Posted in Tea plant by François-Xavier Delmas | Tags : Tea plant
The leaves of the tea plant attract many predators, undoubtedly due to their delicious taste.
In addition to its gastronomic qualities, tea is supposed to promote wellbeing and serenity. This harmless frog, very much at ease, would surely agree.
;)
If the name Ryan Block isn’t very familiar to you, you probably aren’t that much into technology and gadgets. Block is one of the founding people behind the wildly popular tech blog Engadget and was up until a year or two ago it’s Editor in Chief (he is now and Editor Emeritus for Engadget). As a major influencer, Block has seen and covered just about everything in technology years and years now both online and in mass media, and is a frequent guest on various tech shows, including This Week in Tech. For years now, we’ve also known that Block has been a serious fan of quality coffee and espresso, so he seemed a natural choice for what is the start of a short series of interviews with people in technology who also love great coffee.
CG: You’re a well known person in the tech world Ryan, and I’m sure many of our readers know of you and your involvement in technology, but for those who don’t, could you give us a bit of background on how you got started in the world of tech and gadgets?
Block: I’d always loved writing and technology, but as the story goes, it was my friend (and founder of Engadget, and my co-founder of gdgt) Peter Rojas who inspired me to try my hand at writing about technology.
CG: What are some of the highlights of your time at Engadget, in terms of things you covered or people you got to meet?
Block: There were so, so many things. The original iPhone launch was very memorable, though. As was flying over the date line to New Zealand to get the iPhone 3G 18 hours earlier than my competition in the US. Interviewing Bill Gates multiple times, meeting Steve Jobs, those are things I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life.
CG: Your current website gdgt is quite fantastic and really a kind of next-generation review and information website for technology with a lot of social interaction. What was your inspiration for starting it up?
Block: Engadget was doing extremely well, but the news business is the news business, and no one had done much new in the electronics space online for many years. I wanted to try experimenting in what we could do with socially oriented application-like experiences instead of just straight content generation. It felt like the right time to branch out.
CG: How is gdgt going right now? What range of products does it cover?
Block: It’s going great! Our database covers dozens of product categories, and we’re working on a lot of awesome new stuff — we just launched a huge integration project with Engadget, putting our data on thousands of their posts. We also just pushed a brand new product page design, and we’ve got plenty more coming.
CG: Let’s turn to coffee. Espresso first, or coffee first?
Block: Is espresso not coffee (smiles)? If you’re asking which I’d pick if I could only have one for the rest of my days, espresso for sure.
CG: Do you remember the first time you ever had espresso? What did you think of it first go around?
Block: I really don’t remember, no. I just remember that I’d always been very particular about coffee even before I realized exactly HOW to be particular about coffee.
CG: Particular about coffee… Did you go through the usual progression many do of drinking Dad’s instant coffee as a kid and then later trying espresso and thinking… wow, now I’m drinking b]real coffee?
Block: Not really, my family were never huge coffee drinkers. What coffee they did drink wasn’t particularly great, so I tended to avoid it. As I mentioned before, I just remember being particular about coffee even before I realized exactly how to be particular about coffee.
CG: How about epiphany moments in coffee and espresso: can you recall any particular times where you felt what you were drinking was taken to a completely different level?
Block: One time comes to mind: I’d had a single-origin Sidamo served from a very old, finicky San Marco lever. It didn’t actually taste like coffee, it tasted like blueberry juice. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around that magic.
CG: For a lot of people, the epiphany moments seem to revolve around fruit forward coffees. Would you say that fruit-heavy coffees are you favourites still today or do you have any other specific tastes that make a coffee a favourite?
Block: I’m definitely not one of those folks who likes really bright, really citrusy coffees. They’re not bad, but for my palate there’s a fine line between brightness and sourness, and we all know how bad a cup of sour coffee can be.
CG: What kind of setup do you have at home for your coffee brewing?
Block: So many! My partner (Veronica Belmont, also a tech journalist) and I have a Silvia and Rocky for espresso, as well as a full V60 setup with a nice Japanese kettle, a french press, and an infrequently-used Chemex.
CG: What made you go with the choice of the Silvia and Rocky for your espresso?
Block: I was looking for a highly reliable, benchmark-style machine. Those are, in general, my favorite kinds of devices across all kinds of products. I also wanted something that would give me a reasonable amount of control, which I obviously wouldn’t get with a semi-auto or full-auto.
