SCG Experiments: Breville One-Touch Tea Maker vs. Sowden Penrose & Bonavita Kettle
More tea time! We have had folks ask us how the Breville One-Touch Tea Maker compares to making tea in the traditional manner, so we decided to experiment. Using the Bonavita Gooseneck Variable Temperature Kettle and the Sowden Penrose teapot, we brewed up batches of Dammann’s L’Oriental and Darjeeling loose leaf teas. We tried to approximate the same temperature, dosage and steep duration to determine if these was a difference in the cup.
Watch as Jess preps these up and we taste them to find out!
SCG Experiments: Frothing Soy Milk in Auto-Frothers
In addition to the temperature, foam quality and other general performance questions we get about stand-alone milk frothers, how they whip up non-dairy milks is definitely high on the list of many folks researching these little gems.
Since soy is one of the most popular non-dairy milks around, we selected it to perform a side-by-side functional comparison of the Capresso FrothTEC, Breville Milk Cafe and Nespresso Aero3. Watch our experiment video to learn how they measure up!
SCG Experiments: Playing with Single Shots
We’re not quite sure why one would want to pull single shots, but we’ve been asked multiple times to experiment and provide our tips on how to get the job done. So we drafted Jess to take on the formidable task of dialing in a single shot. Off-camera, she worked on the Rocket Giotto Evoluzione and the Crossland CC1; while she had success on the former, the latter still proves to be a challenge.
Watch her pull a few shots on the Rocket, varying an element each time to dial it in. The singles she pulled did taste great, but, still … really? We’re triples all the way, friends.
Coffee Tasting: Lavazza Home Line
We recently transitioned our Lavazza product offering to focus on their Home line — a series of blends formulated with home espresso lovers in mind. In addition to large, 2.2lb bag versions of the whole bean Qualita Rossa and Qualita Oro, we now have three new blends for you to try: Gran Crema, Gran Aroma Bar and Crema e Aroma.
Watch as the team tastes these new coffees, then gives us their feedback on their different flavors and how they compare.
Crew Review: Full Circle Single-Cup Brewer Cleaning and Descaling Liquid
Single cup brewers need love, too. Your capsule espresso or coffee machine is so convenient to use, you may be tempted to overlook its regular care and feeding. But don’t! Alas, your coffee will taste better and your machine will live longer if you run a regular cleaning cycle using a descaling and detergent solution.
Watch Gail show us Full Circle’s answer to this cleaning quandary in this review and demonstration video.
Vertical Coffee Tasting: Velton’s Brazil Condado Estate
One of the benefits of choosing a single origin bean is consistency. Especially when pulling shots of espresso where you’re utilizing a relatively small amount of coffee grounds in your brew, a single origin ensures you’re getting the same grinds every time. With a blend, on the other hand, you have the potential for a unknown ratio to end up in your portafilter, and that can cause a little bit of havoc if you have a deep commitment to consistency.
One of the drawbacks, however, is that single origins can be difficult to source. While a blend is devised with a target flavor profile in mind and the sourcing and selection of beans will change every year depending on the coffee crop, a single origin is, well, a single coffee bean. If you fall in love with one from a specific estate or farm and they experience issues the following year, you’re kind of out of luck. But maybe that’s also something you can love about them — the potential for their rarity.
In this video, we play around with a few different preparations of a single origin from Velton’s Coffee, the Brazil Condado Estate. We featured this guy because it is a great espresso single origin and also produces a delicious cup via pour over, AeroPress and drip. Watch the ladies prep it up and give their thoughts on the coffee’s flavor profile.
SCG Experiments: How does brew temperature affect tea flavor?
Yeah, we know that we are Seattle Coffee Gear, but sometimes we enjoy a sweet cup o’ tea. Since we play around and experiment with different approaches to coffee brewing, we thought it might be fun to do the same with tea!
In this episode of SCG Experiments, we play with temperature: Keeping the dosage and steep time the same, we brew up batches of Dammann teas using water right off the boil and then with water heated to the recommended temp for both black and green teas. Watch as we taste them side by side to find out how their flavors compare.
AeroPress Vertical Tasting of Velton’s Brazil Condado Estate
The flexibility and creativity that surrounds the AeroPress knows no bounds. Seriously: For as many AeroPress lovers there are out there in the world, there’s an equal amount of preferred preps.
So we put the question out to the class: What is your favorite AeroPress prep? And then we recreated these sometimes meticulously crafted brews, tasted them and discussed how they compared in the cup. Using Velton’s Brazil Condado Estate, we were able to experience several different dimensions of this luscious single origin coffee. So that was pretty tight.
How Much Time to Make 4 Lattes on the Breville Infuser?
In the next episode of our series on how long it takes to whip up four lattes for your friends and family, Bunny demonstrates the process on the Breville Infuser. Find out how quickly she can craft four delicious drinks in this riveting video.
Pulling a Double Ristretto on the Via Venezia
Specifically, a double ristretto is a double shot that has been calibrated to use the same dosage of coffee, extract in the same 20 – 30 second window and produce a powerful, condensed shot with a total volume of 1 – 1.5 oz (depending on your tastes). If you have an espresso-grade grinder, you can do this with any non-pressurized espresso machine by altering your grind and tamp.
Watch as Jess pulls a double ristretto using the Saeco Via Venezia, Baratza Vario and non-pressurized portafilter upgrade. Yummy times were then had by all.