Since I happen to have three medium-light roast coffees at home, I thought it would be the perfect time to have my first little cupping session by myself ✨

It was actually quite fun and interesting, so I’m giving you my impressions and feelings about this little experience

Setting

Coffees

Spirit of India, Plantation AA (not specialty) Washed, Light roast (actually medium-light imho) By La Brasiliana, Ferrara, Italy

Shakiso, Ethiopia, from Kayon mountain farm Natural, medium light roast By Forno Brisa, Bologna, Italy

Las Perlitas, Colombia, Washed, medium light roast By Forno Brisa, Bologna, Italy

Preparation

Grind: Kingrinder K6, 70 clicks 8g of coffee in 130g of water 4 minutes of brewing About 10 minutes of cooling after breaking the crust

Valuating aspects

Aroma, acidity, sweetness, body, finish and flavours Both in quality (how much I liked it) and quantity (bland to strong)

How it went

I think the preparation was ok. The main 2 issues was the quantity, which I decided to keep lower than usual in order to use as less coffee as possible but I probably was a mistake, and temperature, since it cooled down way quicker than I expected so it was basically at room temperature for the whole time

It is crazy how different coffees can taste when compared in this way. I prepared both the Ethiopian and the Colombian one in this month but could really tell what made them different, today they tasted like two whole different beverages, the first more like a fresh fruit juice, the second more like a strong and sweet tisane.

Sweetness was definitely the trickiest aspect to analyse for me, as flavours was so different and acidity often seemed to enhance sweetness instead of masking it

The Indian one seemed quite blander. I guessed that the “specialty” indication wasn’t that important but it was clear that the two specialty coffees had more pronounced characteristics However it was very interesting to compare it to the others, since it has virtually no acidity and completely different flavours, so I had to go back and fourth multiple times to understand what was going on

In the final moment I tried to find words to describe flavours, which was fun. However in the end I quite disagree with the flavour profiles written in the bags, especially with the Indian one, which was described with “citrus, chocolate and green tea” while I’ve wrote down “wood, dried fruits, walnut” 🙃

If you’re curious about the three coffees specifically, I must say Las Perlitas blowed my mind for how it tasted, super sweet, acidic but also soft and complex. Definitely completely different from what is typically associated with “coffee”

So that’s it. It was fun and actually very useful to understand the actual characteristics of coffee, I’d say it is a good activity to do when buying new coffees

Using the right water for coffee was one of the best tips I learned from multiple sources in order to improve coffee at home. I live in a place in Italy with extremely hard water, so I have a cleaning filter installed that still leaves a series of minerals. Water is good to drink but not to brew coffee.

The solution I’m using now is bottled water, which works really well except for the fact that buying and wasting plastic isn’t ideal at all

Is there any way to obtain good quality water without having a ton of plastic in my bin? I mean I could buy mineral pills or something but still I’d need first to get demineralised water somehow, most likely bottled. So I don’t know really

I’m in Italy, seems like for 250g of specialty coffee you need to spend at least 15€ but 20€ and more is much more likely. I’ve tried buying cheaper options online but honestly they weren’t so good. I wonder what is the trend in other countries in Europe and in the world in general

Like, I get bareback feels better but, like, HIV is still a thing, and other STIs too I guess. But seems like nobody actually cares lately. Am I the one being weird?

Recipe summary

60g of coffee for 1l of water That is 15g of coffee for 250ml Grind size a little finer than what you think especially for lighter roasts

Preheating is quite important. Plastic works better for heat retention However comment under suggested some advices for ceramic and glass which doesn’t involve too much water, like putting the V60 over the kettle while heating up, or even better put the V60 with the rinsed paper filter in the microwave for about 20s

Pour “pulsed” technique: 0:00: Pour 50g of water to bloom 0:10 - 0:15: Gently Swirl 0:00 - 0:45: Bloom 0:45 - 1:00: Pour up to 100g total 1:00 - 1:10: Pause 1:10 - 1:20: Pour up to 150g total 1:20 - 1:30: Pause 1:30 - 1:40: Pour up to 200g total 1:40 - 1:50: Pause 1:50 - 2:00: Pour up to 250g total

I’d like to follow more people sharing stuff and talking about graphic design and typography, if you know accounts on Pixelfed, Mastodon, Misskey, Lemmy or anything else it would be much appreciated

This is a Patagonia MLC mini. I bought this bag as a personal item for a trip in Japan, but I discovered how incredibly practical it is for short or urban trips. In the photo I’m coming back from a weekend at the beach. With this bag I could easily pack 2 liters of water, 3 towels, a straw mat, some clothes and accessories. I also had a beach umbrella that comes with a sack featuring a simple strap to hang it on the shoulder, but I was able to fix the umbrella to my backpack, using both my self-made X net on the front and snapping the strap to one of the many available points using a snap-hook. So in a nutshell it is capable to store a lot of stuff in the inside (~24/30 liters) and also a lot of stuff on the outside with the only limit being your imagination

That’s actually the only Aeropress I own so I’m not sure if the original one is actually less portable, but I like how compact the whole thing can get, which is ideal in common areas where you do not want to take up too much space

The reverse method is still a little too messy, especially if you need to do it outside home, so I guess I’ll stick with the normal method.

It’s still pretty simple and easy to do, and if finally saved me by local Italian over-roasted espressos 🙏

I want to switch from my current gmail address so I thought it might be worth it to finally get a custom address for portability reasons

However I have no idea which service to choose Most of all, I really want to find a solution from EU, in particular that doesn’t involve any kind of USA companies