Category Archives: Coffee Kit

Posts about coffee equipment

London Coffee Festival 2016: The Kit

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My surprise favourite bit of kit at this year's London Coffee Festival, the Marco Beverage Systems Bean Counter, doing what it does best (and indeed all it does), count (well, weigh) beans.Welcome to the third of my detailed write-ups of this year’s London Coffee Festival (if you want an overview of the whole festival, take a look at my round-up). Here I cover individual aspects of the festival, starting with some automatic filter machines and continuing with last week’s look at cups. This week I’ll be casting my eye over some of the other kit I found, before covering, in future Saturday Supplements, my coffee experiences and the coffee itself.

I’ve already looked at one specific aspect of the kit, the surprising proliferation of automated filter/pour-over machines, which I covered two weeks ago. This time it’s a round-up of various miscellaneous bits of kit that I came across, starting with my surprise favourite, the automated bean-counting machine. Another area which particularly excites me, as a coffee shop customer, is the emergence of the modular espresso system, typified by the Mavam, which made its London Coffee Festival debut this year. Finally, I take a look at top-end grinders which are making espresso extraction ever more reliable. In this instance, it’s the Mahlkönig Peak, which was launched the festival.

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London Coffee Festival 2016: The Cups

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The Kaffeeform cup, made from recycled coffee grounds, in action at the London Coffee FestivalWelcome to the second of my detailed write-ups of this year’s London Coffee Festival (if you want an overview of the whole festival, take a look at my round-up). Here I cover individual aspects of the festival, starting with last week’s look at automatic filter machines. This week I’ll be taking a look at cups, before covering, in future Saturday Supplements, miscellaneous coffee kit, my coffee experiences and rounding things off with the coffee itself.

In previous years, my posts on cups at the London Coffee Festival proved surprisingly popular. This year, however, cups were somewhat thin on the ground, with the familiar (to me, at least) JOCO Cup, UPPERCUP and Frank Green all missing. KeepCup was there, but since I managed to go a whole year with destroying either of my glass KeepCups, for once I didn’t need to visit the stand.

However, if you looked, there were still some cups to be found, including those made from interesting materials (porcelain, bamboo and recycled coffee grounds), while one was claiming to be totally spill-proof (although I managed to get it to spill…). I also saw the all-in-one portable coffee maker, Cafflano, and its new product, the Kompact.

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London Coffee Festival 2016: Automatic Filter Machines

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The Ratio Eight automatic pour-over brewer in action at the London Coffee Festival 2016Welcome to the first of my detailed write-ups of this year’s London Coffee Festival. If you want to know what I made of the festival as a whole, take a look at my round-up. Here I’ll be covering individual aspects of the festival, such as the cups, coffee kit, my coffee experiences and the coffee itself. However, I’m going to kick things off with a look at something that really surprised me with their abundance at the festival this year: automated filter machines.

There have, of course, always been automated filter coffee machines, ranging for your simple drip-machine at home, all the way up to the large bulk-brewers found in coffee shops. However, they generally don’t make great coffee. Things started to change with the Moccamaster, an automated filter machine that many speciality coffee shops use to make small batch-brews.

Then, a couple of years ago, Alpha Dominche burst onto the scene with the Steampunk, a machine designed to make a single cup of filter coffee as good as any barista could make a V60, Chemex or Aeropress. And that, it seemed was that, until this year, when the London Coffee Festival appeared to be overrun with automated filter machines!

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The Coffee Spot Christmas Gift Guide

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The Christmas Logo from Press CoffeehouseIt’s always a tricky question, isn’t it? What to get for that coffee-loving friend of yours. It’s particularly tricky, if, like me, they’re towards the far end of the coffee-geek spectrum, when any choice runs the risk of being ill-informed. Do you get them coffee? Or coffee-related kit? Or a book about coffee perhaps?

Never fear, the Coffee Spot is here to help you out, whether you’re a novice, looking for pointers for gifts for your coffee-obsessed friend, or if you’re that coffee-obsessed friend, looking for a handy guide to point your friends towards. There’s also a few suggestions for presents for your coffee-loving friends who’ve not yet disappeared down the rabbit-hole of speciality coffee and just need a little nudge along the way.

As with all things Coffee Spot, this guide’s not definitive, nor is it a “best-of” list. Instead, my suggestions are all things which I’ve come across over the past year and thought “that would make a good present”. With one or two exceptions, they’re things which I own, having either bought them or been given them during the year, so don’t worry, it’s not a proxy list of things you should be getting me this Christmas!

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Cup North 2015 Part I

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Sonali Tailor, who finished third in this year's Tasters Cup, in action at the final in Cup North.Last weekend saw my annual visit to Manchester for self-styled two-day Northern Coffee Party, Cup North. Regular readers will be pleased to learn that, true to form, it rained almost constantly, stopping for brief intervals so that I could pop outside to visit the excellent food stalls. The rain also obligingly held off for the first-ever UK Coffee Throwing Championships (more of which later).

Last year, Cup North was my favourite coffee festival, small, friendly and intimate. This year, it’s taken things up a notch, with a new venue and a significant increase in size. While retaining its friendly nature, it felt, with its multiple spaces, more like a mini-London Coffee Festival. Having come from the smaller, more intimate Glasgow Coffee Festival just a few weeks earlier, it took a while to get my head around the change of scale.

