[decent_espresso]

Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer is amazing

It started humbly enough.

Ljubljana (Slovenia)-based programmer Miha Rekar wanted to help the Decent espresso community share their espresso shot charts. A bit of javascript chart logic, and voila! a website which charts your Decent espresso shots.

To use it, you would upload the .shot file from your Android tablet running the de1app, and you're good. Next, Johanna wrote a de1app plugin that automatically uploaded your shots for you, making Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer hugely easier to use. Once you have a login, everything is just automatic.

Decent baristas are constantly talking about their profiles, asking "how can I improve my espresso?", "what profile will work best for this bean?" and "I think I found a way to improve xyz...", and so Miha's Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer site became the standard way everyone talks about espresso in the Decent world.

Miha didn't stop there. He's added truly useful features, such as comparing historical shots to each other. You can also download the exact profile to make any historical shot, that anyone has made, to your machine, try to recreate it and then compare your effort to the person who you copied from .

As the community tried to make sense of various "puck integrity" calculation methods, Miha implemented the 3 different lines that were being put forward, so each could be seen in context, used and discussed. There is puck resistance vs conductance, and also the derivative of conductance (which helps loudly show you transient defects in the puck, such as quick channels that heal). Each chart line type is easily enabled/disabled, so you don't have "noisy charts" with data you don't care about.

Because it's all cloud based, each improvement is immediately available to all espresso shots on the site.

A huge number of Decent users now are on the site, and he's made it easy to follow others. This makes it easy, for instance, to immediately try out a recipe that some Decent Luminary has just invented.

The charts, and overall user interface, are quite tasteful, being not just pretty. They use good design principles to cleanly "display quantitative information" in a way that is conducive to insight.

As Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer is also an open source project, others have contributed features.

Recently, Louis-Philippe Huberdeau added a tasteful "call out" on the charts, showing the "current shot weight" (in cup) at transition points This is hugely helpful for profiles with long, held preinfusions (Londonium, Blooming, Adaptive) because the amount of dripping during the preinfusion hold is the easiest way to "dial in" you grind. Blooming Espresso, for instance, tastes best with about 8g of dripping, whereas Adaptive works well with 2g to 4g of dripping, before the pressure rise.

Miha has found Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer to be so successful that he can't afford to host it for free, and has started to transition it into a business. That's good news, as money sent his way will help him continue to improve the service. It's too important, now, to rely on his altruism.

You can use Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer in its free tier, where it saves a month of your shots. Upgrade to €5/month, and you now have an unlimited history.

Most interestingly, he has a commercial (café) tier, with ideas in progress for helping cafes manage a fleet of Decent espresso machines, across several locations. As consistency across staff and locations is the #1 hardest problem for most cafes, I think his approach has great merit, and for a cafe, the €30/month fee would be inconsequential compared to the benefits. I had a bunch of ideas for an "café nanny" product, but I've handed those all over to him, as I think he's in a better position to implement them than I am.

To use visualizer.coffee in your de1app, go to settings->app->extensions and enable it. Create a free account at Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer and then enter your name/password into the extension. I highly recommend everyone give it a try, it's just so useful.

-john

 

[decent_espresso]

Tommy's Home Depot coffee cart

I've been talking to Tommy Steele, a Decent home barista in Texas, since November, as he's been showing me his progress in making a heavy duty coffee cart.

He used a $450 industrial workbench that he bought from Home Depot as the base.

Duramax Building Products 72 in. x 24 in. 3-Drawers Rolling Industrial Workbench and Wood Top 68001

The Duramax 72 in. W x 24 in. D rolling workbench is ideal for all applications whether in a garage, workshop or as a piece of furniture. It is constructed with heavy-duty powder coasted steel frame with

www.homedepot.com

On top of that, two Decent DE1XL that he countersunk, our pitcher rinser and knockbox, and our (now discontinued) 64mm flat burr grinder.

This past weekend he had a paid gig with it, for a private wedding in the countryside, under a tent. "Went great, everybody said it was best espresso they've ever had." is what he reported.

He's powering the whole thing with a single Westinghouse iGen4500 generator, as this was off-the-power-grid.

I've included some photos of the wedding, as well as the cart in his home.

