French Press

Today a good friend (lives in the neighborhood) dropped off a French Press for my use. We were chatting over the weekend and Chris mentioned that I had broke the espresso machine and had lost our french press in the move.

Our friend, Monique, had an extra one laying around so she came buy and dropped off a two cup french press. Which will be just enough for a morning cup of joe!

Thank you Monique!

Sadness

Today I am very very sad. I made more bread, in fact they were beautiful loaves. French Baguettes and Batards. Dennis was great help in making them, he even showed me what I was doing wrong with the scoring of the loaves.

What is sad is that my Sunbeam EM5800 Espresso machine died generating the Steam required to make those perfect loaves of Bread. I must admit that 10 minutes of steam production was a hard ask (notice the kiwiism) for the machine but I expected when it cooled it would be back to its normal self. Instead it now refuses to turn on. Something burned out.

I don't know what I will do tomorrow morning, it will be lonely without my daily capuchino.

Tom

A leaf!

At church over the weekend I made a few good leaves, a couple were ogled (much to my delight) by the crowd.  However I left my cell phone back at the chair so did not manage to get a picture.  :(

Well today we had some friends over, John and Lilly, and, as I do from time to time, I made coffee for the four of us.  The first coffee came out pretty bad, I ended up drinking that, second and third looked okay.  But the fourth well that was a special one!  A real honest to goodness leaf!

Still some work to do before that turns into a fern but you get the idea but those who see the fern on a regular basis (and coffee's with ferns in them) see the resemblance.  I figure I have a good six months of coffee making before I will make my goal of the fern.  But then again drinking the coffee is half the fun!

Thermalblock

I bet you are wondering what this post is about!

What is a Thermalblock? I will give you a hint the block is at 92 degrees Celsius. Does that help? You probably realize that as I am talking about heat it probably is chunk of metal at a controlled temperature. Now the question is why! Why would someone want a block of metal to be at 92 degrees?

To heat up something of course! Now the something could be air, liquid or solid. To save the typing I will just tell you it is to heat water. That I am sure makes it obvious as to the purpose of this post.

Of course you know why we need water at 92 Celsius, well you will once I tell you the Fahrenheit value which is ... 197.6F. Yes you guessed it to make espresso!

As everyone knows Espresso must be made at 92C. Any other temperature for the water is just, well, not right. My espresso machine (notice the possessive there) does just that. It has a Thermalblock system to heat the water. The Sunbeam Cafe Aromatic EM5800 is considered one of the best (along with the EM5600) espresso machines available in New Zealand by the professional Barrista's here.

What makes the Cafe Aromatic the best? Well I am glad you asked! In addition to the Thermalblock it has an Italian made water pump which provides exactly 15 BAR (if you don't know what BAR is please look it up and e-mail me with the information.) It also has five buttons! The button to the left is power, the next one is manual pour, the next is single shot (35ml) the next button is double shot (yes you guessed it 70ml) and the last is program just in case you want to change the amount of liquid for the previous two buttons. Dead simple.

And more importantly it has an Italian designed "crema system." Crema for the uninitiated (like I was say a week ago) is that not black stuff on the top of an espresso shot. It is the natural foam of coffee. I am sure that it helps to force the whole 35ml (or 70ml) through one pin hole. And lets not forget the cup warmer, yes the top of the coffee machine heats up (I am sure the thermalblock is just below that shelf.) I found out after I arrived here that it is important for the cups you put the espresso in should be warm. And then there is the 1.1 liter tank on the back. Which is really the best point about it. You can make shots again and again without having to fill up a reservoir of water. There may be a slight wait while the thermalblock warms up if you are too quick to refill the grounds.

So now you know more about espresso than you ever wanted. But do not worry for I am sure that I will have another posting or two about it. Espresso and coffee is a favorite past time around here. It is religious.

I am off to make a Flat White with my Cafe Aromatic!

I won I won I won!

Nothing important or big. Just my first auction on TradeMe, the New Zealand equivalent of eBay. We now own an Espresso machine.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=153082994

Cafes

Wellington is dotted with cafes. The libraries have cafes in them and so does McDonalds. A cafe here is a place where you can get a coffee, tea, or beverage and a sandwich, pie or pastry. They are the perfect place to stop for a snack. Dennis and I have made many cafe stops in order to recharge. I order a decaf latte and he gets a cookie with sprinkles on it. My latte always comes in a ceramic cup and saucer and the foam on the top has a pretty coffee swirl in it.

Wellingtonians are a bit of coffee connoisseurs and there are several local roasters. The menus offer a coffee called a flat white. Tom found out it is something between a latte and a cappuccino.

Dennis has discovered the High Five cookies and I have discovered the Afghan cookies. The Afghan cookie is a chocolate cookie which has some crunchy bits in it and chocolate icing on top. It even comes with caramel and chocolate on top--yum. Actually I should be calling them biscuits!

One day last week Dennis and I made two cafe stops in the same day. We figure once we move into the house we probably will not frequent the cafes quite so much. That's okay because then they will be more of a treat!

Coffee and Cars

Yesterday we sold our cars. It was such a relief to have those last two large items taken off our hands. Friends came by and cleared out our refrigerator and cupboards. We mailed six big boxes to parents and we stagged some clothing for our church.

It is a beautiful Spring morning and as we are pretty much ready to I want to sit down outside with a cup of coffee and enjoy my last Spring day for six months. We have neither coffee or cream or the means to get some. I knew I should have insisted people pick up the cars today!