There was, of course, that much more to see and, sadly, I didn’t make it to everyone, so please accept my apologies if I didn’t catch up with you. For now, let’s kick-off with this, Part I of my round-up, with a look at the venue, kit and competitions. Parts II and III will focus on the coffee & food.

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Mastering the Cezve with Vadim Granovskiy

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A cezve on the gas burner, with the crema almost at the top, signifying it's time to serve it.I first met Vadim Granovskiy in 2014 at a London Coffee Stops Awards event, where he gave a fascinating presentation on the ibrik, or cezve, as Vadim prefers to call it. A few days later, I had the pleasure of watching Vadim win the Ibrik Competition at the London Coffee Festival, which only confirmed my interest in this unique way of making coffee. So, when I caught up with Vadim at this year’s London Coffee Festival and he offered me a private cezve lesson, I jumped at the chance!

The cezve is an ancient method of making coffee, with more in common with the stove-top moka pot than espresso or modern pour-over methods. My lesson took place one evening in early May and although the focus was the cezve, it wasn’t all about making coffee. We explored the cezve itself and how to look after it, as well going on a journey of taste and perception which was every bit as fascinating as, for example, the Cimbali sensory sessions at this year’s Coffee Festival.

As well as the intensive lesson I had, Vadim also runs introductory workshops for 10-15 people. For more details, take a look at his website www.coffeeinaction.com.

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London Coffee Festival 2015: The Cups

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The London Coffee Festival LogoWelcome to the fourth of my detailed London Coffee Festival Saturday Supplements. To see what I made of the festival as a whole, take a look at my round-up. In this series, I’ve been covering individual aspects of the festival. So far I’ve looked at the interesting coffee kit that I came across, written about my coffee experiences and recounted my time at the La Cimbali Sensory Sessions. Now it’s the turn of the cups, which, much to my surprise, turned out to be by far the most popular of my posts about last year’s London Coffee Festival.

I’m very picky about my cups: a bad cup can ruin an otherwise great cup of coffee. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s good coffee, especially espresso, in a paper or plastic cup. The advent of the glass reusable cup was therefore just what I was looking for. Last year, I picked up a couple of re-usable glass cups from KeepCup and its Australian cousin, JOCO Cups, which revolutionised my experience of drinking takeaway coffee. This year, I widened my net to include two new entrants onto the market, both of whom had plastic re-usable cups: UPPERCUP and Frank Green.

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London Coffee Festival 2015: The Kit

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The London Coffee Festival LogoWelcome to the first of my detailed write-ups of the London Coffee Festival. If you want to know what I made of the festival as a whole, take a look at my round-up. Here I’ll be covering individual aspects of the festival, this being the first of a series of themed Saturday Supplements. Today we’re going to start with all the interesting coffee kit that I came across at the festival, with subsequent Saturday Supplements exploring themes such as cups, my coffee experiences, the La Cimbali sensory sessions and the coffee itself.

So, what do I mean by kit? Last year I looked at a shiny espresso machine, a fancy filter machine and a hand-grinder (the wonderful hausgrind, made by Knock, which, along with its smaller brother, the feldgrind, now features in its own Saturday Supplement). Last year’s shiny espresso machine, from Sage, and the fancy filter machine, from Alpha Dominche, will also be featuring in future Saturday Supplements.

However, back to this year, which features a slightly more diverse range, including a neat stand to help with making/storing your coffee/coffee kit, an amazing set of scales, a home coffee roaster and a steam wand/boiler system which could help revolutionise the espresso bar.

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Made by Knock: Hausgrind and Feldgrind

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Two sets of wooden cylinders for Knock's feldgrind hand-grinders.I first came across Made by Knock (technically the company is Knock, but goes by “Made By Knock” on the web) and its fabulous hand-grinders at last year’s London Coffee Festival. Several people told me about these wonderful wooden grinders that I had to see. So, on the final day of the festival, I made my way to Knock’s stand and spent a happy hour with Peter, Knock’s co-owner, playing with the grinder, the hausgrind, and watching various demonstrations. From my enthusiastic write-up, you could tell that I had already fallen in love with the hausgrind.

My next encounter came later that year at Cup North, where I ran into Peter and Knock on the Dear Green Coffee stand. Here I discovered that Knock had a smaller, lighter (and cheaper) version of the hausgrind, the feldgrind. I fear that in a moment of madness, I may have agreed to buy one.

Fast forward a few weeks and I was on a train to Edinburgh and, before long, was making my way down to Portobello, the home of Knock, where I had an appointment with Peter and, unknown to me, a very endearing little chap called Woody…

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London Coffee Festival 2014: The Kit

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The London Coffee Festival LogoAfter taking last weekend off to catch up with the inaugural Coffee Stops Awards 2014, we’re back at the London Coffee Festival, which took place last month at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane.

This year I attended three of the four days; Friday (the industry day) and Saturday and Sunday (public days) and rather than writing about each day, I’m doing a series of themed posts. This is the third in the series and focuses on what I’ve called “the kit”. This probably needs a few words of explanation: by kit, I mean the shiny espresso machines, fancy grinders and cups. This Saturday Supplement is actually Part II, with Part I two weeks ago featuring the cups.

Last year, I spent quite a lot of time looking at shiny espresso machines. However, this year I was rather more circumspect with my drooling and this is post is focused on three specific items, each leaders in their own classes. They are an espresso machine, a fancy filter machine and a hand-grinder.

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