It's great to see people build on top of the video and parts I've put together at, and to run with their dreams of having coffee be a part of their living:

Decent Coffee Cart

Our coffee cart is based on the IKEA BROR cart.

decentespresso.com

-john

 

[decent_espresso]

Expanding the Decent espresso machine factory with Sweet Home 3D

For the past 7 years, we've used Sweet Home 3D http://www.sweethome3d.com/ to plan how we build espresso machines, where people sit, what the workflow will be. Over the years, we've expanded from 1 space of 2,000 square feet, and are now about to add another 10,000 sq feet to end with 40,000. 35 people work here.

The high quality 3D renders, and ease of the 2D models, allows Bugs Bugs to sit down with people who work in the factory, and for them to visualize how the next plan will work. We always find mistakes in our planning, when we use the 3D view.

Sweet Home also makes the move much less stressful for people, because they've "seen" what the new space will be, and how they'll fit.

There's so much to think about, with engineering constraints, but human factors too, that and open process is the only way we've managed to do this.

The render above is our current main factory space, as of today.

We've decided to keep it as-is, to minimize stress on our staff, but to move the boxing area (that's the distant room at the top) to a new 3000 sq ft space next to the elevator, the pallets will move to another 3000 sq ft space we're taking on. This'll allow us to slowly, incrementally, expand production, without a major change.

The espresso machine prep work happens on the right side of this image, which is all windowed, and the people there really enjoy the natural light. They also enjoy being next to the building lines, so that there's lots of cross fertilization. They did not like the idea of splitting prep vs assembly, as that would separate people too much, lowering communication, "siloing" people into their specialty.

A fairly large alcoholic-drinks distributor, across the hall from us, is halving their space. It's more space than we need right now, but so convenient, and this'll allow us to do more inhouse, ourselves, and subcontract less. We want to go in that direction, because our own employees care more, have a great education, and improve over time. When you outsource, you don't get those things.

-john

 

[decent_espresso]

New handle colors and materials

I've received a 2nd set of handles made from resin. At the "noon" position in this photo are the current painted-black wood handles, for comparison. The supplier felt that the previous samples weren't good enough (texture a bit rough, mainly), and remade them for us.

These handles are all M10-bolt fitted, and should connect with most portafilter heads, not only Decent-supplied ones.

I've given the approval to make 5 different types of resin handles, and when they're ready, I'll make them available for sale to anyone who is interested in swapping out their espresso machine's handles. The shorter handle, which we use for connecting to the group head, also works as a portafilter handle.

You'll notice that the two wood handles have a different finish to them, as they were made at different times: we've found that matching matte/shine and paint thickness with different runs, to be quite difficult. On the other hand, as the resin is colored throughout, and doesn't need a exterior coat, the color matching is quite good.

Another thing I noticed was the lack of defects when working with resin. As the density is consistent (ie, no grain, no air bubbles) it turns really reliably on a lathe.

Here are how my favorite resin colors look in context, on a DE1.

These are the colors I've approved:

The "matte black" handle in the center, will become the new standard handle supplied with all black Decent Espresso machines. It weighs a bit more than our wood handles do, and to me, feels decidedly more high end, more like the black keys on a piano. The extra weight and smoothness are really pleasing.

All these handles will be available as accessories that DE1 customers, and owners of other machines, can choose to buy, with or without the portafilter head. It should take about 3 months to get these in stock.


I'm also working with Germany-based Wiedemann Manufaktur | Official Website - Make a machine your machine. Wiedemann, who specialize in wood-accessories for espresso machines. These two samples (maple and oak) came in today, simply oil finished. We haven't yet finalized our business relationship, but it's very likely that either Decent or Wiedemann will be selling these soon.

-john

 

[decent_espresso]

I was asked yesterday via DM, "is the Decent easy to customize?" and then again elsewhere "can I have different styles for the two wood handles".

Because Decent has an active owner community, and we publish CAD to the entire machine, there's very active "modding" going on.

As it happens, on a recent discussion I had on Diaspora (the owner's forum) about the resin handles, many people posted their alternative group handles, which I made into a collage, to show here. It's really a small detail, but indicative of how much people enjoy making a machine their own.

 

[decent_espresso]

Coming to the DE1 in October 2022, with our v1.44 version

We're currently building and selling v1.43 of our Decent Espresso Machine. The next version (v1.44) is planned for October 2022.

