Rites of Spring #16 - Gadgets - playing with the Clever Coffee Brewer · Sunday May 16, 2010 by colin newell
On a brilliant Spring day in Cobble Hill, British Columbia I drop into The Drumroaster Cafe (owned by Patricia, Geir and Carsen Oglend – arguably the coffee masters of Vancouver Island)
I am enjoying a Chemex pot of an exotic single origin coffee and one of Patricia Oglend’s marvelous baked creations when Geir suggests… “Want to roast some coffee?”
Do I?
Within minutes we are in the roaster room firing up a 60 pound Deidrich coffee roaster – It is a gas powered drum roaster that I have a passing familiarity with – but Geir plays it safe and assumes (correctly) that I need some hand holding – good thing because we are about to play with hundreds of dollars worth of coffee over the space of a half-hour or so.
During cooling cycles he pulls out this wonderful little coffee maker – it looks like a Melitta #4 coffee filter holder… with a twist. It has a spring loaded valve on the bottom that stays closed unless the coffee maker is sitting on top of a mug.
So. When one is brewing coffee by a.) dropping in a gold filter or #4 paper filter and b.) Putting some fresh ground coffee into the filter and c.) adding some water directly off the boil into the filter – and then counting down about 2 minutes…
and then placing the Clever Coffee Maker onto the mug – which opens the valve which allows the coffee to flow through into the mug.
Sure you could do this with a regular #4 filter holder (like the Melitta) but you have no brew control other than the grind of the coffee and your ability to finesse the right amount of hot water into the basket at precisely the right rate. This is called Brew dwell – and no, I did not just make that up.
The Clever Coffee Maker is clever for several reasons. It allows for a degree of French press type immersion and allows you to control the amount of time the ground coffee comes in contact with the water.
Clever? I would say brilliant!
And at $20 (Tax-Incl.) dollars for this delightful little coffee gadget, I would say…
Get smart and get the “Clever”. Want more info? Visit the Drumroaster online.
You can get your own Clever coffee brewer from The Drumroaster Cafe on the Island Highway on Vancouver Island at the Cowichan Bay turn-off – visit in person or contact them on their website online.
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Rites of Spring #12b - Espresso, you wicked mistress-2 · Tuesday May 4, 2010 by colin newell
Espresso machines. Why do they trouble me so? Why? WHY?!?
It all started one dark day a few years ago when a friend (Jak) of mine showed up at my door – something of a John Locke doppelganger from the hit TV show Lost – waving 500 dollars in small bills in my face.
“Colin, I understand your frustration with espresso… and you have taken your Silvia as far as any mortal man can. Trust me, Colin… I know about mortality. Seriously…”
As Jak slipped his hunting knife back into his man-bag after slicing off a healthy serving of pineapple… and scratching his tell-tale scar above his left eye he continued…
“Just think what you could do with 500 extra smackers this weekend Colin? Just think…”
Before I knew it, my Silvia was gone and my wallet was unfoldable in that George Costanza kind of way.
Money. But no espresso machine.
And I knew.
I had just cursed myself… to a life time of espresso misery.
Sure I try and break out of it… a Giotto here, an Oscar there, a Rocket Cellini here…
Oh, who am I fooling?
So. After getting the Red Dragon back from a long term loan… and firing it up… and burning through lord knows how much coffee trying to squeeze out that elusive shot…
I knew I was done for. Time for that machine to go.
Think you are worthy? Send me an e-mail telling me why this espresso machine must be yours. Espresso machine will include a tamper and some instructions on its use.
UPDATE – We gave away this machine several weeks ago – thanks for all your entries!
And may the lord of the bean have mercy on your soul.
Disclaimer – All espresso machines are evil. This one in particular? Look at the color!
The Red Dragon Espresso machine was hand re-built by Colin Newell of Coffeecrew.com and powder-coated fire engine red under the watchful eye of tamper-meister Reg Barber. It is the only espresso machine on the Planet Earth with creation input from Reg Barber. And it could be yours.
