Had way too much fun today.
Drew Catlin and Ben Kaminsky were by. Had some lovely coffee from Ecco Caffe, a bunch of really nice coffees from Ritual... in general had way too many shots of espresso!
I have to say, however, that it was a really good experience. We spent hours and spent almost no time talking about espresso machines. We briefly talked about the Anfim grinder - but perhaps for 1 minute. We talked some smack about the industry and people/companies. But mostly we talked about coffee.
If this is what the new crop of baristas is going to turn out like... I'm happy.
In fact, we even talked a little around the whole issue of dogma and "rules" of espresso and I got the feeling that there is some open-mindedness and flexibility.
All about the coffee... willing to question beliefs and dogma...
Whew... maybe the coffee industry isn't fucked after all.
And for what it's worth... the monster Mia held up really well. I didn't hear any whining about the machine, didn't have to do any juggling - nor did anyone else. Just pulled shots. And if a couple pro baristas (and one has-been pro) can spend a couple hours pulling shots on a home machine and not bitch about it... well then that's one bad-ass home machine.
