Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2008

[sdg]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

PS: the winner of the iRoast2 today was the new user SDG!

Thanks to Les for giving us the iRoast2 to give away on the stand today. If you were one of the 100s and 100s of pepole that really wanted to win it but missed out then you might consider buying one from Les anyway.

We have an official winner!
Turns out that SDG is "Simone" who posted on the previous page of this thread.

Congrats Simone, enjoy the roaster from Les when it arrives. Im sure all CSrs cant wait to see the pictures of your first roast.
8-)

Its arrived! Well, this afternoon actually Plus a selection of beans to try it out on 8-)

Im so pleased -- was all teed up to try the heat gun and steel bowl thing being demod on Sunday (actually I still think that is so cool, but I got the impression you gotta be patient -- and Im not!) So now my brand new iRoast2 is in the process of being assembled on my (increasingly crowded) kitchen bench -- Im just itching to try it out -- lookout beans! I say that because til Sunday Id never even seen a green coffee bean! The amazing thing is, my main motivation for coming along to the CTB day was to sus out a source of *fresh* beans -- well got no excuses now, have I ;D

Thanks heaps to Les from www.coffeeroasters.com.au for the roaster, and Im guessing Andy (?) for the beans - which were a complete (and very nice) surprise btw

Photos of roasts will certainly follow ...

[Thundergod]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Sometimes we have to get over ourselves a little bit and accept that their is actually nothing wrong with well and correctly prepared filter brewed coffee or plunger coffee.

As long as your untensils and equipment are clean - you use filtered water and heated to the correct temperature.

And dont pour boiling water directly over the coffee.

You will get a coffee which is easy to cup, drink and savour.

I know what Mark from St. Ali was trying to do - but with the restrictions he was operating under and having to use disposal cups instead of crockery - they didnt quite make it.

But at the end of the day this is how coffee is cupped and tested at the plantation so there is really nothing wrong with it.

Metreo it looks to me like you were a bit quick to judge.
lochness said in his post that he is a fan of plunger coffee and that he was disappointed FOR St Ali not disappinted in them.
He too realised what they were trying to do.

A few CSers drink plunger coffee.
Mal springs firstly to mind and I used a plunger for the few weeks the 6910 at work was in for repair.

I dont think we need "to get over ourselves".

[lochness]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Sometimes we have to get over ourselves a little bit and accept that their is actually nothing wrong with well and correctly prepared filter brewed coffee or plunger coffee.

As long as your untensils and equipment are clean - you use filtered water and heated to the correct temperature.

And dont pour boiling water directly over the coffee.

You will get a coffee which is easy to cup, drink and savour.

Agree totally. I drink my own roasted coffee via plunger at work everyday and after several years I have the operation down pat and I get a darn good coffee to start my work days. But I cannot finely control the water temp, nor the quality of the water and when I make my plunger coffee at home with my filtered water, that I can control the temp of with my kettle, and also being able to grind-upon-use my beans, these home coffees are just SUPERB

Now that I think about it, it really was the taste of the paper cup that came thru over the delicate flavours of the SO bean on offer. They did the best with what they had on offer I guess.

[lochness]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Finally got around to putting up some pics of CS at CTB 2008

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timdotnet/sets/72157604047161496/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timjohns/2312293344/sizes/l/
CoffeeSnobs Stand was located in the middle of this group.


Feel free to add comments, notes, observations, witty comments or all of the above.
These are very much walk around "snapshots" as I didnt set out to document day or anything fancy like that and only had the pocket camera with me. They are what they are.

These are some coffee-fueled snap-shot panorama pics I did on the same day, mostly in downtime between coffees while waiting for my caffeine levels to drop down below 0.08 again so I could walk briskly along and sample my NEXT

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timjohns/2311544593/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timjohns/2311479043/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timjohns/2312284262/

(still working on the video of the Home Barrista Comp)

[Metreo]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Sometimes we have to get over ourselves a little bit and accept that their is actually nothing wrong with well and correctly prepared filter brewed coffee or plunger coffee.

As long as your untensils and equipment are clean - you use filtered water and heated to the correct temperature.

And dont pour boiling water directly over the coffee.

You will get a coffee which is easy to cup, drink and savour.

I know what Mark from St. Ali was trying to do - but with the restrictions he was operating under and having to use disposal cups instead of crockery - they didnt quite make it.

