The Swan at Mirfield

We have been asked to post this. Maybe it is of interest to someone.

“The Swan at Mirfield to be transformed!

The Swan at Mirfield is a site that has the potential to become and really popular and trendy café and wine bar with an investment and refurbishment planned to the value of nearly £100,000. Already benefitting from a great location compared to its local competitors, it has the scope to provide a unique offer that no-one else currently provides.

The investment will turn the Swan into a contemporary, modern venue with a café bar theme to offer coffee, pastries and paninis during the day and a stylish wine bar in the evening. Punch are now on the hunt for someone to take on the Swan as their own business and get involved in the plans!

For information on how you could be the next landlord of the Swan contact Amy on 0844 848 3261 to find out about the Open Event we are holding on 23^rd March!”

How to change?

Just spoke to Karen from  Birkenhead. I went over to Liverpool a few weeks ago for a barista training session. The cafe has absolutely wonderful staff, all girls which scared me a little, and they were making coffee pretty badly I must say. But the great thing is that Karen knew this and so the training was wonderful. I felt the girls really understood it all and they were making very good coffees at the time of the training. Big bubbly foam and long watery espressos turned into short flavourful espressos and thick creamy foam. Job done, training successful. Right?

Well not quite! Knowing how to do it correctly and actually changing your habits is a whole different thing. And don’t forget that when you have been working in a cafe for 25 years and have been making coffee the same way for all those years a change can be a little difficult and scary. The same counts for the customers. Their customers expect a lot of bubbles and extremely hot coffee… or do they really?

It can be very difficult to change things.  They now know how to make really good coffee, the question is whether or not they are actually putting it into practise.

A big problem is that the girls who are sticking to the old method do not drink coffee themselves. Since they don’t coffee it might be difficult to understand the importance of it all. So surely it is easier for them just to stick to the old way of making coffee. So how can you push the change?

One of the best ways I think is to work with the person inside the cafe who is most passionate about making coffee. Someone who is doing it the right way and actually cares and enjoys about the art of making coffee. Why not make this person the ‘coffee manager’ and put her/him in charge. Set up a new system for making coffee and make the staff realise that everybody has to make coffee the same way. Not exactly the same way as we are not robots but at least to the same standards. Get the coffee manager to push it as well and be firm. Make the staff realise that this is the best way and that by doing it so eventually they will enjoy the job more and make the customers happier. Better coffee leads to happier customers.

For a real change to happen you just need to believe in it yourself. If you are convinced that this is the best way then it will translate to your customers as well. Just do it, make coffee the way you think it looks and taste best, and you will see that eventually your customers will agree as well. Point out that you have been on a barista course and that you have done your research. Explain about the beans and why you do it a certain way. But most of all: believe in it, do it and stay positive.  <- sounds a bit like a positive thinking coach!

Guestbook

We have added a Guestbook to our website. It is a little like a feedback form for coffee shops but then for our website. Please let us know what you think of the site or if you have been on a course or tried our coffee then please let us know your thoughts.

We would love to hear from you:

http://guestbook.absolutecoffee.co.uk

What makes a good barista?

I am at the Hotelympia show at the moment having a great time. Yesterday I was talking to John Gordon and Gwilym Davies about coffee and all the usual stuff baristas talk about. It got me thinking a little about what a good barista is and what it takes to become a good barista. Are the people who compete in a championship and do well good baristas? Simply because they know how to make a good cup of coffee? Does it mean that when you can do latte art you are a good barista?

The answer for me has come to me yesterday. For the last few days I have poured every drink right in front of the customer, as close as possible. I made Gwilym a coffee and he came really close to me to put a bit of pressure on I guess (it made no difference as  my hands were shaking anyway because of all the coffee I drunk that day )  It was great and got us talking about latte art. Pouring latte art is great but ONLY if you can do it right in front of the customer. Pouring latte art on the back counter out of sight just doesn’t have the same impact. And pouring it too perfect will make your customer think that it was the machine that did it. Does it make you less of a barista if you can not pour it in front of your customer? No, I don’t think so.

