Warr on Words

Stale coffee - the tell tale signs

2009-08-24T21:38:00.002+01:00

I was called out by a customer of ours last week complaining that our coffee was tasting bitter and strong compared to what we usually supply. Of course all sorts of alarm bells ring. Are we roasting too dark, have we ground the coffee incorrectly?

In some ways I say thankfully it was none of the above! It turned out that the volume of coffee sales was relatively low and a kilo of pre-ground cafetiere coffee was hanging around for a couple of weeks prior to being used. The moment I opened the container I could tell that bad things were afoot.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of tasting or smelling stale coffee I can only describe it as the sensation of a coffee having died. Simply the reaction with the air has eliminated all the aromatics; as a result the taste is flat monotone and unpleasant.

The solution in this instance is for us to supply the coffee in smaller packs and smaller quantities. I had brought along a freshly ground pack of coffee of the same blend to compare and contrast. One coffee was alive, the other dead - beware the air!

The indifference of a Global mono-cuture

2009-08-24T21:31:00.000+01:00

There's a famous coffee shop found in the souqs of Khan al-Khalili in the Islamic quarter of Cairo called Fishawi's - It's open 24 hours a day and all they appear to sell is tea, coffee and Sheesha (a water pipe used for smoking). The only question the waiter asks after he has identified that you want a coffee is "do you want sugar in it?"
All Cairo seems to pass through their doors - I say doors only in a metaphorical sense as it has no doors; in fact the only way you know where the coffee shop starts and ends is when the chairs run out! Like so many shops in the Souqs they exist in one of the many alley ways populated by hawkers and panhandlers.
The waiters will proudly show you an ancient photograph of the old King Farouk in his dark glasses, who used to frequent the place. What can you say about Fishawi's? It's so .........Egyptian!
It's the distilled essence of Cairo; King's have been deposed, Presidents have come and gone, but Fishawi's like the Pyramids of Giza has always been, please God don't let it disappear.

Then there's the Coptic quarter, the part of Cairo that came before Cairo even existed. When Byzantine Rome became a Christian empire and before the armies of the east brought Islam. Here stand the great Christian Coptic churches, side by side with the Islamic mosques - each respecting the others tradition yet each determined to maintain their own identity.

Finally there are the kilometers of bland anonymous-looking high rise flats, typical in its own way of suburbia that surrounds any of the great cities of the world. Yet even here in this apparent anonymity, people crave recognition. Many of the porches from which hangs so much washing are painted in vivid colours; some in single colours, others using quite complex designs. So everywhere you look over the eons of time humankind has always wanted to leave a mark - a plaintive cry, "remember me!"

All of which makes Cairo airport like so many airports around the globe such a depressing place - a synthesis of global mono-culture. Where Coke, Cappuccino, Pizza, Pasta and French fries dominate the menus. A sanitized, stainless steel and plastic society. One that subjugates individuality. Where now is the confidence in our own cultures; our own traditions; our creative addition to our world?

Is it no wonder therefore that despite being better educated, having more opportunity than any previous generation, so many in our society reject what is on offer and seek to disfigure and disrupt.

In Jersey where I live we don't appear to be able to trust our own people to even deliver such key projects as a design for our waterfront. We like so many cultures today are frightened of being different - taking a chance; in turn our own society becomes indifferent.

Rather than being indifferent to our own cultures we must get back to celebrating them. Celebrating the creativity of each and every individual from whichever culture that goes to make the human race such an extraordinary force.

Long live Fishawi's and those who strive to be different.

Decaffeinated coffee pod problems

2009-08-21T08:28:00.002+01:00

Whilst coffee pods are great in low volume sites and in particular for fresh ground decaffeinated coffee, they can be challenging to use when trying to make great coffee. Because the coffee is held in by paper a significant barrier is created for the water.

In fact the barrier is so significant that if you haven't got the right insert in your group handle the water will go around the pod rather than through it. We've had a couple of experiences of this lately and the immediate reaction is either the machine isn't functioning properly or the pods are no good. Both of these reactions proved to be incorrect.

Pods need to be held up tight to the group head to ensure that all the water is forced to go through the pod. This is achieved by having the correctly shaped insert in your group handle. The problem in the commercial market is that what works in one machine will not necessarily work in another. On the whole a flattened insert works in most machines, however it will be a case of trial and error. If you're using double pods, the depth of the double insert will be critical and once again there are different depths available.

If you're having to compromise, one little trick I've found helps is to slightly dampen the insert prior to inserting the pod. This causes the paper to stick slightly to the insert and thus makes it more difficult for the pressurised water to push the pod out of the way.

Don't despair pods are a good idea in the right environment and for the right reasons; it's well worth spending some time and effort selecting the correct inserts to deliver great coffee.

Pairing coffee with food

2009-07-10T12:07:00.002+01:00

Just had a really interesting tasting at Longueville Manor for an article we're doing with Eat magazine. Usually tastings are all about the coffee which is not unreasonable, however also in attendance on this occasion was Martin Flageul of Victor Hugo wines. The interviewer wanted to hear his comments on the taste and then make suggestions as to which desert to pair it with. The following observations were made:

Monsooned Malabar from southern India - This coffee is lightly roasted and thus has a very delicate flavour. It is notably smooth which is the result of the process that takes place at origin where the beans are slightly dessicated prior to bagging into 50 kilo sacks. Martin concluded that this would go well with Madeira cake or light biscuit something that won't overwhelm the taste buds.

Old Brown Java from Indonesia - This coffee is darker roasted creating a darker aroma, yet still achieving real smoothness in the cup. The taste is much more lingering than the Malabar coffee. Martin suggested dried fruits to go with this coffee - Dried Apricots was his suggestion, personally I think fresh fig would also be quite interesting.

Costa Rica Tarrazu - A medium roasted classic central American washed Arabica coffee. Right now this coffee is superbly aromatic and is a favourite with us at Cooper's. The caramel notes really come through in the coffee. For Martin this coffee was the classic coffee to have with a croissant or light puff pastry. Truly glugable!

Ethiopian Harrar - This again is medium roasted however is noted for its fruitiness. Martin immediately picked up on this coffee's complexity, it plays havoc with your taste buds due to the sun dried process that takes place at origin which locks in the fruit of the outer skin. After some deliberation this turned out to be Martin's favourite coffee which probably reflects a sophisticated palate which has tasted more than its fair share of blandness over the years. Martin's pairing suggestion was dark chocolate. The fruit and chocolate flavours complimenting each other.

This was a really interesting session and once again we end up with coffee being spoken about in the same terms as wine. Coffee has a lot of catching up to do in educational terms though.

Barista Coffee training course at Highlands

2009-06-05T07:51:00.002+01:00

At last it's about to happen the first Barista training course at Highlands college will take place on the last Monday in June.
If Starbucks, Costa, Coffe Republic etc all have their own internal training progammes isn't it time that you made sure that you were up to date with the latest coffee making techniques.
The market is moving on so fast right now that a fundamental understanding of making great espresso based drinks is vital.
Can you afford to miss this course?

Paranoid about great coffee!

2009-05-15T22:23:00.002+01:00

Ever since I've been back from the Atlanta SCAA coffee show where I made coffee alongside the finest Baristas in the world I've concluded that this whole coffee business can drive you totally nuts!
There are so many variables in delivering the ultimate cup of coffee, no wonder so many places sell truly average drinks; yet if they're buying from us we're talking about some of the finest coffee on the market.
Water quality, machinery set up, cleanliness, the right equipment, even the weather! the list seems endless - the answer I guess is to simply educate as best you can which is why I'm putting a lot of effort into the design of the latest and first Barista coffee course at Highlands college.
I figure that if you can frighten enough people into the knowledge of what can go wrong you might actually end up raising everyone's standard. A bit of reverse psychology!
One day we'll deliver the coffee that all those people who sweat blood put into this product truly deserve.

Are you doing Good Deeds in your community?

2009-05-06T17:29:00.001+01:00

Global warming, pandemics, third world poverty – issues of such magnitude that it’s no wonder an immediate reaction might be to pull the duvet up over our collective heads and let some much larger body such as Government grapple with the apparently untenable.

The coffee industry in which I work is a bit like that. The 2nd biggest traded commodity in the world after oil employs millions of people yet the distribution of wealth within the industry is hugely disproportionate to the physical effort expended. How then is it possible for a small business like mine to ever hope to materially change anything? The Fairtrade foundation alongside charities like Oxfam have both endeavoured to educate we the consumer whilst at the same time redistributing some of the wealth; big organisations dealing with big issues.

As a consumer though I’ve always felt that it’s a bit like being at Church and putting money in the collection plate; my conscience has been assuaged, and now I leave it to a large organisation to do good on my behalf whilst I get on with my life. Good deed by proxy.

I hadn’t really thought about the subject too hard until earlier this year when I visited Colombia with some fellow coffee professionals. Colombia is an amazing country and grows some of the finest coffee in the world. Most of the farms are small holdings and due to the steepness of the slopes on which the coffee is grown every kilo of beans is picked by hand. It’s a huge logistical effort for which the pay in western terms is paltry.

As we toured the country I found myself increasingly questioning how we value things. “How much Gold for a Rain Forest? How many Diamonds for the gnarled hands gained in a lifetime spent in coffee? and so on. Everything seems inevitably to be reduced to its monetary unit whilst our own humanity is neglected like so much loose change. One coffee farmer made us all reflect on this point. Living in a very humble farmhouse in a picture postcard setting he came out with the line, “I’m not just selling coffee, I’m selling life!”. It may sound a little corny as you read this article, but this simple line stopped us all in our tracks. Here was someone living a very uncomplicated life with all that he needed to survive around him telling us from our cosseted western perspective that it doesn’t actually get much better than this. At that moment I had to agree with him, surrounded as he was by his family.
I now move the clock forward to Atlanta, Georgia this April and the largest gathering of coffee professionals in the world – they called it “the event” – Americans never underestimating the power of hyperbole! For anyone in the coffee business though this annual event is truly inspiring.

The keynote speech is always highly anticipated and for the first time in at least a decade a true coffee insider took the stage; a man by the name of Ted Lingle, a legend in the speciality coffee industry and said by many to have been the reason behind why people talk about coffee like wine today.

His speech was a very personal one as he talked about what drove him on in the early days when faced with the huge hurdles put in place by much larger organisations not willing to change; not willing to be inclusive, but wanting to be exclusive ensuring that their slice of the economic cake continued to grow at the expense of others; blind to the fact that what they were doing was totally unsustainable.

What he found was that he started asking himself some very fundamental questions such as “why am I here?”, “what is my purpose?”, and that ultimately we can’t live our life by proxy. As he said “talk is cheap, but deeds are precious”

He took a long hard look at his own core values – what standards he found acceptable; the importance of educating people and finally what he believed was acceptable ethically. By looking deep inside himself he found the strength to combat what on the face of it were insurmountable odds.

He concluded his speech with a story about “good deeds”. How when being called to meet his maker this individual was asked if he would like to bring anyone with them to say goodbye; he asked Fame, but fame declined; he asked Fortune, but fortune too declined; he asked his friends, but they too declined; finally he asked Good deeds, and good deeds said yes. The moral of the story, that the only thing any of us will ever be remembered for is our “good deeds” all else is superfluous.

In conclusion what my journeys have shown me is that it is so easy to pull up that duvet and let someone else act on our behalf; to value that which doesn’t matter. Jersey I believe finds herself at that point right now. How do we hold on to our heritage in the face of unprecedented change? How do we hold on to community when the experiences of young and old are so different? More importantly how do we hold on to our humanity?

What is vital though is that we one and all engage with each other – it’s those “good deeds” for which we’ll all be remembered both in our community and in our world. That’s worth getting out of bed for!

Milk handling and wastage

2009-04-28T09:44:00.002+01:00

A combination of the SCAA exposition training sessions in Atlanta and a training session yesterday with a customer has really highlighted the importance of proper milk handling procedures.

Careful use of appropriately sized pitchers will make a huge difference to the quality of your cappuccinos and lattes as well as cutting down levels of milk wastage.

From my experience most food service outlets tend to encourage larger than necessary pitchers and here I'm talking about pitchers of 1 litre or larger. I reckon that the largest pitcher necessary is 1 litre and in fact there should be an increasing focus on using 0.6 litre pitchers or smaller with a real sensitivity as to exactly how much milk is needed to make just one cup of coffee.

Reheating milk or re-charging milk does not deliver consistent quality as the milk flavour will change dramatically from coffee to coffee. Best every time to start with fresh milk.

The message review the pitcher sizes you use.

Espresso machine cleaning

2009-04-26T08:35:00.003+01:00

An issue that has arisen over the last couple of months has been the clogging up of the valves found behind the group head of espresso machines. When engineers have attempted to establish why the water flow is being restricted they have found undisolved crystals of cleaning powder. The immediate reaction is that the crytals are not disolving as they should during the cleaing process. This it turns out is not the case. The actual problem is overdosing the cleaning powder.
Other products such as liquid cleaners are available as an alternative to powder, but are not as effective as the slower release of powder cleaners. Liquid cleaners tend to be flushed away after the very first cleaning cycle and thus there isn't a prolonged cleaning action taking place.
The message therefore is to closely follow the manufacturers instructions and not overdose the cleaning powder when cleaning; not only will you save money on cleaning product, but you'll also have a clean operational machine which shouldn't require the attention of an engineer for some time.

Top down for great milk foaming

2009-04-14T14:30:00.002+01:00

Making great foam for cappuccinos isn't rocket science, although you might think that when you see the varying quality dispensed at various food service outlets. A little understanding of what makes milk foam helps at this point.
Cows milk is full of fat and protein and it is this combination that allows the Barista to foam the milk. The problem is that if you don't make any attempt to foam the milk prior to simply heating it, the fats and protein will all melt away and it is impossible to foam anything.
Knowing the above now leads to an understanding as to why milk should always first be "stretched" to create foam prior to heating the milk. Then then leads me on to the top down theory. That is, when wanting to foam milk, the steam wand should be placed at the surface of the milk to ensure that steam and air are driven into the milk. Tilting the milk pitcher and angling the steam wand should ensure that you get a vortex effect in you milk.
Once you've created sufficient foam, you can if necessary heat the milk further by lowering the wand into the liquid. Take care not to overdo it.
So top down it is

Another grinder sick note

2009-04-07T12:31:00.002+01:00

April seems to have got off to a challenging coffee grinder month. This morning I got a call to check out the setting on a coffee grinder which had been installed as a temporary measure.
Everything looked ok, however the coffee was taking an age to grind any volume. The problem - blunt grinder blades. The impact on the coffee taste profound!

The problem with blunt grinder blades is that rather than cut the coffee bean they tend to crush them. This results in the average particle size of the coffee to be all over the place. Anything from powder fine to quite gritty. It makes it impossible to set the grinder accurately for the espresso coffee machine. It also has the effect of putting a lot of excessive heat into the bean which in turn can result in the coffee tasting burnt.

Moral of the story - make sure you have a programme in place that ensures that the grinder blades are changed every so many kilos. A number I have seen used is 300 kilos of coffee per set of blades, but it will vary.

One of the easiest ways to remember to change the grinding blades is to change them when you have a major service on the coffee machine. There again, if you are in a high volume site the discs may need to be changed more often.

Grinders are always in my experience the last piece of kit that coffee shops consider when they experience problems with their coffee, it should in fact be one of the first places to look.

Tell tale signs of blunt blades - coffee appears quite powdery, the coffee appears to be taking an excessive amount of time to grind and finally the noise level of the grinder appears excessively loud.

Re-grinding coffee - just don't!

2009-04-06T16:13:00.002+01:00

Had an experience today which if you are a coffee roaster tends to send shivers down your spine. We had a call from a customer who was experiencing problems with their coffee grinder. For some reason the coffee was coming out extremely coarse.
When I got on site I found to my horror a coffee hopper full of a mixture of bits of coffee beans and coarsely ground coffee. When I asked what had happened the member of staff said that to try and reduce the size of the grounds they had decided to re-grind the coffee. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Re-grinding coffee that has not been correctly ground in the first place is an absolute no no. To get a bit technical, the spread of the particle sizes will be so great as to make it impossible to get any consistency of flow of liquid through the coffee. On top of that all that re-grinding will result in so much heat getting into the coffee that it will materially affect the taste of the coffee in a very unpleasant and burnt way. Finally you'll end up jamming the blades, the hopper entry point and restricting the flow of beans. Not bad!

If you find yourself in this unfortunate position there is nothing to do but throw away the incorrectly ground coffee and then gradually reset the grinding blades. As a rule of thumb the coffee needs to have the consistency of fine sand to produce anything like a decent espresso.

If you do find yourself trying to unravel the above scenario, ensure that the hopper gets a good wash and is thoroughly dry and that the entry point into the grinding discs is also clear.

Bodum cafetieres - where spare parts come as standard

2009-04-03T22:06:00.002+01:00

In the last couple of weeks we've had customers come into our store and purchase brand new Bodum cafetieres in the belief that if they had broken the glass insert that it couldn't be replaced. Wrong! In fact it's one of the main reasons we stock this product. Unlike so many cheaper reproductions virtually every part on a Bodum cafetiere can be replaced saving you a fortune.
We currently carry glass liners and metal filters as standard. That means that after your first Cafetiere purchase you probably won't ever need to buy a complete new Bodum cafetiere again unless you want to downsize or upsize.
That's why we stock Bodum

Old Brown Java - challenging but outstanding espresso

2009-04-01T07:43:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I was on-site at a new restuarant in Alderney trying out various combinations of espresso coffee. From experience I find that you never know what is going to work until you run the coffee through the clients espresso machine on-site. What tastes great in Jersey can taste awful elsewhere.

I experimented with Old Brown Java and what a coffee it is; however the challenge is setting the grinder up correctly. If you're thinking of using this great coffee place close attention to the speed at which the coffee is flowing through the ground coffee. The grinder settings are completely different to any other coffee I know.

Once right the extraction is almost syrupy in appearance and delivers a really smooth espresso. I was actually most impressed with the Macchiato that I made.

Why is OBJ such a challenge? - good question. It's an "aged coffee" that is it's left in a warehouse to "mature" for a couple of years before being shipped. As a result we roast this quite dark without making it oily to kill off the "sacky" smell which I believe to be undesirable. Something though of this process clearly impacts on the ability of the water to get through the coffee. Anybody have any suggestions?

you've got to read what it says on the screen!

2009-03-30T21:34:00.003+01:00

On site today with a customer who had a Jura Z5 - Gen2 recently installed by us. The complaint was that there was no milk coming through the frothing unit.
When I arrived I tested the steam production - working fine. Then I took apart the auto-milk frothing unit and gave it a wash. Put it all back together and Hey presto! it all worked again.
(I didn't like to tell them that the cleaning button light was flashing on the top of the machine and a message saying "clean autofroth" was flashing on the screen)

Not sure if Jura could do anymore - well maybe a loud alarm and a voice shouting clean the auto-frothing device before you all die of a congealed milk bug might work!

What's happened to Gaggia?

2009-03-26T14:43:00.002Z

As a stockist of Gaggia coffee machines because I believe them to be one of the better makes I'm completely baffled by our lack of ability to get any of their coffee machines. There appears to be a great wall of silence emanating from Italy since January this year.
We had the same situation around Christmas 2007 and suddenly stocks reappeared. Are Gaggia having financial difficulties or is the problem much simpler than that?
Please don't keep us in the dark Gaggia!

