I used to be the best in the building, but very quickly John & Joel are pulling away from me!! I had better start practicing! Good job guys.

It has been a little bit of a wait, and a very exciting one in deed, but the wait is over. The first of many Slayer installations in Calgary has finally happend at Caffe Beano.Their 3 gp Slayer was installed a few days ago and both Jay and Dan have been working to ensure that this machine is working perfectly…..and it is.We went by Caffe Beano yesterday (a Wednesday) to make a few additional tweaks, and they mentioned that they have been busier than normal since the installation took place. They are doing the volumes typically seen on a weekend, in fact, people that normally have 1 espressoo are having 2 or 3 because they taste so good. WOW, what a difference an amazing piece of machinery makes. Below image show Dan making some final calibrations.

Caffe Beano has spent a lot of time with us at our facilities over the last few weeks. Some in this group have been back 4 or more times to practice proper coffee-distribution, tamping & pulling shots w/ naked filters, plus getting used to heating and texturizing milk on the Slayer espresso machine. Their’s will be the first Slayer to hit Calgary, and owners Janice & Margie want to be sure that the espresso machine isn’t the only upgrade - which is why these staff have invested so much time with Jason & I to upgrade their skills.

While in Vancouver I was lucky enough to spend an afternoon drinking WAY too much coffee with Mark Prince (THE CoffeeGeek)! I have a high caffeine tolerance, but Mark drank me under the table. While together we tested (several times) 4 espresso blends and 2 coffees then went out for more espresso on Commercial Drive!It was a great afternoon together… learned a lot of new things. Thanks Mark for the time!Mark doesn’t like having his photo taking (though he loves taking other peoples picture), but I hope you like this one. It is Mark in his mini home espresso lab!

The first time around was a tease, then it was gone. Much to our collective dismay… Now it’s back and lets just say there may be bloodshed should someone try to take this one… You think I’m joking… See the name? Yeah that’s right. You’re wondering what I’m talking about.The “Slayer” is our newest creation, recreation, incarnation of the Espresso machine. In it’s current existence, it’s a La Marzocco that has been heavily modified. Things like PID, another boiler (yeah, I said that)… and those are the immediately obvious ones. So, with John and myself loitering ermm, I mean training ourselves. The beast came to life, and on the VERY FIRST SHOT, promptly knocked Jason’s socks off with an unbelievable shot. After that (and a few elbows) John and I were next… Might I say that never in my life have I had an Espresso that had that perfect, lovely, rich, deep brown/red crema, with a hint of flecking, the texture and mouth-feel of silk, and the flavor, well the flavor was everything that Blackjack had promised to be, and more. Pleasantly acidic, sweet, bold, full, rich… So, satisfied on that, we proceeded to pull shot after shot after shot, all the while extolling the virtues of this new machine like giddy 10 year olds on Christmas morning, literally freaking out… It was almost embarrassing. 

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Ok, I’m not sure you’ve signed up for Crackbook, errrr - Facebook yet, but I have to say that I am totally addicted! Its great to get back into touch with old friend, but its also a great way to meet new people who are as into something as you are by joining a ‘group’.The most recent group I joined is called Espresso with Esprexifs, started by Mark Prince from Coffee Gee. Primarily its a photo group where you are asked to share your details about the espresso-based beverage you’re showing a picture of and you put as much detail as you can in the description, following the Exif Info model most digital cameras provide.What I love is this is a great way to learn new ideas and tricks on espresso brewing and milk texturing techniques from other people who REALLY love coffee. Check it out at:Espresso with EsprexifsThanks to Stephen Morrissey in London England for the pic.Jason

For the last 17 years we have been asking our customers questions like, “What is the single greatest challenge about running your coffee house”, and time and time again people say it is “STAFF”! They comment on how there is high turn over and then training their staff to be highly skilled at pulling shots and general coffee expertise is hard to keep up with. I know we offer our “Coffee Knowledge Seminars” and “Advanced Espresso” classes, but what if we did something like we saw when we went to Korea? Late one night we were taken to one of our customers, the “Coffee Acadamy” which exists simply to train professional barristas on espresso preparation! I was so impressed that they had this relatively large facility dedicated to educating professional barristas! Just today I was thinking of how we could serve customers here in town by organizing a ‘coffee university’ that churned-out hard-core coffee enthusiasts into our city so that our customers had a greater pool of trained barristas to draw on. It still bugs me how few good places there are to go for a good cappo in this city. But I certainly do understand the challange. Just a thought. What do you think? Just a thought. What do you think?Here is the “Coffee Acadamy” in Korea: (Read the rest of this post)

I guess this is the only attempt that I managed to keep an image of … Too bad its a bit off center.

Hey Joel,Whose your daddy! Bring it on. Lets see if you can trump this one!