CG: Do you find that many of your colleagues and peers in the tech and gadget blogging world are into quality coffee and espresso as much as you are? Who do you think are the biggest coffee geeks in the tech reporting world?
Block: There are definitely a few! My man Matt Buchanan over at Gizmodo is one of my more fanatical pals, though.
CG: I’ve noticed Matt Buchanan is prolific in his coverage of quality coffee and espresso, especially in the technology of it. Also, the Times has a regular writer covering coffee these days. With regards to other mainstream and web-based media, do you think quality coffee is getting more of its due these days, or is there still room to grow?
Block: I think you’ll know a meaningful change has occurred when fine dining establishments treat their coffee with the same respect as they treat their wine — or at very least hire capable baristas. That’s kind of an interesting benchmark, in my opinion. Overall, I am certainly seeing more enthusiasm for coffee, but it’s still got a long ways to go. Coffee has deep roots as a working-class beverage, especially here in the US. For better or worse Starbucks did set the stage for elevating coffee, but the bar they set is still pretty low, so we’ll see.
CG: What tech in espresso or coffee has impressed you the most in the past year or two?
Block: Obviously the move to pressure profiling has been pretty huge, and the growing interest in specialty coffee has inspired a lot of new products and projects, but I honestly don’t feel like I’ve seen anything that’s made me want to upgrade my espresso setup at home.
CG: Now there’s cool technology, and there’s gadgets… what would be your favourite gadget for coffee and espresso?
Block: I’m still very fascinated by MoJoToGo and VST refractometers. Still, that’s a bit geeky even for me.
CG: Where you live, do you have any favourite cafes? How about favourite roasters?
Block: There’s an absurd number of great cafes around the Bay Area, but I’m a big fan of both Four Barrel and Sight Glass in San Francisco.
CG: What’s it like at Four Barrel and Sight Glass? What makes these roasters so special for you?
Block: I’m actually at Four Barrel right now as I’m talking to you — and it’s incredibly crowded. With those guys, I really appreciate the lengths Jeremy (the owner) goes to in ensuring he’s not only sourcing the highest quality crops — even to the point now where I understand they recently bought a coffee farm — but are paying fair wages to their farmers.
CG: I recall you and Mark Prince having a discussion on Twitter some time back about the Speedster espresso machine and how it might not be your first choice if you were buying a dream machine. What would be the dream espresso machine and grinder for Ryan Block’s kitchen?
Block: It’s a nice machine, just really doesn’t fit my aesthetic inclinations. Too maximal. I’ve toyed with buying a (La Marzocco) GS/3, but if anything I’m going to hold off for a single-head Slayer. I know Slayers are known for being a bit buggy, and who knows if they’ll ever do a single group head machine, but if they did I’d have to seriously consider it, and not just because they’re also by far the most beautiful machines being produced today.
CG: What makes the Slayer more desirable to you: the technology, or the look?
Block: Both! I think technology and design should go hand in hand, and I always get excited about products where a product’s design, and how it works, is given as much thought as its features.
CG: You travel a lot because of your job; do you bring any gear with you on the road?
Block: Not yet, no! I’m fortunate enough to often travel to places with great coffee, but I have recently experimented with bringing along full french press setup.
CG: Okay, last question. What have you done — if anything — to get Leo Laporte (of TWiT fame) to start drinking better coffee?
Block: (laughs out loud) Heh, nice! Honestly, I don’t often push people on that kind of thing — unless they’re asking me to meet up at a Starbucks, in which case all bets are off.
CG: Thanks so much Ryan – very informative!
Block: My pleasure!
Twinings Lady Grey
Starting a business can be a tough row to hoe. Nowadays, according to the United States Small Business Adminstration about half of all small businesses here are likely to fail within the first five years. So if you managed to somehow come up with a business that were to survive for the next 300 years that would be quite an admirable feat.
Enter Thomas Twining, a man who accomplished such a feat, by creating a company that we know today as Twinings of London, a company whose 200 varieties of tea are sold in more than a hundred countries around the world. According to the company, the Twinings story officially began in 1706, when the 31-year-old Twining began offering tea for sale in the coffeehouse he opened on London’s Strand. Prior to that Twining had been an apprentice weaver but later moved into importing, where he became more familiar with a relatively new commodity known as tea.