Descaling Jura coffee machines

2009-03-25T20:06:00.002Z

A bit like London buses, nothing for ages, then 2 come along at once. This has been our recent experience with a couple of Jura bean to cup coffee machines brought into us recently. An F90 and an S70 (think that's right). The point is that in both instances there were no messages saying "descale me" but instead the machines had become blocked in such a way that no liquid was appearing out of the front nozzles.
Following a conversation with Jura Products in the UK we were advised to place 3 (yes 3!) descaling tablets in the water tank and then start the descale procedure.
The challenge though is working out how to start the descale procedure. The one thing I find Jura are particularly good at is making it obvious to users what the next step should be. This however is not the case with the descale option. Now I know it's not something you want to do accidentally as the whole process takes around 30 minutes, but at least give us a visual hint!
The great thing though was that the Jura engineer was right, in both instances blockages had been caused by a scaling up of the delivery pipes. Both machines are now back with their happy owners.

The problem with milk auto-frothing devices on espresso machines

2009-03-24T20:44:00.002Z

I was copied in on a email today about a complaint made by a customer over the quality of a cappuccino that he had been served at a particular food-service outlet. His complaint was that the drink that he had requested had just a small covering of foamed milk, and was not thick and creamy as he had expected.
The particular outlet uses an "auto-frothing" device that is attached to the steam wand of the espresso machine. The reason they and now many domestic machines use such devices is to make the production of foamed milk quicker and easier to deliver. Dare I use the word "de-skilling" the job.
Now auto-frothing devices are fine if they are kept immaculately clean. The reason I put this caveat in is because Jersey Milk with its higher than average fat content has a habit of clogging up the minute holes that enable the steam to combine with air to create the foam. Once one of these holes has become blocked rather than creating foam you end up with hot steamed milk.
The discussion went on about how different types of milk foam better than others. That may be the case, but the difference is not as significant as some people might think. I've always found that full fat and half fat milk both produce equally good quality foam if heated correctly.
No the real problem lies in the on-going maintenance of the auto-frothing device. In a commercial environment this means setting in place procedures to ensure that the device is either replaced with a clean unit or stripped down regularly depending upon volume. More often than not problems occur just after a busy period when there is an opportunity for the milk to slightly congeal.
As far as domestic devices are concerned these should be stripped down and cleaned after usage. This will not only ensure that the frothing device continues to work properly, but also eliminates any hygiene problems.

Cappuccino at home - the key to success!

2009-03-23T13:20:00.002Z

Had a customer come into our store on Friday buying Coffee for a dinner party over the week-end. As the conversation developed it became apparent that despite having a fancy built in espresso machine in his kitchen he'd never really been that happy with quality of drink he was achieving - this had been going on for 2 years! I then proceeded to give him the following advice which hopefully will mean that his guests got something special (waiting on a report!)

1. Ensure machine has heated up properly - once temperature reached run at least a cup full of water through the group head with the group handle in place, but no coffee. This will hopefully get everything up to temperature and correct extraction will occur.

2. His machine had its own built in grinder. Assuming coffee is fresh (absolutely in this case) monitor the speed at which the water is passing through the coffee. Should be looking at 20 seconds minimum for an espresso quantity - 1 fl.oz. Much faster and the flavour won't be picked up which in turn means that the grinder will need adjusting. Manufacturers hand book comes into play.

3. Keep the "shots" of coffee short. Try not to run an excessive amount of water through the coffee. After around 1 fl.oz. all the best flavours have been extracted. In my view if you want a longer drink, just add water. You'll retain the sweetness of the coffee this way. So ask yourself how big the cup is, how strong do I like my coffee and finally do I therefore put in 1 shot or 2?

Now assuming you want to make a cappuccino, just as much care needs to be taken over the foaming of the milk.

4. Start with fresh cold milk and a good quality pitcher appropriate to the amount of milk you wish to foam. Fill to about 1/3rd; you'll need the additional space for the foam.

5. Get rid of any excess moisture in the steam wand by venting it prior to placing in the milk.

6. Position steam wand in milk and open up steam vent. Immediately raise steam wand to just 1mm above the surface of the milk. Tilt the pitcher so that you create a "whirlpool" effect in the milk. The milk should start to "stretch" and the foam you create should have "micro" bubbles - appears very creamy.

7. To help you monitor the temperature of the milk place your hand on the base of the pitcher. Once you can only just touch the metal surface the milk is ready. You may need to drop the steam wand into the foamed milk for a bit to raise its temperature.

8. Try "free pouring" the milk onto the espresso coffee moving from a high pour to a low pour as you fill the cup. This will help lift the "crema" of the coffee and allow you to achieve the classic cappuccino appearance.

The key to great cappuccino - keep everything short!

The re-engagement of community is the only option

2009-03-20T09:00:00.002Z

I wrote this article for the Jersey Evening Post in June 2008. I've put it on my blog because a customer of ours Ad-Lib Restaurant were quoted in the JEP yesterday stating that they would like to grow the food for their restaurant but were struggling to do so because of the lack of allotments in St. Helier. You'll see from this article it was one of my suggestions for the Town Park.

In his book “The audacity of hope”, Barack Obama possibly the next US president acknowledges how sceptical people have become of the modern political process; “nourished by a generation of broken promises”, but he points out historically politics was “based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart. That if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done”

From the debates that have taken place in our own States Chambers over the last couple of weeks it is clear that there is a major problem with the level of political engagement the Council of Ministers have even with States members. A recent Chamber survey came back with the extraordinary statistic that 72% of the respondents felt that Government saw no value in small business, yet Economic Development would argue they’ve never tried harder to help.

The problem is that Government has become to be seen as the proverbial Super- tanker in a sea of small boats; the challenge for us all is to find a way of connecting that flotilla of small boats so that the Super-tanker can be better directed or better still down-sized. For me the Incinerator typifies how disconnected we have become as a society when it comes to real debate and discussion.

I don’t have a particular axe to grind with T&TS per se, however there seems to be an obsession with spending £100 million plus of public money, a massive sum but where is the public debate? Even when there is a suggestion that the project will be paid for with cash from a reserve fund, that’s the equivalent of over 2 years worth of GST! There’s still no debate!

It’s that Super-tanker problem again – “what can I do that will change anything?” Well in the case of the Incinerator debate I would suggest that a copy of the Juniper report was sent to every household and school and made compulsory reading in the same way TTS sent a flyer via the JEP backing their view. It takes two sides to debate, yet only one side is entering the discussion.

As a result I’ve decided to come up with a “wish list” – a list whose sole intent is to re-engage the community, to get people to feel that they can be a force for change to the benefit of all:

1. The Town park; why not instead of making it into a park consider the idea of turning it into a series of allotments? A place where people who have no garden of their own can re-engage with the land, understand once again where their food comes from.

2. The burnt out shell of the Wesley Street Methodist Church be turned into a unit for small manufacturing businesses, operated in such a way that the types of businesses installed would also have to have a tourism content whereby visitors could come and see the operations in progress and be exposed to the talent that resides in Jersey

3. Liberty Wharf is given over to local retail businesses so that we end up with a unique offering for both visitors and locals alike, rather than as I’ve just experienced on Wimbledon high street “clone town” Britain, with all the usual national suspects, but absolutely no soul.

4. A Green agenda that encourages local entrepreneurs to take over and make money out of re-cycling opportunities, with Government input being in a more advisory / watchdog capacity thereby saving tax payers money.

5. I would like to see the Chamber of commerce develop the equivalent of a business “face book”. For the price of their annual membership fee, a business would have a profile, could openly blog about issues that are directly impacting them, and which in turn could be used as a tool by Government to inform future strategies, from Regulations of Undertakings to Planning.

6. All Parish Hall meetings should have an Internet connection so that if you are unable to attend the meeting physically you could follow the debate from home and in turn take part in the voting process. Too often major decisions are voted on by just a handful of people

My plea is for people to re-engage, and my suggestion list will I hope spark some debate. Never before has there been so much change and yet so little discussion by the vast majority of people. We all lead hectic lives and there’s always a reason why we can’t participate. If we want to protect our community, and have a community to protect in the long term it requires us all to take part in what I call the big conversation. After all ………

If not now when? – If not you who?

Orange Coffee from Peru

2009-03-18T16:12:00.002Z

My thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Payn for bringing back some roasted coffee beans from their trip to Peru.Interestingly and a first for me the coffee had been roasted with Orange peel.

Having experienced some home roasted coffee in Colombia recently it came as no surprise when I saw that the beans were very black and oily. Rather than the even roast we get on commercial roasters, domestic roasting tends to roast dark on the outside, whilst the core of the coffee remains relatively light.

From a taste perspective I was surprised at how strongly the citrus orange flavour came through and how highly aromatic it was. The coffee itself was quite drinkable, we made it in a "French press" or Cafetiere.

For those of you interested in some more facts about the coffee it came from a small farm in the Sacred Valley county of Cuzco, Peru.

Speciality coffee stores giving the industry a bad name

2009-03-18T07:38:00.002Z

Marta, who looks after our store has just returned from a holiday in Italy and as a gift brought me back some coffee. Now I'm always fascinated about how other speciality businesses present their coffee.
Here we had the "natural" kraft bag, with a simple label stapled to the outside with the words "Momenti Romantici" - Caffe aromaatizzato al gusto di: MALT WISKY. I think the wording is fairly easy to translate.
I opened the bag intrigued, however what I found inside was truly disappointing. A small plastic bag containing 20g of ground coffee. No attempt had been made to keep the coffee fresh through any barrier packaging. I revisited the label to check the "sell by" date to find that this product should be "consomarsi" by 10/01/10 - 10th January 2010! As it was, this coffee wasn't going to survive longer than 24 hours after grinding.
No wonder the world is dominated by global players when some of those who claim to be "specialists" let the small guys down. If you're going to charge a premium and want your reputation to remain intact, spend some money on the internal packaging. Reminds me of the old adage "you can't judge a book by its cover"!

Monetising excellence

2009-03-13T07:33:00.002Z

It's be bugging me the last few days, well ever since I saw the work of the boys from Victoria College in the Design and Technology department the other evening.
All this brilliance, all these resources but what opportunity? It got me thinking about how Apple get new applications for their Ipod touch / Iphone. Apparently anyone can submit an idea and then it is evaluated by Apple and if considered good enough will be available for anyone to put on their Ipod for a fee. This is amazing use of what is known as the long tail; using the tallent of everyone to develop some of the cleverest apps.
So lets translate this to Victoria College DT department. Why not connect them with the leading furniture manufacturers of the world and should there be something created by one of the boys that is a brilliant design, that design could then be evaluated by a furniture manufacturer and if appropriate turned into production.
Everyone wins; Furniture company doesn't have overhead of full time designers; they have access to a massive pool of creativity. Great design gets rewarded - school gets recoginition; boy gets recognition; the economy gets a boost.
Can it really be that easy?

Tesco can't do this!

2009-03-12T17:01:00.000Z

A customer came into our shop a couple of days ago and asked us to blend Lapsang Souchong with Earl Grey - Smoky with Oranges! - Interesting and apparently a favourite combination of theirs. Now you couldn't go to Tesco and get that could you!

Small Business - why do the same questions keep coming up?

2009-03-12T14:39:00.002Z

David

I was talking to a motor repair shop owner yesterday (potential member) who is having real trouble employing mechanics, apparently there are some 10 vacancies in the Island and the only applicants coming forward have less than 5 years residency. How does he go about getting a licence to employ them? It seems that there are quite a number of qualified European mechanics going back due to exchange rates etc.

Also does Chamber organise any workshops for small business employers on employment law issues? If not who is a good person for advice on that?

Response

This person needs to talk to Regulations of Undertakings to get either a non-qualified licence or a 3 year joint licence. If neither are granted I guess he gets shut down - is that right in a market economy?

The new Skills Executive need to get onto cases like these. If we could train up the local population for local jobs in some co-ordinated way then maybe all those who rant on about unacceptable population growth might be placated.

Finally Jersey Arbitration and Conciliation Service offer courses on employment law in Jersey - check out their timetable

What will we do with 1,000 students leaving education this year?

2009-03-12T07:29:00.002Z

A couple of nights back I and my wife went to an open evening at my older son's school. This particular event involved the Art department and Design and Technology. I found the whole event quite extraordinary. The resources available to our children are simply staggering - Laser cutter, plastic former, radio, sound and recording studio. The list seems endless. The work being turned out by these young men is also quite extraordinary. My question is what will happen to all this tallent? We're spending millions educating our young people but what are we giving them in return?

P.S. I want to go back to school!

French media interview

2009-03-10T23:42:00.003Z

Crazy things happen to me - just when I thought I had a straightforward day planned a reporter from a French news agency came into my store along with Nick Le Cornu.
The reporter was interested to hear my thoughts about "the Jersy tax haven". Well I'm really tired of this line constantly being peddled by outside media.
Jersey has some of the best regulatory systems in place to ensure that illegal activity is flushed out and sent packing. It would appear to be very convenient for certain political leaders to harp on about tax havens as if they are to blame for the demise of the economy - absolute rubbish!
As I pointed out this lady journalist, small businesses like mine benefit hugely from the finance industry and I doubt that a speciality business like mine could floursh in many jurisdictions with a population of just 90,000 people if there wasn't the disposeable income and full employment provided by finance.
Sometimes we do make uneasy bedfellows. There is always the pressure of getting good members of staff given the wages paid in the finance industry. Thankfully not everyone wants to work in front of a computer screen.
There is also the pressure on land. An Island 9 miles x 5 miles which wants to remain green but still house people is always going to see upward pressure on real estate prices, which in turn causes its own social problems.
The removal of the finance industry from Jersey would be an economic catastropy which makes one appreciate that we urgently need a plan b. With the amazing educational system we have here (more about which I'll blog on later)Jersey has a huge opportunity to offer highly skilled niche solutions to the rest of the world.
As I've said before it's a team effort and the more ideas people can put forward the more likely we are going to get a plan b. Maybe a twitter forum will deliver what so far has been undeliverable.

Talk to the Jersey Methodist Womens Luncheon Club

2009-03-10T21:44:00.003Z

I was ask by the club to give a talk - I gave this one, a variation on the concept of Fair Trade. Enjoy!

I’ve been running Cooper’s for the past 20 years – our core business has always been to supply tea, coffee and associated products to the catering industry. It seems that there has never been a period without some form of dramatic change to which we have had to adapt.
When I took over at the end of the 1980’s tourism on Jersey was at its peak – we didn’t know it at the time, but the introduction of low cost airlines such as Easyjet and Ryanair combined with the launch of the Internet were all going to change the face of European air travel and tourism as we had known it on Jersey forever and as with all cataclysmic changes our tourism industry found it very hard to adapt to this brave new world; where one minute you’ve had a very successful business and the next you’re out of business. Obsolete; deleted by the march of technology and a world waking up to globalisation. However in business where one door shuts another opens and for Coopers that door was opened by Starbucks, originally a small coffee business that started life with around 5 stores in Seattle some 6,000 miles away from this Island. Before we knew it the word speciality coffee came into our lexicon. A whole new language was born and at the same time a huge new interest in coffee was ignited. Coopers in the mid 1990’s found themselves in a hugely fashionable business; a business that allowed us to really differentiate ourselves by becoming a one-stop shop for all things coffee. In the mean time Starbucks has developed into a global behemoth of around 13,000 stores worldwide.
And so the brave new world of the global village had been born. Food that once upon a time was only available seasonally is now available all year round. Clothing once made in the British Isles is now made in places like India or the Philippines for a tenth of the price it once was. Technology improvements have also meant that today we have more choice than ever before. As a comparison the average household just after the 2nd world war spent 30% of their income on food, today that average has dropped to just 10%. So why then today do we have organisation such as the Fair Trade foundation? Why do we talk about sustainability and how unsustainable our current way of life is? Why does extreme wealth seem to fall into fewer and fewer hands? Surely the result of global trade is that everyone gets a piece of the economic action? The answer is yes they do, but the proverbial global playing field isn’t quite as flat as we’d like to think and globalisation has made some organisations extraordinarily powerful whilst at the same time millions of individuals powerless as they lose control of the very resources upon which they rely for their day to day existence. In my industry coffee, the world is dominated by 4 major roasters. Nestle, Kraft, Proctor & Gamble and ........ As documented in their 2003 publication Mugged; poverty in your coffee cup Oxfam for the first time highlighted how these organisations are able to play countries off against each other in the global equivalent of a Dutch auction – that is buying from the lowest bidder.
When millions of pounds are at stake many countries have little choice but to take part in a race to the bottom and all the economic consequences that come with that non-choice. At last we in the west through the media have begun to understand the consequences of continually wanting more and cheaper stuff. As Fair Trade fortnight comes to an end I believe it’s thrown yet another dilemma at our own society, particularly in light of recent events, namely the global meltdown of the financial markets.
After all what is the concept behind Fair Trade? Well it’s about rebuilding communities – the premium you or I pay for say Fair trade certified bananas is intended to go towards a project that is of benefit to the whole community where that product is grown. I’ve seen with my own eyes a computer room that has been kitted out with the proceeds of the “social premium” in Brazil. The intention is to give that community a long term future; something we thought only we in the west ever considered. The point I make is that we are doing something tangible. What a contrast then with the huge wealth that is supposedly created by our own financial institutions. To use a term coined by David Korten an American academic; the Phantom wealth of the finance markets. Without doing anything stock markets seemed to rise inexorably. Without doing anything the price of houses on Jersey continually increase. Without seemingly doing anything those who have, have more whilst the rest increasingly struggle. But as we have just seen so much of what we once thought was true now appears to be like so much smoke and mirrors. It hasn’t been real wealth that has resulted in the average family house in Jersey now costing around £500,000, it’s debt. In order to lend more Banks have simply created debt; debt that we now know was based upon what is now described as “toxic assets”, the now infamous NINJA loans sliced and diced until our leading institutions thought they were worth something.
This is why shares in such great institutions as the Royal Bank of Scotland once valued at £6.00 in 2007 today languish at 20p? That’s how an organisation can lose £24 billion, £24 billion! in one year; the biggest corporate loss in history thus wiping out all the profits that organisation has made in over 3 years and destroy the value of hard saved for pension schemes? A money for nothing economy generates only phantom wealth and envy, what we need is an agenda for a new economy. An economy built on community interest, collective interest, the wealth of our own relationships, not monetary relationships. I believe as Peggy Noonan, a columnist for the New York Times does that we are approaching a time where “everything will be local”. I don’t mean that we’ll start building cars locally; what I do mean though is that we’ll start to look at our own resources and naturally question how we can incorporate them in our community for the benefit of our community.
This summer 1,000 youngsters will leave education in search of employment. We’ve given them a great education yet they will struggle to get employment; many will leave the Island, many more will remain at home playing computer games; some will simply go out looking for trouble; the most undervalued, bored, Police time wasters in the world. What could they be doing for our community whilst waiting for that first job opportunity? How much more valued would they feel if they knew that they were adding to the wealth of our community and that their effort was valued. So how you may well ask does all of this relate to you? How can you make a difference? It reminds me of a quote by John F Kennedy which I paraphrase here “ask not what your Island can do for you — ask what you can do for your Island”.
The other day I was with a very frustrated senior civil servant talking about the latest States strategic report and he said to me – “why is it the first thing people turn to when there is a problem is the State?” That’s a very good question, we don’t want a nanny state, yet we expect Government to solve our economy – supply the magic pill; yet in reality the economy, society, community is a problem for all of us to solve not just a handful of elected officials.
As I look around this room today, how much collective knowledge and wisdom is there stored in your heads? Real wealth not phantom wealth; ask yourself what am I doing with that resource my personal wealth of knowledge and wisdom to help my community? The problem is that so many people simply don’t appreciate the wealth of knowledge and experience that they possess – As an example a couple of weeks ago I stood next to a retired farmer as we watched half a dozen tractors from temps passé plough a small field. As I stood there chatting I realised just how much knowledge this man had to do with local food production; surely this knowledge can’t simply go with him to the grave? What if we were no longer able to cost effectively import food? Oil after all isn’t going to be around forever; where will we look for the knowledge that has been passed down to previous generations and stopped at ours because we now rely on someone else to grow our food?
Your generation still retains this knowledge – you owe it to the next generation to ensure that that knowledge is not lost whatever it is. Isn’t it time that Jersey had its own Wikipedia – an equivalent to that world famous on-line encyclopaedia?
We’re living in a fast changing society; a society whose changing demographics will mean that in the not too dim and distant future those in work will be significantly outnumbered by those who have retired. We have already reached the point where the number of people over the age of 60 outnumbers those under the age of 16. That has huge economic implications if we measure things in purely monetary terms, but it is also a huge opportunity to create the real wealth of which I have spoken. The wealth of community; thinking up better ways to harness the energy of our society for the benefit of all. What opportunities do you think that you could suggest; how could this be brought together in a new community manifesto? We urgently need diversity in our economy – diversity will create opportunity for our young people; but the ideas for what exactly that diversity is, or looks like comes from all of us. We all have a part to play. But the reality right now is summed up by the building of a new incinerator. Nothing highlights for me more the total bankruptcy of ideas that currently pervades society than the building of this monstrous new £106 million incinerator. How any sustainable society can think that burning more waste than ever before is the way to make that paradigm shift is completely beyond me. But how many people realistically took part in the debate; a tiny percentage, the rest just shrugged their shoulders; lost in the concerns of a me first society rather than the interests of our wider community. Ultimately we get what we deserve. We all need to re-engage; re-organise and realise that real wealth comes from inside and that we each have a part to play in the agenda for a new economy.