Many people often ask me to make them a coffee. Especially when I go visit them. The problem is that I have no idea how the machine or grinder is calibrated, how old the coffee is and how the coffee is behaving. You can’t just simply walk up to a machine unknown of the coffee and the settings and make a great cup. A good barista knows how to calibrate a machine, not just how to make a cup of coffee. To me, this is one of the most important things that a barista should know: how to calibrate a machine (grinder, espresso machine etc.). This is why it takes me sometimes 10 minutes to make the first cup, and sometimes 30 minutes if I have to clean the machine first.

Another very important factor that makes a barista good at his/her job is the ability to talk. To me it is so important to talk to your customer and to bring across what it is that you are doing. Simply making someone a great coffee is fine and the coffee will surely taste good. If you can make it into a show somehow then the coffee will suddenly become wonderful. I learned this the other day when Colin came for a training course. Colin is a magician and did some tricks on me that I still don’t get . He pointed out that it is not so much the trick itself but the presentation around it. And I so agree! A barista becomes a lot better when he can make a big show out of whole thing.

So, don’t simply pour some latte art but show it off, right under the nose of your customer. Start a dialog and get your passion across. Know how to calibrate your equipment, know your coffee and be able to make the coffee taste anyway your customer likes. Do all these things, and of course SMILE, and in my eyes you are a great barista. (don’t worry though, I love anyone who is interested in learning more about coffee).

Our coffees from start to finish

We have added a new page to the site about the coffee from start to finish.

Our coffees from start to finish

Cool pic

New backlabels

YES WE FINALLY GOT THEM!

It took a lot of programming on the computer but Simon finally managed to create the labels. We have wanted to improve on the back labels for a while now. The label should say where the beans are from, what to expect from the coffee and we also wanted to give an idea on how to brew the coffee. We think it looks great. Hope you all like it as well.

New back label for our espresso blend Absolute Rimini

What latte art training and a few hours can do

We did a really fun latte art training course today and the guys were great! Well done Adam and Daniel. And of course Carole and Tom for the support

UKBC 2010 in Sheffield

We went to see the UKBC in Sheffield today and it was really great fun to meet up with everybody. Just so much passion for great coffee and a room filled with a lot of knowledge.

Make sure you come the finals and the world championship in London soon!

This is Howard Barwick who entered. He did a great job and poured his cappuccinos in front of the judges. Really good job!

Rancilio Classe 6 LEVA

We are expanding the training room in Halifax with a new machine. At the moment we are thinking of adding a Rancilio Classe 6 Leva machine. This is a traditional lever espresso machine. We already have a fantastic La Spaziale S5 and we think that by adding a traditional lever system we can create a wonderful training area.

What do you think? Should a training room have a lever system?

Rancilio Classe 6 Lever espresso machine

We have also added the Classe 6 Lever espresso machine to our package deals for espresso machines.

Mahlkonig ProM

The Mahlkonig Vario has created quite a stur lately as a small and affordable grind on demand coffee grinder. Mahlkonig have now brought out a new model, the Mahlkonig ProM, and we are really excited about this! On Friday we visited the importers and after only a few minutes fell in love with it.

The Mahlkonig ProM is small, grinds fast and with a great quality, is easy to adjust and most importantly grinds directly into the porta filter.

We should be getting one next week and will write a full review about once we have used it a bit more.

Mahlkonig ProM

New pictures for our gallery

Helen who joined a barista course with us the other day helped a little with the photography side of things. I am not a professional photographer… more a wannabe photographer. Usually I have problems with overexposure. But with Helen’s help we got some great pictures.

You can find them here.

Absolutely Delicious!

Absolute Coffees goes to Naples, Italy

We went for a weekend to Naples in Italy. Or Napoli as the locals call it. According to all the Italians in Naples this is where the best espressos can be found. Forget about Milan or Rome, Naples is the place to be for a caffe! <- according to the lovely Napoli people.

View from the hotel in Naples

What a fantastic weekend! We pretty much went into every espresso bar we could find. Of course we also visited the vulcano Vesuvius and the ancient city of Pompei. But we will focus here on the coffee and the baristas. Coffee in Italy is very different than in the UK of course. Maybe not so much the coffee itself, but more the culture and the way the baristas are. Baristas in Naples are extremely proud! They seem to be very happy pulling shots all day and take great pride in their work. This is absolutely wonderful to see.

