Robert Hall reports on a special "CoffeeGeek Invitation" comparison event he hosted at his home, with a bevy of espresso machines, beans, and brewing techniques compared.
Posted Fri Aug 8, 2003, 9:19am Subject: * The Milwaukee EspressoFest! *
Great article Rob,& awesome to see all the equipment set up on your counter like that!, that's quite the weight load. {:-D It's nice to put a face to a Coffeegeek forum member also, if they don't have it in their avatar, or on their profile page.Excellent to see so many in attendance & that all had a super time, Cheers to all! Regards, CraigA.
Posted Fri Aug 8, 2003, 11:58am Subject: Would have liked to see...
Great article about a fun day. However, I would have liked to see more specs when you compared the machines. For example, warm up times, amounts of crema at "x" point after the pour between the machines, temps during the pours. amount of time to steam "x" amount of milk. Some tables and charts would have been nice. The article was great on the social aspects but seemed a little light on the comparison regarding specific figures.
Thanks for the write up. As I was reading, I wanted to be there as well.
jim_schulman Senior Member Joined: 19 Dec 2001 Posts: 3,772 Location: Chicago Expertise: I live coffee
Posted Fri Aug 8, 2003, 12:25pm Subject: re: Would have liked to see ...
Great article, Rob! It really conveys the experience.
About doing charts and measures. It's not really something that would have worked in that setting. People just wanted to play.
But there's another thing. Sometimes the stats one sees turn less on the machines themselves than on $10 trivialities.
For instance, the Expobar gets a slightly smaller stock basket than the other two; so in a quantitative test, the espresso may have scored lower for no reason other than that. We were swapping baskets and PFs, and nothing systematic showed up in espresso quality.
For instance (2): Rob didn't mention that he has the ultimate collection of steamtips, all of which fit all the machines there. The most basic thing about steaming is the more and bigger the holes, the faster it goes. The Expobar could probably sustain a higher volume tip than the others, since it has a slightly larger boiler. But given the same tip, and same steam pressure, the steam coming out is also the same.
Moreover, does faster mean better? No way. For microfoam, one wants tips that smoothly roil the milk. Too much roil is bad, as is too little. Of the huge collection Rob had accumulated, only one or two were suitable (which is why he had bought so many). Again, I'm not sure if this all important factor could be captured in a numerical test.
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