Jura's new helping hand website

2009-03-03T15:27:00.003Z

Jura I'm pleased to say have started to recognise that when you're selling a premium product like theirs it's not just about selling a box. As a result those of us with "bricks and mortar" outlets are asked to provide trained staff and the possibility of demonstrating their machines prior to purchase. At last someone has realised that it's the after sales service that matters as much as the sale of a machine.

Jura have therefore recently set up a new website that I believe is helpful in a) locating your nearest dealership, and b) gives some tips as to how to get more out of your cup of coffee. The link is www.juradealers.co.uk
Have fun!

La Pavoni - Eurobar series - group head issue

2009-02-05T21:33:00.002Z

A customer came into our shop today who had a problem with their machine when he used a pod. Despite the flow of water appearing to be fine out of the group head, he was finding that when he used a pod, water pours out from around the top of the group handle despite it being properly located.

Now for those of you who know this machine, the group handle on this machine is in my opinion overly complicated. It's virtually impossible to pull apart and for most people who have tried, it has usually resulted in a new group handle being required. When they work (which is most of the time) they do a great job, but I digress!

In my opinion the issue here is one of a warn group head seal. Water will always try to find the easiest way out of the group head particularly when it is under 8 - 10 bar pressure. Any hint of weakness in the seal and you'll have water everywhere.

Again as is the the wont of La Pavoni changing the seal is anything but easy and will require the use of a qualified engineer, however it's perfectly possible, will put you back at most Sterling 50 pounds (labour and parts), and you should end up with a perfectly functional machine.

I will just qualify the above commentary with one caveat - I have assumed that the grind of the coffee being used is correct. To test this point, have your local coffee merchant change the grind setting the next time you purchase your espresso coffee to a coarser grind. If everything functions properly, your coffee merchant owes you a free pack of coffee!

Colombia coffee safari January 2009

2009-01-31T10:39:00.003Z

I have just returned from Colombia where I and a group of independent roasters visited a variety of coffee farms from independent farms to co-ops both Fair Trade and Rain Forest Alliance certified. What an amazing country in terms of variety of landscapes, the climate and of course the people.

Like many people I went with a little trepidation as so much has been reported in the world press on the activities of those who grow illegal crops and FARC guerillas. Whilst everything isn't perfect, the country is a far safer and more stable place even than it was just 5 years ago.

This stability has led to a thriving economy based around coal, palm oil, flowers and coffee. Quite a range of diverse products.

Colombia is the third largest coffee growing country in the world after Brazil and Vietnam. This year though the crop has struggled due to unpresidented amounts of rain. Usually there is a dry and wet season, however the dry season has failed to materialise in recent times and as a result the crop will be down around 1 million bags this year. This is putting huge pressure on the price, with the interenal differential currently around 25c per pound ahead of the New York c market.

This is in turn causing issues for certified organic farmers and Fair Trade certified co-ops. The premiums required by these growers is such that it is making them uncompetitive in world markets. As recently as November 2008 one organic farmer has abandoned their organic certification as the costs are proving to be overwhelming in current market conditions.

We also heard from one Fair Trade certified group who are unable to sell all of their coffee as Fair Trade certified as there is insufficient demand. The result is that they are having to sell a significant proportion of their crop on the open market whilst still paying the Fair trade certifiers, but are unable to gain the social premium. Clearly questions need to be asked of the the Fair Trade programme as it is currently structured.

The Colombian coffee federation (FNC) also came in for some stick as despite the fact that they take 6c on ever pound of coffee produced, their distribution of these funds to help all coffee farmers is to say the least uneven. The FNC also appear to be competing against other private organisations when it comes to buying coffee from the farmers which seems quite extrardinary. Another organisation that is in need of major reform.

All in all it was an incredibly enlightening trip. They always say that when you travel you come back a changed person. I certainly feel that to be the case as I reflect on this trip.

As I unpack my pictures and video footage I hope to share more of what I have learned on this trip with you. In the mean time a big thank-you to those who made this such an amazing trip.

Whittard of Chelsea - why the inevitable happened

2008-12-23T21:38:00.002Z

I have watched Whittard's for many years as I have seen them as very much a direct competitior to my business as tea and coffee specialists. In the early days they were a tight outfit with a well presented quality product line.

Over the years though the focus has increasingly been on presentation and not enough time I believe spent on content. Surely if you are a specialist in this market you should be recognised for being outstanding at what you do. There should be no comparison between what you offer and what is on offer at the local supermarket; sadly for Whittard great packaging is now everywhere, which means that the contents needs to be outstanding - it isn't and so their customers voted with their feet. In our line of business a one off purchase isn't good enough, you need repeat business to survive.

The person I feel sadest for is Giles Hilton, Mr. Whittard if you like. He is a great individual with an unparalleled knowledge in the tea business. But even Giles couldn't stop Whittard's losing its soul. Even Howard Schultz of Starbuck's fame has higlighted the problems of losing your soul. People become dispassionate about your business and move on.

I believe there is room for a Whittard type business but it has to be driven by someone with a passion for the products they sell, and people who are in it for the long run. Can that ever be achieved by a bunch of private equity types? I doubt it - when all your focus is on the bottom line, and maximizing your cash flow to the detriment of others, you forget what this business is all about. It's about people and relationships around the globe. It's about doing something that benefits all, not just a handful of financiers.

Will anyone work that one out ? We'll see

Christmas sales 2008

2008-12-22T14:53:00.002Z

As I write this blog we're down to a couple of days before Christmas and it's gone mad here! I say mad now, however we've had a couple of truly crazy weeks, and it begs the question, recession what recession? Talking to some of my colleagues here in Jersey they too are having a bumper time; we're not sure if it's the last hurrah before 2009 and deep gloom or whether actually the press have really overblown the situation.

I believe the key is to be niche. Know your stuff and offer great quality, great value and great customer service. The people being hit appear to be the generalists, the stores who try to sell everything from waste bins to DVD's. Stuff that everybody and their auntie is selling and is found in every department store and internet site. You have to be different, you have to be original, you have to pay attention, it doesn't happen overnight and it can take years of doing the right thing.

It will be in my view those businesses who "stick to the knitting" who I believe will ride out this recession stronger and fitter and better placed than many of their over borrowed, over leveraged competitors.

So what's selling?, well right now Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is doing well at a cool £105.00 per kilo! A special gift for the ultimate coffee lover. Stove top espresso machines have also been flying out in far greater quantities than in previous years. The demand for upmarket chocolate has also been good. The Chocolate Alchemist has come good this year.

With regard to the higher priced machines, the traditional espresso machine has struggled in the £150 - £300 price bracket. The Jura bean to cup coffee machines after an initial flurry in early December have slowed; interestingly the the only Jura machine we are being asked for is the ENA5 which has become a real star in the home.

Nespresso has come in for real criticism in our store, having found them initially very convenient a number of people have given up on them because they find it a pain to keep having to order off the internet - they forget and then can't use the machine with anything else. The price of the capsules is high, and the waste factor to some is unacceptable. But hayho I'm sure Nespresso are still selling capsules in their millions.

What is also interesting is people's interest in trying different coffees. A few years ago there was little appetite to try something different, now if you offer great quality, customers are really up for experimenting. Again I think being a specialist coffee roaster really helps here, and in particular staff knowledge of the product. It must be a real challenge to sell Ethiopian Harrar off the supermarket shelf on the strength of what it says on the packet.

It's interesting that in an age where you can find everything out on the internet or on a shelf talker, people still prefer dealing with people, that's why truly great customer service will always win.

Happy Christmas and prosperous New Year

Frozen Coffee Beans

2008-12-22T13:52:00.002Z

This one's a first for me and it's always interesting to hear what "real coffee drinkers" do with our coffee!

I had a conversation some months ago with this customer who was regularly travelling backwards and forwards to Spain (we'll call him Chris). He was telling me that he couldn't find any coffee locally that tasted as good as this Spanish coffee which was dark roasted to the point of being carbonised. He felt that it made great coffee and wondered why we didn't sell such a coffee.

My reaction was not quite of horror, but "mild" surprise that he could enjoy a coffee that had all it's individuality roasted out of it. For all I knew it could be the cheapest coffee in the world, nobody would know. Being a business that only stocks speciality coffee I tried to explain the intricacies of what we offered. Anyway he went away and I didn't see him for a number of months.

A week ago I happened to be in our shop and there he was buying our Bologne Espresso coffee. I jokingly said have you run out of your Spanish coffee? To which he replied that since our conversation he had been buying our coffee non stop. Having given him my views on dark roasted Spanish coffee he had decided to change to us.

The secret though to our coffee tasting great for him though is that he brews the coffee from frozen. Apparently he takes our beans home and immediately puts them in the freezer. When he goes to make his coffee in a stove top espresso maker, he grinds the frozen beans and then brews the coffee immediately. He tells me that this gives the best coffee taste ever. He's tried not freezing the beans but says that the flavour isn't nearly as good.

It just goes to show you, even after 20 years in the business you can still learn from your customers idiosyncrasies!

Espresso ground coffee - a challenge

2008-11-25T13:21:00.002Z

It's not until you handle espresso coffee on a daily basis that you appreciate how many reasons there are as to why it might not extract the flavour as well as you might expect. For the purposes of this blog I'm assuming water temperature, the pressure of the machine and the freshness of the coffee are all perfect (big assumption I know!). Here I want to focus on the grind of the coffee.

1. Different origins due to different processing methods will affect the fineness of the grind.

2. Different roast colours will affect the fineness of the grind.

3. The atmospheric conditions on the day you use the coffee will affect the grind.

4. The conditions around the grinder will affect the grind.

5. The sharpness of the grinder blades will affect the grind.

6. The cleanliness of the grinding blades will affect the grind.

So you can see when a coffee brand states on the side of its packet "this coffee is suitable for all coffee makers" what a load of rubbish that is if you have any desire to achieve a decent flavour.

Even the flow of liquid through specialist espresso ground coffee bought off the Supermarket shelf can be problematic for different machines.

The point I make in this Blog is that if you use a local speciality coffee roaster for your coffee supplies, pay attention to the grind setting the use. Every store will have its own setting which works for their machine, however bear in mind it might not necessarily work for you. Don't be frightened to ask your supplier to change the grind for your specific requirements, that's what specialists are for.

H.R.H. Princess Anne drinking a cup of Cooper's

2008-11-25T09:15:00.004Z

Couldn't resist showing you this. H.R.H. Princess Anne is a regular visitor to the Island of Jersey. Here she's meeting with people from the Poppy appeal at a place called Sunset Nurseries. She's been captured drinking a cup of Cooper's finest coffee! Well it would make me smile as well!

The consequences of over stretching coffee

2008-11-03T21:52:00.002Z

Coffee culture like so many things is inate - somehow over the centuries a nation intuitively knows how best to capture the flavour of a particular product that they have consumed for generations.

For instance the British understand tea and can't understand why such an apparanetly simple product can be destroyed by so many of her European neighbours. Our European neighbours would I suggest in turn wonder how the average British person struggles so much to make a decent cup of coffee and 8 times out of 10 resorts to instant coffee.

I put it down to cultural differences, the different routes our histories took. So what am I getting at in the blog?

Well there is a tradition in the British Isles to make Cappuccinos in 12 oz cups, a reflection of the influence of the US. Which in itself isn't a problem, however what isn't understood is that to make large drinks like these, you need to use a decent amount of coffee. So why do so many places try to stretch the ground coffee to try and get an acceptable strength?

7g of coffee is simply not enough coffee, you can run all the water you like through it and you still won't achieve anything that remotely resembles a decent cup of coffee. The interesting thing is that if you go over to continental Europe and ask for a cappuccino you'll struggle to find a cup that's larger than 7 ozs. Why? because they inately know that any more volume of liquid will dillute the fine flavour of the coffee.

So if you are a coffee shop owner or making cappuccinos for fun at home please remember the following rules of thumb.

A 12oz cup needs a double shot of espresso coffee - that is around 14g of ground coffee. You should only run a maximum of 2 flozs (60ml) of water through the coffee. After this the rough proportions of milk are a 1/3rd milk, and 1/3rd foam. Personally I prefer to "free pour" my milk onto the coffee following the steaming/foaming process as I believe that this will give you the most consistent strength.

If you really do want to weaken the drink just add some hot water, or if you really can only cope with one shot of coffee (7g grounds), still only run 1 floz of liquid through the coffee and then add some hot water. But please never run water through your coffee for much longer, you will destroy what may well have once been outstanding coffee.

If you're from continental Europe please ignore this blog as you're probably already doing the above without even thinking about it!

Jura bean to cup message "empty drawer" which is empty

2008-10-20T19:58:00.003+01:00

We've recently encountered the message "empty drawer" on a couple of Z5 machines. Seems fairly straight forward until you find that emptying the waste drawer has no impact whatsoever.

What's going on?

Well through a little trial and error we've discovered that the messages are the result of water getting on the "contacts" at the back of the waste drawer.

We're not quite sure why so much moisture should be getting into this area, however it could be the result of the user washing the drawer and not drying it throughly. Although on further conversation with Jura it could also be the result of the machine not sitting on an even surface.

Solution - Ensure machine is disconnected from any electrical connection, remove drawer, and dry all contacts. Apparently a hairdryer is very effective. The main thing is to ensure that all contacts are dry.

We're not done quite yet, the drawer now needs to be left out for a few hours, preferably over-night, and the machine kept switched off.

The theory is that the following morning the message will have cleared and you will have a normally functioning machine.

Lesson of the story, when removing the waste drawer and cleaning, ensure that all parts are totally dry before replacing said drawer.

Pod problems

2008-10-12T08:52:00.002+01:00

Those of you who use coffee pods to make your espresso based drinks will find them clean and convenient to use, and in low volume food service accounts we find that they work very well in ensuring a consistent standard of drink. I know that may upset the purists by my saying this, however sometimes it is a case of "horses for courses"

A problem that has been brought to my attention in the last few weeks is the apparent slowing down of the flow of water through the coffee pod. Instead of the usuals 20 seconds or so, one individual found that it was taking up to a minute to extract an espresso. What was going on?

The immediate reaction is to believe that the grinding of the coffee has changed, not an unreasonable thought. However becuase of the tight tollerances needed by the pod packing machine to make pods this is almost certainly the least likely problem.

Clearly the next areas to check are things like pump pressure and if the spray plate is clean. Both of these issues can be checked easily with the group handle removed. If the spray plate appears blocked it will be a case of taking it out and cleaning. Once clean you'll get a better idea if the coffee pump is functioning properly. If the pump isn't functioning properly, then it could be time for a new machine, it's difficult to replace this part cost effectively.

However the solution to the problem that I expreienced is not in the group head, but in the group handle. Although the insert that the pod sits in can appear clean I have found that the holes can become blocked with micro particles of coffee which are particularly difficult to remove. This fact was clearly demonstrated when we removed what looked like a perfectly clean insert and replaced it with a brand new insert. Hey presto! everything started to work correctly again.

Replacement inserts for domestic machines are not supplied as standard, so you will either need to talk to your local store, or hopefully go on-line and get the part that way.

Enjoy that espresso!

Panama - Hacienda La Esmeralda Coffee

2008-09-17T17:21:00.003+01:00

This farm keeps winning accolades year in year out. They won the award for best Rainforest Certified coffee at the SCAA meeting in Minneapolis earlier this year, and have been named as the number 2 coffee of the year 2008, so I guess I had to try and get some and find out what all the fuss is about.

The first thing of interest is the varietal that they grow. At the basic level we have robusta and arabica, however when you get past this you discover a whole new list of coffee types. The most popular are Catuai and Typica, however this estate uses a varietal that goes by the intriguing name of Geisha.

What does all of this mean to the roaster and to the final taste in the cup?

Well our impression of the bean is that it is slightly softer than other typical central American coffees, so we dropped the coffee into a slightly cooler drum than normal, and then roasted the coffee as we normally do, this technique we hoped would allow the flavours to develop at a slower rate. Finally as we went past the first crack of the bean, we watched the development carefully and pulled the coffee out of the roasting drum just as the second crack started.

The result is a wonderful coffee. I had an Americano and the sweetness and flavour resulted in one of the most memorable coffee drinks I have ever had.

The judges were right this is a truly great coffee and I hope it's here to stay in Europe.

Handle with care!

Bialetti Stove top espresso - keeping it simple

2008-09-04T09:18:00.002+01:00

I had the pleasure of testing a Bialetti Mukka stove top machine the other day on behalf of a customer. For those of you who don't know these machines, it's Bialetti's attempt to replicate a Cappuccino coffee, and I guess if I'm cynical their attempt to add value to their basic machines.

My conclusion - don't bother. What has always been a simple machine to operate, namely water in bottom, coffee in middle, screw together, place on stove and wait for coffee to brew has now been overly complicated by this additional gizmo.

My experience with the foaming of the milk was the equivalent of a badly made cappuccino. Everything was too milky, the foam wasn't particularly great, and generally the whole coffee experience was quite forgettable.

Like so many businesses Bialetti have tried to complicate a very simple concept because someone in marketing has forgotten about what the machine is all about and instead persuaded R&D that cappuccino is the way forward - wrong.

What I think Research and Development should be thinking about is how do we stop the rapid deterioration of the metal in the event of the machine not be dried properly before being put away. Surely there's a coating out there that would eliminate this problem which doesn't in turn taint the great coffee taste.

These are great machines because they are so simple. Lets improve on the simplicity and not believe that improvement comes through complexity.

JURA FROTHING DEVICES - THE BEST OPTION FOR YOU

2008-08-21T16:36:00.002+01:00

As someone who believes that incorrectly foamed milk destroys great coffee in much the same way as poorly prepared coffee does the latest domestic auto-frothing devices I have to say are a real mixed bag.

Whilst it's impossible to replicate the steam pressure on a domestic machine that is achieved on a commercial machine, there have been many approaches by manufacturers to overcome dodgy foamed milk, you know that little bit of foam floating on the top that disguises the superheated liquid below.

Well Jura now offer three options on their bean to cup machines:

1. Professional cappuccino frother
2. Easy cappuccino frother
3. 2-stage frothing nozzle

As standard Jura sell the Easy cappuccino frother with their latest ENA 5 machine. Kept clean and fitted properly it does a good job if all you want is foamed milk. The bubbles can be a little coarse, but the overall result is very acceptable.

