Little Time Lapse Video

Thought you coffee guys might like this as I made myself titter when I added the music. It’s me a the Pumphreys Coffee Centre in Newcastle on Monday serving our great customers. The Coffee I’m drinking is Guatemala Huehuetenango. Enjoy

The Chap Magazine

Many of you may have noticed the penchant I have acquired over recent years for wearing flat caps, ‘decorative’ but distinguished shoes and increasingly lighter and ornamental scarfs. This, rightly or not, you may be thinking to yourself is no doubt down to some sort of early ‘mid life crisis’ caused by the early retirement of one’s hairline. Although there will undoubtedly be an element of truth in that theory, albeit unconsciously on my behalf, I would like to place some of the blame squarely on the editorial staff at fantastic ‘The Chap’ magazine.

At this time I hear you all shouting in unison What is the chap? I shall let a quote from the ever witty The Chap website explain all.

‘The Chap takes a wry look at the modern world through the steamed-up monocle of a more refined age, occasionally getting its sock suspenders into a twist at the unspeakable vulgarity of the twenty-first century.

Since 1999, the Chap has been championing the rights of that increasingly marginalised and discredited species of Englishman – the gentleman. The Chap believes that a society without courteous behaviour and proper headwear is a society on the brink of moral and sartorial collapse, and it seeks to reinstate such outmoded but indispensable gestures as hat doffing, giving up one’s seat to a lady and regularly using a trouser press.’

If you have become disillusioned with the popularity of such text speak terms as ‘lol’ and the emergence into mainstream diction of the term ‘off of’ then this publication is for you.

Please visit ‘The Chap’ online bellow for it’s manifesto.

http://thechap.net/content/section_manifesto/index.html

If this piece of anarcho dandyist writing doesn’t turn the corners of your stiff upper lip then there is no hope for you and you wil be ‘4eva’ doomed to ‘were’ hoodies and live your life from one ASBO to the next.

So there you have it. I am not losing my hair I am becoming more of a gent!

I leave you with a quote:

“All men are equal. All men, that is, who possess umbrellas.”
E.M. Forster

New Monthly Latte Art Throwdown in Newcastle

I’d like to keep everyone abreast of whats going on up here in the ‘toon’ and introduce this new event which Alex Forsyth and I are organising! Last Wednesday of the month each month with any luck!

First of hopefully monthly Latte Art Throwdowns in the mighty town of Newcastle upon Tyne. Bring your jug, cup and etching tools and have a crack at Newcastle’s best baristi.

We’ll have a load of single origin coffees to try through the pour over and hopefully some beers too.

Are you interested in seeing what this Latte art thing is all about? Come along and watch!

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=239307260213

Please feel free to invite people who you think might be interested!

This is designed to be a fun event for watchers and partisipants alike. The aim is to increase awarness of quality service skills and to learn new skills too.

Don’t worry if you can’t pour anything, by the end of the night you should be able to or at least know how it works.

We’re not afilliated to any supplier or cafe and we would like to take this to different locations each month. It’s just about creating a communty of quality focused coffee nuts.

Plans are on the way to have a plaque that we can compete for each month, have an open air event in the town centre, take the throwdown to Pumphreys and loads more!

If you are interested in hosting an event in the future please give us a shout!

First event!
Type: Music/arts – Jam Session
Price: Free admission.
Date: Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Time: 18:30 – 21:30

Central Bean Cafe,
32 Gallowgate Rd,
Newcastle upon Tyne,
United Kingdom.
http://tinyurl.com/nlxggh

Alex’s Contact info
Email: talkingschmak@gmail.com

Stu’s Contact info
Email: mentness@hotmail.com

Me, Blogs and Twitter

First of all a little hello to everyone!

I’m fully aware of my absence on this blog and for once I’m not going to appologize but I am going to explain why! I have found the micro blogging site Twitter which seems to take up my time but in smaller more managable chunks than blogging. After using the service for a while now I seem to be more in the loop on coffee related subjects than if I were just reading blogs! I have made more friends in the coffee industry through this and tracked their everyday musings. I seem to have gained a greater insight into people I thought I knew and connected with them more frequently and honestly. Things can be quickly organized and announced too. This is what really excites me about Twitter, the viral nature of the information released by twitterers means information correct or otherwise can be known by a vast amount of people very quickly!