People from Napoli are great!

It is also an espresso drinking town. You will hardly find cappuccinos and caffe lattes. Only in the morning will you find some cappuccinos and I spotted only one lady with a caffe latte (but she also had an espresso). Didn’t see one single macchiato or mocha or anything else. And forget about skinny decaf caramal lattes For us, this is great to see.

Cups are kept in hot water all the time.

Most espressos we bought cost between 80 euro cents and 1.20 euro. That is definitely cheaper than in the UK and is an interesting fact. The cappuccinos were a little cheaper as well than in the UK. This did raise the question: Would people in the UK drink more espressos if we made the drink only 50 pence?
Whenever I work somewhere where we are handing out free drinks, I pull a lot of espressos. People suddenly don’t need long milky drinks or Americanos. They are happy with an espresso. Does this mean that we are charging too much for an espresso? Would it be good to make it cheaper? After all, I often find myself ordering another drink after the espresso, in the end spending more money. In Naples we had an espresso and a beer for example. But always an espresso. Interesting….

Some baristas automatically add a lot of sugar. We had to ask to serve without sugar.

Another interesting thing is the amount of traditional lever espresso machines. Many little coffee bars are using hand lever machines… I just love them. The barista fills up the group handle and loads it. Then you pull the lever down, wait for about 4 to 5 seconds and release it. The lever acts like the pump. I think it produces very interesting espressos but more importantly I like how you can manually control the pressure, pulling some very interesting shots. I didn’t see anybody in Naples do this though (manually control the lever that is).

Another big observation is that we didn’t spot one barista grinding fresh for each coffee. Every grinder was filled with ground coffee and the barista simply pulled once or twice for the dose. And I did notice this in flavour. The espressos all had good crema yet none of the shots where very fresh. They also grind as fine as possible. All extractions were nice and slow, we didn’t spot one quick shot. This is really great to see!

Espressos are usually drunk at the bar.

Every barista watches the shots. The shot is finished when the barista thinks it is. All manual. Some coffee bars have automatic espresso machines but none of the baristas actually use the preset buttons. Everything was free flow. Very cool!

What really amazed me was that some of the best espressos we had were at the airport or at the train station. Maybe because they were a lot busier and it was simply fresher coffee?

Milk techniques were a little disappointing for me. There was no latte art and I only found one barista who used fresh milk each time. Most of the time the milk was not too great resulting in rather average cappuccinos. Milk was just re-heated. I got talking to one barista and showed him a picture of some latte art. He got so excited and I ended up making a cappuccino behind the bar!! This was very cool and was the same that happened when I was in Madrid! I love this. I showed a little latte art and the enthusiasm from him was amazing. Real shame that my Italian is not good enough otherwise I could have explained it a lot more. Is latte art something that is just unknown in Napoli??

Lever espresso machine

Naples is pretty cool town. Lots of character, people are very lovely and great architecture. Little messy though which was a shame. But it was an absolutely fantastic weekend and definitely a recommendation to anyone. We flew with Easyjet and it was very cheap. Have a look for some great deals, a very good weekend out. Get in touch with us for some more info if you like.

Breakfast. Lots of pastries and cakes.

Some baristas tamp hard, some hardly tamp.

MyPressi Twist

MyPressi Twist

So, we received a MyPressi Twist from our friends to review it. We have pulled a few shot with it today and will give it a really good run before we write a review.

The MyPressi Twist uses a gas cartridge to force hot water through coffee. Ths gives you an espresso.

You can replace the hot water with any kind of fluid such as hot milk, coffee or a liquer. Very interesting!

We are going to focus purely on the quality on of the actual espresso. The main importance will be on the pressure and the brewing temperature. The Twist uses a 53mm just like our La Spaziale so that should be great to compare espresso quality.

Freshly finely ground coffee in the bottom, hot water in the top, pressure to force the water through.

Growing my own coffee

Right, so we started growing coffee and tea at home today.

Very cool. We will keep you up to date on the process. It takes years before we get anything so don’t expect many updates soon

We got about 10 green beans with the parchment skins. Let the growing begin!