However should you wish to just heat the milk for a latte you will need to choose one of the two other options, namely the professional cappuccino frother or the 2-stage frothing nozzle which are extras to the basic package.

I'll start with the 2- stage frothing nozzle. This has two positions, when closed in the upper position, the result is good steam pressure that will heat milk to your heart's content. If instead you want foam, you place the nozzle in the lower position. The idea is that whilst heating the milk, air is also let in to create foam.

My experience is that you get foam after a fashion, but not nearly of the quality
of the easy-cappuccino frother. For a part that costs around £15 sterling I have to say I'm pretty disappointed with the results that I've seen. The mouth feel of the milk is at best ordinary.

The best system however by a country mile is the professional cappuccino maker, and it begs the question why this isn't fitted as standard on all ENA5 models.

The quality of the foam outstrips both of the other options, it's ability to deliver quality froth or steamed milk for either your favourite Cappuccino or Latte is outstanding. I love the mouth feel of the milk for cappuccinos in particular.

Is it a price point issue? Surely Jura who lead the market in domestic bean to cup machines haven't felt the need to cut a corner here? The rest of the technology is outstanding, the new design is phenomenal, so surely the easiest thing in the world is to make sure that you fit the best device out there for heating milk on to your machine - isn't it?

Jura - Ena Coffee machine reviewed

2008-07-30T08:12:00.002+01:00

The ENA is the latest offering from Jura, being launched into the UK market this summer.

The first thing you notice about the ENA is the considerable thought that has gone into the whole design concept. From the way the machine is packed to its sleek lines and compact nature, every detail has been considered which makes it a very impressive addition to the Jura range.

So how did it perform when we tested it out in our shop?

The initial set up is almost intuitive, in fact although I haven't actually used this machine before I found that I didn't need to refer to the manual once, ok, so I'm used to their previous models, but it does reflect how Jura have made great efforts to be consistent throughout their range.

To reduce the footprint of the machine, inevitably something has to give, and that something is the size of the water tank, however on a positive note none of the functionality has been compromised.

As already mentioned it's some of the details that really impress. The pre-ground coffee option has a sleek sliding lid which when open automatically activates the programme. What I think is a particularly good idea is the twisting front nozzle that allows you to have either a single pour, or a double pour, for 1 or 2 cups.

Increasingly clever use is being made of the main control button on the top of the machine, not only as with the J5, Z5 etc. is it used to adjust the strength of the coffee, but also here is is used to activate the steam wand. Very neat.

The cappuccino option has now been standardized and matches the J5 technology, which saw a simpler system with fewer parts to loose. I also like the fact that this system can be completely pulled apart and cleaned without the sense of dread one had in the past over where each part went when reconstructing the frothing unit.

The other great idea is the changing of the colour of the operation screen. When everything is fine, the screen is green, however if the machine needs you to do something, e.g. add more coffee beans the screen turns to red. So without even knowing what the message is you know you must do something prior to making a cup of coffee. I love that simplicity.

The rest of the technology we've seen before on other models, once again great to see how the best ideas from previous models have been used to inform this one. An example that comes to mind is the programming of the pour length of the coffee. Rather than going into programme mode, simply keeping your finger on the button will automatically ask you when you would like to stop the pour. A great idea from the Z5 machine.

All in all a great new addition and it does beg the question as to where this puts the J5, which again whilst being a sleek design led machine has been superseded here by a smaller footprint machine and a much more competitive price structure.

The ENA starts at £534, whilst the J5 comes in at £795. I know which one I'd buy!

Coffee recommendations - Monsooned Malabar Coffee

2008-07-13T21:07:00.003+01:00

We are constantly asked in our store to recommend a coffee for a particular coffee maker or "something special" for a dinner party. It's a tricky thing to do as each individual has a taste that he or she prefers and trying to second guess that is a bit like looking in the proverbial crystal ball.

However on this occasion I'm going to stick my neck out. We've recently been carrying out a review of how we roast our coffees to optimise their individual characteristics; a coffee in our store has to earn its place!

I was particularly interested in our Indian Monsooned Malabar coffee as I felt that we weren't getting the "nuttiness" that I usually associate with this coffee. A coffee that is processed at origin in a unique way using the Monsooned winds to "desiccate" the beans which results in a green coffee that is bloated and bleached.

I looked at our target temperature and the timing of the first and second cracks and decided to do what for us is a light roast. The effect was to end up with a coffee that looked as if it had been not particularly well roasted. There was a lot of difference in the colour of the final roasted beans, the homogeneity that one gets with other washed arabicas simply didn't apply here. So what was the impact in the cup?

I shouldn't have worried, using a French press (Cafetiere) it brewed the most wonderful nutty coffee to savour. It reminded me of bed and breakfast establishments that I've stayed in in Paris where the the first thing the proprietor does is to deliver this wonderful heady brew of fresh coffee. On this occasion instead of croissants I enjoyed the coffee with toast and the most fabulous home made marmalade.

I couldn't let the experience pass without sharing it with someone! So next time you pass our store and want something a little special, try Monsooned Malabar you'll certainly have tongues wagging!

More and Better

2008-06-15T21:26:00.002+01:00

This is a speech I gave prior to the showing of a film based on the activities of Wal Mart, entitled "Wal Mart, the high cost of low price". My thanks go to Bill McKibben, whose book "Deep economy" was its inspiration.

MORE & BETTER

For generations now the idea that increasing efficiency, usually by increasing scale, is the key to increasing wealth has undisputedly produced MORE. This in turn has meant that we today enjoy a BETTER standard of living than any generation before us.

At the time of the 2^nd world war on average we spent 30% of our income on food; today that average is just 10%. Cheap oil has resulted in ever greater mechanisation, and allowed cheap synthetic fertilizers to be created; the result ever bigger and more efficient farms. So although you actually get MORE food per acre on a small farm; you get MORE food per £ with big ones.

The scale and numbers today are staggering

Today 4 Supermarkets control 80% of the food consumed in the UK. In my industry, Coffee, 4 firms control 85% of global coffee roasting; and finally without wishing to overdo the stats, one Ohio farm in the US produces 3 billion eggs per year.

But today for the first time in a generation we’re starting to wake up to the fact that MORE doesn’t necessarily mean BETTER.

The specialisation and consolidation in some areas in the US has been so intense that sociologists now designate many parts of rural America as “food deserts” totally dependent on convenience stores and without access to fresh produce.

One farm in Utah, with 1.5 million pigs has a sewage problem larger than that of the city of Los Angeles – Intensive farming being the only way to compete in the low cost arena. Is MORE therefore still BETTER?

The industrialisation of poultry has resulted in increasing cases of Avian flu, and cases of Salmonella have doubled since the 1970’s. When reflecting on the increasing centralisation of food production, one American senator said “For the life of me, I cannot understand why terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do”. There’s food for thought.

World events are now having a massive impact on the price we now pay for food. Oil prices have more than doubled in a year and are now higher in real terms than they were in the 1970’s. Water tables around the world are falling as nations like India and China play catch up on our western economies. The key resources we’ve relied on for centuries are starting to run out and oil which replaced manual labour to bring us cheap food is no longer delivering the huge savings once enjoyed. But still we continue to pursue those two simple objectives of MORE and BETTER.

The problem is, as has been highlighted by the introduction of that wonderful tax GST is how disconnected the average man or woman on the street has become from the realities of the costs of doing business on Jersey. We currently have food inflation running at between 5 and 6% and together with GST this has seen some establishments having to increase their prices by up to 10%, just to stand still. Yet the result has been screams of “profiteering” and cries of “we need a 3^rd multiple” – knee jerk reactions in a fragmented society where MORE clearly doesn’t mean BETTER.

What I hope tonight’s film will do, is to allow you time to reflect upon what factors are really important to ensure the future sustainability of our community. How as a community we need to reconnect. Food security alone will become an increasingly big issue and our Government should be taking a long hard look at where the gaps are and what can be practically done to encourage local entrepreneurs to fill those gaps.

It has now been calculated in what is known as the multiplier effect that every £10 spent in a local food initiative is worth £25 to the local economy. The same £10 spent in non-local business produces just £14 worth of benefits to the local economy.

Today in a global world our spending habits don’t benefit only the local community; there is significant economic leakage as we purchase goods on the internet. By 2010 non-locally owned businesses will pay no tax to the local economy, this will result in the loss of a significant amount of taxable earnings for the Jersey economy; so considering bringing in a 3^rd multiple under the auspices of competition has far wider consequences than simply pushing down the price of a can of baked beans.

Ultimately, the MORE we do for ourselves the BETTER it will be for everyone in our community. There really is no alternative.

Aid for Maringo Community Resource Centre

2008-06-10T22:50:00.003+01:00

As the result of a promotion by locally owned Jersey Pottery to help displaced people in Kenya, I decided that we too should get involved. With the help of Omondi Kasidhi from the Clinton Foundation we sent a proportion of the sale value of the coffee to the Maringo Community Resource Centre. They are located in Maringo estate, Makadara constituency, Nairobi.
With a relatively small sum of money we were able to help 23 families to purchase such items as Flour (Maize), Suar, Sanitary pads, Tea leaves, Milk powder, Soap, Blankets, Beans, Green grain, Rice etc. Basics, that where I come from are so readily available.
We can never hope to match the long term work of the Red Cross, however something is better than nothing, and as the message sent back to me from Maringo said, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".
Once again my thanks to Omondi for making this possible.

The Elusiveness of great coffee

2008-06-08T09:38:00.002+01:00

I was on holiday last week at Centre Parcs in Normandy. They provide these wonderful cottages, but most importantly they also provide a filter coffee machine in the kitchenette. Knowing this I took my own coffee, some Guatamalan from the Nueva Granada Estate.

Now my first mistake was not to have the coffee ground specifically for a filter coffee machine. Because I have a Cafetiere (French Press) at home I broke one of my cardinal rules, I "multi-ground" the coffee, i.e. it should work in both a Filter coffee machine, and a Cafetiere. But of course as with all compromises that doesn't really work. What it means is that you have to load more coffee in the filter coffee machine than would be ideal in order to get the level of extraction you would get if the coffee had been correctly ground. So first pot of coffee based around my usual measures turned out to be disappointingly weak.

Day 2 - Loaded coffee machine with adjusted quantities of coffee, and hey presto! those wonderful Caramel notes started to surface.

Day 3 - Aaaaaaaagh! Coffee's ok, but not nearly as good as day two, despite being stored in the fridge and a barrier bag. What happened? Has the staling process of the coffee resulted in the finer qualities of the coffee disappearing, is it me?

Day 4 - Different again

I'm not sure what to conclude, clearly the coffee will be staling as oxygen from the atmosphere is absorbed by the grounds - interestingly also Centre Parcs put up a notice to say that the tap water had become unsafe to drink (there had been a lot of rain). Or finally was it me? Like all things we consume there are some days when we can't get enough of a particular food or drink, whilst on others when we really aren't bothered and in fact want something completly different.

As a coffee roaster it highlights just how diificult it is to achieve perfection when so many factors are at play. I guess consistency is the key - keep shooting at perfection and just maybe the coffee will be great more often than not.

A message from Monsignor Nicholas France

2008-05-24T07:12:00.002+01:00

In the local Jersey Evening Post they have a section called "Quotes of the week". This week the Roman Catholic Dean, Monsignor Nicholas France was talking about having been diagnosed with prostrate cancer. He said:

"It is good to be reminded that you are mortal and the truth of the fact that the graveyards are full of indispensable people"

Good luck with the treatment father

Latte Art Demonstration at Olympia London

2008-05-22T07:33:00.002+01:00

The 2007/8 World Barista champion, Englishman, James Hoffman has been giving a masterclass in advanced Barista training at the Caffe Culture show at Olympia in London this week. His passion for the subject is incredible and as can be seen from the attached photograph has brought a new meaning to the words "getting down and dirty". If you get a chance to listen to this guy take it.

Ethiopian Coffee Trademarking & Licensing Initiative

2008-05-13T22:26:00.002+01:00

Had a great surprise in Minnesota - Having been invited by H.E. Yaecob Yalla, State Minister of Agriculture & Rural Development; H.E. Dr. Samuel Assefa, Ethiopia's Ambassador to the US and Getachew Mengistie, Director General of EIPO to a special celebration dinner to honour the partnership of "Pioneer Licensees" under the Ethiopian Fine Coffees Trademarking and Licensing Initiative at the Hilton, 1001 Marquette Avenue, I was presented with a plaque on behalf of Cooper & Co. which now sits proudly above our Harar offering in our shop here in Jersey.

A great night and my thanks to the Ethiopian Government - Here's a 'photo to share - me with His Excellency Dr. Samuel Assefa, Ethiopia's Ambassador to the US.

Jura, what are you doing?

2008-05-13T21:50:00.003+01:00

In a previous blog I explained how to sort out a jammed Jura bean to cup coffee machine, which I'm pleased to say has helped out at least one person.

Yesterday a customer brought in a Jura F50 coffee machine for the 3rd time with exactly the same problem - the mechanism jamming. We went through the routine of removing the waste drawer and replacing the tray, and hey presto machine starts to function normally.

So what are Jura doing about the problem? As Jura agents we ask again what are Jura doing about the issue? Sorry louder .............JURA WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT THIS PROBLEM?

Who knows maybe the power of the blog will get some reaction. By the way they sell the best "bean to cup" coffee machines on the market, it's therefore a shame that solving a simple technical error is taking so long.

From Earl's Court, London to Minneapolis, Minnesota

2008-05-08T23:28:00.004+01:00

Well I'm back after what has been a hectic fortnight of travelling - tiring and inspiring!

We exhibited at the Real Food Festival in Earl's Court under the Jersey banner, the first time we've physically presented ourselves in the UK mainland. Not knowing what to expect, we did a stripped down version of showcasing some of our coffees.

I think Espresso based drinks have been done to death so instead we simply ground coffee into a filter paper, placed it in a filter cone and poured hot water over the highly aromatic coffee, producing one sensational cup of coffee.

Sometimes keeping things simple really works and here was a case in point. We sold hundreds of cups of coffee; it's amazing how interested people are in watching coffee being brewed - a purple cow Seth?

What the show did highlight is the great wealth of small businesses that exist around the country supplying farmers markets and being truly innovative; and you thought choice could be found in a supermarket!

The following weekend saw me at the Speciality coffee association of America's conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Once again another truly great show, inspirational speakers, in particular Michael Shuman, author of the Small Mart Revolution who gave the key note speech.

Times they are a changing "Small is the new Big"! - Community, community, community

Real Food Festival at Earls Court, London

2008-04-17T16:46:00.002+01:00

Our first foray off the Island will be at the real food festival in Earls Court on the 24th April - 27th April. (www.realfoodfestival.co.uk).

We are being supported by the Government's Economic Development Department and will be on the Jersey stand alongside six other excellent local businesses.

We're looking forward to showcasing four of our coffees which will be prepared and brewed in front of you in the simplest and most basic way. Look out also for our "beer mats" - there's a 10% discount on any on line purchases when you input the appropriate code.

If you're in town, see you there!

The importance of correctly ground coffee for Filter Coffee machines

2008-03-26T14:56:00.002Z

Like London buses nothing for ages, and then two come along at once!

We had an issue today with a restaurant customer of ours who was finding that his filter coffee was tasting very bitter. The immediate reaction might be to check how long he's been brewing it for, how clean is the machine / jugs etc.

However on this occasion we had to hold our hands up and say that we had ground the coffee a little too coarsely. Rather than the water being held by the coffee to allow time for brewing, it was passing through the filter way too quickly. The result a thin, bitter tasting beverage was pretty awful.

From our perspective particularly irritating because we carry out routine tests on our coffee grinders to ensure that extraction levels are correct - clearly something went wrong on this occasion.

The second issue was the total opposite. A domestic customer who grinds his own coffee was finding that he was getting grounds in his cup. He thought that he might be grinding his coffee too fine and that this was passing through the paper. This last point is virtually impossible unless the paper is splitting at the seam.

Actually though he is correct in that by grinding the coffee too fine, he's not actually allowing it to flow away sufficiently quickly and as a result the filter holder is becoming inundated with water and coffee, and then overflowing slightly into his cup / jug.

The interesting point is that in terms of microns, there probably isn't that much difference between the particle size of the coffee that hasn't been quite ground fine enough, and the one that is too fine, but the result in the cup is completely different.

So as for espresso coffee, the correct grind for filter coffee is just as important, it just doesn't get the headlines that espresso coffee gets.

Easter - A Christian story and much more?

2008-03-24T21:15:00.002Z

This Sunday past, my Church, Trinity Parish Church was filled to the gunwales (to use a naval expression!) . Why? - Isn't Christianity on the wane? - isn't going to Church a little old fashioned these days, we've heard that "God is dead" - as espoused by Nietzsche (countered by some wag who wrote "Nietzsche is dead - God!"). Then we've in more recent times had Richard Dawkins best selling book "The God delusion". With all this scepticism isn't it about time that we turned some valuable real estate, namely Trinity Parish Church into much needed housing?

As our Parish priest Geoff Houghton said to me - "blog about that David!"

What is it about the human condition that seeks spiritual as much as physical comfort? In an era where we have come to believe that science has an answer for everything why do we still seek comfort from something we don't even know exists? - Isn't it just a matter of time before science blows this God myth thing? Somehow I don't believe that that will ever be the case.

It seems as reflected in last Sunday's congregation of young and old that human communities have a great need to commune. To seek out that safe haven in times of turbulence, and what times they are - Unstable financial markets, soaring local house prices, massive borrowings and more recently Haut de la Garenne.

Rowan Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury) wrote a great article in this weekend's press, when talking about Jesus's crucifixion; how it was all about Jesus being used as a scapegoat; "how groups and societies work out their fears and frustrations by finding scapegoats".

We only have to look around our own community; binge borrowing is all the bank's fault for making money too readily available; house price rises are the fault of unscrupulous speculators; turbulent markets are due to US banks lax lending; Haut de la Garenne - the result of out of control individuals. And so it goes on - but hang on a minute when are we as a society or as individuals going to take the can for our own actions - the actions that result in the problems we want to pass on to someone else?

What Easter reminds us is that a couple of thousand years ago there was someone prepared to die for all of us to save us from ourselves. So is attending Church at Easter just a big guilt trip? - Once done we return to our old ways having as Monty Python would put it "taken the curse off" our guilt.

A few years ago I would have said yes to that question, but today I think a message is coming down to us, a message that our ancestors knew milenia ago , that is one of the fragility of everything we hold dear. Today we use the word sustainability , but sustainability encompasses so much, that it's a bit like trying to picture the size of the Universe; almost incomprehensible in it's vastness.

I believe we're going back to basics - our desire for spiritual help as we try to deal with the powerful elements that swirl around us at an ever increasing speed is something humankind has always returned to and there is something in the Christian message that is enduring - "that you should love one another as I have loved you". By constantly reminding ourselves of the need to help each other; that we're all part of the problem as well as the solution will we ultimately fulfill both our material and spiritual needs.

I don't think we'll be bulldozing Trinity Church for a few years yet!

5 minutes with Annie Nightingale

2008-03-19T22:02:00.002Z

That legend of BBC Radio 1 broadcasting Annie Nighingale recently did a "5-minute interview" with the Independent Newspaper today. The grand dame, now 65 stated "In a nutshell my philosophy is this" - "If not now, when? If not you, who?" - true wisdom!

Jersey Eisteddfod - the remarkable tallent of Jersey's youngsters

2008-03-13T09:46:00.003Z

Yesterday evening I was privileged to go and see the work that has been entered for this venerable competition. This time the focus is on arts and crafts, and what a show it is.

