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

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!

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?

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!

]]> http://mentness.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/go-gwilymwbc-starts-tomorrow/feed/ 4 mentness Gwillym Davies http://mentness.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/how-do-we-reach-the-untouchables/ http://mentness.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/how-do-we-reach-the-untouchables/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:00:27 +0000 mentness http://mentness.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/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?

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!!!

Look at the picture above! It’s a picture of the machine in my shop when it’s been put ‘to bed’. What immediately springs to mind?

Are you thinking ‘God that’s anal’ or are you thinking ‘Ohh that’s a good idea’? Maybe you’re looking at the picture and thinking ‘What the hell is that’.

More and more over the past few months I have spotted a need for consistency in cleaning and bedding an espresso machine. In my experience if staff can’t see what needs to cleaned it will not be cleaned. If it’s not checked then it won’t get done. Cynical perhaps but that’s just what happens over time. Staff will cut corners from time to time which will lead to the general quality of your coffee slowly dropping almost undetected. I know I’ve been guilty of that in the past too.

Laying the screens, blocks, screws and group handles out like this means that everything that needs to be cleaned is visible to everyone. This will hopefully decrease the likelihood that anyone will cut corners as it would be obvious if anyone had been slacking.

Good idea or too much?

Hi Guys, 

Here are the dates for the heats – venues to follow when I get them from Helen @ B the B.

‘Competition season is here’

January

 N. Ireland in Belfast – 14th / 15th 

 Scotland in Edinburgh –  21st

W. England & S. Wales in Cardiff. – 28th

February

S.W. in Exeter – 4th / 5th

Midlands in Derby – 11th

North in Newcastle – 18th

S.E. in Lewes – 25th