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Learn espresso from the best
Ryan and I recently became the owners of Rancilio Silvia espresso machine, and since then we’ve been trying to learn the ins and outs of pulling a decent shot. While Ryan has some experience in this area, I’m a total and complete noob.
Luckily, our friend Niall steered us towards this great video series that one of my favorite coffee places in the city is producing. Ritual Roasters (a.k.a. “RitRo”) has six videos up so far, with topics ranging from using a french press to making a worthwhile shot. Not only are the videos super informative, but they’re also amazingly well produced (just like their coffee!). Here are a couple of my favorites:
If you’re in the city, make sure you check them out! Blue Bottle is another espresso obsession of ours, and that’s where we get our beans from. Yum!
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Dean Bestall,
That would be a Clover brewer… http://cloverequipment.com/whyclover/faq.aspx
I believe they cost around $8,000 new…
Starbucks just bought the company though, so the chances of any of us actually being able to buy one (let alone any non-Starbucks coffeehouses) will probably be mighty slim.
Ciao,
Brian -
#7 written by swag 3 years ago
“RitRo”? What is this, Astro the dog from the Jetsons is now giving advice on coffee? (Scooby Doo a close second choice.)
Sorry, but I can’t take anyone seriously who comes up with cutsy abbreviations for things. These people need other professions to contribute something else to society.
The Silvia is a great choice, btw. But it’s no commercial machine — so there will be a slight disconnect from what you see in the videos.
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#8 written by Clay 3 years ago
I love Ritual Roasters. I tasted the best espresso that I’ve ever had when I visited there while I was in SF.
There is a local shop here in STL that has a Clover. I am going to have to forgo espresso to try a cup the next time that I am there.
The only thing that I didn’t like about the espresso video is that it didn’t give nearly enough info for someone to actually make a decent shot of espresso on purpose.
I am very lucky to get to make espresso on a Nuova Simonelli “Aurelia” at work. I used to have a La Marzocco at my old job. They are both excellent machines. With the Nuova Simonelli it is almost hard to make bad espresso.
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Good stuff! I’m interested to see how you make out as I’m learning to pull espresso at home as well. By the way, if you haven’t had some already, I would recommend trying to get your hands on some Ecco Caffe espressos (and coffees) as well. They’re out in Sonoma County but have retail clients in the Bay Area.
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#10 written by swag 3 years ago
Oh, and whatever you do — you need to have a good burr grinder. Everybody thinks machine machine machine, and the #1 thing people don’t realize is that getting a nice home espresso machine and using some cheap chop grinder is like fueling your new Porsche with canola oil.
If you’re going to drop $400 on a Silvia, you should at least expect to pay $200-$300 for a good burr grinder to get something worthwhile out of your machine.
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first of all this http://www.vroomfoods.com is much better than coffee and second i find it fascinating how you can turn absolutely everything into a totally deep science and waste lots of money on it.
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As was mentioned earlier, the grinder is probably more important than the machine in making great espresso. You can get away with a pretty inexpensive machine if you combine it with a really great grinder.
Best coffee resource on the ‘net http://www.coffeegeek.com
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That’s sweet. I have a machine that see’s no use due to be a looser noob.