I've always said that Jersey is remarkable for the sheer quantity of talent that exists in such a small population. I believe it highlights the benefits of living in a small community where education, the environment and family life are held so dear.

From the quality of the entrants you can see the pride of those who support them, whether they be parents, teachers or friends. Then there was the prize giving at which the Governor of Jersey handed out certificates and trophies to young and old alike. We got to see the efforts of each entrant projected onto a large screen and we never tired of applauding their efforts.

Where then was Sky News or for that matter any of the terrestrial channels? The national newspapers, Newsnight camera crews? Is this just too much of a "good news" story?

What has happened at Haut de la Garenne is appalling and I hope that those responsible will be brought to justice; as a society it shows what happens when we don't embrace those who are less fortunate and don't act like the biblical "Good Samaritan", but instead ask other agencies to sort out problems that society don't want to deal with. We must all learn from this lesson and move forward.

However what the Eisteddfod shows is the positive side of a community that encourages and nurtures and surely this is something to celebrate -

24 hour rolling news has a responsibility here too - rather than continually looking to be destructive in their coverage why can't you tell the world of the good that so many people do for a change?

Read all about it!

2008-03-09T19:43:00.003Z

I've just found out that the BBC has discovered the Island's Blogging community and are telling the world - old news?

See the article on the following link: BBC JERSEY

Jura bean to cup coffee machine - problem solving

2008-03-04T21:54:00.002Z

We had a call today from the owner of a Jura bean to cup coffee machine with a problem that we've now seen on a few occassions.

This lady went to replace the waste drawer in the machine, only to find that it wouldn't relocate properly. What appears to be happening is that for some reason the coffee brewing unit seems to get stuck in mid cycle. This results in a part of the mechanism "sticking out" and interferring with the waste box.

As usual with this type of problem no mention is made in the manual as to how to overcome it which really is quite simple.

You ensure that the machine remains switched on, you then remove the waste unit - this includes both the tray and the waste box. Now put the waste box to one side and slide the tray back in. Interestingly it is the one part of the machine that doesn't have a sensor telling you that you've left something out!

When you have replaced the tray, if the mechanism still doesn't return, try making a coffee to force the machine to reset itself.

We have found this proceedure to work 100% of the time, however clearly if the problem remains, it's time to contact your Jura service agent.

Don't forget that once the problem has been resolved to replace the waste box!

Don't forget the Engine Room of Jersey

2008-03-04T21:43:00.002Z

This blog follows on from my last one and endeavours to remind our decision makers of the importance of looking after those people who desire no recognition just a fair wage for a fair day's work.

In the age of the global market place and the immense competition that the internet provides it takes quite some effort to differentiate yourself and have sustainable success in a market place of just 90,000 people, something I don’t believe is recognised by many of our decision makers.

I would like to pay tribute to those who work in what I would describe as the engine room of Jersey’s business community. Those like my staff who work hard, don’t ask for recognition, earn a decent wage and yet because of the ridiculous cost of housing are unable to contemplate ever one day owning their own property and having a deserved stake in our community.

If we as a community don’t do anything to redress this appalling inequity we will be sowing the seeds of our own destruction. Why should local people work for local businesses if they can never hope to have a stake in the future of their own society? If nothing is done about this problem local businesses will increasingly need staff from outside of the Island which can only leave any immigration policy in tatters if we want a diversified and sustainable business community.

Inevitably the development of St. Helier will have to look to the heavens if we want to keep the rest of this wonderful Island green, anything less and we’ll be simply doing the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Here’s to the unrecognised heroes of Jersey enterprise – the engine room

The Enterprise awards that failed to recognise the enterprises

2008-03-04T20:52:00.003Z

Last Thursday (28th Feb) was supposed to be the night when large and small local businesses were supposed to be given the red carpet treatment by the States of Jersey Economic Development Department led by Senator Ozouf.

Sadly for all the razamattaz and effort put into organising the event the businesses who had entered the awards competition must be wondering why they bothered.

In front of an international audience not one business was profiled, not one winner got an opportunity to speak. The small business winners, a software development company who many in the audience had never heard of, walked on and off without any of us being any the wiser as to why they won or what they do, why? - What a missed opportunity and how disappointing for them.

James Caan of BBC's Dragons Den fame who gave the keynote speech talked about the importance of people, and it is of course people who make or break businesses. I would therefore like to take this opportunity, an opportunity I wasn't given on the night of the awards to acknowledge the people who work with me every day and who helped get my business shortlisted in the small business category which contained between 50 and 60 entrants although you wouldn't have known it.

I start with a famous quotation by Sir Isaac Newton – 1642-1727

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”

And those giants and members of staff are:

Kathy Jehan - Who has been with the business for 18 years and who is the only true local. She has been unstinting in her efforts in running the office. Going way beyond her call of duty

Philip Bull - Originally from Wales who has been with the business for over 25 years and who has been key over the years in the operations of the business

Pedro Mendes - From Portugal who has been delivering customer orders for nearly 10 years now

Ania Emerli - From Poland who has run our shop for the last 3 years and made such an impact

Lorna Frow - Originally from Yorkshire, the new kid on the block who has filled the shoes of Stephan (who returned to Sweden) so well in the operations side of the business.

And last but not least Robert Wheeldon who at the end of last year took over the job of roasting our coffee and has already made such a positive impression.

On the outside we have Harry Sutherland-Hawes who works in London, the man behind the Cooper's look and who keeps me on the straight and narrow!

Finally I would like to give a mention to those who have inspired me over the years

The recently retired ceo of the SCAA: Ted Lingle who has championed quality coffee and the cause of the industry for as many years as I can remember

Kenneth Davids, a great writer and reviewer of coffee whose tastings make you want to tour the coffee world for the rest of your life

Sunalini Menon from Bangalore, a massive supporter of Indian coffee who tours the worlds trade shows promoting Indian coffee and the person who introduced me to Monsooned Malabar coffees at a memorable tasting

To the growers:

From Daterra Farm in Brazil –

Isabel Pascoal – Her energy and passion for sustainability

Holly Nottebohm from the Nueva Granada farm in Guatemala who I first met in LA discussing the books she needed to get for the farms Creche

Simon Wakefield – Whose passion for sourcing great sustainable coffee is now paying off

And finally………….To Howard Schultz, who in 1987 bought Starbucks a small coffee business based in Pike, Seattle and revolutionised our coffee drinking habits and the reason why Coopers today is able to showcase so many of the great coffees of the world.

I salute you all

Difference - What are we so frightened of?

2008-02-25T20:50:00.002Z

There's a famous coffee shop found in the souqs of Khan al-Khalili in the Islamic quarter of Cairo called Fishawi's - It's open 24 hours a day and all they appear to sell is tea, coffee and Sheesha (a water pipe used for smoking). The only question the waiter asks after he has identified that you want a coffee is "do you want sugar in it?"
All Cairo seems to pass through their doors - I say doors only in a metaphorical sense as it has no doors; in fact the only way you know where the coffee shop starts and ends is when the chairs run out! Like so many shops in the Souqs they exist in one of the many alley ways populated by hawkers and panhandlers.
The waiters will proudly show you an ancient photograph of the old King Farouk in his dark glasses, who used to frequent the place. What can you say about Fishawi's? It's so .........Egyptian!
It's the distilled essence of Cairo; King's have been deposed, Presidents have come and gone, but Fishawi's like the Pyramids of Giza has always been, please God don't let it disappear.

Then there's the Coptic quarter, the part of Cairo that came before Cairo even existed. When Byzantine Rome became a Christian empire and before the armies of the east brought Islam. Here stand the great Christian Coptic churches, side by side with the Islamic mosques - each respecting the others tradition yet each determined to maintain their own identity.

Finally there are the kilometers of bland anonymous-looking high rise flats, typical in its own way of suburbia that surrounds any of the great cities of the world. Yet even here in this apparent anonymity, people crave recognition. Many of the porches from which hangs so much washing are painted in vivid colours; some in single colours, others using quite complex designs. So everywhere you look over the eons of time humankind has always wanted to leave a mark - a plaintive cry, "remember me!"

All of which makes Cairo airport like so many airports around the globe such a depressing place - a synthesis of global mono-culture. Where Coke, Cappuccino, Pizza, Pasta and French fries dominate the menus. A sanitized, stainless steel and plastic society. One that subjugates individuality. Where now is the confidence in our own cultures; our own traditions; our creative addition to our world?

Is it no wonder therefore that despite being better educated, having more opportunity than any previous generation, so many in our society reject what is on offer and seek to disfigure and disrupt.

In Jersey where I live we don't appear to be able to trust our own people to even deliver such key projects as a design for our waterfront or our own tourism website. We like so many cultures today are frightened of being different - taking a chance; in turn our own society becomes indifferent.

Rather than being indifferent to our own cultures we must get back to celebrating them. Celebrating the creativity of each and every individual from whichever culture that goes to make the human race such an extraordinary force.

Long live Fishawi's and those who strive to be different.

Coffee pods and machine set up in Food Service environment

2008-02-13T15:45:00.002Z

Coffee pods as opposed to capsules are playing an increasing part in low volume outlets, they're clean, they ensure a consistent cup of coffee and require very little training to use.

What though has not been very much analysed as far as I can see is the change required to the set-up of the traditional two group espresso machine. I refer to the pump pressure, the temperature setting, the group head and the type of inserts needed in the group handles to maximize coffee extraction.

Some manufacturers are now providing special group heads for pods, two that have come to my attention are Nuova Simonelli and Fracino, both systems work well. However it isn't just a case of simply changing the group head and all your troubles are over. It's vital that the "basket" in the group head is the correct depth to take the pod, either a single or double. Too shallow and the water struggles to get through the pod, too deep and the water rushed past the pod without picking up any flavour.

On top of this if you don't change the group head to a pod version, this in turn will impact on the type of basket you can use in the group handle.

Now assuming that you've sorted out the above two points, it's vital that the pump pressure and machine water temperature are correctly calibrated. My experience is that the pump pressure can be reduced to around 8 bar, or at least a bar lower than for conventional loose group coffee. Don't ask me why, but too high a bar pressure will result in the water passing through the pod too quickly.

Finally, I believe average pressure in the water boiler needs to be set a little higher for pods. The fact that the water has to get through the paper wrapper means that there is a definite loss of water temperature when the water eventually hits the coffee. The problem I believe here is that paper is not a very good conductor of heat.

All of the above do need to be tweaked in varying degrees to optimise the quality of the drink that ends up in the cup and are vital to ensure that the consistency you are looking to achieve through the use of pods isn't wasted.

Constable Gallichan’s cows

2008-01-31T09:03:00.000Z

There’s a sign on the road that leads up to my house with the silhouette of a Jersey cow, it’s scratched and a little battered. I’ve often wondered when the last cow crossed this road to the fields across the way from my house which used to be part of an old Jersey farm.

Yesterday I was reminded of the poignancy of that sign by the announcement that Mr. Gallichan who lives down the road from me has decided to give up his herd of Jersey cows because the numbers simply don’t stack up any more.

How I’ll miss Constable Gallichan’s cows.

Every morning on my way into work I, like so many other Islanders who live in the Trinity area drive past Mr. Gallichan’s farm and over the years I’ve got used to watching the activities of these simple ruminants. If I was really early, maybe going to catch the “red eye” I would be in time to see the cattle gathering outside the milking shed, steaming in the misty early morning electric light long before dawn.

If I was a little later the cows would have vanished, but from the intensity of the light pouring out of the buildings one could tell that the milking was in full swing.

A little later still and the cows would be out in the field grazing away come rain or shine.

Then there were the slight irritations: Mr. Gallichan moving the cows across the road as early morning commuters impatiently waited whilst he battled with that last cow that had just spotted the perfect piece of grass, and then finally once across he waved us on; the smell of the slurry that reminded one of the less savoury jobs on the farm.

But this morning as I went past Mr. Gallichan’ s farm there were no lights, no cows looking dolefully at us fretting commuters, the gentle rhythms to which I have become so accustomed have stopped, replaced by the ghosts of what has been.

How I’ll miss Constable Gallichan’s cows.

Happy New Year - how was it for you?

2008-01-11T09:23:00.000Z

Shopping trends around Christmas seem to have changed dramatically over the last 2 or 3 years, which makes humble retailers like me very nervous when it comes to guestimating what levels of stock to carry.

What we are seeing is a definite split in December. Early December seems to be internet time, whilst late December and in particular the last week before Christmas seems to be coming increasingly critical to the success of December as a whole for retailers. A case of having to hold your nerve.

Our experience was that in the first 2 weeks of December we were 10% down on the comparable period last year, however the final week and in fact the final day before Christmas turned this all around to see us improve by over 10% over the whole month, effectively a 20% swing in 7 days of trading.

There were some local issues, the weather wasn't great in early December, however we didn't open on any of the Sundays as we had done the previous year (I personally have a moral issue in this regard- but I guess I'm a bit old fashioned!) and only went for one late night shopping opening. On an Island like Jersey it proves to me that opening all the hours God gives you only serves to spread the same trade over a huge number of additional hours; is totally unnecessary and in my view destroys community.

What does it all prove? Well I reckon that if you're in the consumable business any credit crunch which results in consumer spending reducing should have a limited impact. I think that is what Marks and Spencer found, with their food side remaining strong, whilst their clothing suffered.

I think consumers are starting to revert to item they need, rather than want. However having said that there was a great interest in speciality coffees that are competitively priced. Our customers increasingly want to experiment with coffees they've never tried before. The key is education; storage issues, cleaning, warming, shelf life once opened etc.

We've also found that recommending the local Jersey full fat (yellow) milk for use in Cafetieres (French press) has also enhanced many of our customer's experience of our coffees. In fact I've had two people stop me in the street they were so pleased.

The future though for speciality retailers like us I believe ultimately lies in "localness" - the network of local small businesses working together to produce a unique offering of which the community is proud.

Quality, quality, quality

Krups XP4050 - Case example of support in theory

2007-12-28T21:31:00.000Z

It's that time of year when as a retailer you find out just how good the support is for espresso coffee machines you sold prior to Christmas.

We had a query on a Krups XP4050 espresso machine that we sold which wasn't functioning as expected. In anticipation of receiving the machine I took a brand new machine from our stock line and set up the machine ready for use.

The first thing you notice about this machine is its level of automation at such a competitive price which should be applauded. You sense that the manufacturers are a little nervous of "real users". Upon filling the water tank the machine primes itself, that is fills the boiler with water automatically, which is fine as long as it works. In my case no problems.

However just to make sure I made a few cups of coffee and deliberately ran out of water, like many a "real user". This results in the pump sucking air into the boiler.

I refilled the water container and then went to make another coffee only to discover that the machine couldn't get any water into the boiler - it was air locked. I turned to the troubleshooting page in the manual and found ............nothing!.................yes that's nothing on how to overcome a simple air lock. Extraordinary!

For those of you who experience this problem the solution couldn't be easier - simply press the water button on the front panel. This has the effect of opening the boiler valve and forcing the air out which in turn is replaced by water and away you go.

The second issue about which there is no mention in the manual is if you experience problems foaming your milk for cappuccinos. Again all is simple in theory, and the principle used is one used on much more expensive systems, so it should work well. What I got was a lot of "spitting" hot milk and only a hint of foam. Yes I used fresh milk, yes it was cold but now what? Manual troubleshooting? - you'd be lucky

So I turned to the "helpline" who couldn't or wouldn't deal with the problem but instead offered to send me a replacement part. Now I don't know if I even have a faulty part, all I want is someone to tell me what I might try, to improve the situation - surely in the computer vaults of Krups someone has had to deal with this very same problem a zillion times, sadly if they have, Krups are keeping the information close to their chest.

A solution I found and not a particularly satisfactory one was to raise the milk container from which the milk is being drawn so that the flow of milk down the tube into the steam wand
was much greater. More foam was produced, however I still wasn't comfortable with the amount of milk that ended up in the cup.

So Krups whoever is responsible for customer care at your multi-million pound organisation, please take a long hard look at your manuals, particularly the troubleshooting bit and put some really helpful tips in; and when it comes to a 'phone helpline, please allow your support "engineers" access to the kind of information that might just help me a simple user.

The beauty of language

2007-12-23T22:28:00.002Z

This evening (Sunday 23rd December) was the annual "festival of nine lessons and carols" at Holy Trinity church in Jersey.

The Church was packed, the choir and congregation were in great voice and one got the sense that it was a wonderful community event. Community! such an old fashioned word in today's highly mobile society.

What though was it that made this service such a wonderful event? For me it was the language - the readings were mostly taken from the King James bible which turns the English language into an art form. The opening lesson from Genesis3: 8-15 with Adam complaining that "the serpent beguiled me"- What if instead of beguiled, the word "tricked" or "deceived" were used in its place? No sometimes the beauty of the English language is that we have a word when used in its correct context adds so much to the imagery and immensity of the occasion.

The language though that I wish I had learnt at school is Latin - the choir sang two pieces with Latin titles - "In Dulcie Jubilo" and "Laudamus Te "; it's so frustrating when you don't know what these titles mean so with apologies to all Latin scholars this is what I came up with from the dictionary: "Good Christian men rejoice" - incidentally there appears to be no "e" on the word "dulci" but I stand corrected.

As for "Laudamus Te", it appears to be a shortened version of the full sentence "Te Deum laudamus: te Dominum confitemur", which translates to "O God, we praise Thee: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord." - a few words that mean such a lot.

The one hymn that I felt could be improved by not being sung in English though is "Silent night, Holy night", I've always thought that the German language gets across the magic of this hymn, not that I have much knowledge of the German language , I think it's just the sound. For the record here is the hymn translated:

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hochheilige Paar.
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Hirten erst kundgemacht
Durch der Engel Halleluja,
Tönt es laut von fern und nah:
Christ, der Retter ist da!
Christ, der Retter ist da!

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht
Lieb' aus deinem göttlichen Mund,
Da uns schlägt die rettende Stund'.
Christ, in deiner Geburt!
Christ, in deiner Geburt!

Silent night, holy night
All is calm all is bright
'Round yon virgin Mother and Child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night, holy night,
Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar,
Heav'nly hosts sing Alleluia;
Christ the Savior is born
Christ the Savior is born

Silent night, holy night,
Son of God, love's pure light.
Radiant beams from Thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth

It's a difficult decision for a Church in Jersey to sing a hymn in German on such an auspicious occasion given the history of what happened nearly 70 years ago, but surely that's what Christianity is all about forgiveness - I hope that one day we'll have the priviledge of hearing this wonderful hymn sung in what traditionally isn't a language particularly renowned for its beauty.

Now we move on to Christmas, and I wish all those who read my blog a very Happy Christmas and prosperous New Year

Ethiopian Coffee Trademarking & Licensing Initiative

2007-12-15T16:24:00.000Z

We're really pleased to be mentioned in dispatches on the CSRwire web site. We recently signed up to the above initiative as we believe that it is vital for inidividual countries to keep control of their unique coffee heritage.
Our job as coffee roasters is to communicate this wonderful heritage to our customers and endeavour to highlight those unique characteristics that come out of each origin by roasting the coffee as carefully as possible. In our case we sell Ethiopian Harrar as a single origin coffee, as well as using its unique characteristics in some of our finest espreso blends.
Where better a country to start such an initiative than in the true homeland of coffee.

Briel Espresso machine cleaning - updated

2007-12-10T14:59:00.000Z

I was reminded the other day when two Briel espresso machines were recently brought into us that I first did a blog on this topic back in August 2006, however we still seem to be getting the same issues.

HEALTH WARNING

Before you attempt any of the following take great care to ensure that you are aware of which surfaces are hot and give them time to cool down. When using any chemicals flush the machine thoroughly with clean water afterwards, and should you splash any chemicals on your person wash away immediately as they can be quite aggressive on the skin.

