The Reading Room

After I posted earlier about the University of Glasgow study published in Food and Function Magazine (you can read the study for free here, but you need to register for an account to read the full thing), Son Ton commented...

Here is a little video that I took several months ago of my La Marzoco Linea pulling a shot of espresso (I forgot what kind of coffee I used but the shot was really good). The particular La Marzocco Linea...

Last week's big coffee health news was that coffee may help prevent endometrial cancer in women. This week, the coffee buzz is about the dangers of highly caffeinated coffee for prengnant women. Researchers from the University of Glasgow got shots...

Sure, we all have nice espresso machines right?  Our debate is "should I get the PID"ed double boiler or go with the trendy old is the new "new" heat exchanger model? We are troubled by the inconsistency of a couple...

What's in my cup? Dust, that's what. Since the box from Olympia Coffee Roasting Company (established 2005) came in compliments of the fine folks at the USPS and their priority mail service I have been wearing out my espresso shot...

http://coffeebreak2day.com/http://coffeebreak2day.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/coffee-meringue-recipe.jpg" alt="coffee meringues" title="coffee meringues" align="right" border="0" height="175" hspace="5" vspace="5" width="250" />After I posted the recipe for the egg biscuits this morning, I just had to make up a batch, which went wonderfully with my coffee -- and left me...

Today for the first time I got to play with a Cremina.  I will start with the anticlimax up front though.  I was expecting plenty of time to play with it, but things came up that meant we were only...

http://www.coffeebreak2day.com/images/egg-biscuits.jpg" alt="egg biscuits with coffee wash" title="egg biscuits with coffee wash" align="left" border="0" height="252" hspace="5" vspace="5" width="280" /> When I was growing up, my grandmother's pantry always held two boxes of cookies. One was the Nabisco Hostess Assortment, which she...

there has been a lot of debates about the advantages and disadvantages of Heat exchanger espresso machine versus the double boilers espresso machines. There are merits to both systems with regard to temperature stability, steaming performance and user friendliness. Today,...

Tomorrow will be a big day in my life as a lever head.  Lever heads are those of us who choose to make espresso with lever espresso machines.  I confess that I am a little bit of a disgrace to...

It's Christmas time now, not just the pre-Thanksgiving thinking about Christmas time, but really here. So I have been doing what I hope a lot of people are able to think about and afford, give gifts to people. Specifically, I...

The Ristretto: The Lame Duck of Coffee This is the title of a recent article in the LA Weekly.  It is both an insightful and obtuse piece at the same time.  The author points out that there is no real...

  There have been alot of talk lately about presure profiling during the brewing process of espresso. In fact, the new bread of pump machines that have been coming out from La Marzocco, Slayer and Synesso and other are incorporating...

I have been in a bit of coffee reading routine lately and am going back for between two of Kenneth Davids books, "Home Roasting; Romance and Revial" and "Coffee: A Guide to Buying Brewing and Enjoying." Both of these books...

Since my main lever espresso machine the Ponte Vecchio Lusso is waiting to be serviced (piston seal change, pressurestat change) and the my HX the Nuova Simonelli is waiting to be plumbed in. In the mean while, because I can...

True confessions here -- if you check my profile, you'll see that I make it clear right up front: I am not a coffee snob. I appreciate great coffee, I really do. I appreciate great coffee the way I appreciate...

What I am drinking now - Paradise Classico I had recently ordered a bunch of Paradise blends from Roaste and enjoyed them all, but one of the ones I did not order was Paradise Classico.  This has always been a...

Persistence pays off after some bad planning. I ordered some paradise coffee for thanksgiving and really enjoyed it, but somehow with the extra guests and the extra time at home for me I went through far more coffee than I...

One more incredibly cool tool that I would love to have, but do not have is a scace portafilter.  For measuring the temperature of espresso extraction.  It was invented by Greg Scace and is used for setting up espresso machines. ...

Cooling down a lever. One of the flaws with a lever machine is that most of them, such as the La Pavoni models and the Elektra models is that they tend to overheat after a few shots.  The design is...

It all started with ROASTe's Thanksgiving Day post about coffee in your beer. I'm not a beer lover, but I like a cold one once in a while -- especially if it's not your usual off-the-bottom-shelf brand. I put coffee-infused...