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Rites of Spring #12 - Espresso, you wicked mistress · Monday May 3, 2010 by colin newell
Someone once said… “Teach a man to make coffee and he will be happy every day… teach him to make espresso and he will be frustrated for a lifetime.”
Truer words were never spoken.
Me, I have been out of the espresso game for almost a year.
I love my french press and drip. And I think I am pretty good at it.
(And) When I get a hankering for an espresso, I leave it to the pro’s – like any of the folks at Discovery Coffee, or Habit Coffee and Culture, or if I absolutely positively without question have to have the closest-thing-to-religious-experience espresso… well then I make the pilgrimage to Drumroaster coffee on the Island highway – somewhere near Cobble Hill at the highway turnoff to Cowichan Bay. It’s worth it.
Because when you are in the company of Geir or Carsen Oglend or Tristan Mapstone or are nibbling some wonderful brioche created by Patricia Oglend… well, the coffee angels are whispering in your ears.
For me, self produced espresso can be a mixed bag. As you can see from the shot above, I can make a mean espresso. But I screw up a lot. And I don’t take it well.
I am currently playing with an espresso machine that I call the Red Dragon. It is the only rebuilt and custom espresso machine on the planet that has had Reg Barber participate in the production phase. (I will review it soon on coffeecrew.com)
And then, because it has crossed me once (produced bad espresso because I was not on the ball…) I am giving it away.
That’s right folks – a one of a kind pump driven espresso machine. Brass boiler. Fire engine powder coat red… and it can make killer espresso.
But it’s got to go. That is just the way I am.
I’m a drip that loves my drip coffee.
And I speak a bit of French as well.
So stay tuned.
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Rites of Spring #10 - daydreaming about Hawaii and Blue Horse Kona · Thursday April 29, 2010 by colin newell
We spend one month a year in this beautiful patch of green on our lonely Planet.
Blue Horse Kona farm is like a special tropical home where we have discovered our new second family.
Enjoy.
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Rites of Spring #6 - We interview Stephen O'Brien of MyPressi · Friday April 2, 2010 by colin newell
We interview Stephen of MyPressi!
Of the handful of coffee culture mountaineers that have scaled the Everest of caffeinated engineering ingenuity – among them Luigi Bezzera creator of the world’s first “espresso” machine… Dr. Ernest Illy inventor of the first automatic espresso machine in 1933 and Italy’s own Achilles Gaggia creator of the modern pump driven espresso machine in 1946… Very few of these folks live or have lived in the late 20th and early part of the 21st Century.
Among those imagination rich folks are Alan Adler, creator of the Aeropress, Craig Hiron, tenacious entrepreneur who put it all on the line for the OTTO Espresso maker and last (but not least) Stephen O’Brien of the not-yet-World-famous MyPressi Twist espresso maker.
The “just-turned-40” Stephen, who lives in California, is just the latest in the rare circle of coffee and espresso loving folks that have scaled this rarely climbed mountain of ingenuity – the addition of one more amazing espresso producing product in the history books.
And no stranger to doing things differently and with flourish, Stephen claims to jump from one thing to another – having authored 27 books on the subject of software development and software aided publishing.
Raised in Melbourne, Australia and having left home at the gentle age of 16, Stephen learned to conquer the obstacles of life with his own devices and a tireless and quirky sense of creativity. His brain wave in the Espresso world came after only truly embracing coffee culture for a few years. While on his honeymoon in Bora Bora, Tahiti and after several truly bad espresso at the Island resort, Stephen and his new wife conceptualized the idea of a completely portable espresso system using the tiny nitrous oxide cartridges most widely recognized for whipped cream dispensers.
He forgot about it for a while, was reminded about it again by his wife and after a period of about 18 months looking for the right engineering team (in this case from California) came up with a winning product.
Stephen and the MyPressi crew sent me a sample of the Twist to use and abuse. We review it over here on the Coffeecrew.com website.
We interviewed Stephen today via Skype – if you cannot see the audio thingie below, click here for the mp3.
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