A further issue though was brought to my attention, that of the steam wand becoming blocked. This part is usually blocked for one of two reasons:

1. Scale

If it is a scale problem, "pray" that you can still get some water through the wand. If you can it means that you can get descaling solution into the heart of the wand by filling the water tank, then turning on the water pump and opening up the steam wand immediately. Once you see a trickle of water coming out of the end of the wand switch off the pump and turn off the machine. Leave for 10 minutes, then switch on the machine repeating the process of switching on the pump and opening the steam wand valve. If there's any justice the flow of water should increase as the scale falls away or is dissolved. Run plenty of clean water through the machine afterwards prior to using it.

2. Milk

The problem occurs because after the steam wand has been used no attempt has been made to "flush out" any milk that may have gone up inside the steam wand. Gradually this builds up to the point where it is impossible for any steam to escape.

We have tried chemicals in the past to clear these types of blockages, however because nothing is moving it has not proved to be a good approach. As usual the simplest methods tend to be the best.

You will need to dismantle any plastic attachments found on the end of the metal part of the steam wand. Check if any of the holes are blocked, they tend to be very small and usually only a pin or "unbent" paper clip will do the trick.

You can very quickly establish if the problem lies in the plastic section by checking if any steam is coming out of the metal part of the wand, if it is all problems lie within the plastic section.

However should the metal part of the steam wand be blocked you will once again need to use (and I have found this to be the best) an unbent paper clip to try to dislodge any congealed milk. Once you think you've removed any solid bits, let the machine heat up again and open up the steam wand valve. Pay a lot of attention at this point as you might find that nothing will come out immediately, however after a few moments the steam pressure may suddenly blow out the last vestiges of crusty milk so don't have your hands or face too near the end of the steam wand.

This process may need to be repeated a few times if the blockage is really bad, however do persevere we've usually got everything working again after a few attempts.

The lesson ultimately is that when you have finished foaming or steaming your milk always flush out the steam wand to air, otherwise you face the challenge of the above activity.

The following is a copy of my earlier blog

Briel espresso machine maintenance (Aug 2006)

We've had a couple of machines in recently which if our customer had been more sensitive to the maintenance requirements of their machine, we wouldn't have seen, so I thought it would be a good idea to highlight a couple of things you can do to increase the longevity of your machine.

The following refers in particular to Briel coffee machines, however the principles can be applied to all domestic machines.

1. Maintenance of the group head

When you take out the group handle and inspect the area from which the water emanates, you will notice a large brass screw. Around the edge of the screw there are a series of notches at regular intervals. It is vital that these remain clear of any debris, otherwise the machines pumps will be put under severe pressure, and you will struggle to make a coffee.

The main causes of blockages are ground coffee, and limescale.

When the machine is cold, use a short handled screwdriver to remove this brass screw. It's important that you get the right sized screwdriver, otherwise you are in danger of damaging the screw.

If you experience problems removing the screw, it's sometimes a good idea to descale the coffee machine first. This can help to remove any scale that might be causing the screw to stick.

When you have released the screw you will find that there is a spring and rubber "bung" that comes out at the same time.

This bung helps seal the boiler so that no water escapes into the group head whilst the machine is heating up. The spring helps keep the bung in position. So suffice it to say, don't lose either of these parts.

There are now a couple of things you can do. If you haven't already, now is a good opportunity to descale the machine, following carefully the manufacturer's instructions.

Once you have done this clean the notches that surround the screw with either an old tooth brush or some other tough scarifying material. Wash thoroughly after you have finished.

Once everything appears clean, replace the screw, spring and rubber bung. Hand tight should be sufficient.

Switch on your machine and flush through with water to ensure that any remaining loose material is removed.

If you use your machine regularly then you should look to do this procedure I would suggest once a month. In hard water areas probably weekly.

Remember, if you do have to switch on the machine at any point during the cleaning process ensure that you leave an appropriate amount of time for it to cool down before you continue working on it.

Local heroes

2007-11-30T17:25:00.000Z

Not quite sure that we justify such an awesome tag "local hero", but great to see a local restaurant highlighting the quality of all things Jersey. We are truly fortunate on the Island of Jersey to have such a wonderful heritage of small businesses doing outstanding things. Thank-you for the public acknowledgement Boathouse, a great idea and may it bring a lot of benefit to all those passionate about food and drink here on Jersey.

Costa Rica - Dota Tarrazu

2007-11-30T16:59:00.000Z

Traditionally we've always stocked the classic "San Marcos" Tarrazu coffee, however we've decided to give Coope Dota a try and I must say haven't been disappointed.

As you can see from the title the coffee still comes from the Tarrazu region which is near San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica and is grown at altitudes between 1,100 and 1,800 metres.

This coffee is certified by the Speciality Coffee Association of Costa Rica and rightly so,
we love the sweet aroma and caramel notes that come with this coffee particularly when made through an espresso machine.

Another coffee for the connoisseur. The following link will take you to the product on our website

Costa Rica Dota Tarrazu

Papua New Guinea Fair Trade Organic Coffee

2007-11-30T16:39:00.000Z

Yet another great new coffee for us. It comes from the Eastern Highlands Province and is grown at between 4,800' and 6000'.

We've put it through a Cafetiere (French press) and got wonderful nutty and citrus notes.

For the techies amongst you it's 100% Arabica with a combination of varietals that include typica, arusha and bourbon.

It's a great looking coffee, carefully processed by the "wet" method with no discernible defects. We've roasted it to a full medium colour to accentuate those wonderful flavours.

You can find it on our website by following this short cut

http://www.cooper.co.je/product/productinfo.aspx?id=368&cid=3

Steam wand issues in domestic espresso machines

2007-11-15T22:17:00.000Z

Two of the most common problems in the steam department of home espresso machines are:
1. Lack of cleaning
2. Air locks

This blog is based on the assumption that the machine is actually producing steam

Today most modern espresso machine steam wands come pre-fitted with an "auto-frothing" device, whilst being a very clever idea, guaranteeing foam when working properly, they can also be very frustrating to use. The main problem is one of cleanliness.

If the holes which let in the air within the frothing device become blocked you will end up with some very hot milk but no foam. For foam to be created air has to be driven into the milk by the steam. What I have found on many occasions is that the user is unaware that the frothing device can be taken apart and washed, as a result the foam mysteriously disappears and the machine gets blamed for its inability to create vast quantities of foam.

Foaming devices can be easily pulled apart - once inside you will find lumps of dried milk - give each part a good clean, reassemble and hopefully frothy cappuccinos can once again be yours.

If this doesn't cure the problem then issue two as mentioned above, an airlock is likely to be the cause of your problems.

Airlocks can be created if the machine runs out of water and can usually only be removed by driving water through the steam wand and group head of the machine. This is done by opening fully the knob that controls the steam and then switching on the pump that is usually used to drive water through the coffee.

Place a receptacle under the steam wand to catch any water that comes out - When you have a good flow of water, turn off the pump, and shut down the steam wand using the controlling knob. Allow the machine to heat up again and hopefully steam pressure will have returned.

As I experienced the other day, this proceedure may need to be carried out two or three times to remove all airlocks, do persevere because unless there is a more major problem such as an element failure in the machine (which would mean that no steam was being generated) it should be perfectly possible to achieve a good steam pressure once again.

Enjoy your cappuccino!

Population growth - Politics versus Reality

2007-11-08T08:42:00.000Z

Why is it possible for a brand new Hotel on the Waterfront to get 10’s if not a 100 licences for unqualified staff, yet many existing small businesses on Jersey struggle to get given one un-qualified licence?

Why is it that there are youngsters in our society who struggle to find a job yet many small businesses complain that they can’t find qualified staff to fill critical vacancies?

It all stems from the thorny political problem of wanting economic growth without excessive population growth – So on the one hand we encourage a new Hotel development as a welcome addition to our tourism offer, however sweep quietly under the carpet the reality that there are insufficient locally qualified individuals to staff the Hotel, hence the liberal sprinkling of unqualified licences. What population growth problem?

So why then instead of surreptitiously handing out licences on a case by case basis doesn’t the minister put his cards on the table and openly state what the policy is? Surely if a small business knew they could automatically have at least one unqualified licence then a lot of the heartache, ill will and suspicion that many businesses have towards the Regulations of Undertakings department would evaporate as at a stroke a small sliver of red tape was removed.

But of course if we are going to make any attempt to control population growth long term we have to ensure that we maximize the use of our existing Human resources. To this end an initiative has been put forward to bring the many disparate areas namely Social security, Careers advisory services etc. under one banner called the “Skills executive”.

A commendable idea, but I fear it doesn’t tackle the core problem, that of the right data being in the hands of the right people. It’s a huge challenge particularly when the obvious source, namely Regulations of Undertakings could well be restricted by the Data Protection act. Yet another hurdle, but then what’s new!

If students don’t know about the opportunities, and businesses can’t tell them how can Govt. know what training is required? I know there are careers advisors in schools but they are fewer than 10 versus the 2,500 businesses on the Island who employ 10 or fewer. They are only going to put forward industry sectors, and small business is not an industry sector.

I have been talking with Andrew Gibbs at the Highlands careers advisory service to see if there is a way to set up a central database that can be used by both students and businesses alike.

A relevant, reliable and flexible system; get this in place first, then and only then will in my view a skills executive succeed in delivering its intended benefits.

David Warr

Vivre la difference!

2007-10-06T07:44:00.000+01:00

As global corporates do, somehow Nespresso managed to get an Independent Newspaper reporter to do a 3 page spread for free. Because I don't have the budget to compete against that kind of power and in case the Independent Newspaper don't publish my response, here are my views on the editorial:

4/10/07

The Editor

The Independent Newspaper

Re: Article “The cult of Nespresso”

Dear Sir,

As a roaster of speciality coffee I read with despair the item on Nespresso and how two of the top restaurants in the UK proudly use the product.

Comments such as “consistency” and not having “half an hours worth of washing up” only go to highlight why the ubiquitous tea bag and M & S ready meals have come to be such a success in a generation of time starved automatons.

Do the chefs of Sketch and the Fat Duck pop down to their local supermarket for ready made Shepherd’s pie when they put it on their menu, in the knowledge that it will be “consistently good”? I doubt it, so why then should Coffee not be given the same level of respect?

Coffee is an organic product, and like meat, broccoli or potatoes varies from batch to batch and season to season, the challenge is to consistently put great coffee in the cup, but then isn’t that true of most foods, and why we recognise great chefs?

In a world of de-skilling and dumbing down none is better than global organisations such as Nestle. Why should I as a business go through all that costly training with real human beings when Nestle offer the panacea of the capsule. Just think how a businesses bottom line is improved, simply pressing a button allows you to carry on paying the minimum wage to the next person off the boat.

To hell with the cost in terms of packaging waste and the double standards of people who on the one hand re-cycle their newspapers, but on the other make every coffee they drink using a Nestle capsule.

I’ve spent the last 18 years of my life roasting coffee for a living, and it is a huge challenge, but it has been and is a wonderful, sometimes frustrating, but mostly exhilarating journey. I’ve met people from all around the world – People who are passionate about what they do, despite being paid very little, mostly because the largest roasters in the world are able to play one country off against another.

I can count growers as my friends; I want to continually do the best I can for them and all their hard work. I can’t morally beat them down when I know what goes into delivering great coffee, and nor should our society.

Great coffee, like great wine and great food can take a lifetime to perfect, please don’t let it be reduced to the equivalent of a happy pill. Where are the Gordon Ramsey’s or Delia Smith’s of the coffee world who will stand up and defend the good name of coffee as roasted by thousands of micro roasters around the globe? It’s time to stand up and be counted, otherwise everything written in the seminal booklet “Mugged” , Poverty in your coffee cup by Oxfam will come true.

Inspiration for small businesses

2007-10-04T09:10:00.000+01:00

As anyone who runs their own business knows, it can be a lonely place sometimes. You do what you think is right and what you believe in, however things don't always go to plan and as a result it can leave you deflated and wondering why you make the necessary sacrifices.

Well a customer of mine called today asking why we didn't do a particular product line under our own brand, he believed that our reputation is such that people would fall over themselves to use it if we put our name to the product.

I told him that we continually look for these kinds of opportunities, but that the volumes involved sometimes meant that we couldn't justify the cost. He was pleased to hear this and appreciated my dilemma. He then came out with this wonderful quote which really reassures you that what you are striving to achieve isn't being done in vane and is appreciated:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

Apparently it is attributed to the English philosopher Edmund Burke

I know it sounds dramatic, and not all our competitors are evil, but at least it reflects that other people appreciate our values and that we are not ploughing a lone furrow.

I hope that inspires those of you who run your own businesses

Passing of Marcel Marceau (Mangel) aged 84

2007-09-28T08:33:00.000+01:00

This has absolutely nothing to do with coffee, tea, Jersey, simply humanity.

The quote comes from a wreath placed at the graveside of Marcel Marceau who was buried at Pere Lachaise (apologies for the lack of an accent) cemetery alongside such names as Edith Piaf, Chopin, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison.

"The cry of silence will be eternal."

Rest in peace Marcel, isn't it incredible how one man's silence had the ability to bring so much joy to the world.

A classic milk moment

2007-08-20T21:31:00.000+01:00

I go on and on about milk handling and it's importance to the quality of your cappuccino however I've never ever been quite as eloquent as Hanna Neuschwander in her interesting article published in the latest Barista Magazine

The article entitled "The House that Foam Built" goes into immense details, but at its core has the simplest message "You can have the most expensive, drug-free, cow-happy milk in the universe - hell, you could milk the cow yourself - and it will still suck if you steam it wrong"

Here here

Stale coffee, blunt blades, leaking group head seals - An everyday story of a low volume coffee site

2007-08-13T11:55:00.000+01:00

As a coffee roaster who wants every customer to enjoy great coffee it can sometimes be a frustrating business, particularly when dealing with smaller cafes.

An experience I encountered the other day makes you appreciate that it's not easy to serve great coffee when it's just one of a long list of items from staffing issues to the next rent payment that you need to worry about.

If you are reading this blog and the above sounds familiar, then can I suggest that you pay real attention to the following critical areas in your coffee making day.

1. Review how much coffee you are actually selling, if your usage is below 1 kilo (about 140 cups) a week you should be considering using individually packed pods. The coffee beans being an organic product stale quickly once open to the air, whereas pods are designed to only be opened when they are needed. They seem expensive against the price of beans, but will deliver a consistent cups of coffee whilst you try to build up those sales.

2. If you can justify using beans, then don't overfill the coffee grinder hopper. At most a 1/3rd full will suffice. Better to top up from the bag often, than to have the coffee beans getting stale in the hopper. Just to add that once a bag of beans has been opened, ensure you squeeze as much air out as possible, and then store in a cool place.

3. Don't grind too much coffee, again less and often are two words that if followed will deliver a better tasting cup of coffee. I would suggest throwing any ground coffee left over away, but you'd probably say that that was a roaster speaking!

4. Coffee grinder blades - Their condition is vital to the quality of grind you get. Worn blades will not deliver great coffee. As a rule of thumb, every time you have your espresso machine opened up for insurance purposes, it's a good idea to get the grinder blades changed at the same time. It's not that expensive, and will benefit coffee sales.

5. Before making any coffee, ensure that the machine is at the correct operating temperature. Machines left standing doing nothing will not deliver great coffee if used immediately after a quiet period. Ensure a couple of cup-fulls of water are sent through the group heads prior to making a coffee.

6. Cleanliness - Do a "chemical" clean of the group heads of your machine at least once a week. A water flush at the end of the day is vital to stop the heads clogging up, but a chemical clean will break down any stale oils left hanging around. Also don't forget to clean the group handles and baskets at the same time. Baskets may look clean from the top, but take them out and you will be surprised how black the underside can become. It will all go in the cup of coffee otherwise.

7. Steam wand cleaning - Ensure that milk isn't left hanging on the steam wand, it will clog up the holes and can cause a major hygiene problem, it doesn't look great either to a potential customer and to my mind makes a statement about the place before a coffee is even made.

There I hope that helps those of you who don't sell that much coffee for whatever reason. As a roaster whether you are large or small, we only want you to sell great coffee.

Guatemalan coffee from the Nueva Granada estate

2007-08-02T15:35:00.001+01:00

I was introduced to Holly Nottebohm at the Speciality Coffee Association of America coffee conference held in Los Angeles earlier this year where her farm won an award for their coffee quality from the Rainforest Alliance.

Her enthusiasm for her farm shone like a beacon of light; She also tells me that one of her pet hobbies when she's away is to collect books to take back to her local school. A real human face that for me is what has been missing for so many years when coffee was treated as so much commodity.

So it's with great pleasure that I announce the introduction to our range, of her farm's coffee. The particular line is "Monteflora", the estate Nueva Granada. We have been careful not to roast the coffee too dark to ensure that those caramel notes that one of the judges highlighted shine through. It's great in filter machines and French presses with a fresh pastry. I'm feeling hungry and thirsty already!

The total madness that is the Island’s waste management system

2007-08-02T15:28:00.000+01:00

My comments stem from what I foolishly thought was a clever idea as to how we might recycle our cardboard waste.

A recent employee of mine who came from Sweden was appalled at the fact that we simply threw in the bin all our cardboard waste, something that simply doesn’t happen in Sweden. So I made contact with John Rive the recycling guru on the Island who gave the thumbs up to the idea that we take our cardboard waste to the Central Market waste area for recycling.

So far so good; however on the last occasion that we walked our cardboard waste around to the Central Market we were told that this was the last time they would accept it. I guess it was all too simple.

Apparently a letter will be making its way round to us from a gentleman by the name of Paul Griffin of Property Holdings; they’ve got nothing to do with waste management, but look after the Central market. Apparently the problem was that the scheme was so successful that their people didn’t have enough hours left in the day to do their other market work. They also aren’t prepared to hire more staff to do work that I guess rightly so isn’t their problem, but of course ultimately it is their problem, because the Island’s waste management is a problem for the whole of our society.

So now who do we turn to? Well apparently that’s a very good question; Transport and Technical Services are in charge of the central handling of waste on this Island, that means they run Bellozane, but don’t tell anyone, they also collect waste from some bins around the Royal Square I’m reliably informed. The rest of the waste in the Parish of St. Helier is collected by the Parish. By the time you add up all the parishes together there are an unbelievable 13 different collecting agencies on an Island 9 miles x 5 miles!

What solutions are their on the table? Well for our cardboard waste the answer is none, because TTS and the Parish of St. Helier are fighting it out between them as to who will bear the cost, in the mean time we have no choice but to dump all our cardboard waste, which is criminal.

The Constable of St. Helier is trying to fight the fly tippers by removing Eurobins left, right and centre, which means that instead of full Eurobins we’re seeing epidemic proportions of black bin bags being left on our streets for the seagulls to rip apart, which in turn has to be cleared up by the Parish.

The whole waste management system is from where I’m sitting is in complete chaos, with each public sector empire either passing the buck or blaming the other for the current malaise.

The public are crying out for cost savings in the public sector yet here is as clear a restructuring opportunity as you can get, which no doubt has the potential to save the tax payer hundreds of thousands of pounds but I’m sure it can’t be as simple as that!

The last fossil fueled delivery van?

2007-08-01T09:18:00.000+01:00

Today I reluctantly signed the dotted line for the purchase of a Volkswagen Transporter T30 delivery van. I say reluctantly because I had hoped that our next vehicle would be electric powered thereby reducing not only our costs significantly, but also our carbon footprint.

I had high hopes that I might purchase a Smith Edison vehicle from www.smithelectricvehicles.com, but when push came to shove, the price tag which is at the thick end of £35,000 and its size proved too great an obstacle in comparison with the £17,000 of its fossil fuel equivalent.