Here are the planned hardware updates for that version:

- The resin handles will get phazed into production, whenever we run out of the black wood handles. However, it will be at least 3 months from now, because that's how long it'll take for the resin handles to get made. The matte black resin will be provided as part of the machine, and the other colors will be separately purchasable. For white machines, we're staying with the natural oak. We will also have reclaimed Italian olive tree handles, as an optional separate purchase, soon (they're almost ready).

Here are the olive and oak natural wood handles, side by side:

- we're removing the 3 small front screws that hold the front faceplate. We found a way to have the faceplate hang off the steam wand screw, and front standby switch, so the 3 small screws are no longer needed. Some double sided Japanese tape behind the bottom of the faceplate, keeps it from "flapping". This is just a small cosmetic thing. It'll make repairs slightly more difficult, but it's really rare to have to remove the faceplate, so not a big deal in practice. This change is backward compatible to existing customers (ie, you can buy a faceplate w/o the 3 front screw holes), but I wouldn't recommend you bother, as it's a big job to remove that front faceplate (you have to remove the group head), and this is a tiny improvement. I'll be posting a video about that, once it's ready. We're still in the testing phase on this, as we had to design/build a fancy jig to get the alignment perfect, w/o screw holes. Here's a still photo showing a front face (this one, with screws) being mounted using that jig.

and the new front face coming in v1.44:

- we'll also be phazing in a new water intake thimble filter, switching from the off-the-shelf mesh we've always had, to our own design. That'll be backward compatible to all existing machines, and sold inexpensively for anyone who wants it. Our new design has a much greater surface area, so it should need less frequent cleaning, and not add drag to the pump. Also, it can sit on the bottom of the water tank, without causing a "suction seal", so that we'll have more accurate water tank level measurements. Currently, we need to have a bit of distance between the bottom of the intake tube and the ceramic, or else a suction seal occurs, and water can get pulled up the tube. The new design also means we can use more of the water in the tank (almost all of it), instead of leaving a bit behind to avoid suction. Existing customers can switch to the new uptake filter, and also calibrate their intake tube downwards into the tank, to take advantage of this.

You might notice that this amounts to "not much" and certainly nothing "revolutionary". We've been in the "small evolutionary improvements" stage every since v1.3 introduced the group head controller in April 2020. We're planning on another 2 years (at least) of this v1.4x model, as we're happy with the hardware, and are now mostly focussed on software (app) and firmware. That's where the most interesting stuff from us will come from.

And all the software stuff we do is (a) backward compatible all the way to the first v1.0 machines and (b) free of cost.

-john

 

[decent_espresso]

FAQ on v1.44 DE1 machines and other Decent hardware improvements

My posting yesterday about coming hardware improvements, led to a bunch of questions and requests for clarification, so here goes:

A PRICE INCREASE IS COMING: it’s our policy to not increase prices during a version run, even if our own costs go up. We’re currently making/shipping v1.43 until (we estimate) October, and so our prices for this version will not change. However, as our suppliers have increased prices across the board, v1.44 will likely see a price increase between 10% to 20%. Other espresso machine manufacturers have been increasing their prices, for the same reason. The exactly % price increase will be decided closer to the launch of v1.44. We have given raises to all our employees at the end of 2021, to share in our success, so that isn’t part of our pricing calculation.

SILICONE GASKETS: we’ll be transitioning to portafilter gaskets made from Silicone, away from NBR (Nitrile) rubber. We’re still deciding the exact hardness (70/75/80 shore) we want, so we don’t have a timeline for that yet. We’ll likely go for light grey or white color, so that coffee grounds jammed in there, are visible. I expect that we’ll have these by October, though.

NEW INNER BLOCK IN TEFLON: I’ve posted before about the new water-distribution blocks inside the group head. We’re transitioning away from brass, as it’s a heat sink, tarnishes easily, and lead is always a concern that requires constant testing. We’ve worked on this for two years, and our beta testers all report better tasting espresso, so this is a change we’re happy about. However, our most recent testing with teflon and PEEK found that both materials warped in use, so we are doing another round of tests, with other materials. I have my hopes pinned on the plastic used to make baby bottles, as it’s extremely tested for food safety, but we’ll see. Again, not sure when this will ship, but hopefully by October.