Coffee was a well-established drink in England by this time and by some estimates there were more than two thousand coffeehouses just in London at the beginning of the eighteenth century. As for tea, it was hardly a sure bet when Twining began selling it. The beverage had only been introduced into England a few decades earlier and was far from being the iconic beverage that later came to be associated with the British.
In the early days tea was a drink preferred by English upper classes, due in large part to the fact that it didn’t come cheap. But as tea gradually began to be imported in greater quantities prices started to fall and it became more established. As for the coffee craze, according to some sources it was on the way out by 1730 and tea was doing quite nicely, thank you for asking.
By this time Twining’s business, The Golden Lyon, was thriving, largely due to the changing attitudes toward tea. Sometime around 1734 he gave up on coffee selling, for the most part. One innovation that Twining is credited with is the practice of blending teas, a notion that’s quite common nowadays but was relatively unknown in his time.
After his death in 1741, Twining’s son Daniel took over the business and began exporting tea to those same American colonies who would soon hold a tea party in honor of the British. While there was another Thomas Twining slated to take over upon his father Daniel’s death in 1762, he decided to take a more scholarly and his mother Mary took over the post.
For more on the Twining story, check out The House of Twining, 1706-1956 and The Twinings in Three Centuries.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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Posted in Country : China by François-Xavier Delmas | Tags : Country : China, Hangzhou, tea plantations, tea plants
On the tea plantations there are plenty of ideas for trapping harmful insects. For example, here in Hangzhou, they place little panels covered in glue everywhere among the tea plants. The fluorescent yellow of the boards attracts the insects, but most of all it is the pheromones in which they are coated that appeals so much to bugs.
These are clearly unrelated to all the election boards that are flourishing, right up until this weekend, all around our voting stations.
;)
Thursday, on March 8th, 2012, Starbucks is about to try something new — for them — in my beautiful home city of Amsterdam. It is a concept store that they are calling the New Coffee Experience Laboratory. It is also being referred to as “The Bank” or more formally, “Starbucks The Bank”. It is exciting to see such a major company take steps like this towards providing more transparency and respect towards the coffee beverage and its preparation, but also it is interesting to note that much of what they are doing can already be found in some of the top shelf cafés found in the Pacific Northwest (Canada and the US), New York and even Los Angeles.
The Bank – Starbucks Lab in Amsterdam.
Looking at the photographs of this new space Starbucks is opening, you can tell they put immense focus into the look and function. The Café and Lab occupy 430 sq.m. (4,500 square feet) of space and is located in the former vault of a historic bank on the very popular Rembrandtplein area of Amsterdam, meaning it will have incredible exposure. There is an impressive use of wood throughout the store, and it seems Starbucks is taking cues from something that is becoming increasingly popular in some top western cafés – the common table where many different customers will sit together and perhaps interact with each other. They have one very prominent in the central seating area of this new facility.
This new coffee house draws a lot from modern Dutch culture and style. Looking at this café it is perhaps even hard to imagine that it is even a Starbucks coffee house at all. This is by design. From a recent PR piece on this cafe:
“The Bank was purposely created to push Starbucks beyond its comfort zone in terms of innovation and experimentation. What works in the Amsterdam store will make its way to the rest of Europe.”
According to the Starbucks PR, this café had 35 different artists and craftsmen work under the direction of Starbucks’ Concept Design directer, Liz Muller to create the look of the place. A huge focus was put on local Amsterdam style and details. Antique Delft tiles were used; walls use bicycle inner tubes in creative ways; wooden gingerbread biscuit moulds and burlap from coffee bags are used as accents all over. One particular design feature is notable” there is a tattooed Delftware mural highlighting the important role that 17th century Dutch traders played in exporting coffee around the world.
Continuing with the design, a visitor may note when walking in that the designers managed to expose and reclaim the original concrete and 1920s marble floor that this former bank vault featured. And wood is everywhere: much of it is reclaimed and repurposed Dutch oak: the benches, tables and the striking square block ceiling relief feature piece (itself made from almost 2,000 pieces of individually cut blocks) are all made from reclaimed or repurposed wood. And following the look and feel of many avant-guard independent cafes, much of the seating in The Bank is repurposed and restored seating – much coming from surplus provided by local schools and facilities. Starbucks is quite proud that their new Amsterdam facility meets or exceeds Leed sustainable building guidelines to reduce the impact on the environment. When this facility was constructed, Starbucks managed to divert most of the waste from the previous facility’s demolition – instead of going to the landfill, it was organized and sorted for recycling or reuse wherever possible. It’s great to see these larger corporations paying attention to sensitive details like this.