In addition there is absolutely no publicly available infrastructure on the Island of Jersey which would enable us to charge up the vehicle over night. Tragic really when there is so much rhetoric about eco-friendly activity and so little of significance actually being done.

The Island of Jersey is surely an ideal place to start a culture shift in our attitudes to alternative forms of power? Yet it would appear that it won't be until businesses like mine are prepared to take the financial risk required and only after it has been shown to be financially beneficial that a global change in our psyche will take place.

I hope that as a small business although we haven't felt able to take this risk at present, in 36 months time when we come to replace this vehicle that the world will have moved on.

Flavour stability of filter coffee

2007-07-17T10:34:00.000+01:00

We've all been there, sat in a pub, had a great lunch / dinner and then ordered a filter coffee only to find that it tastes as bitter as hell and smells burnt.

Who's at fault here, the pub or the coffee roaster?

Well we've put our filter coffee to the test, we brewed 60g of Kenya and Colombian coffee with about 1.5 litres of water in a Bravilor Mondo 2 filter coffee machine. We then tasted the coffee every 15 minutes to see how the flavour of the beverage held up.

1. Freshly brewed - Pleasant light taste, the brightness of the Kenya shining through

2. After 15 minutes - No discernible change in the coffee flavour

3. After 30 minutes - Some of the bright notes starting to get lost. A slightly heavier coffee taste is coming through. Still quite drinkable

4. After 45 minutes - The darker notes are starting to become more prominent, however still drinkable and a good colour when milk is added.

5. After 60 minutes - Hint of a smoky flavour coming through, the lightness of the original brew has now gone, however still an acceptable beverage and retaining a good colour when milk is added.

6. After 85 minutes - Smoky taste becoming more pronounced, still drinkable and still looking fine when milk is added.

7. After 100 minutes - A very discernible burnt taste is now coming through to back up the aromatic change. Surprisingly the colour when milk is added remains good, and the milk (particularly Jersey Yellow) masks and lot of the damage.

8. After 115 minutes - Not much change to the last commentary

9. After 175 minutes - A caramel burnt flavour has now appeared.

The time-scale we used for our test would be typical for an outlet on a quiet day and highlights how important it is to be aware of demand in a food service environment. It's very easy to get a reputation for inconsistent drinks and drive customers away.

My final comment would be a pat on the back to Bravilor whose machine we used. The hot plate although gradually stewing the coffee was doing so at a much slower rate than I thought it might. The engineers have clearly got their holding temperatures set about right which is pleasing to us roasters.

Party Time!

2007-07-01T20:46:00.000+01:00

So who would you invite to a fictitious dinner party, if you could choose from both the living and the dead? I was recently asked this question by the local Jersey Evening Post and the following are my thoughts. I fear it does date me though!

Bjorn Borg – A boyhood tennis hero of mine. When he eventually lost to John McEnroe I was devastated. He never returned to Wimbledon and retired a year or two later. Only as I’ve grown older have I appreciated the fleeting nature of success and how when opportunity comes you have to grab it with both hands. The famous poem by Rudyard Kipling found at Wimbledon …. “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same….you’ll be a man my son” should be taught to every child.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta – I always remember reading her obituary and in particular the fact that all she left was the dress she wore and the bowl from which she ate. She was someone who gave her life to those who have nothing, was known by world leaders and did everything she could to help the helpless. What drives such a person?

Margaret Thatcher – She single-handedly put the “Great” back into Great Britain after the decline and decay of the 1970’s. In Jersey we have been fortunate never to have had queues outside the job centre, the ubiquitous UB40 form. We do well as a society to remember such times and that success isn’t guaranteed Yet by the end of her time the electorate couldn’t wait to get rid of her. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie….gone, gone, gone still ring in my disbelieving ears.

Sir John Harvey-Jones – A man who presided over the now crumbling ICI. In charge of a company that was the first at the time to make £1 billion in profit. Yet it’s his help to small business in his subsequent television career that brought him to my attention. His common sense approach and sense of humour always impressed me.

Shirley Bassey – I’ve always liked her as an entertainer, however it was her recent appearance at Glastonbury that got her on my list. Real star quality, what a gift it is to light up peoples lives even if for only an hour. You don’t see “Star quality” written on too many CV’s!

Bob Dylan – An amazing song writer who caught the mood of a generation. My younger son has just started playing the guitar, and one of the songs he is learning to play is “Blowin in the wind”. He loves it, surely the sign of a great song writer when you can transcend generations with your music.

There are so many it seems almost unfair to choose just six.

Grinder trouble

2007-06-05T21:09:00.000+01:00

I sometimes think that equipment failure on coffee machines is a bit like London buses; nothing significant happens for months, and then along come three at once.

In the past couple of weeks I've experienced a number of grinder problems, the major ones being blunt blades and settings that have changed markedly from one day to the next.

Grinder discs wear out, fact! - This means that all food service outlets should have in place a programme to monitor the performance of their grinders, whether it's a case of calling in people like me or routinely changing them after a certain period of time based on the volume of sales. Grinders past their "sell by" date do horrific damage to great coffee. Rather than "cutting" the beans, they tend to simply crush them. It may not sound significant, but boy does the taste in the cup tell the story.

In an effort to break down the bean, worn out grinders use a lot of energy. That energy comes out in the form of heat and can raise the temperature of the coffee so much that it burns the coffee. The other major impact is on the flow of the water through the coffee. The range of particle sizes produced by a set of worn out blades is so great that you could spend a lifetime trying to get the water to flow through the coffee correctly but never achieve success. The moral of the story, set up a monitoring programme.

The second issue, that of wildly mis-set grinders usually comes about when someone is over-scrupulous with their cleaning routine . The button that holds the discs in position accidentally gets pushed thereby releasing the blades which in turn "unscrew" leaving you with "chips" of coffee beans. This has happened to me twice in the last 4 days. The problem is easily rectified by resetting the discs to their correct position and then marking the set position so that it can easily be re calibrated if necessary.

It's actually quite an eyeopener for many of my customers to see the impact that an incorrectly set grinder can have on the taste of their coffee, and proves the old adage that you learn more by things going wrong than you ever do when everything goes right.

“Economic and Strategic challenges: Is Jersey capable of being rescued?” - A response to a speech recently given by Senator Stuart Syvret

2007-05-11T21:08:00.000+01:00

It’s probably somewhat ironic to be writing this response to Senator Syvret’s speech some 36,000 feet up in the air in a plane somewhere between Los Angeles and London. However such is the nature of this global world in which we live that my organisation’s long term survival relies on me knowing what is happening some 6,000 miles away from my home market.

I have at least assuaged some of my guilt by paying U$6.00 to an organisation called Trees of the Future (http://www.plant-trees.org/main.htm) that will go some way towards my journey being at least partially carbon neutral. Is this something we could offer to those who fly into our Islands?

That aside, what Senator Syvret had to say at the Chamber luncheon should be very seriously reflected upon by our society.

We are extremely fortunate to live in a temperate climate, with full employment and none of the uncertainties faced by many of our fellow human beings around the globe. That fortune though brings responsibilities. Responsibilities we too easily ignore when faced with the certainties of a strong economy and excellent public services.

It has always struck me as somewhat hypocritical in my industry (coffee) that we expect the countries from which we buy our products to be environmentally considerate when we blithely throw away tons of packaging material on a daily basis with sustainability being the last thing on our mind.

So when are we going to wake up and smell the coffee? If Senator Syvret is right Armageddon is just around the corner and we’re sleepwalking straight into it.

Surely it’s therefore about time Jersey, with her vast financial resources took matters into her own hands.

Energy security has to be a matter of huge strategic importance in a world already thinking past the days of cheap oil.

I’ve asked the question before but without answer, when will our planning authorities demand that all new builds have a rain water harvesting capability as a standard building requirement?

When will the use of solar panels also become part of a new build, or subsidies offered to encourage retro-fitting. When will the infrastructure be put in place by Government to encourage the use of electric vehicles?

Why aren’t businesses encouraged through grants to seek out more energy efficient methods of production?

There is so much that needs to be done and still we can barely organise the separation of household waste.

As Senator Syvret says “an entire paradigm shift is required” – not tomorrow or the day after, but today, or will it be a case of looking in our grand-children’s eyes and saying “if only…………..”?

Third wave or just new truths?

2007-05-07T17:49:00.000+01:00

For those of you who didn’t even know that there had been a first wave let me explain.

In the very trendiest Barista parlance there have apparently been 3 “coffee waves”. The first took place in the “old days” – that’s around 20 years ago. In those days coffee simply came from a country, whether it was Colombia, Brazil, Kenya etc. By naming the country of origin this was deemed to be “specialty coffee”.

The second wave probably started around 10 years ago with the idea that within a country there were growing regions that could be differentiated – Ethiopia, one of my personal favorites instead of simply having “Djimah” coffee, a blend of various regions, now had Sidamo, Harrar and Yirgacheffe and we coffee roasters started to recognize the significant differences in flavor that each region produced.

So we come to the “third wave”, where regions have given way to individual farms – Ethical trading and fair prices paid for great quality. Baristas in some cases having a relationship with the farmer who has grown the coffee they use.

It seems quite extraordinary that such a change should take place in such a short period of time, but isn’t this the case with so many aspects of modern life – old “truths” replaced by modern “truths”.

But as a customer of mine asked me the other day; Who David is driving this change? I don’t have customers banging on my door demanding to know the name of the farmer whose coffee I just served!

So what is going on here?

I believe that we are witnessing the fallout of Globalization; the rapid dissemination of information through the Internet and a media desperate for news 24/7.

20 years ago the old “truths” held sway. Jobs were for life, international companies didn’t have to worry about exploitation – an age of innocence. The birth of the computer changed all that; the old certainties were swept away – now it’s survival of the fittest.

Middle aged bank tellers were replaced by ATMs along with so many in their position, their experience counting for nothing only cost in the world of the bean counter.

So a younger more transient and questioning workforce has emerged. No longer shackled by that old fashioned term “loyalty” – Not shackled by history, the past, only by the certainty that the only rule is that there are no rules.

A new “truth” has resulted, a more humanitarian one – a meeting of equals. In coffee a sense of unity, equity; your dedication deserves my dedication. In a room in Los Angeles at the SCAA conference the question was put, “but surely this is simply evolution?” – I believe that it’s more like revolution, a revolution of a youth seeking new “truths” because the old truths have been shown to be “lies”.

Optimising coffee taste

2007-04-30T21:24:00.000+01:00

There is such a fine line between the "perfect" cup of coffee and disaster that you could make a coffee roaster very paranoid.

When anything goes wrong with the taste of the coffee the first thing blamed is the coffee. "The guy roasting the coffee fell asleep on the job", or "he mixed up the coffees" or heaven forbid "he used an inferior coffee"

Yet most of the time in the food service industry it is usually wear and tear on the equipment, a setting change, or an attempt to push the envelope when it comes to serving an extra large coffee. In the last two or three weeks I've had the "pleasure" of enlightening individuals of the various issues mentioned above.

Case 1. - A worn out set of grinding discs -

This problem is evidenced by the fact that no matter how fine you grind the coffee you can't seem to slow the flow of the water down sufficiently to achieve a "crema" or anything that resembles a decent cup of coffee.

What is happening here is, rather than the coffee being "cut" by the grinder discs it is instead being crushed. Not only that a huge amount of energy is going into the crushing process which in turn heats up the coffee sufficiently to deliver a burnt taste. All in all pretty disastrous.

Change the blades and all your problems are solved. One suggestion I had for an equipment supplier was that when the annual insurance inspection is carried out on the coffee machine automatically change the grinder blades, £35 - £40 well spent.

Case 2. - Incorrectly set blades

This can happen as blades wear. Although in theory the grinder settings should be checked on a daily basis to adapt to various atmospheric conditions this rarely happens in the food service industry. However there should be some monitoring done of the time it takes to make a shot of espresso (between 20 and 30 seconds)

When you reach 10 seconds, as sure as eggs are eggs your customer is going to complain about the insipid watery taste of your coffee. The problem is the water has no time to pick up the flavour that delicately roasted coffee can provide. Solution review your grinder settings, if you're not sure, talk to your supplier, after all it's their coffee you're destroying!

Case 3. - Pushing the envelope

I was helping to set up a machine today, a "bean to cup" variety. Now the maximum amount of coffee this machine could grind was 9 grams, however the customer had a particularly large cup. So we tried to push more water through the coffee, add more milk, basically all the tricks known to man in an attempt to fill that cup with a satisfactory drink, but to no avail.

We started out with a beautifully balanced cup of coffee, and ended up with one of the harshest cups of coffee I have ever had the pleasure of drinking.

Simply put we were trying to get flavours out of the coffee that the average human being is never meant to taste, bitter, burnt, simply nasty as we attempted to fill this cup.

The moral of the story, watch how the colour of the water changes as it runs through the coffee. When you get to the point where the thick crema disappears and almost clear water starts to run through stop the machine, and then come back from there. Don't use the cup as the guide, use your eyes. If you can't increase the dose of ground coffee, reduce the cup size. You'll do everybody a great favour and hopefully enhance coffee sales.

There all you coffee roasters can rest easy, well until the next batch of coffee that seems to have a higher moisture content than usual!

Modern Air travel - My idea of hell!

2007-04-19T22:20:00.000+01:00

I had the dubious pleasure of travelling from Jersey to Frankfurt the other day, an experience from which I am still recovering! Not because I was delayed, or missed a flight, no everything in that respect went perfectly well. No it was the endless security searches, being packed in like a farm animal, the soul-less automatic check in, the complete lack of a smile from either passenger, crew or anyone for that fact. What's happened? I always used to look forward to air travel, now I shudder at the thought, where did it all go wrong?

I analysed my experience trying to understand why I felt the way I did.

I went through 5 security checks - shoes off, belt off, jacket off, watch off, keys out, mobile 'phone out, all personal grooming liquids out and placed in a clear plastic bag. Then all put away or put on. In the case of Frankfurt airport twice within 10 minutes!

You show your passport / ticket endlessly

There are endless arguments about only being allowed to take one piece of luggage on the plane

You're permanently in a queue, whether to check-in or go through security

You used to at least have the pleasure of a smiling face when you checked in, now due to advances in technology you're better off checking in electronically because due to reduced staffing levels at the check-in desks the queues have become unbearable.

Seat space - Both airlines in their attempt to ensure maximum capacity stick each chair as close as possible, so that if you have the misfortune to be 6 foot tall (as I am) you are literally unable to move in your seat. No wonder deep veined thrombosis has become an issue in modern travel.

The charging levels for a simple hot drink are outrageous. Surely if a reasonable price were asked then more product would be sold, or is that just me?

Then when you get to the end of your journey, there is a mad rush to get off the aircraft, with not even a semblance of courtesy shown between passengers as people desperately switch on mobile phones in case they've missed something life threatening.

I found the whole experience crushing and demoralising. Is this the ultimate consequence of free market competition? Is this what we deserve if we don't want to pay a reasonable price for our air ticket? Is this the result of airlines trying to maximise returns for their shareholders and woe betide underperformers? I simply don't know

Asked the question is it better to travel than to arrive? My answer, neither, stay at home!

The Challenge of keeping Coffee fresh

2007-04-09T16:20:00.000+01:00

Coffee like all organic products deteriorates rapidly in quality when exposed to air for any length of time. The challenge for my industry is how do we slow down this loss of flavour so that you the consumer end up with something that you can drink and enjoy?

On the supermarket shelf two techniques are used. The first is to use a high barrier packaging material. Appalling for the environment , but capable of delivering "shelf life". The second is to modify the atmosphere, whether by removing it altogether, thereby creating a "brick pack", or by changing the gas makeup within the bag, usually to a food grade nitrogen.

The problem is that you can theorise all day about what level of flavour degredation is acceptable, when actually there should be "zero tollerance" in this area if you really want to get the best out of your coffee.

But what do I mean by zero tollerance?

A number of roasters in the US use the term "born on" date which refers to the day on which the coffee was roasted. This at least gives the consumer some idea as to the freshess of the coffee. In theory the best flavour will come from coffee that has been roasted just before you purchase it, however I don't believe this to be the case. My experience is that coffee needs to "settle down" for around 24 hours after it has been roasted. This doesn't mean leaving it out in the open, but simply not using the coffee until it has "calmed down" after roasting. The only comparison I can make is with a good stew. Leave it 24 hours after cooking and all the flavours are so much more developed; well the same is the case with coffee.

So first tip is to buy coffee that has been roasted fairly recently, something of the order of 4 weeks ago should give pretty decent results as long as it has been stored properly over that period.

Buying whole beans and grinding the coffee yourself is the best approach, however some domestic grinders aren't particularly accurate when it comes to getting an even grind which in turn affects the taste of the coffee, particularly espresso based drinks. But that's a whole different blog.

The next important point is that when you get the coffee home and open the packet for the first time that you either reseal the bag taking care to remove as much air as possible, or decant it into a container from which you can remove the air much in the same way as wine is stored after opening the bottle. So called "hermetically sealed" containers simply don't work when it comes to retaining the flavour of the coffee. There's just too much air about.

Finally the coffee should be stored in a cool dry environment to stop the coffee oils evaporating. Once again there is huge debate over the definition of what is meant by "cool". Personally I have no problem storing coffee in the fridge, I know some of our customers store their whole beans in the freezer and grind from frozen. I guess the only danger with the fridge is that other flavours might get into the coffee. My response to that is that if you use a proper barrier storage material, you shouldn't experience any problems.

In summary then, be aware of how long ago the coffee has been roasted. Take great care over how you store it and finally consume it as soon as possible after opening the packet. I suggest a maximum of 10 days, however for espresso you will see a deterioration in the drink quality within 24 hours.

My suggestion, purchase little and often - if you have a speciality coffee shop in your area ask which coffee was the last one to be roasted, that way you should get great coffee every time.

Sunday Trading - We can be different!

2007-03-25T22:59:00.000+01:00

Re: Public Consultation – Draft Legislation Paper – Draft Shops (Regulation of Opening and Deliveries) (Jersey) Law 200-

Because this issue runs to the heart of our society it is necessary to look at it in a wider context, that of social and family cohesion.

A Unicef report (“An overview of child well-being in rich countries”) published in February this year placed British children at the bottom of the league of the 21 most developed nations, branding them the least well looked after, the worst behaved and the least happy.

David Cameron commented – “ social breakdown is like a gun aimed at Britain. If we don’t do something soon, the whole community will take the bullet”

Community leaders in the UK and Europe continually use the words “Social and family cohesion”.

Everyone talks a lot about the importance of the family unit but, precious little constructive work appears to be being done to stop what appears to be the inevitable.

Here in Jersey there are immense financial pressures put on families and they break down into two areas.

The first is the cost of living on Jersey. Housing costs in particular mean that in many cases both parents have to work to generate sufficient income to pay the mortgage, but at what social cost?

How can it be healthy for our society when family members barely get an opportunity to talk to each other? What then would be the impact of deregulating Sunday trading, another day, another opportunity lost to the family to communicate with each other.

Simple pleasures like watching a son play football, a daughter playing netball, that sense of a time shared together; “Quality time” all lost because due to competition pressures as their employer now has to open on Sunday to survive.

The second area is a much deeper one that runs through our society; a culture that puts money, performance, competition and consumerism at its heart. A society that thinks that if you sweep the streets you are a failure, yet our society needs such individuals as much as we need Doctors.

Deregulation of Sunday trading only feeds the habit of consumerism; an ethos based on owning things that says that the more things you have the more people will respect you. This attitude is corrosive and a legacy we don’t want to leave to our children.

There has to be a rethink, a reorientation of the values of our society and Jersey sitting at the crossroads has an opportunity here to take I believe a moral stance for the benefit of our Island society.

We can be different to the UK and we should be proud of that fact. Surely that is why people visit this Island, not to shop!