But at the end of the day this is how coffee is cupped and tested at the plantation so there is really nothing wrong with it.

[lochness]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Hi all,
had a great day, the weather was perfect. I arrived via the far side entrance to the event were one of the first stands I past was 4 rows deep with interested people, it was the "Coffee Snobs" stand. The amount of interest was amazing. Meet Andy and complimented him on the CS website. Caught a glimpse at the many techniques used for home roasting.

From there I went straight to the St. ali stand to see what all the fuss is about regarding there awesome coffee as I have not tried it before. To my surprise, there were no espresso machines but solely a unit called "clover" . I was spellbound by its operations and its results of what I would call a "coffee version of black tea". Taste wise, it seemed to be a weak plunger coffee (no sugar needed here). Fascinating....

Justin, a roaster from St Ali came in to Veneziano today and I had a quick chat to him...and it seems the Brazilian they picked to run through the Clover that day was so mild that it couldnt even overpower the taste of the take away cup! (It was the same Brazilian Maling Room in was serving on Monday 3rd March - Andy L just kept on serving me espressos!)

That is SO true. I couldnt quite put my finger on it on the day. I thought it (the complete lack of ANYTHING from that Clover coffee) was likely a result of it being my 7th or 8th coffee of the day, and I ended up tipping out the last half. It was VERY wet-cardboardy tasting and now I know why Pity really because Im sure the vast majority of (non-coffee) Joe Publics who tried it will judge either St Ali and/or The Clover http://cloverequipment.com/whyclover/why_clover.aspx based on that attempted coffee it was serving. As a big fan of plunger coffee it was great to see the machine live in action. Elegance and complexity combined into one nifty machine.

[Magic_Matt]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Dont think so - how embarrassing! But a good time was had by all, so thats the main thing

My main disappointment for the day was that the CS stall was so packed & I was so pushed for time that I didnt have the chance to say gday!

[E-Gene]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Are any of them CSers?

[fatboy_1999]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

This is my recollection of the placings. I think they are correct.

Regan was first. Not sure what heat he was in, but produced the best looking latte of the day according to the host when the placings were announced.

Damien (heat 1 3rd contestant) was 2nd

Melissa? (heat 1 2nd contestant) was 3rd.

[Latte_lady]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Hi Everyone

I am new to cofee snobs but not to coffee. I enjoyed Celebrate the Bean, it was great to see home coffee people having a go on the stage. BTW does anyone know who won the prizes in the end?

[peppino]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

There is a write up in todays Age "epicure" about the clover that was used by st. ali on sundays expo....check it out !!

[Wushoes]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Hi all,
had a great day, the weather was perfect. I arrived via the far side entrance to the event were one of the first stands I past was 4 rows deep with interested people, it was the "Coffee Snobs" stand. The amount of interest was amazing. Meet Andy and complimented him on the CS website. Caught a glimpse at the many techniques used for home roasting.

From there I went straight to the St. ali stand to see what all the fuss is about regarding there awesome coffee as I have not tried it before. To my surprise, there were no espresso machines but solely a unit called "clover" . I was spellbound by its operations and its results of what I would call a "coffee version of black tea". Taste wise, it seemed to be a weak plunger coffee (no sugar needed here). Fascinating....



Great day had by all !!!

Justin, a roaster from St Ali came in to Veneziano today and I had a quick chat to him...and it seems the Brazilian they picked to run through the Clover that day was so mild that it couldnt even overpower the taste of the take away cup! (It was the same Brazilian Maling Room in was serving on Monday 3rd March - Andy L just kept on serving me espressos!)

[andy]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March


I think those 44 are the basis of the new Linda, Scoot, Judy, Reuben, Leigh, Luca and Bruce fan club!


The real highlight is that between us all we must have improved the quality of coffee across the town a notch or two... or at least made people a little more critical of what they get served.

[LindaD]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Since the day of the festival there have been 44 new members joined as of the time of this post.

Thats awesome! ;D

All our hard work really payed off! Lets hope there is many more.

-Linda

[Javaphile]

Re: Celebrate the Bean - Melbourne 2nd March

Also had a great day. The CS stand was very popular. Id love to see how many new members we get over the next week or so (hint - Javaphile!!) due to the interest generated.

Since the day of the festival there have been 44 new members joined as of the time of this post.


Java "You asked!" phile