March 2013
1 post
8 tags
No more fines in your 8oz Espro press.
French press isn’t my favourite brewing method, one of the biggest reason is the fines that goes through the metal filter which ends up in your cup, giving a tasty coffee,a gritty, sandy mouthfeel and a bitter finish. Then the Espro press came along, and changed the perception on brewing with french press. With their double filtration system, the fine mesh on the double filters does...
January 2013
1 post
9 tags
Pucking fresh coffee.
Freshly roasted coffee is good. No complaints there, we don’t want to drink stale coffee. But for me, there are times where I need to use a freshly roasted coffee. It sucks even more when its for espresso, for example, for QC, baristas receiving their competition coffee, but its fresh and are itching to taste it, or you only have freshly roasted coffee at home.
It doesn’t sound like...
July 2012
1 post
14 tags
Watch your head space.
I’ve realised that, when I talk about coffee, what I say isn’t backed based on a data that’s been proven or experienced myself. This frustration has lead me to actually experiment on few things, rather than pondering and hypnotising myself that my pocket science (very little of it) is correct.
One subject that I always wanted to, but had no commitment to experiment, was the...
February 2012
2 posts
15 tags
How do you Americano
Americano has been on our menu as long as we can remember. Without a doubt, recent push to promote manual filter brewing has caught the customers attention, and more people are becoming aware and open minded of this new way to brew tasty coffee.
Still, Americano is a popular choice between customers- specially in recent cold weather conditions.
Throughout the day, we(hopefully) check our dose,...
27 tags
Tasty stale coffee.
One of the many joys working in the coffee industry, is trying endless amount of different coffees, in season being offered. For a year, I was subscribed to weekly and monthly coffee subscription from 2 of my favorite roastery. I’ve learnt so much by tasting different coffees itself, but what I was left with was countless amount of bags of half finished or even some unopened bags. I’m sure...
October 2011
2 posts
28 tags
Just add water. Not.
One thing that confused me before coming to Korea, is the method of extraction using Kono or Hario drip(V60) method. Every single video I saw, no on used scales or timers. So since coming to Korea, I’ve drank aloooot of manual drip filter coffees.
I’m writing this post because I’m at a point where it kind of annoys me(personally) after finding out how they extract coffee. It is...
13 tags
Korean coffee scene in my own words. Part I
I’ve been always curious about the coffee scene in Korea, since starting and working with coffee, I never had the opportunity to visit as a Barista. One way for me to learn about the culture was through Aaron’s website http://frshgrnd.com/ and through WBC footages, where Korea did well over the past 3 years.
Though my reason visiting this time isn’t about coffee, I’ve...
January 2011
1 post
12 tags
Nose temperature.
One of many things I love about coffee is the fact that, the flavors of coffee that can be discerned changes as it cools. So when we are served a pour over or a syphon, we wait until its quite cool. However, recently I’ve been wondering about our nose, I find the nose really interesting, because as nose contributes significant amount to what we taste; most of the time, what we smell will...
November 2010
1 post
9 tags
Looking after customers and ourselves.
We, as a barista take care of our customers. From start to finish, we try to look after our customers, we try to deliver our promise to make them nice coffee.
We go into much details such as cleaning the basket, dosing, thinking about extraction yield, weighing our shots and so on.. we look after customers behind the machine without them realising, but are we looking after ourselves?
This week,...
October 2010
3 posts
9 tags
Teflon coated....(Long post)
Plethora of things are teflon coated these days. It’s on the frying pan, fabrics and recently it has been sprayed on our portafilters. It was a mission to clean the dirty dried up remains of an espresso shots, and we can’t clean our baskets and portafilters after every shot pulled. After coating the surface with teflon, only thing i do now is rinse with hot water, nothing else.
Then i...
7 tags
From Korea, with love.
As a Barista, i think communication is a vital skill. Not only between customers but with other Baristas. This can also be translated to networking, knowing other Baristas will lets you experience and learn other areas unexplored by ones self.
The reason i have mentioned this is because, i myself have gained many benifits from networking with other Baristas in London and around the world.
...
10 tags
The past 6 month of my Barista life
I was ordinary. I was just another countless kid from far east Asia, from Korea to be exact, dreaming of success on foreign soil. A victim you could say, of a culture where it demanded you to study study study and have a nose bleed, become a doctor, lawyer or an engineer and make your parents happy; so they can talk about you to their freinds how successful i am.
For the past 12 Years i...