The dumbing down of making great coffee

2007-03-21T08:35:00.000Z

In my previous blog I bemoaned the lack of demand for training on how to make great coffee in the food service industry.

Having further reflected on this point it's absolutely criminal because it perpetuates the downward spiral of de-skilling staff by bringing in more automation (bean to cup machines) to theoretically deliver a more consistent cup of coffee. Rubbish!

I recently went on site where a "bean to cup" coffee machine had been installed. As a coffee roaster I couldn't make one change to the settings, I was totally reliant on the engineer with his programming key. Our reputation is on the line and yet I can't do a damn thing to change things around even if I believe an adjustment is required.

Yet coffee and milk are both organic products. Their features change on a day to day basis which in turn requires the machine to be constantly monitored but how do you do this if none of the staff even have the first inkling as to what a great cup of coffee should look or taste like?!

So whatever happened to Empowerment? The buzzword used by all management consultatants? You know giving staff the information and training to be able to make informed decisions which in turn actually makes it worthwhile for them to turn up on a Monday morning?

If the Nespresso's, Lavazza's, Senseo's of this world have their way all the coffee we drink will end up being determined by some technician in an annonymous laboratory developing a 20 page spec sheet on what a strong espresso should taste like.

Why bother having different brands when the man from Nespresso knows what you'll like already?

As our lives become ever busier aren't we loosing site of what is important in life? That part of the enjoyment of living is the food and drink we consume. Preparing it, understanding its little nuances, where it comes from? Have we become so sad that we rely on boffins in labs to determine what we will enjoy?

So please all you Baristas in the food service industry, demand more knowledge from your suppliers. It will not only make your job more rewarding , but you'll also bring a smile to the face of your customer.

Training, and why it's vital to survival in business

2007-03-09T22:22:00.000Z

A key part of our business is the training we provide to our Food Service customers. We provide it for free, yet many of our customers choose not to take up our offer usually with the statement that "our people know what they're doing so don't worry". The problem is I do!

I've been in the coffee industry for nearly 20 years now and not only have training techniques changed significantly in that period so have customer expectations. The sad part is that the staff who make the coffees are usually some of the lowest paid and well you know when you're churning out coffee after coffee and you're not valued you're really not going to pay that much attention to the quality of what you serving. There's that text you've got to send to your mate about tonights gig etc.

So how can business owners / managers change this attitude? Well business owners and managers have to change, they have to start to invest in their staff, but how many small business operators really do? "It's a waste of time, the turnover of staff in the industry's so big anyway"

Well if you treat people like Monkeys they'll act like Monkeys and in the end the business owner will be the biggest Monkey when the business doesn't make the returns expected.

That's why training staff is absolutely vital in this day and age where competition is so fierce. Committed people will do a better job, customers will be happier and come back for more, and guess what the bottom line will look healthier.

I can only speak for coffee, but like so many jobs I'm sure, it may sound simple to do in theory, but very difficult to do with a high level of consistency and excellence in practice.

Is the machine at the correct operating temperature? Did I overheat or underheat the milk? Why is the water racing through the coffee? The questions are endless, but if no one tells you the answers how do you have a cat in hells chance of delivering great coffees?

The most frustrating part for me as a roaster is the lack of respect this attitude of non-training shows to the people who have put a great deal of effort into the manufacture of the product. All the way from the grower, to the processor, to the roaster care will be taken only to be destroyed as it makes its final journey into the cup.

The moral is train, train and train again. You'll make a lot of people very happy!

My Fair Trade's cheaper than yours!

2007-03-03T08:58:00.000Z

Sustainable practices are the only way forward if our planet is to survive as a hospitable place for future generations.

With "Fair Trade fortnight" now upon us, those goods that attract Fair Trade certification are being heavily promoted to make us all reflect on just where our food comes from and to think about whether producers are getting a fair price.

It therefore irritates me immensely when I see on the Supermarket shelf that there is 20% off Fair Trade products to temp the consumer the buy x brand rather than y brand. We find ourselves in the midst of a bun fight over market share. Tell me then what's the difference between this kind of activity and Nestle putting 10% free extra coffee in a jar, or the ubiquitous B.O.G.O.F. (buy one get one free)? There is none, it's simply large corporations riding on the back of feel good publicity and using it to "buy" market share. Where are the ethics in that? I think that it's cynical expolitation of the lowest type.

I conclude with a reminder that the "Fair Trade" certification programme is just one of many ethical programmes, each of which do a great job in their attempts to provide a sustainable future.

Rainforest Alliance, Utz Kapeh and the Ethical Tea partnership are all third party certifiers who guarantee that both environmental and economic sustainable practices are implemented at origin. Just because your farm doesn't form part of a co-operative doesn't mean that you automatically carry out unsustainable practices, one of the great dangers of using the emotive words "Fair Trade" and looking no further.

Bean to cup coffee machines - The battle between the engineer and the coffee connoisseur in the food service industry

2007-02-25T19:51:00.000Z

I have just returned from a holiday in mainland Europe and couldn't help noticing that everywhere you look the "Bean to cup" coffee machine seems to dominate in the Hotel, Cafe and Bar environments.

I have to say that I struggled to get a decent cup of coffee from any of these machines despite the huge amounts of technology involved. (We're talking about machines costing in excess of £8,000 each). Why the difficulty?

Well I can only go on my experiences here in Jersey where these machines have become so complex that unless a trained engineer is standing next to me I (as a coffee roaster) have no way of being able to adjust the output of the machine.

The engineer knows a lot about the machine's capabilities, but (on the whole) very little about what a great cup of coffee tastes like. This is incredibly frustrating for the roaster who may well go to a huge amount of effort to build a blend or buy a particular coffee only to see all his or her hard work destroyed because the coffee machine has not been set up appropriately.

Coffee being an organic product changes depending upon a myriad of conditions. If the operator can no longer make those tiny adjustments how is it possible to deliver truly great consistent coffee?

So please rocket scientist coffee machine manufacturers think about us humble roasters and come up with some much easier control systems that allow us to deliver that much sought after great cup of coffee.

Bio-energy coming soon from a farm near you!

2007-02-12T21:37:00.000Z

Human activity is causing global warming. We now all have environmental footprints, we’ve discovered “food miles” and carbon neutral activities, which is all fine but what are we going to do about it?

The challenge for all Governments when it comes to implementing a “green” strategy is that talk is cheap. They can preach about the merits of collecting cans / newspapers / using fewer plastic bags, but in order to make a real impact I believe the private sector has to be able to make money out of green activities.

The Eco-Active event recently held at the RJHA buildings in Trinity focused attention on a number of local businesses all of whom in their different ways are trying to get us to see the error of our ways.

The business that stood out for me though goes by the name of Farmfuels. Their product, that of selling wood pellets and wood pellet stoves seems fairly unremarkable at first sight, however its implications for Jersey are immense.

They are looking at growing a crop called “Miscanthus grass”. This is recognised as a Bio-energy crop; that is it is grown primarily for fuel. Given the current state of the agriculture industry on Jersey, a new crop will help hard pressed farmers if there is sufficient interest shown.

Upon harvesting, the crop is dried, shredded, and finally compressed into fuel pellets or heat logs.

The Islands demand for power is huge. We import over 3,000 tons of coal every year, a significant amount of Gas and Oil and demand / output of electricity has grown by 25% in the last decade. Isn’t it time we looked in our own backyard to give us more energy security, especially if it’s green energy security?

The clever bit though is getting people to change the habits of a lifetime. Deputy De Faye has recently talked about a “green tax” which probably sent a shudder down the spine of the business community. Of course the absolute opposite is happening in southern Ireland where a grant of Euro 1,100 is being given to anyone installing a pellet burning stove / boiler, which is seen as carbon neutral.

The burner falls under the Greener Homes Scheme Registered Product list and is surely a great incentive to encourage people to switch from traditional sources of fuel.

Wouldn’t it be great if planning on top of demanding rainwater harvesting systems as standard in all new builds, also incentivised people to choose a green solution for their hot water and central heating requirements and gave them money to do so?

Finally five suggestions to help save the planet –

1. Think before you print off that email – is it really necessary?

2. Keep a supply of A4 used paper by the printer, because if you really did need to print off that email you could at least use used paper.

3. Switch off the charger for your mobile ‘phone at the wall when you’re not using it for charging. It consumes electricity when left on but not in use.

4. Do you need to print all documents in finest quality? Why not try changing the default on your printer to print in draft. You’ll save a lot of cartridges.

5. Next time the person behind the counter asks you if you would like a bag for your two or three purchases, say no if it’s practicable.

"Shout about how great you are"

2007-01-28T16:51:00.000Z

Chef John Benson-Smith wrote a great article in the local Jersey Evening post on Saturday 27th of January in which he castigates local suppliers for not shouting loud enough about the quality of their produce.

He came to the Island some 8 months ago to open the Boathouse Restauant in St. Aubin. Not knowing who the local suppliers were he found that instead of people banging on his door, he found that it was "like trying to crack the code for entering a secret society". What he has discovered is that "Jersey produce is a darn sight tastier than the fantastic produce from the UK".

If I look at my organisation. We now supply coffee and tea to two Michelin starred restaurants, namely The Ocean at the Atlantic Hotel, and Bohemia, part of The Club and Spar Hotel, as well as many other of the finest dining establishments on the Island. How many other regional roasters can boast this accomplishment? So why don't we shout about this achievement?

Well I think it's because on Jersey, people's expectations are so high. We have an incredible number of restaurants on an Island that is only 9 miles x 5 miles. The competition for a limited audience is immense and only the best survive. That means suppliers have to be on their mettle. It's no good being ordinary, you have to be extraordinary. Reputation in a small community is everything if you are to succeed, and the result is that Jersey has many great small businesses. But because they are small there are no great marketing campaigns, a lot that happens is word of mouth. I can therefore completly understand Mr. Benson-Smith's frustration.

But this leads me on to a much bigger criticism of how Jersey produce is marketed outside of the Island. I have a particular gripe as a coffee roaster.

Whilst Genuine Jersey is fine for local growers, my business isn't entitled to be a part of the party which is ridiculous! Anyone who roasts coffee will know that no matter where it comes from it is the roaster who ultimately will make or break the coffee. In the same way that clay to make pots comes from all over the world, yet it is the skill of the potter who determines whether it will turn out to be a great pot.

Nowhere was this more apparent to me than when I visited SIAL in Paris last December. This is an exhibition at which countries and regions from around the world showcase their produce. As usual Jersey was nowhere to be seen. The UK had a stand, Latvia had a stand, Tuscany had a stand, as did many other regions within Europe, and yes they even had coffee from these regions. So what the hell are we doing wrong in Jersey?

It transpires that the criteria to be on a stand from the UK is that you have to "add value" to that product within the UK, such as roast and pack coffee. At last! common sense prevailing.

Given we have an Economic development department deparate to grow our Economy wouldn't it make sense if they paid a lot more attention to the potential export opportunites that local businesses like mine can provide? Export earnings = economic growth!

Come on Economic Development, sort it out, we're doing great things here, and as Mr. Benson- Smith says "it's time Jersey stood up and shouted about why its produce is as good as it is, rather than letting it remain a delicious secret"

Jura Impressa J5 - One Hip Coffee Machine!

2007-01-19T13:23:00.000Z

The latest bean to cup coffee machine from the Swiss company Jura has just arrived in our store and what a sleek looking coffee machine it is, a vision in White and Chrome.

Having brought out the C5 series to compete in the £500 - £600 price bracket, this machine appears to be attempting to fill the gap between the F90 (with its touch screen operation) and the top end Z5.

The machine is about 2 cm narrower than the Z5, however is the same depth. To accommodate this narrowing, the water tank has been reduced in size to decent 2.1 litres.

Machine operation is very simple, the fully automated cappuccino system found on the Z5 which I believe results in other buttons being made redundant has been abandoned in favour of making the coffee and milk separately. An auto-frothing device for the milk comes as standard as the traditional steam wand of earlier models is consigned to history. I'm not sure about this, but more about that later.

Let us get on with the important bit, making a cup of coffee!

The bean hopper is located as usual at the back of the machine, however a new device has now appeared entitled "Aroma protection". I hate to say it but as a coffee roaster I don't see how a plastic device with holes in it can stop flavour loss of coffee beans, maybe I missed something.

Ania felt that this device was impractical (there's a woman speaking!), and simply gets in the way without really doing anything (that's men for you!).

On the positive side the J5 has been fitted with a bean detector a feature from the Z5, which informs the user that they are low on beans.

If you choose to use pre-ground coffee, this hopper is located just in front of the grinder hopper. I say this because it took us a minute or two to find it. The manual isn't very clear, and because the lid is designed into the shape of the machine wasn't easy to spot. Once again Ania came to the rescue, it's probably Polish intuition!

The bit I do like is the programming of these machines. Jura have found a very simple system that allows a huge number of permutations. I have seen so many modern day coffee machines that need a manual to get you through the programming that in the end you give up. This is not the case with Jura. Once you understand the logic, and it is very logical you can change settings to your hearts content.

At last, the coffee. We chose to make an espresso and found that the water was running through the coffee very slowly. A simple adjustment to the grinder setting (a knob found on the top of the machine) soon saw the machine producing an excellent espresso.

I now move onto the milk. Now I'm sure this is a very British thing, and this is why I bemoan the loss of the traditional steam wand.

First of all I will say that creating steam is simple and straightforward and quick. Two button presses and you're ready.

The auto-frother is also very effective. This technology has come a long way in a very short time. By adjusting the settings on the auto-frother you can get either foam or steam milk (no bubbles).

The frothing bit I have no problems with and you get a terrific cappuccino, but the steamed milk for me is a problem. The problem is that the milk is drawn through the auto-frother so quickly that it barely has time to heat up the milk. Anyone with a smattering of Physics will know what I mean, the laws of thermodynamics.

The problem is that in the UK market, lattes are very popular a reflection of our appreciation of things American (I think that's a good thing!). Now a latte needs HOT! steamed milk, something the auto-frother is incapable of delivering no matter how much you fiddle around with it.

We were so concerned with this that we turned to the manual for help. Interestingly in the manual, they make no claim to delivering hot milk. They use the term "warm" milk. Very accurate, but why?

The simple solution surely is to supply an adaptor for the steam arm that allows you to steam milk to your hearts content. When you look in the neat little storage area on the top of the machine what do you find, an attachment for the steam arm that allows you to deliver more water! In the British market, we're all used to boiling a kettle for teas because we know of the limitations of a coffee machine (that's no disrespect to Jura, simply a fact in the UK market)

So please Jura, I know we're only an Island of 55 million people, but please can you put back our optional steam wand and get rid of the extending water spout, and we promise never complain again!

That's the only issue I have with this modern wonder of technology and I hope the message gets through to the boffins at Jura HQ.

Other than that we can't stop ourselves from stroking this machine everytime we go past, well the boys can't!

Jersey milk (from the Island of Jersey) - Excellence in your coffee cup

2007-01-17T09:30:00.000Z

A new year and a new test!

This time we at Coopers have been trying out the different types of milk readily available in the local Supermarkets and their impact on the taste of our coffee.

I had hoped to replicate the tabular format in my blog, but I'm such a luddite that I'm afraid its coming out as a list - However don't let this detract from the results!

Results of a tasting of different Jersey Dairy products in coffee carried out by Cooper & Co. on January 16th 2007

Coffee maker: French Press or Cafetière
Coffee type: Medium roasted Brazil Daterra Sunrise
Quantity of coffee used: Approx. 50g

We wanted to establish the impact of different levels of fat content on the flavour of the drink.

We used: Fresh Milk, Long life milk (UHT) and finally Cream
A desert spoon of liquid was added to each drink to ensure consistency

To understand the list, it goes as follows: Milk type, colour of drink following the addition of the milk, and finally our tasting notes.

Fresh Milk

Fresh Blue milk
(1.8% fat content)
Darkish in colour
This type of coffee maker produces a thinner style of coffee, and the Blue milk with its low fat content doesn’t do anything to enhance the flavour or sense of wateriness in the mouth

Fresh Green milk
(3% fat content)
Medium dark in colour
Slightly thicker mouth feel, with the acidity of the coffee dampened down

Fresh Yellow milk
(6% fat content)
Medium brown in colour. Some fat globules floating on the surface
Outstanding! – We all agreed that the texture in the mouth, and the way in which the flavour of the coffee was mellowed made this a wonderful drink.

Long life milk

Orange pack
(0.3% fat content)
Very dark
Sadly, quite unpleasant. The wateriness I talked about earlier is even more pronounced. If anything this milk actually increases the sense of bitterness in the mouth.

Blue pack
Currently out of stock

Yellow pack
Light brown, with noticeable globules of fat appearing on the surface of the drink
Very good - Not quite as good in the mouth as its fresh equivalent, but still really compliments the coffee taste experience.

Cream

Whipping Cream
Light brown, with as you would expect a lot of floating fat globules
Good flavour, however the cream is starting to overwhelm the coffee flavour. The two yellow milk tests certainly came through a lot better.

Double cream
Very light brown appearance. Cream struggling to dissolve into the coffee
Totally overwhelms the coffee. The only thing we could taste was the cream.

So in conclusion we believe that all coffee should use the highest fat content fresh milk (yellow) to deliver the most enjoyable cup of French Press (Cafetiere) coffee.

Isn't it infuriating that in this day and age when we are so obsessed with our levels of fat intake that we are actually spoiling our enjoyment of a great beverage.

Next week we here at Coopers will throw caution to the wind and use only Jersey fresh Yellow milk in all our drink offerings - No compromise!

Tourism Brochures - you've got to laugh!

2007-01-16T22:21:00.000Z

Those in the Tourism industry will know that the latest glossy magazines namely "Jersey Holiday Guide" and "Pure Jersey" have recently been dispatched and are in the process of hitting the door mats (people do still have door mats don't they?) of what they hope will be potential visitors to this beautiful Island.

Now I don't know who is responsible for designing these things , but I would suggest it looks very much like a committee, oh dear!

Not being au fait with the Hotel grading system I have to tread a little carefully, however I would suggest that not a great deal of imagination has gone into the layout of the Accommodation page in the "pure Jersey" brochure.

Lets start with the "Graded Hotels" - 4*, 3*, 2* 1*, so far so good, but hey what's this we've gone back up to 5*, and then 4* again. Eulah Country House Hotel should therefore by rights be at the top of the page?

But no, if you cross reference the "Jersey Holiday Guide" advertisers list on page 112, Eulah Country house appears under "Guest Accomodation!" ah, so that's why it's not at the top of the pJ guide, but then shouldn't they appear under the pJ heading of "Guest accomodation?

La Haule manor too seem to have got trapped in this nether world as well? Didn't anybody bother to proof read this?

But of course we all know (?) the diamond grading system has been done away with, well everybody apart from the Jh guide. The Lavender Villas application must have got lost in the post! Well the Jh's post, but not you'll be pleased to hear the pJ's post!

It also appears that even the advertisers are confused. Condor Breaks.com on p.52 of pJ tells us that both Mayfair and Metropole are 2* Hotels. Didn't anyone tell them that the Metropole is now 3*? I'm not quite sure what happened to the poor old Mayfair. I have a suspicion that they too are reclassified as 3*, but still appear in the 2* section. Then again I could be wrong, couldn't I?

I could go on, as a potential visitor to this Island went on to me about these brochures, but I'd probably loose the will to live!

I have tried to be humourous in this Blog, because at the end of the day we all make mistakes. What I find though really infuriating is that this industry is really under pressure at the present time and it is vital that a professional image is conveyed to potential visitors.

A business has been hired to produce this brochure for I'm sure a considerable amount of money, surely we (the people of Jersey) are entitled to expect something better than what on the face of it appear to be schoolboy errors going out to potential customers.