John Edgar Park, one pixel at a time
I just picked up 70lbs. of green coffee beans that I’m splitting with a friend of mine. Sadly, a friend of a friend’s roasting business just went bust, so they had quite a supply of beans to sell off at bargain prices. Normally, I pay about $6 per lb. for beans, I got these for $1.50 per lb.
It’s going to be fun roasting them over the coming year. Left alone they should keep for a year, and I can get another 6 mo. to a year out of them if I bag and freeze them.
Usman and I will be demonstrating the Rail-O-Graph in the mornings at the Make: magazine booth. We’ll do a talk at 2pm on Saturday and 12:45 on Sunday on the project. On Sunday at 2pm, Mark Frauenfelder and I will talk about coffee hacks. We’ll have some fun stuff on hand, including Mark’s modified espresso machine, the Florence Siphon brewer I built, a new, miniature version of my hydraulic espresso tamper, and more. Can’t wait to see you there!
(Photo: Anders Krusberg/The Martha Stewart Show)
My friend Mark Frauenfelder, Editor of Make: magazine and co-founder of Boing Boing, filmed a segment for The Martha Stewart Show which airs on Monday, May 18th, 2009. He brought on a number of MAKE projects to demo, including my bright red hydraulic espresso tamper. I can’t wait to watch - way to go, Mark!
Jared Boone of ShareBrained Technologies sent me a pound of Stumptown Coffee Roasters‘ Ethiopia Tega & Tula organic coffee. I just made a press pot of it and it is wonderful and sublime. They describe it as:
The aroma of fresh apricot and black tea leaves segue into complex flavors of transparent stone fruit juices, toasted sugar and bergamot tea.
I agree.
I love coffee and I love laser cutters, so I was thrilled to read about this collision of the two on Tonx’s blog. via BoingBoing Gadgets.
I first saw this machine, the JetSteam Ai-1, at the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) show in Long Beach. It is very cool and minimal looking — most of the guts (boiler, pump, etc.) are hidden below inside a cabinet, so only the controls, portafilter holder, and steam wand are mounted on the counter. They claim serious temperature stability, thanks to dual PID devices (one for water boiler, one for steam).
Its designer Corey Waldron has been working on it for over 7 years, and people are guessing it’ll cost around $6k, but I haven’t heard anything official. Here’s an action video.
Raj Apte is an engineer and coffe fan. He’s building his own temperature-regulated lever espresso machine, called the RoboPavoni. The welded rails are there to stabilize it enough for one-handed operation. Incredible work.
Latte art plotter, originally uploaded by JohnEdgarPark.
These guys were set up at SIGGRAPH printing artwork on lattes with food dye. Their company is called OnLatte.
My sister Silvia and her husband Eddie had an espresso machine on the fritz. They were even reduced to using a stovetop Bialetti for a while (no offense moka lovers!). Like the true do-it-yourselfers that they are, they pulled it apart, found a corroded circuit board, and replaced it. Click the link for the full story.
Idido Misty Vally, originally uploaded by JPPark.
My roaster friend Phil Hand slipped me some of this Ethiopian Idido Misty Valley the other day, and man is it good. I pulled a double shot of it this morning — intense blackberry and blueberry flavors. Single origin espresso is still new to me, but there’s a lot to like about this one.