One example of how this has enhanced my coffee geekery is one of a month ago. I was in London to see my girlfriend and I added a tweet to Twitter saying that I was in town and searching for a coffee. Within about 10 minutes I was invited to have a coffee with Hasbean Steve (twittering and drinking coffee in london) and also to pop in to an open house happening at Square Mile coffee roasters! In years, if not months gone by this sort of meet up would have taken weeks of planning (I’m specifically thinking of the TMC meet last year with tens of emails flying around before hand)

So for me Twitter is a great little tool, long live Twitter!

Don’t worry the blog will stay but for bigger musings like events, training for comps, theories on coffee and annoucements!

You can follow me by here @mentness

Yesterdays Capp!

Cleaning, Cleaning, Cleaning

I was somewhat disappointed with a visit I made to a new account of ours. It seems that a vast amount of people do not clean their machines. Look at this grim picture, I’d scoured the bottom one for about 5 minutes (that one was the dirty one)

Why? Why do people do this?

Go Gwilym…..WBC starts tomorrow!

As some of you are aware the World Barista Championship starts tomorrow in Atlanta Georgia!

I’m going to wear my Flat cap solidly for the next 5 days! Gwilym Davies from London is representing us (the UK) this year. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish our wonderful ‘bearded house boat dweller’ the best of luck. Having met Gwilym on a couple of occasion when down visiting Mr Hoffmann at Square Mile and most recently competing against him down in Lewis I can tell you that he ‘is’ the one of the nicest guys in coffee.

Bring the World Barista Championship back with you Gwilym!

Who does everyone think will win? Is it Sammy’s year, can Mr Sara do it , will Gwilym come from nowhere or will the Scandinavians drag the championship back kicking and screaming?

Keep up to date with everything from the championships with these links:

Click here for the Official 2009 WBC Blog, brought to you by Barista Magazine!
Click here for the 2009 WBC UStream LIVE video feed, where you can chat with other WBC fans as you watch live!
Click here to follow the 2009 WBC on Twitter!

How Do We Reach the ‘Untouchables’

On my long and complicated trip back from a weekend visiting my girlfriend and favorite London cafes I took the opportunity to listen back to a few of the coffeegeek podcasts that Mark Prince puts out. One thing that he discussed amongst others is the exisitance of the untouchables. “Who are the untouchables?” I hear you ask. Well, if you read my blog you arn’t an untouchable. You have at least a passing facination with quality coffee, the profesional Barista or just a good eye for a cup of properly brewed coffee.

The untouchables are the guys who drink coffee just for it’s caffeine and thirst quenching properties. The guys who drink their gold blend/nescafe instant every morning and who’s brains don’t function until they get it.

Mark talks about how these people account for 80% of the coffee consuming public! He says that it doesn’t matter what you say they will just not get it nor will they have any desire to ‘get it’.

How can we get these type of coffee consumers to change their ‘habits’ and get them to take more care with brewing? How do they start to enjoy quality coffee? How does someone get from the untouchable stage to buying a home grinder any brewing a freshly roasted coffee to enjoy the nuances that we all love coffee for?

Well done Gwilym Davies the UK Barista Champion 2009

A Little Tease from Trieste! More posts to come.

Hi guys

Just got back to the UK after Trieste Espresso Expo and the European Team Coffee Challenge.

I thought you guys might want to see a selection of the ‘millions’ of the photos I took.

Hope you enjoy them
(I’ve tried not to incriminate anyone too much)

http://tinyurl.com/5fhs82

Please tag anyone you know so we can all be buddies!!!

Silly Etching Competition …….Just for fun!

Hi guys!

As you’ve seen in  previous posts, I like a good Etch from time to time.

As I went to art college (yes i did!) this side of coffee really appeals to me. A big blank canvas that you can make into what you want and then drink all of its creamy goodness afterwards. Perfect.

Here’s the challenge:

Submit your etches/links to etches in the comments and we’ll all have a judge when the the deadline comes 

To get you in the mood or thinking of all the etches you can do here is a little tester I did in my coffee break today. If it isn’t obvious it’s Stewie Griffin from Family Guy.

Deadline 1st of December! – should give us enough time to get some good etches in!

Can you etch?