NEW FRONT PANEL STANDBY BUTTON: we’re transitioning to a new front standby switch. The current switch is “push in to enter standby mode” which is confusing for many people. The new switch will be pushed out when in standby, and flush with the front panel when power is on (standby=off). It’ll also have a power icon. We don’t know when these switches will arrive to us, being given a vague “this summer” ship date from the supplier. That’s the state of manufacturing under COVID.

 

[decent_espresso]

Direct dosing with the Key Grinder, using the Decent stand and funnel.

I was delighted yesterday to receive my own Key Grinder from Weber Workshops.

And even more excited to discover that I can grind directly-into-the-portafilter with the Key, by modding it with two Decent products.

This is a workflow that I much prefer to dosing into a cup, by using the Decent bottomless portafilter stand, and tall magnetic funnel. I do the same thing with my Niche grinder. I find that the drink quality is better since the grounds stay fluffier, and puck preparation time is reduced too.

Here’s a direct link to those two items, if you’d like to do the same.

Portafilter Stand, Bottomless, V2

Portafilter Stand, Bottomless, V2

decentespresso.com

and the product pages:

Decent portafilter stand

Holds your portafilter while you weigh the coffee dose.

decentespresso.com

Portafilter funnel: tidy espresso grinding

Helps you get your grinds into your portafilter accurately and without a mess. Essential for accurate dosing, so that no grounds spill out of the basket during grinding. Sits on the outside of the basket to avoid affecting the coffee bed and so you can tamp right through the funnel.

decentespresso.com

I tried our tall portafilter stand, but it’s too tall for the Key, even with our shorter funnel. But this combination (short stand, tall funnel) works well.

The portafilter stand comes with double sided tape, that adheres it to the Key’s wood platform.

-john

 

[decent_espresso]

World of Coffee, Milan, Italy, June 23/24/25
and
Self-mocking t-shirt ideas

Decent has a double-sized booth at this conference, which is happening next month. Bugs and I will be there with several DE1 coffee carts.

I'm still working on final arrangements, but here is what we think is happening

• Scott Rao will be there, and he's also doing a coffee seminar in Florence afterwards
• Omri Alagor will be there part-time, showing his comics http://instagr.am/p/CUCYLqhs72w/ matrix screens http://instagr.am/p/CVVqrX9MmDn/ and other goodies
• We’ll be making Filter 2.1 shots, hopefully with Weber’s unibody portafilter. We’ll have Niche and Weber grinders in use.
• Two other special guests to be announced later….

And for the Milan trade show, we're having a few tshirts made, short runs (maybe just 5 of each) with self-mocking slogans. Depending on interest, we might make some extra to send out to those of you who can't come.

PLEASE MAKE HUMOUROUS SUGGESTIONS BELOW

Extra points for cluelessly mixing up Italian/German/English is painful ways.

Here are some auto-generated mockups. Obviously, these are not “final graphics”, they’re just there to illustrate the words.

I don't think Martin will let us do the Niche t-shirt, but I'm gonna ask him.

-john

 

[decent_espresso]

Size and shape comparison: Breville BDB and Decent DE1PRO

I've finally gotten around to cleaning up and selling my BDB that we bought years ago.

I thought I'd take a video of the two machines, side-by-side.

It's interesting to compare the size, shape and "physical presence" of these two home espresso machines.

Note that this is an old (v1.0, sn#2) DE1 model, without the group head controller, in the photo, and that I still use.

-john

 

[Hypnotic5949]

Size and shape comparison: Breville BDB and Decent DE1PRO

I've finally gotten around to cleaning up and selling my BDB that we bought years ago.

I thought I'd take a video of the two machines, side-by-side.

It's interesting to compare the size, shape and "physical presence" of these two home espresso machines.

Note that this is an old (v1.0, sn#2) DE1 model, without the group head controller, in the photo, and that I still use.

-john

I forget how great those fully mirrored Decents look (when clean)!

 

[decent_espresso]

Improving Heater Insulation


NEW-DE1-SMELL:

We've been working for several months on figuring out why brand new DE1 machines will give a smell, when warm, for the first few weeks of ownership.