Buy a coffee plant

Want to grow coffee at home? In the window or the back garden?

Why not?! You can now buy a coffee plant from the Eden Project in Cornwall. If you have ever wondered how an actual coffee plant looks like then this is your chance.

Don’t expect great coffee from it though but it’s very cool to have at home!

Coffee plant

quiet for a reason….

Just want to let you all know that we are quiet because we are developing an e-commerce website for Absolute. We have decided to start selling our delicious coffees online this year.

It is looking great already, just a little bit empty. We are working hard adding new products so you can all buy coffee online. Ordering will be extremely easy and we accept pretty much any kind of payment method.

You will also be able to buy sample packs and barista training vouchers online through the webshop.

Exciting times….

Coffe cupping event

We went over to one of our customers in Birmingham to perform a coffee cupping event. And it was really great fun!!

In the afternoon I spent some time with the baristas working on a bit more latte art. These people are so dedicated and always want to learn more which is really great!

Then in the evening we got about 30 people in for a ‘team building’ evening. We talked a little about coffee and after a short introduction to coffee we did a little mini coffee cupping competition.

There were 4 teams and each team had three different coffees to cup. I was the only one in the building who knew which cup was which. We had a lovely Ethiopian, a Monsoon Malabar and a PNG.

I demonstrated the cupping procedure to everyone and slurped away. The challenge for me was to describe the coffee in a way so that most people would be able to get the coffees right. These people had never even samples the coffees before and had to go purely on my description of the coffee. I think this is what it so interesting.

I cupped the coffees and described how they could tell the difference. After this, each group had to put the right card with the correct cup of coffee. As expected, everybody picked out the Ethiopian and 50% of the people got all three correct. This is pretty good I think!

A fantastic day.

If you are interested in organising a coffee event please do get in touch.

Each cup had a sticker underneath

Samples of roasted coffee

New flower

A variation of the tulip

Latte art - flower/ tulip

Ice Ice Ice

Wow, I could not get out of the car park this morning.

I had such a fantastic record for not cancelling courses and I believe so far I have had to cancel only once in a couple of years. Now I had to cancel the barista training today because the ice was too much. Five cars crashed outside my house this morning before 7 am!

Plus all the problems we have had with deliveries it is turning out be a wonderful winter. Beautiful though

New pictures

We have added some more pictures to our picture gallery

Visit http://gallery.absolutecoffee.co.uk

Start of the rosetta

It is still there!

I love it when the rosetta is still in the cup when the drink is finished. Latte art is so cool!

Latte art last forever!

Sour underdeveloped tasting espressos

You might have come across an espresso with a yellow coloured crema before. It was brewed with fresh coffee, right amount of coffee, right extraction time and correct amount of water. Yet you still got a yellow crema?

This  can happen in the morning if you turned the machine off the day before. The crema on the espresso looks rather yellow than hazelnut brown.

When this happens the espresso can taste sour and strange. One of the most likely reasons for this is the brewing temperature. The espresso machine might not be warm enough yet and it is producing an underdeveloped espresso with a yellowish crema.

Always flush some water through the group head and make sure that the porta filters are hot so keep them in the group head and flush them with some hot water. It might also be a good idea to back-flush just with water in the morning.

The top two espressos are brewed with 93 C, the bottom two 85 C.

New espresso machines!

Expobar Diamant

We have decided to offer a wider range of espresso machines for 2010. It is really exciting!

We now have machines available from various manufacturers such as La Spaziale, Rancilio, La Vibiemme and Expobar. All these machines are available as a fantastic package deal or as a machine on its own.

For this we have developed a brand new page with all the packages AND prices. No need to ask for a quote before you find out how much money you need. After all, why would we hide the price?

Our new machine range  is the Expobar. The Expobar espresso machines are all hand build in Spain and come in various shapes and sizes and there is a great budget machine as well. The Expobar Diamant is amazing! And each deal comes with a Anfim Caimano, even the budget deals!

The Expobar Diamant is an espresso machine with 3 boilers! One boiler for the hot water and steam, and one boiler for each group head. Because each group head has its own independent boiler you get great brewing temperature consistency. You have the option to individually set each boiler to a certain temperature and what we really like is the little display above the group head which shows the brewing temperature!
When the shot is running it is showing the shot time which is also very useful.

