WHC-123

…theres nothing i can write about Aroma Festival 2009 that hasnt already been said by many people, but it was the busiest working day of our lives, Matt, Brian and Myself helped the Mecca crew at there stand and we were pwned for 8 hours straight, no time to eat, no time to wizZ, no time to cry….

Week one is down and the Coffee @ Peace shire coffee festival was a fantastic success hopefully more to come if not seasonally or monthly at least yearly…

This weekend we are helping out at the Mecca Espresso stand at the rocks aroma festival, i used to work at Mecca in many short stints during the past few years, i learnt allot from these guys and we are so grateful to be working with a great team at this years Aroma coffee festival, come down and give Matty, BC or me a yell at the stand.

We will be opening a short shift on Sunday the 26th, for the Sutherland to Surf, espros will be flowing till about 10am id say…

The truth would probably only be found in the many manuscripts of Nostradamus, but the events on Sunday the 12th of July 2009 have gone down in suburban folklore as an urban myth, a mystery and an act of war…

Who knows, what really happened but through our eyes here is a small picture…

After a niiice days trade on Saturday we frantically cleaned and organized and stripped our beloved La Marzocco 3 group Linea down, we lay everything on our shop floor for easy transport for Sunday morn’ to peace park.

Matty was directing traffic and it was quite smooth sailing in setting up, 3 hours later and with the help of Mr. Sprem, (thanks Dennis) we had everything ready to do our “thang”…

After an hour or so of solid espros’, lattes and caps that we served to a caffeine starved public who were fanatical enough to brave the rain our machine was suddenly starved, the brew pressure dropped from 9 to 6 to 3 in minutes, after a few minutes of shock we tracked the problem back to the water main…

SABOTAGE!

An act low enough to warrant a modern day stoning…

With a line 20 deep from the start, we had to momentarily stop trade, and solve the problem. It wasn’t easy as solving the issue required a new water source and bleeding of excess air in the saturated group heads and re calibration of brew head pressure, a good 30 minutes of the day lost!

We were back in business, YAY.

After speaking to the event organizer it was mentioned to us that the water fitting to the tap was tested and that it would not be possible to have broken off without human tampering ,we were shocked!

At about 12 noon i was feeling a mix of embarrassment and deja vu as a loss of brew water pressure was seen by myself, i was on shots all day, where i like to be, hehe

I ran to the water outlet and the fitting had been loosened and fallen off… A coincidence? Who knows? Other coffee people were running off mains water,why hadn’t their brass fittings failed… we were running off a new main the second time… very coincidental, or was it an act of war by rival cafe owners… no one shall know the truth…

With low morale, we were going to call it a day, but in a true test of character we decided to run of buckets off water, i suppose this way our fate would be in our own hands this way… we recovered once more, after another 30 minutes of re cutting, bleeding air and setting pressure we extracted coffee until the event finished.

We apologize to anyone who we had to refund money to, and to anyone who came up to us while our machine was down, we did our best.

And most of all thank you to our great staff J-Bomb aka BomberZ aka Josh Brown, BC aka Cole aka Brian and Belarus aka Dave, you guys were great all day especially when the shit hit the freakin’ fan - TWICE!

The Sutherland Coffee Festival is here!

Just a reminder to everyone, you should come down on Sunday the 12th of July to peace park sutho, just in between the entertainment centre and the council.

WHC will be there so come down and share an espro or three, LIVE entertainment and heaps of fun times to be had, peace out!

For more info  Click Here

The Solstice Brings Shorter days and Longer nights, a time to celebrate life, death and rebirth, an eons-old tradition, for us though, its still all about the celebration of coffee, sharing many great cups of elegant coffee, with friends, family and of course our customers.

So  much work lately, so many late nights, Scotty the sheety from AGC has been great helping us build custom everything, from shelves to odd jobs we invent for him.

Many lattes, many espros, many filters, all hand made, and savoured to the last….

More late nights with Scotty.

The days got so crazy that i had to re-invent an old favourite, i call it, THE HAZEL, named after the barista that invented the drink at a coffee championship, the boys at WHC were mightily impressed and have asked us to start stocking the main ingredient so we can have it more often…. so what is it?

well its a glass of chinotto with a riss-ty on top, they go down great and give us a well needed kick up the arse when we need it on our busy days… try it out some time.

More late nights as Savva and George fit our cupboards, thanks heaps guys, we have so much storage now, woot!

Brian - a good barista when he joined us, and a credit to himself being able to handle all the criticism and coaching we have given him over the past two months, he started to shine recently and there were even moments of greatness, keep up the stellar work my friend!

An old Mecca tradition of Dom and Reuben competing to fit more coffee bags in the hopper has been taken over by Matty, he loves it and even if he spills half a kilo of beans a day in trying to “stack ‘em high” it wont halt the temptation.

The craziness continued and the taxi rank across from our shop felt it, there was a problem with city rail, surprise-surprise, lol brings back memories of working at mecca, at least i had my ipod to keep me company

A night to remember, Brian and myself went to a concert in the city, it was CoF at the Metro, they pwned and it was easily the best night…. maybe ever! On the way however we had to go by the roasterie as we had coffee stock issues, meaning we ran out, so Reuben kindly lent us his time and we picked some coffee up. We were then treated to a sample of La Esmerelda Geisha, the current crop that like sold for 130 buck a kilo or something insane like that, anyways Reu brewed it through the siphon and well it was obviously amazing, maybe one day we can form a co-op and buy some of this beautiful coffee. I was lucky when i was working in Japan to make the acquaintance of Daniel Petersen, the owner of the farm, maybe i should hit him up!