We did eventually track it down to the organic "binder" (aka "glue") used to hold together the fiberglass fibers in our insulating sheets. After a few weeks, the smell goes away naturally.

That binder is made of starch, and it turns out that it slowly "toasts" when the heater is hot and touching the insulation.

After a lot of searching, we found someone making 3mm thick fiberglass with a no-smell binder. The blowtorch test above is more extreme than a 180ºC heater, but it demonstrates the point, and was done for us by our new insulation supplier. We tested it on monday, in a small closed office, with the heaters set to go to max heat, (until their thermostat safeties limit them), and we're now at no-smell.



BETTER ENERGY EFFICIENCY:

Our espresso-making heater is kept at 99ºC, while the steam heater is at 160ºC. The heaters are our-design, and are double insulated: first with fiberglass, then with a moulded insulator, that fits tightly and is cable-tied shut.

Our infrared camera shows us that there's not much heat leakage, except at the water in and out connection points. We use custom made all-metal connectors, not using the off-the-shelf plastic ones, as we prefer the longevity and no-plastic-in-the-water-path approach.

Those metal connectors, do radiate, though. We're now designing little insulating "socks" that we'll be putting around the three hotspots you can see in the photo.

As the Decent is off most of the day, and warms in 4.5 minutes, our energy usage is already massively lower than a typical machine, which has an uninsulated boiler. We've had customers report large $ reductions in their monthly electricity bill, after retiring their always-on boiler machines.

But there's always more that can be done, and happily, this project is nearing its conclusion.

The new heaters and insulating socks, should make their way into the October-scheduled v1.44 version. Once we have the insulating socks, they'll also be available to our existing customers who want to put them on their machines.

-john

 

[rmcclure26]

I recently got the new funnel from decent espresso and loved the weight and feel of it, but found that it did not fit with my grinder. Rather than issuing a typical return, Paul at decent was able to work with me to get it donated to a fellow coffee lover who was recently laid off. Great idea to help someone who is going through a rough time and reduce the overall carbon footprint. Thanks for the great customer service @decent!

 

[decent_espresso]

Tomorrow (Saturday) Bugs and I are holding an event at Berkeley CoRo, California from 2:30-5.

I wanted a way to reach out to people who live nearby, to see if they might want to come.

I've spent a good part of this week implementing this feature, because it also enables some other things people have asked for:

• meeting other Decent owners who are near to you.
• - "I'd like to start a Local Decent User Group" is a very common request, that I want to help with.
• people who are Decent-curious, sometimes ask me if someone nearby would be willing to give them a demo of their machine
• and we occasionally have events, such as when I last (pre-COVID) went on a cafe tour.
• - I'm planning on doing a cafe tour of Germany and Switzerland, this summer, for instance.

Today, I emailed people who have bought a DE1 or accessories from me, who live within 100km of Berkeley. To build the database, I've used Latitude and Longitude Finder on Map Get Coordinates and used people's shipping address. It's an inexpensive geolocation service, and fast (it's CSV based) but limited to "uploading 500 records by hand", which is a bit tedious. I've only so far done California, half the US, and Germany. Another 40 update files to go....

Any email you get from me on this, has a single click "opt out" and I'll never bother you again.

As with your postal address, this information is held with us, and not shared with anyone else. If someone wants to meet you, I'll be emailing you, and will only link you two up, if you say you want to.

Next, I'll need to think about how to have "mini forums" for "local Decent user's groups" to help nearly Decent people talk to each other.

And I mentioned above, none of this is required, you can opt out with a click. But Decent people tend to be a friendly bunch...

-john

 

[decent_espresso]

Decent Power Consumption

Decent customer Wim Leers reports on two years of having his Decent Espresso Machine, and logging its power consumption with his “Eve Energy” device.

He writes:

- ~130 kWh in ~2 years for 1704 shots, 1027 steam sessions, 131 hot water pours.
- Plus roughly 1.5 year of being “on” but idle.

At 2022 San Francisco Bay area prices of $0.31/kwH, that works out to $40.31 over two years, or about $20 per year.

He’s averaging 2.3 espressos per day (of which 1.4 of those are, on average, steamed milk drinks)

—
How does this compare to other machines?

Home Barista wrote an analysis:

Power consumption info on espresso machines?

