Marvelicious

Yep. It helps cut down on channeling. The more evenly the puck is extracted, the better your shots will be.

Skip the grocery store. If it’s on the shelf there, it’s OLD. Most coffee nerds try to stick to beans that have been roasted within the month, give or take. Personally, I live in the boonies, so I buy my beans online, but I stick to roasters in my region - trying to keep it as local as I can.

Some people will recommend sticking with one particular roast and repeating until you get it right. That sounds great from a scientific mindset, but taste isn’t scientific, it’s subjective. While I prefer certain things, I learned a lot about what I like by trying a bunch of different roasts. I drink about two bags a month and I get rotating subscriptions from two different roasters.

As far as gear goes, I will say that you probably want to upgrade to a bottomless portafilter so you can identify channeling, get a cheap scale so you can see what your extraction is, and maybe a WDT tool (diy or cheap is fine).

Wow, fully unacceptable.

I’ve heard mixed reviews on the nanotech coating. I went with VST when I decided I wanted a larger basket. I wound up buying both a 22g and 25g and it turns out I love the 25, because… more. They both work excellent though. I think preinfusion is probably necessary to make the 25g work, but I won’t swear to that.

Seems like a good idea as a recurring thread. Weekly would probably keep it on people’s minds if enough of us post to keep it active.

I’m really enjoying the Colombia Gesha from Blind Coffee Roasters in Portland. I’m almost apprehensive about letting people in on my secret favorite because they aren’t a big company, but I also want to support them because they seem to be awesome people. Really on top of the customer service - the owner called me with questions about my orders a couple of times, rather than waiting on email.