamper is a proper 58mm. Once again, the coffee improved.

Today, I have done one more mod to the Classic, and that is to change the plastic frothing aid with a proper steaming wand off a Rancilio Silvia. This has already much improved the microfoam I can produce, and means a much nicer latte or cappuccino.

One more mod planned for the machine, in the next few months I will install a PID kit on it to give me ultimate temperature control.

All this might sound a bit obsessive, but hey, if you drop by, you can know with surety that you are going to get a great coffee if you ask for one.

Oh and yeah so I spent a bit of cash on this, but considering I am saving (yes i do actually make 2 coffees for myself for the ride into work every morning) approximately $3 a day  (taking into account purchase of coffee beans) the machine AND the grinder will be paid off in savings in less than 6 months.  A hobby that literally is paying for itself.