Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Dominican Republic, Karoma Estate From Strandvejsristeriet

This second coffee from Stransvejsristeriet is from the Dominican Republic.



They describes it as a coffee with good dept and strong coffee flavor. Suitable for filter and press. 

Again a nice and dark roast, very even with a strong and lovely smell. 

The first try is with my aeropress. I have a special way of brewing AP, i grind pretty coarse, almost as coarse as frenchpress.

 I use a small dose and I only let it soak for 2 minutes. 
This one is 15,7 gr with 220 ml water, soaked for 2 minutes. 
Look at the lovely dark color. 


The result is usually a light brew with bright notes.


This coffee is no exception. A nice bright cup, but still with a strong flavor of coffee from the darker roast. 
It's not the most lively coffee with many different aromas. Just a solid coffee, that's easy to work with. 
With this AP recipe I get lots of lemon, apple and a nice bitterness in the end ! I do like it, but i enjoy my AP roast a bit lighter. 

Did one Press a bit finer in grind and upped the dose to 17,5. The result is much sweeter, and a lot stronger. I think that suits the bean better. But it's not really my thing. 

Then I tried some frenchpress. 
Used 38 grams for 800 ml of water.



A really great pot of coffee. This bean is ment for frenchpress. No doubt about it. 

It's a very subtle coffee. Not wild or crazy notes that needs a lot of thoughts into it. As mentioned earlier; a solid coffee that works for everybody. Even my father in law who is very conservative liked it. Usually he doesn't have much joy of my fresh specialty coffee. Not like his supermarket pot à coffee he says. But this one was different. I think it's because it's not all that fancy. Just basic and solid. Yes, I sayid it again. Solid. 
Again I would just have to agree with roast master. It's a strong and good taste of coffee, the balance is perfect when the grind isn't to fine. Not to bitter with strong hassle nut flavors. 
But if it's to fine it easily gets to bitter. So be aware of that. 

If you want a coffee that works for everyone, this is the one. If you want a coffee that's simple, still good, fresh and great quality, this is it. 
If you want to do lots of precision and experiments with volatile floral aromas, this is not it ! It's to dark for that in my opinion. 
I have served it in the frenchpress at three different occasions to different guests now and everybody enjoyed it. 
I'm sure you will too. 
It can be purchased at


Stephen Sweeney´s TPF - Transparent Portafilter


Saturday, March 22, 2014

Kenya AA - From Strandvejsristeriet

Our newest friends, Strandvejsristeriet, has supplied us with three different coffees, all with different qualities.

The microroastery opneded their doors in 2006 with a vision, of delivering fresh quality coffee to their part of the country. The last few years they have had a busy day to keep up with demand, and they are now delivering global in Denmark.
I haven't been at their shop yet, but it's a thing I am looking forward to. The roastery is located in beatiful surroundings at Kronborg Slot.
Strandvejsristeriet also provides different barista and roasting traning sessions.


 In this post i will review a Kenya AA.



Strandvejsristeriet description of this Kenya is; well balanced, complex, taste of black currant and a touch of lime. Suitable for precision brew 

Looking at the beans I think their a bit dark roast, not that it's a bad thing, many roasters would ship this as espresso. Not my thing. I'm glad to see a darker roast, also for v60 etc.



I have used my 1 cup v60, standard recipe 14,5 grams/220 grams water. 

I tried changing the dose a bit up and down, but the 14,5 grams leaves the best outcome.



Freshly poured, this coffee doesn't bring much flavor to me. It has to cool a bit, but when that's done it's a lively thing with many impressions.



I can only agree with Peter, who is roast master, black currant and lemon is the flavors to catch. Typical African I'm tempted to say.
Bright and very tasty notes of berries, the aftertaste of lemon isn't as strong as many other Kenyan coffees. The complexity of the coffee is in my opinion, that it changes quite a bit from pour to cold. It's common that coffee gets stronger and more defined as it cooles. But it's just like this one is a bit more tricky than usual. 
Because of the many different notes thru the temperature drop, it's very versatile. Good strong taste of coffee when fresh poured suits great as my morning coffee. The bright acid and freshness is what I enjoy in the afternoon. 

A lovely coffee with many great qualities. Enjoyed every bit of it.

It's a 250 kr (45$) a kilo coffee. That's pretty stabdart price.
The coffee among many others can be bought at:
http://www.strandvejsristeriet.dk/produkt/kenya-aa-gaturiri/

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Mazzer Kony Clumbing Issue

I have upgraded my previous grinder, Mazzer Major, to the Mazzer Kony, which has 63 mm conical burr grinders, instead of the Majors 83 mm flat burrs. The specs actually makes the Kony worse then the Major, if you think that size is everything. Luckily, this isn't the case and the Konys low RPM is a giant step towards achieving a sweet and delicious espresso. 

Nevertheless I thought that this upgrade would eliminate the common problems with "home" grinders, but I was in for a disappointment. The Kony was clumbing right from the start and hasn't approved over the 1800 shots, that I have pulled over the last three months. 

I therefore added the antistatic filter for the Kony Electronic, but this hasn't any affect on the clumbing issue (this is the marked as the "old" in the video below). But is the antistatic filter for the Major Electronic better?




I afterwards got the tip, that I should buy the antistatic filter for the Major Electronic instead, because of its smaller holes, which should eliminate the clumbs. 

What is an antistatic filter?? Well, an antistatic filter is a device that keeps your espresso grounds loose and static free - its installed between the body and the doser. 

The antistatic filter for the Major is shown to the left and for the Kony on the right.
I have learned that the actual filter for the Kony had to big holes to eliminate the clumbing issue and as you can see in the above picture, the Major filter - on the left - has much smaller holes.

The reason why I would like to eliminate the clumbing is because that it causes weak spots in the puck, which can lead to channeling, if you aren't using WDT (Weiss Distribution Technique) to take care of this issue and its a bit annoying to perform this technique every time an espresso shot is extracted - especially considering that the grinder is a professional / high-end grinder.

The Mazzer Major antistatic filter is mounted
The result of the two different antistatic filters is shown below, where the Kony filter is on the left (the one with the bog holes) and the Major filter is shown on the right (the new filter, with the smaller holes). The pictures speaks for itself and there is a clear improvement, but nevertheless the holes could be a bit smaller, cause there still is some small clumbs left. Positive upgrade!