30 years of espresso experience w/ 4 different machines. Last one was Vivaldi II. Now live off-grid (solar power) so power consumption is a concern. Does anyone have kWh consumption info on espresso machines? Most machines seem to be at their best after they have been left on for a while (temp...

www.home-barista.com

Leaving a boiler on all day is expensive, so they assume two cycles per day:

“If you were so inclined to cycle it four times per day for two hours per cycle, allowing it to cool completely between each cycle, it would consume 1.8 kWh per day (0.45 *4).”

Over two years, this would be 1314 kWh or $407, or $203.50/year in electrical cost, in San Francisco. About 10x the DE1.

If you were to leave your boiler on 24/7, as manufacturers sometimes recommend (for machine longevity, because thermal cycling is bad for them), you would use 4x more electricity, at roughly $800/year.

—

I have not yet seen real world power consumption information about the new “green” boiler machines like the Prima One, which have much smaller boilers. If anyone owns one, and has been tracking real power usage with a device, I’d love to learn.

The main reasons for the DE1 using very little power are:

• low power idle mode, with 4.5 minute from-cold-to-ready time. AC power is physically cut off with a solenoid, during idle mode,
• heat on demand, only heats the water actually used in your drink, not a large (just in case you need it) amount of water that would be in a boiler.
• however, we still have improvements to make. I’m working on a firmware/app update that will turn off the USB charger when the tablet is over 60% charged, turning it back on when the battery drops to 40%. At the moment USB charging is always on. There will be other improvements we can make, as we’re planning on throwing some engineering time at this.

-john

 

[decent_espresso]

Yesterday say my collaboration continued with tea importer Ali from Blue Willow Tea. Blue Willow Tea

A day of tasting, profiling making, comparing with various gongfu preparations, yielded two new harvest teas that expressed themselves very well on the Decent.

I'll write more about this soon, and post recipes, but for whatever reason, some teas brewed on the Decent are just so-so, with traditional brewing techniques yielding better results. But others just "pop" and are amazing, brewing very well on the Decent. It's these "wow" teas that I write to you about.

The two teas that were great, and that I'll be posting profiles for, are both Winter 2021 harvests, just arrived in the past week. If you are interested in these, I recommend mail ordering them now, and by the time they arrive to you, I'll have the Decent profiles published.

Not that with the Decent, we were able to do much more complicated brewing approaches than what Blue Willow recommends on their website. What we're doing is more what a tea master would do, if you had them making your tea for you.

For example, with the Lunar Winter Green tea, we're doing 3 quick infusions of 20 seconds, 15 seconds, 15 seconds. With the Black Phoenix we're doing a first cup of 3 short 20 second infusions, that is very delicate, and then a second cup, 90 seconds later, with chocolate notes dominating. They're two very different, but both delicious, beverages from the same tea.

Black Phoenix

We are so pleased to share this new tea with you. Harvested in the winter on Phoenix Mountain, this black tea is made from Mi Lan Xiang Oolong cultivars. Winter harvested teas grow slower in the limited sunlight, soaking up more minerals from the soil as they grow and often developing sweeter...

www.bluewillowtea.com

BLACK PHOENIX

We are so pleased to share this new tea with you. Harvested in the winter on Phoenix Mountain, this black tea is made from Mi Lan Xiang Oolong cultivars. Winter harvested teas grow slower in the limited sunlight, soaking up more minerals from the soil as they grow and often developing sweeter notes. The resulting flavor is unique and intense. The warm leaf offers notes of baked plum pie and a hint of citrus peel. Even with short steeps the tea is full bodied and has a nourishing intensity that settles deep in your throat. When allowed to steep longer, the leaves emanate distinctive chocolate flavors that wash over your senses like velvet.

Process: OrganicHarvest: Winter, 2021
Origin: Guangdong, China

and

Lunar Winter Green

Plucked from the southernmost tea garden in Yunnan, just above the Vietnam border, this tea has a unique personality. It is harvested a few days before the Lunar New Year, towards the end of winter. The leaves have been dormant all winter long, soaking up nutrients in the soil as they rest...

www.bluewillowtea.com

LUNAR WINTER GREEN

Plucked from the southernmost tea garden in Yunnan, just above the Vietnam border, this tea has a unique personality. It is harvested a few days before the Lunar New Year, towards the end of winter. The leaves have been dormant all winter long, soaking up nutrients in the soil as they rest. The air is dry and cold this time of year and the leaves pick up a notes of smoke in the air and a dewy sweetness.

