News articles tagged with 'education'
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The crema dilemma
For a long time crema has been viewed as the definitive sign of great espresso. This has never sat very well with us at Five Senses, as we have often tasted magnificent coffees with fleeting, delicate crema and some not so magnificent coffees with crema that lasted forever.
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DVD sneak peek — latte art
Clearly, you’re the coolest kid in your suburb when it comes to making coffee. You’ve acquired the best machine that money can buy, and let’s not fail to mention your impeccable taste in single origins. Still, just as Tiger Woods continues to diligently practice his swing, a great barista never stops striving for the perfect pour.
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Step by step espresso
Espresso at home is a great way for coffee drinkers to experience and understand what goes into their café style drinks. By that, I don’t just mean the actual ingredients, but more the different levels of quality, technology, expertise, patience and attention to detail.
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DVD sneak peek — espresso
We all know that there’s more to a perfect shot of espresso than just great beans. It also includes a delicate mixture of science and technology, as well as a great deal of barista skill — in this case, that’s you.
We toss out phrases that include “shot speed” and “shot colour” and we know what it takes to talk the talk. But are we really paying our respects to the espresso gods and always practising what we preach?
Check out this chapter from the Advanced Barista Techniques DVD to relearn or refresh your skills. For your very own source of priceless information, click here to get a copy of the DVD.
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Do You Know Your Puck?
On face value, looking at the quality of your puck may seem like a really weird thing to do, but it is essential to get the best out of your machine. The reason why this is becoming more important is because of the growing interest in buying electronically timed grinders over manual dosing models. So what is the dose? And how does that affect the quality of the puck?
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The E61 Group Head: An Oldie but a Goodie
Our Technical Services Engineer, Graeme Burton, takes everything coffee to a whole new level and explains here the E61 group head. Graeme worked in Curtin University’s Physics department for many years before joining Five Senses, where he combines his passion for coffee and his scientific know-how.
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Get SMART
New Year’s resolutions are notoriously hard to keep. Some statistics say that the success rate could be as low as 8% (that’s the general public, your rate is of course, probably a lot higher!). So why are they so hard to keep? Well the fact that they’re usually made after several champagnes certainly doesn’t help! Seriously, the reason they don’t work is they are just not SMART.
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The CCD in action
The Clever Coffee Dripper was considered a pretty innovative product when it was first released in Australia some six months ago. Since then it has fast become the brewing method of choice for both cafes and home brewers wishing to explore the world of black coffee.
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How to Keep your Espresso Machine off my Work Bench
I get all kinds of espresso machines through my door (Gaggia, Cimbali, ECM, etc) but I mostly deal with Expobar Minores, Isomacs and the Sunbeam 6910s, so the following advice is mainly related to these machines. However it is still relevant to other machines. Each machine has their own intricate and unique problems, but all can start producing terrible coffee if you don’t love and care for them.
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Espresso Shot Troubleshooting
It doesn’t take much for a day to turn from smooth to turbulent when you’re working in a café. I guess it is just part of the rollercoaster ride that defines the hospitality lifestyle! One of the things that can start the slippery slope towards anxiety is a coffee pour that just doesn’t add up – or a question posed by a customer that you just can’t explain. Here we’ll take a look at some typical espresso-related problems that can be easily solved by a bit of basic troubleshooting.
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Who the Hell Are You?
Five Senses Coffee has a long history of using psychometric testing both formally and anecdotally in our work environment. It sounds a bit like something you might find at the local branch of Scientology, but it’s actually a relatively simple and incredibly powerful way to “measure” and categorise peoples’ personality types. Many different versions of the testing have evolved, largely for commercial reasons, but they all have the common thread of attributing a primary personality trait with a secondary, complementary trait to each person tested.
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Latte Art Troubleshooting
When it comes to latte art, there are always a few myths worth debunking right away. My personal favourites are the variations on the theme that steamed milk somehow magically changes the flavour of your espresso: either the espresso will surely taste amazing because the drink has latte art, or the espresso will fade completely into a milk-drenched abyss.