The Method and Purpose
The Coffee Experience Laboratory at Starbucks The Bank was designed and engineered to — as Starbucks says — treat coffee as a theatre. The moment you walk in the door, your eye and focus sees the “stage” (where the baristas are working) and there are no seating locations in the entire facility where the baristas and the stage are out of sight. Unusual for a Starbucks, baked goods and other non-coffee items are pushed off to the edges, and coffee has a front and centre attention. There are two well designed La Marzocco espresso machines central, and wrapped on either side are the slower-brewing coffee stations. Facing the stage, you see the Clover station on the right, and other slow brewing methods on the left of the espresso machine area.
Starbucks is using a lot of terms and phrases to describe this facility, and another one they like to use is “Slow Coffee Theatre”. The slow coffee movement has been taking off worldwide, with care and attention paid by independent cafes to focused brewing stations, cupping notes, and places to interact with the working barista as they build the beverages. This appears to be a major goal at Starbucks The Bank in Amsterdam at well.
Starbucks will be bringing their Clover machine to this location, and it will be the first Clover deployment in Europe. What looks like a dual Clover station is featured to the right of the espresso area, and the designers have set up the station for a lot of interaction.
To the left of the espresso station, other slow brewing methods will be featured, including pourover, press pot and possibly others (though it does not look like they will be using or featuring siphon brewers, which would be a shame).
When you see the layout and function that this café will introduce, a lot of Starbucks’ recent industry moves make a lot more sense. Starbucks has been retooling their coffees recently, and have been putting heavier focus on their own variants of “microlots”, which they call small batch reserve coffees. In test markets, they’ve been experimenting with lighter roasting methods more attuned to bringing the most out of the coffee’s natural flavours instead of letting the roast dictate the primary tasting notes. We fully expect both of these things to be brought to the Starbucks The Bank location, and beyond.
Given the look of the interior, we wouldn’t be too surprised if this Starbucks location starts hosting coffee tastings, coffee cuppings, and perhaps even introductory courses to various home brewing in the future. It will be intriguing to see how far Starbucks pushes the reality of the “laboratory” with this café and the consuming public. For instance, wouldn’t it be amazing if the company did organize proper cuppings for the public, and brought in competitor (or top shelf independent coffee roasters’) coffees to pair against their own offerings to show — perhaps — how Starbucks micro lot coffees taste better than other offerings? This probably won’t happen but it would be another major departure for this company if they do open up the samplings!
(I am probably dreaming far too much if I request that Starbucks The Bank feature “guest coffees” from time to time on their slow brew stations!)
The Result
Well we do not know the result yet of this offering since Starbucks The Bank is not open yet! But I wish to share my thoughts and hopes for this location and for Starbucks’ direction.
First, I am so pleased to see Starbucks take this step and really do something unique and special for their company. We see companies like Intelligentsia, Stumptown, Blue Bottle, Four Barrel, Metropolis and others take the lead not only in coffee house modern design in North America, but in how coffee is presented to the public. For a long time, Starbucks seemed neither interested in, or concerned about this movement towards slow coffee and more transparency in coffee. Now this has changed.
But instead of just building their own vision of a Intelligentsia Venice Beach in Amsterdam, I can tell Starbucks presented this new Coffee Experience Lab with a definite Dutch flavour and eye towards what we Dutch expect in a state of the art café. This new facility is very much at home in modern Holland and I am looking forward to my next visit home so I can visit this location.
Second, I am pleased to see that Starbucks is paying more attention to how coffee is roasted, brewed and presented. I have not been a fan of their roasts because I do find them too dark, but I have had the new blond roasts recently and have enjoyed them quite a bit. In my neighbourhood the Starbucks staff are very friendly and accommodating, but their coffee knowledge or perhaps passion for coffee is not the same as going into a Sight Glass cafe. In such a cafe, it is possible to have where a conversation with the barista who has cupped the coffee they are serving you fifteen times over. Normally you wouldn’t expect this same level of interaction at a usual Starbucks location.
However, I imagine my local Starbucks experience will not be the same at Starbucks The Bank in Amsterdam. I expect that the baristas working at this new location will be as fanatical about coffee as I am, if not more so. I imagine they will be providing constant feedback to their masters about what their “audience” expects and tastes. I imagine that Starbucks will continue to move forward with this new information and new experience they are creating.