When picked, the leaves exude flavors and aromas that range from savory charcoal-smoked veggies to sweet red bean paste. The long winter hibernation has harbored a stamina that will allow this tea to be steeped at least 10 times, each yielding vibrant new notes. The first few steeps offer warm hints of smoke and charcoal, and as each steep reaches deeper within the leaf, it accesses reserves of nectar. Each cup has a healthy amount of body and brings to mind steamed artichoke hearts and summer squash.

Harvest: 2022
Origin: Yunnan, China

 

[decent_espresso]

Beauty in the flaws

Our order of 500 wood handles made from reclaimed end-of-life Italian olive trees, is finished and my staff went to the maker to do their quality check.

Used to a world of industrial perfection, my staff rejected half the batch as imperfect.

Now, I've done some woodworking in my life, building electric guitars and helping build a renaissance lute.

As such, I'm a big fan of character in wood.

Signs of aging, struggle, natural forces; I love seeing that in the wood.

Thus, where my staff see flaws, I see beauty.

Look closely at that wood handles above. The one on the right has amazing swirls of dense color variation. There's so much drama in there. The left one looks almost like marble. As long as that natural crack doesn't weaken the wood or feel bad in the hand, I see no problem.

Not everyone might agree with me, of course.

What I'm thinking of doing, is photographing every single handle we get, and letting the buyer pick the exact one they wand. Because this is very old wood, each handle is very much unique, gnarled, defective, twisted, in its own particular way.

What do you think?

 

[decent_espresso]

London, UK - Decent event at Prufrock, May 21

The first LODUM event (LOndon Decent User's Meetup) will take place soon, at Prufrock Serving great coffee and delicious food on Leather Lane since 2011. on May 21st, from 6pm->8pm. Open to both the Decent-Curious and the currently-Decent.

The event will be modeled on the recent Berkeley, California event, where Decent owners brought their own machines in, and made "what they drink at home" for others. I'll be making espresso and lattes, with my Adaptive profile.

I NEED DECENT VOLUNTEERS

We have space for up to 4 Decent owners to set up on a table upstairs at Prufruck. Nothing fancy or geeked is needed: the goal is to show what you do, how you do it, with your everyday beans.

Attendees can thus get a taste <har har> of what other Decent owners are up to, and volunteers get to chat to fellow coffee nerds.

Here was a typical setup that a volunteer did at this past saturday's event.

 

[Bicky]

What I'm thinking of doing, is photographing every single handle we get, and letting the buyer pick the exact one they wand. Because this is very old wood, each handle is very much unique, gnarled, defective, twisted, in its own particular way.

What do you think?

Sounds like a lot of work! What about simply adding a disclaimer detailing this? I've seen something similar on websites like Etsy when looking at handmade furniture made from reclaimed wood. One says this for example -

You'll find a variety of features which vary from table to table. These may be from their previous life or simply the natural grain and pattern in the wood. We enhance these features and will never send out a table we wouldn't want ourselves. They are 'imperfectly perfect' and that's the way we like them!

Reclaimed wood is not for everyone. It can be full of character which of course makes it unique but it is very different to high street furniture that is made to be uniform.

I've seen some offer to send pictures on request, which could be a fair compromise. Doing nothing would definitely be a gamble, and I expect you would have some dissatisfied customers!

 

[decent_espresso]

Workflow demo: my Weber Key Grinder, Decent DE1 & portafilter stand & funnel, making espresso

I filmed myself making an espresso this morning, to show my workflow with the Key and my Decent & accessories. I'm fairly happy with this now, as it's making consistent coffee and fairly quick to do. I'll be using this setup at the upcoming World of Coffee Trade Show, and we'll see how it goes there, in a high pressure situation.

I glued a magnet to my tablet stand, so that it auto-positions using the Key's magnet hidden under the wood. I'd like to try to make that less ugly, and ideally, offer that as an buyable option for any Key owners who want to try it. More news on that in the future.

-john