Podcast Number Niner. Pick your link below and right-click and select Save As (on PC) or Control-Click and select "Download Linked File" in MacOS to save it to your hard drive... OR click the "podcast" icon above for the RSS podcast feed (AAC format).Special guests: Cindy Chang, Counter Culture Coffee (Durham, NC), and Trey Elder, Intelligentsia Coffee (Chicago, IL)
Podcasting from Jay's Shave Ice, Timonium, MD.
We recorded onto a WinXP laptop this time, and we had a couple of sound issues. Don't think it detracts too much from this mess of a podcast. Oh, and no apologies for the length of this show... you know you love it.
Show highlights and discussion topics:
- News bits
- Chit-chat with our guests
- Special event: Cindy Eats A Rib
- Espresso lineage: where your initial training came from
- What Is Chris Tacy Thinking About Today?
- Coffeehouse culture
TWO DIFFERENT FILES, but the same show... your choice (the AAC version sounds better and includes "bookmarking" for iTunes and iPods: if you stop midway, you can come back to where you left off) both: 1 hour 46 minutes and 42 seconds, 32 kbps bitrate, 32 kHz sample rate...
MP3 format, 26.5 MB,
AAC format, 25.7 MB
Click here to go to the Portafilter Podcast on iTunes Music Store.
We've moved the MP3 feed to podcast2.xml, so if you don't want the AAC's, update your bookmarks and/or your newsfeed application.
Questions? Comments? Hate mail? Email us at podcast@portafilter.net, and we might read your email during the next show.
Boys... boys... read your "definitive books on the science of espresso"....
ReplyDeleteIlly (the good Dr., not his cohorts, sons, etc) did an exhaustive series of tests on extraction using the same volume of ground coffee, but different filter basket sizes, and determined that 58mm is the best size (actually, IIRC, he determined that bigger diameter = better, but the results kind of evened out once he got to 57mm or higher). That's why 58mm is the ideal filter basket size. This is probably based on 14g though - it'd be interesting to do the study again based on 18g.
Beata wants to beat Jay up for his snide comments about me :D
All I can say is that you, Mr. Prince, is a very lucky, lucky man!
ReplyDeleteRock on Beata Jolie!!!!!
Aarggghhh...
ReplyDeleteYou guys. I wasn't talking about CoE. I wasn't talking about SOS. I was saying that the great coffees do not end up in espresso.
Cindy seems to think people are just not saying that they're using great coffees in espresso blends. Personally, I don't know of any roasters using truly great coffees in their espresso (blends or otherwise).
Why not?
Why don't you guys snap a picture or two when you have guests on the podcast and put them up here?
ReplyDeleteChris said:
ReplyDelete"I was saying that the great coffees do not end up in espresso."
wow...so much to touch on here, chris. ecuse me if i get a little rambley.
roasters (especially those of us that are strictly wholesale) spend a lot of time sourcing coffees, and in that process you have to think, at least partially, about what you're going to use that coffee for once it gets to your roastery. we buy certain coffees (brazil ipanema dulce, for example) that we roast specifically because we thought it would make a delicious espresso component. it's an excellent coffee for adding sweetness to espresso, and it makes a pretty good straight shot as well. other coffees may find their ways into espresso blends simply because once they arrive and we tinker with them a bit, we find we really like them in espresso...we reformulated our oldest espresso blend (forte) when we bought a fto ethiopia harrar that knocked everyone's socks off. (i also personally think that coffee had a lot to do with counter culture winning roaster of the year last year, but i can't confirm that.) so i think that there are some pretty awesome coffees being used in espressos, but much like cindy said, they aren't being touted as such.
that said, i'm not sure how many roasters are out there are going around deconstructing various espresso blends either...seperating them out into individual components and then pulling shots of those components seperately.
dito on the idea of a snapshot during the podcast...we like pictures.
ReplyDeleteAnd about the idea that great coffees do not end up in espresso:
We are begging the question again about everyone's perception of great coffee. If it makes a blend great, is it not a great coffee? If it is not fabulous as a filter brew, is it "just an espresso component", and therefore a lesser coffee?
Dangerous slippery slope, but this is how the American specialty community has typically classified espresso. For years, we have looked at espresso and thought of it as a muddy, bitter sludge (maybe because of how the Italians sometimes choose their components). It is only within the last 7 years or so that Americans have taken on the task of blending "good stuff" and roasting to capture nuance.
CoE, for example, is a great thing, and at the same time it perpetuates the idea that certain coffees are of the highest overall quality when, really, it might just be that they are superior examples in a particular genre.
wouldn't it also cost a crapload of money to use CoE coffees in espresso?
ReplyDeletealthough I would love to have an all CoE espresso myself. Like the ideal espresso. Who wouldn't want that?
A little heads up for a future CG podcast... Instaurator, when developing the special Michel's Espresso blend for Bassett's WBC win in Boston used CoE coffees in that blend. He talks about it in depth.
ReplyDeleteyou guys are great. you are funny and obviously knowledgable but you need to refocus on espresso and the craft of making it on the podcasts.
ReplyDeleteit seems as if you lose focus quickly and more than half of the podcasts is you guys fuckin around. at least an entire 45 minutes was a wste of time this last one. I know you can do better!
let's hear the coffee geeks talk coffee.
Nick and Jay!
ReplyDeleteYou guys are so funny, I think you should start listing your podcast in the comedy section as well :) Love your show!
So Jay, when do I get to take you on for dissing Mark? But than again, I bow to u for the AJ referrence. . . :) :) :)
COFFEE GEEKS RULE!
Okay, maybe I've never seen Cindy eat a rib...BUT! Once when she was staying at my house, we called my favorite Chinese food take-out place and put Cindy on the phone. After about 20 minutes of rapid-fire, genuine Chinese talkin', she had ordered up a bunch of stuff that did not necessarily appear on the menu.
ReplyDeleteShe can order the best stuff and also find out if your favorite Chinese place *really* is as good as you think it is. We had a great time!
Oh oh oh ooooh...CC eats a riib....
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