I am excited to see how this develops!
Editor Note: this article was based on a detailed promotional article submitted to CoffeeGeek by Starbucks’ European Creative Content Agency, Lemon Scented Tea which can be found in our PR section. All photographs were taken by Rien Meulman and are used with permission.
If you head out to the Internet looking for tea books from yesteryear, you’ll find enough to keep you occupied for a very long time. I’ve written about quite a few such works in these very pages, but to the best of my recall I can’t think of one that was written by an author who later went on to found a well-known tea company.
Until I recently ran across a book called A Popular Treatise on Tea: Its Qualities and Effects, that is. This particular tome first saw the light of day in 1863 and its author was John Sumner. Along with his father William, Sumner later founded a grocery business that went on to become Typhoo Tea, though it was apparently John Sumner, Jr., who took the firm into the territory of tea selling. Trivia fans, take note: the name Typhoo is apparently derived from a Chinese word for doctor.
Sumner opens the book with the bold statement that “the great Anglo-Saxon race are essentially a tea-drinking people.” Which is a matter that could probably be disputed, given that Europeans had only been drinking tea for about two centuries. But there’s no disputing his further assertion that among said people tea was now considered “one of the necessaries of life.”
From there the book is broken down into a structure that’s fairly typical for these kinds of works, starting with a chapter on the history of tea and moving on to one that looks at various botanical aspects of the plant. From there it’s a chapter on the assorted and sundry varieties of black and green tea that were popular at the time, many of which (Twankay, Hyson Skin, Imperial) will be unfamiliar to tea drinkers nowadays.
Chapter four tackles an unusual topic, looking at various tea substitutes used in other parts of the world. Among them are coffee; Paraguay Tea, or what we know today as yerba mate, and enough other items to fill a large chart. Other chapters look at the chemistry of tea, in which Sumner remarks on the beneficial compound theine, or what we know today as theanine.
Sumner also looks at the medicinal properties of tea and summarizes the various pros and cons regarding its consumption. He winds things up with a chapter on the social influence of tea, where he quotes an earlier writer who goes so far as to make the grand statement “tea and the discontinuance of barbarism are connected in the way of cause and effect.”
Here, here.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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Posted in Country : India by François-Xavier Delmas | Tags : little Darjeeling train
The little Darjeeling train is completely unpredictable. From time to time it travels without carriages. A few lucky passengers seem to be allowed though, on condition that they can hold a contorted pose for a long time. They hang their bags wherever they can, and simply put any other luggage on the roof of the locomotive.
40 pyramid infusers with Two infusers each of: Earl Grey, Orchid Vanilla, Flora, Lemon Ginger, English Breakfast, Silk Oolong, Chamomile Tisane, African Solstice, Black Currant, Formosa Oolong, Citrus Mint, Jasmine Green, Bombay Chai, White Ambrosia, Coco Truffle, Sencha, Estate Darjeeling, White Ginger Pear, Raspberry Nectar, Green Tango.
;)
Introducing Will Smith! We’re talking about that more famous (in the tech world) Will Smith – the bearded editor in chief and co-founder of Tested, a website focused on helping people make the best decision possible when it comes to buying technology and soon to be a lot more (visit his site for more details, some of which just broke on Friday!). Will is a coffee aficionado and hosts occasional video reviews of coffee gear on the site. Who better to include in our short series of interviews with people in technology who love coffee.
CG: So Will, I’m sure many of our readers are familiar with you and the website you host, but for those who don’t, could you tell us a bit about your involvement in the world of technology, blogging and video casting? How did you get your start, and what are you up to now?
Smith: I’ve always been passionate about technology, I worked my way through college doing contract IT work. I got started writing about technology with a nights and weekends job writing for newly-launched Ars Technica in late 1998. Shortly after starting with Ars, I quit my day job and started doing freelance for a variety of publications. Eventually, I ended up at Maximum PC, where I worked from mid-2000 until early 2010. During the last five years of my tenure at Maximum PC, I was the editor in chief. I loved writing about PCs, but with the rise of the iPhone and Android, it was apparent that the interesting work was happening in mobile. In 2010, Norman Chan and I left Maximum PC to launch Tested, with an eye toward covering both familiar markets and the emerging technology categories like tablets and smartphones.