The Diamant comes in any colour. Simply give us the Pantone colour and the machine will be painted to the exact colour you provided. It also has lights which can change colour. So if you want a disco looking espresso machine in the colour lime green than this is no problem! Pretty cool.
And each Expobar machine comes with 3 years parts warranty.

Our new espresso machine page

Happy New Year

We would like to thank all our fantastic customers for working with us this year. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with you all, each and every one of you. We have roasted and brewed a delicious huge amount of coffee, developed new blends, taught a lot of people and helped so many nice people with the start of a their new coffee business.

A big and sincere thank you!

And of course a happy New Year and let’s make 2010 even better!

Happy New Year!

Keep track of your business with Google Alert

So, how do you know who mentions something about your business on the internet? Wouldn’t it be great if you could get an e-mail when someone writes your business name on some forum post or webpage?

Well, you can keep track of this with Google Alerts. Simply enter the search term such as ‘Absolute Coffee’ and Google will send you an e-mail when it comes across your search term in their database.

As soon as Google indexes a new page with your search term you will receive an e-mail with the link to the page.

http://www.google.com/alerts

I love teaching!

I was really looking forward to teaching today. It is funny how you can do something almost everyday yet still enjoy it so much. It is after Christmas now and this is the first barista training course that we are doing on our new S5 as well.

Louis brought his own espresso machine with him though, a Expobar Office Leva. It was really nice to teach him more about espresso and milk steaming and he poured some hearts and rosettas as well.

We opened up his machine and increased the temperature a little which gave great results! Slight sour under extracted espressos turned into beautiful rich espressos with a delicious gold brown looking crema. It just shows how important barista training is when you buy an espresso machine.

Louis got the training as a Christmas present. His girlfriend bought a voucher for barista training which has been very popular as an exciting gift this Christmas.

Extraction from a bottomless porta filter

Expobar Office Leva inside

Espresso from the Expobar

Is your milk bad? bubbly… no texture… during Christmas?!

We get a lot of phone calls usually around Christmas and New Year’s about the milk.

The milk steams fine and creates good milk however after a few seconds and especially in the cup the foam collapses. The foam doesn’t seem to have any structure.

Some people wonder if this has to do with the espresso machine but it has nothing to do with this. It is purely down to the age of the milk. Usually around Christmas time dairies stock up on milk and you might get some milk which is older than usual.

Milk steams best when it is fresh within 4 or 5 days old. 4 or 5 days from the cow that it is.

The older the milk the less structure the foam has. It has to do with protein in the milk that breaks down I believe.

So, check your use by date on the milk that you receive and ask your dairy for the freshest milk possible.

Hope this helps!

Old milk does not create beautiful coffees!

We have a new website!

It has taken a good 2 weeks of hard work and lots of pictures but its finally here: our new website!

We have decided to design a new website and re-write all the content. The plan was to write an even easier to read website with fantastic pictures. The website should be a lot easier to read, less scrolling down and better navigation. We really hope you like it!

http://www.absolutecoffee.co.uk

Visit to La Spaziale UK

I went to see Chris at La Spaziale the other day to meet a customer. Stephen wanted to have a play with the new S1 Mini Vivaldi II and we had a great time. Lots of coffees!

La Spaziale S1 Mini Vivaldi mark II

The mark II has a new display for brewing temperature

I also had a closer look at the La Spaziale Special which I never really paid too much attention to. The price is so attractive though so we have decided to start selling these as well. The Special has the same technology as the S5 but has different body work and dials for the steam operation. Quite a good machine though and really well priced.

La Spaziale Special 2 group auto

There was also the La Spaziale S40 which is like a… hard to describe the words. I think you either love it or hate it. Makes great coffees and has very useful displays directly above the group head. These displays are very useful for shot times, grinding information and things like that. You can set the S40 so it tells you whether the extraction time was any good. Quite useful.

La Spaziale S40

I would just like to say a BIG THANK YOU to Chris and Helen from La Spaziale. Thank you so much for your time.

And to Helen: ‘I still can’t believe you carry these machines up the stairs like that!’