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Getting the Most from Filter Coffee
Following up on Ash’s ‘Super Automatic’ machine story, it’s clear that you can spend a lot of time and money buying a Super Auto, then playing with the settings to get a coffee that isn’t terrible, but it is much easier (and cheaper!) to get quality coffee using a filter.
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The Many Facets of Colombia
Do you remember those funky, printed, refracting images you had as a kid that changed to a different image depending on the angle you looked at it? I know I had a few – mostly comprising superheroes in a “ready for action” pose. Then, with a tilt of the page, they adopted a body-busting “Ka-pow!” pose. Colombia reminds me of those images for the simple reason that from pretty much whatever angle you look at the country, you see something very different.
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Using the Internet to Market Your Café
Gone are the days where it’s all about location, location, location. With the emergence of the internet as a promotional beast, every back alley cafe has the chance to become an industry icon. It’s certainly not a concept that’s new to Melbourne which has had thriving cafés tucked away in laneways for decades, but what may have been a decision made out of sheer necessity back in the day (due to rental costs) is now considered chic and unique.
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Coffee Context
Let’s face it, the trend in Perth is that cafes are investing more seriously in something consumers (yes, that’s you) have been demanding for years: better quality. Every time a coffee is returned because it’s “just not right”, a bad review is posted on-line or a full cup is left on the table, consumers unwittingly form part of the masses demanding a higher standard.
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There's Something in the Water
There is no escaping the fact that all coffee beverages are made up of at least two ingredients — the coffee itself, and water. Although it’s a topic we have covered before, it’s still one that is widely neglected and rarely considered when troubleshooting quality issues. Not only is water one of the only two ingredients required to create a coffee drink, it also accounts for nearly 95% of your final beverage. So, rather than considering water as a facilitator in turning coffee into liquid, it really needs to be considered as a crucial ingredient that has enormous influence on the final taste.
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PNG: So Close, Yet So Far Away
Every time I visit somewhere new, I am humbly reminded that the complex journey from seed to cup has its own set of unique challenges and opportunities which are particular to each country. My first visit is always an exercise in listening, observing and trusting my instinct. Whilst I never know what to expect, against all odds, the results are often new relationships, lasting friendships and precious life experiences. My first visit to PNG was all that and more.
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More Myth Busters: Coffee Storage
I have to admit, I was a little nervous about this latest experiment from the Australian Barista Academy. When we come across common myths that exist in the coffee industry, we don’t normally subscribe to them until we have tested them thoroughly. This one though had slipped through the cracks. I don’t think I have ever properly tested (or if I have, at best it has been fleeting) the issue of why we keep coffee in the cupboard.
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New Era for Indian Coffees
Five years ago, I ummed and ahhed over Monsoon or Tiger Mountain branded coffees. They were savoury, dusty, baggy and cigar-like — and I wasn’t quite sure whether I liked them or not. All I knew was that they blended poorly, had a very bubbly crema and required a very different grind setting to most of the other coffees I was using. Fast track forward five years and I’m no longer a fan of these coffees. Sounds harsh, but those coffees were just that: harsh! Now that the global quality standard has rapidly increased, the old-style Indian coffees just don’t stand a chance against the super sweet and refined coffees of today. That’s pretty much all I knew about Indian coffees, until my recent visit to India, that is.
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Tea Fit for a Queen
With the Queen in Australia and CHOGM in full flow, my thoughts naturally turned to a liquid that is drunk across the Commonwealth — tea. Five Senses’ new range to be precise. I love tea and the rituals involved in drinking it. So first up, was a morning favourite; English breakfast. This one was great, assured and bracing, with hints of dark chocolate and spice. A perfect way to kick start the day. Next in line was Earl Grey. A bright, refreshing drink, scented with bergamot and layered with notes of citrus, the Earl Grey was a beautiful orangey, golden colour in the cup.
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The Espresso Menu Explained
Typically only found in Australia, we are however starting to see some Aussie-inspired ‘Flat Whites’ pop up in different specialty coffee destinations around the world, mostly as a novelty or talking point. The flat white is comparable to the American latte. Often served in a bowl or ceramic cup, the American latte is nearly an exact replica of what we call a flat white.
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