CG: Getting way off topic for our website, I do have a futuro-techie question: I remember reading somewhere that people have predicted that eventually, our desktop PCs and even notebooks will disappear, with our smartphones completely taking over all our computing and Internet activity. They’d interact wirelessly with larger displays and keyboards we just automatically connect to at home and work. Is that a fair prediction of the future in your eyes?
Smith: I don’t think that phones and tablets will ever fully replace dedicated PCs. Phones and tablets are undeniably convenient, there’s massive benefit for ubiquitous computing. However, there will always be a need for heavy lifting computing that you can only get on a PC. Eventually, we’ll have enough processing power in all our devices that the main differentiator between a PC and a phone will just the the interface, but until then, PCs will still have a place.
CG: I have noticed a real increase in coffee gadget coverage on Tested in the past year – what was your impetus for that?
Smith: Not to nitpick, but I really don’t like the word gadget. Gadget is a diminutive word, typically used by people who don’t understand or are afraid of technology to minimize its impact. I wrote an editorial about this early on (ed.note: Editorial is here.) The things that most people call gadgets are massively useful, multipurpose devices — not novelties. So, when I use that word, it isn’t a kind word.
Semantic arguments aside, Norm and I want Tested to be a site about things that Norm and I love. I love coffee, and coffee was always a part of Tested, I talked about the Aeropress as a really interesting, innovative bit of tech in my initial pitch. It helped that the launch of the site in early 2010 coincided with a resurgence in brewed coffee. I’d been experimenting with the Aeropress and pourovers for a while, and I loved that the barrier to entry for brewed coffee was much lower than for espresso. After all, a $30 Aeropress, $100 grinder, and a $20 scale are much more accessible than a La Marzocco GS/3. But, at the lowest level, Tested is about stuff that we love. Sometimes that’s about coffee, sometimes it’s German board games, sometimes it’s cameras, sometimes it’s about office chairs.
CG: Right now, today, what would be your dream product from coffee and espresso that you’d like to review on Tested?
Smith: I’d love to do a big espresso machine roundup. I finally feel like I’m proficient enough with espresso and have a good enough grinder to actually test and compare those devices. I’m very curious to find out how much of a difference there is between the super-expensive machines, like the La Marzocco GS/3 and a more reasonably priced semi-automatic machine.
CG: Besides the increase in coffee gear coverage, what other things does Tested cover besides obvious technology like computers, phones and the like?
Smith: Our whole focus is on helping people make good decisions when it comes to buying technology. More importantly, we love to help people get more from the stuff they buy. That applies to pretty much everything, whether it’s a smartphone, a tablet, or the latest coffee brewing gear.
(ed.note: since conducting this interview, there have been some huge, positive changes over at Tested, the news of which broke mainly today, our coincidental interview publication date – visit Tested to see what new additions Will and Norman have added to the website and its newly expanded focus: you will see some very famous folks now associated with Tested!)
CG: Let’s turn to coffee. Espresso first, or coffee first?
Smith: I love a great espresso, but I don’t have the budget for a machine that lives up to my taste. Having great coffee shops in San Francisco has pretty much ruined me. On the other hand, I can brew a world-class pot of coffee anywhere and anytime I have 205 degree water.
CG: What was your first experience ever drinking espresso? What did you think?
Smith: My first experience with espresso was probably a cappuccino at a French or Italian restaurant. It didn’t make that much of an impression, I guess.
CG: Have you had what you’d consider “epiphany moments” with coffee or espresso? Describe them for me!
Smith: I’ve had occasional great cups of coffee over the years, but didn’t really have an epiphany until I stopped eating sugar. The first time I went to my local coffee shop and drank a coffee without sweetener or milk, I was blown away by the complexity of the flavors in the cup. I wish I knew what they brewed, but it was a long time ago, the shop’s gone now, and I didn’t pay attention to that stuff back then. The first time I went to the SCAA show was probably the closest to an epiphany I’ve had. I’d had occasionally amazing cups of coffee (espresso and brewed) over the years, but I didn’t realize that it could be so consistently outstanding.
CG: What kind of setup do you have at home for espresso, coffee, or both?
Smith: My espresso setup is simple — a Rancilio Silvia (espresso machine) and a Baratza Virtuoso Preciso (grinder). I usually only bust out the espresso on weekends though. My normal weekday morning is all brewed. I use a Chemex and Able Brewing Kone. I love the Kone because it pulls the things I love with pourovers with the mouthfeel and complexity of a press. Of course, I also have an Aeropress for single cups using the metal filter disc from Able.