Our old mate Luca, the original Lucky himself visited us, was great to see him and hopefully he will join the dark side one day, when he returns from Brisbane.

The days got crazier as we approached the solstice, we played around with candy-teeth, and even ate them too :p

The famous WHC latte art comp hasn’t been on lately and by our recent three way dance, its a good thing we were all pathetic! LOLZORS

However matt has been trying to fit four love hearts into a demi’ recently, and i have to say he is now nailing it, he is possibly the best multi-art barista i have seen, albeit, i reckon i did nine ‘zettas in a large cup the other day….

And finally our staff member Josh aka J-BOMB turned 21 last night, it was a great night and i finally got to see Brian show us his fire twirling skills, he is considered to be in an elite handful of people in the art and it has been said that he is the third best in the world at twirling or poi or whatever its called

Over the past few months i have been quite happy with our new marzocco but im still asking questions as to how much i can push out of this machine….

Laterz

….. drip filter, pour over, paper filter, gold filter, hand poured drip coffee, cloth filter, its all much in the same branch of coffee making.

….. at WHC over the past few months we have been banging some awesome brews out of our very popular GOLD FILTER.

….. we prefer to use the swiss gold to make our drip because of the purity of the gold plating and it imparting no flavour taints to the coffee itself.

….. so how do we do it? well quite simple, we are using 20 grams of coffee per cup and pouring 300 ml of water over the compacted bed of grounds in our swiss gold filters, we measure the temp via a digital thermometer and we brew at 88.9 degrees which from our extensive testing seems to be the goods for light roast coffees, we brew at 91 degrees C for espresso roast FYI, its also particularly interesting to pay attention to just how slow and the method we use to pour, we are currently getting some nice results from pouring very slowly, we get an increased amount of body extracted into te cup! we are also finding that pouring directly into the centre of the filter and not moving from that point aids in repeatability and an even extraction of coffee. 

….. the current brew method we are using takes some time and patience by the barista to make, please ask for its availability as we use it strictly fresh and it runs out quick due to the small quantities we buy.

….. the boys at MECCA have sourced some of the finest small lot coffees for us, from cup of excellence to many small lot auction-won estate offerings, some of the more memorable have been the natural processed nicaraguan through to every-one’s fave the misty valley yirgacheffe, recently we have had some inspired cups from the Columbia agua azul but this week its all about BELOYA, our delivery went in one day with a lucky score of WHC clientele and the days staff singing the praises of the coffee worlds 08 pick-of-coffees “the beloya”.

….. a simple cup, with intense tart-acidity, a hefty after taste of citrus fruits, light berry and a touch of almond, exquisitely balanced and mouthwatering-ly refreshing!

….. i just hope reuben (the mecca roastmaster) has some more beloya for me, we ran out already! good news is that we have to look forward to the ARICHA,  which when cupped 6 months ago out-performed even the now infamous BELOYA!

Here are some of the logos we had submitted to us by Jason XXX, some of these horses were early scratchings and others were just poor finishers in the final furlong, regardless its nice to see them one last time, before they are put out to stud.

We are not recruiting openly, but if you view coffee as your career, and have an extreme-hard-work-ethic and have the flexibility to be called upon if need be, then maybe drop in for a espro…

In keeping with our high standards for every cup and establishing a culture of excellence we think anyone be it school leaver or mature age to apply for a position at white horse coffee, the biggest attribute one can have is an obsession with coffee.

If you love coffee and want to work with the best equipment in the industry, and work with like minded coffee-heads, then WHC wants you!

Yo wade, sup bro! keep it real! miss ya!

wades work!

Barista Tamper, made by Greg Pullman and sold through www.coffeetamper.com.au

Prices start at $AUD 129.95 (plus postage and handling).

Height      Weight - 315 grams (Acetal) which is the one i bought.

Greg also offers anodized handles which weigh 375g and wooden handles which weigh 275g.

The Barista comes in 304 grade stainless steel base, available in flat or convex, Greg also offers custom sizing on his website if you send your baskets in.

Greg’s sizing service for bases is so specific for the discerning barista that you can buy bases in points of a millimetre for example 57.9 or 58.1 etc. WOWZORS!

The base i have is a flat with 58.0 mm diameter, ideal for my La Marzocco baskets.

Greg also offers custom engraving:

Base of handle http://www.coffeetamper.com.au/shop/product_info.php?products_id=100

Text engraving http://www.coffeetamper.com.au/shop/product_info.php?products_id=38

Logo engraving http://www.coffeetamper.com.au/shop/product_info.php?products_id=36

You can also buy each part separate if you decide to change your mind

Domtron’s Comments:

i have been using this tamper on and off, mostly on, for five months, it is extremely durable and will last a lifetime, it fits my hand extremely well and i have four other baristas working at my shop and they all think its probably the most comfortable tamper they have ever used, the reg used to be our pick but this tamper just feels so good, the rubber thing at the base is great and it looks like new after five months and i dont think it will break.

the weight is enough to have you think you’re picking up a tamper but it isnt a heavy load to use over and over during the busy day.

the tamper just works, i have a flat base model and the shots i pull from this on our la marzocco linea are as good as any tamper i have used, i personally own over 25 tampers and have used almost every commercially available tamper available worldwide, this tamper PWNS!