Since coffee is almost as important to me as music production, I feel compelled to chip in my two cents.

The key, I find, to making the best possible cup of coffee is in the quality of the grind itself. While there are many coffees who pretend to be gourmet, and masquerade as true coffees of various third world nations (France included), the real litmus test for taste quality is in how finely the coffee is ground. There are those callous brutes who insist on distributing coffee with grounds larger than a sugar granule. These are probably the same ignoramuses who record everything with SM57s. But it is when you find coffee in a nearly powder grind that you know you are in the presence of greatness. You see, the finer the grind, the more thoroughly the coffee grounds can integrate with the water, thus providing a more complex solution than that of most regular, supermarket variety coffees.

I envision a not-too-distant day where the technology will have advanced to the point where we can have nano-coffee: microcosmic particles to provide complete integration with the water used to make this wonderful elixir. And when that day arrives, I will hold my mug up to the sky, and salute the beauty of pure contentment.

Ahhh.

>>Can you, tmidgett of SKWM fame (btw, Little Grizzly's 4-letter band acronym is LGRZ), tell me what the heck "illy espresso" is?

illy is probably the best widely available coffee in the world

www.illy.com

they are incredibly, scientifically picky--new york times had a good article on mr.illy, but i can't find in on the web just now

i agree with the person who said grind is very important

in fact, until i get a burr grinder, i've resorted to buying GROUND illy

it is very very finely ground, yet you can pack it tight w/o choking off the water thru the coffee

my theory: blade grinders cut the beans into little slices. even if they then slice the slices up, they still make little platelets that, when compacted, become like a little shale formation, which makes the passage of H2O difficult.

BURR grinders grind the beans into fucking DUST. you can pack dust real tight and still push water through it.

but it's just a theory

time to put some clothes on

tm

May i recommend Thai Coffee? I had it for the first time today, and enjoyed it. It's quite sweet and very strong..
If you're ever by the Montrose El stop on the brown line, stop in to the thai restaurant a few doors down--i think it's called Roong Petch--and order some Thai Iced Coffee.
...or just go to Beans and Bagels next door to the el--another excellent spot.
enjoy.
-mike

I cannot say about Thai coffee but their tobacco is really something. I would reccomend Lavazza instead of DeLonghi, as my experience goes, although there was other brand, I don't remember it's name, which was better. By the way, cinnamon goes perfectly alright with coffee. Anyhow, I can say I have exorcised the ghosts according to which the coffee drunk in the USA was crap. I'm glad they were wrong.

Dude in a Barcalounger playing with one of those red rubber playground balls.

The day before yesterday it had a cock again.

-steve

John McEntire, with devil horns, running around an inverted pentacle, speaking in tongues in time with The For Carnation's "Being Held."

tmidgett wrote:BURR grinders grind the beans into fucking DUST. you can pack dust real tight and still push water through it.

OK, so I'm tired of not getting a crema out of the machine here. I'm certainly looking to get a new grinder, and likely a new espresso machine. The Capresso machine looks good (also, a neighbor has one, so I'll be trying it out tomorrow), but I'm hearing good and bad about their burr grinders.

So does anyone have any recommendations on burr grinders? Good, bad, "this one's great until it breaks a year later," "this one would be perfect if it ground just a little finer," etc. Any data points are appreciated.

Thanks!

coffee=terrible

You know they mapped the genome of coffee in Brazil and they're using that information to breed better tasting, and stronger coffee. No genetic engineering, just selective breeding of the strains.