CG: What was the first thing you ever covered on Tested that was related to coffee or espresso?
Smith: The Aeropress! We’ve since done a few more videos with it, explaining how to use the inverted method for best results.
CG: So you used the Aeropress to pitch the idea of covering coffee devices, and you also ended up reviewing it first? What kind of response did these videos get with Tested’s audience?
Smith: It wasn’t universal excitement, but the people who were enthusiastic were very enthusiastic. I received dozens of emails, Twitter messages, and PMs from users saying they’d bought an Aeropress and had never tasted coffee like that before. That happened again and again as we introduced people to new types of coffee tech.
CG: You did a lot of video reports from the 2011 SCAA trade show. Was it your first one? What impressions did you leave the show with?
Smith: SCAA 2011 was my first one. I loved getting to meet people at the forefront of coffee tech. I absolutely love how inclusive the community is. Everyone was welcoming, with vendors actually introducing me to their competitors after they briefed me on their products.
CG: Do you plan on attending the 2012 SCAA show in Portland this year?
Smith: Yes, I do!
CG: You recently came back from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas. You mentioned a bit about your experience at the SCAA, but how do you feel it was compared to a show like CES?
Smith: SCAA is much more fun, much more friendly, and much, much, much smaller. I enjoy CES, but I look forward to the SCAA show.
CG: You seemed to be really on the forefront of finding the cool new technology in coffee and espresso this past year. What impressed you the most in 2011?
Smith: My favorite piece of brewing tech from 2011 is the Able Brewing Kone. I love that it makes the Chemex, which is fairly tricky to use as a pourover device, more consistently awesome. This is a good thing. I’m also really interested in the rise of relatively inexpensive semi-automatic espresso machines. While I love my Silvia, I really need a machine that can switch from espresso to steaming very quickly. The hardware that Breville and folks like Bill Crossland have built will really open up no compromise espresso to a much wider audience.
CG: So there’s cool technology, and then there’s erm… gadgets (sorry!) What would be your favourite gadget for coffee and espresso?
Smith: I object to this question on moral grounds. However, I’d love to figure out a way I could justify purchasing an ExtractMojo for myself!
CG: Where you live, do you have any favourite cafes? How about favourite roasters?
Smith: I typically support local San Francisco roasters. I typically brew Ritual at home. I love their coffee, and I love being able to try different coffee each week. On the espresso front, I usually get Four Barrel‘s espresso blend. It’s good stuff. I don’t spend as much time in cafes as I used to, but I’ll grab a macchiato when I pick up my weekly bag of beans at Ritual.
CG: Is there anything about a San Francisco cafe that really stands apart from cafes you’ve seen in other cities?
Smith: I don’t really spend that much time in cafes, especially when I’m traveling. I’m easily distracted, so cafes aren’t a good place for me to work 
When I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll stop by the slow bar at Four Barrel or swing by the Ritual in the Mission, of course.
CG: Tell me what is your dream setup for the home in espresso machines, grinders, and other brewing devices? Is there any machine out there that just makes you drool?
Smith: I would love, love, love to have a La Marzocco GS/3. I keep hoping that they’re going to add pressure profiling to the home models, and somehow get them to a price that I can afford. Pair that with a Baratza Vario and I’d be a happy camper.
CG: You travel a lot because of your job – do you take a coffee or espresso brewing setup with you?
Smith: I just got back from a week in Vegas for CES. We travel heavy to that show, so I took my full home brewing setup with me. However, when I’m travelling lighter, I usually bring a Hario grinder and my Aeropress. When I’m travelling lighter than that, I take to Yelp to find the great cafes wherever I’m visiting.
CG: What is the best coffee or espresso you tried in the last 12 months?
Smith: That’s too tough to answer. The folks at Coffee Common kept me highly caffeinated when I was at SCAA last year. I’ve discovered the best time to stop by the booth is whenever anyone is learning milk art. (grins)
CG: That’s a good tip, Will. Well, those are all the questions I have for you today. Thank you for your time and we’ll see you at the SCAA Conference in Portland! I’ll meet you at the first Latte Art demo (ed.note: milk patterns… they are called milk patterns!)!
Posted in Country : China by François-Xavier Delmas | Tags : Country : China, Tea
In China, tea is often infused directly in the glass. As you drink your cha, your host tops it up with hot water. To stop the leaves going in your mouth, you bring your teeth together, which doesn’t prevent you from smiling at the same time.
