For those who remember the glory days of coffeed.com -- today some folks out there are feeling a huge sense of vindication.
Back in the day, James Hoffman happened to mention the infamous "perspex portafilter" experiment. This was a legendary experiment conducted by La Spaziale, where a transparent portafilter was constructed in order to be able to visually analyze the extraction of espresso.
James' big "mistake" (one might say) was to tell the world that he had seen the video.
My big "mistake" (in the same vein) was to back James publicly when it came to what he had observed in the video.
Suffice it to say that many folks in coffee were somewhere between skeptical and belittling in their responses. This actually got to the point where many believed (based upon the insistence of various really loud voices within the community) that James had simply lied about seeing the video.
This was largely the result of two facts.
First - the video showed extraction occurring in a manner which flew in the face of some "common wisdom" within the coffee world. And that threatened certain "experts" in espresso.
Second - La Spaziale refused to share the video with the world.
Well..... Guess what....
I'm confident James is going to take the high road and be quite gracious about this. I, on the other hand, am not so nice of a person.
To everyone on coffeed.com and on home-barista.com who talked shit about the existence of this video.... to everyone who either claimed or implied that James was lying about its existence....
You know how to reach James. You don't need to apologize to me. But you sure as fuck do need to apologize to him.
And I have to ask.... how does if feel to be so fucking wrong all the time?
3 comments:
Who on Coffeed.com "talked shit about the existence of this video?" I couldn't recall so I did a search and couldn't find any such evidence. I don't doubt it on H-B.com, but I can't find it there either.
I was there back in the day of that website, and I probably was one of the loudly critical voices, but I have no recollection of the perspex portafilter or the controversy surrounding it. That was so long ago, back in a day when our knowledge and arrogance about that knowledge was so... robust.
That said, I still don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at or how the video trumps whatever has been said. Water pressurizes the chamber, there's some turbulence, it settles and then there's some turbulence at the end of the shot.
I do wonder how this would look with an updosed pf - say 21 to 23 grams?
And I further wonder if anyone can bring such a clear portafilter to market - that would be trick, especially with LEDs...!
Maybe this is what he's referring to?
"The evidence against puck expansion is a sighting of one video of a perspex PF. I like and trust James Hoffmann, but that's not the point; if God and a panel of Nobel prize winners had given a sworn deposition that they saw the video too, it would not count as evidence either. Millions of people saw Starwars, but that's not evidence for the Force.
Let me put it this way, in the credulity championships, flat earthers, conspiracy theorists, and ufoers take silver; the perspex pf takes gold."
http://www.home-barista.com/knockbox/espresso-imponderable-does-puck-expand-during-extraction-t14957-10.html
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