Happy Independance Day East Timor!

I know there is still unrest, and things are not yet where they should be for this newest of nations, but regardless of that I'd like to wish the people of Timor Leste a Happy Independance Day.

I hoping they were going for decaf!

PerthNow is reporting that yesterday two men were men stopped for speeding at 160km/h in a 90km/h zone between North Dandalup and Dwellingup. Apparently they were leaving church and heading to Dwellingup for a coffee.

The report states their bikes were seized under the hoon legislation but fails to advise whether or not they got their coffee. If they were detained by WA Police the insant coffee they would have been served would have added insult to the injury of having their bikes confiscated.

Anyone in that much of a hurry for coffee probably shouldn't be drinking it.

So what North Dandalup church were they leaving what Dwellingup cafe were they heading for?

Feast your eyes

Feast your eyes and feel envy.

These are in my freezer.



Isn't Mrs Grendel clever?

She used some of the flour we bought at Weigh'n Pay yesterday to make a croissant dough and we all got around the bench to roll croissant together.

They are rich and buttery and I ate mine hot from the oven.

Finding the good grain

Bulk food stores have always held an interest for me and while Perth has several notable bulk food outlets I've never been overly satisfied with the ones I've visited.

Today we went on a drive down to Woodvale to visit Mrs Grendel's friend who own a bookshop.

While we were there we stumbled across a little store called Weigh 'n Pay, which while probably well known to those who need gluten free products is tucked away in an unassuming position and is an absolute gem and I am very happy to have discovered it somewhat closer to home than any of the alternatives.

It had similar stock to what you would expect from a bulk food store, but a much greater range across categories and an excellent store presentation.

The storage bins keep the stock very fresh and staff were continually stocking the small self-service bins.

Their range of spices was stupendous and I could have spent an hour in there just inhaling as brain therapy.

You can take your own containers to fill rather than wasting plastic or paper bags, a nice initiative. We bought some bread mixes in small lots to try and their range of flours for European, Indian and Middle Eastern style breads is terrific.

The porridges caught my eye and I left the store with a collection of South African porridge mixes to fuel me through the next week.

A great store and well worth the drive if you like to buy grain, flour and spices at good prices. Fortunately for those who can't make the trip, they also appear to fill mail orders.

I snapped a couple of quick photos with the camera phone:












Who: Weigh 'n Pay
What: Bulk dry goods, snacks and spices
Where: Shop 6 Woodvale Blvd. Shopping Centre Cnr of Whitfords Ave & Trappers Drive Woodvale
When: Saturday, 17 May 2008
Accessibility: Good
Contact: (Phone/fax) 08 9409 3299

WABA Barista Jam

Matt (Abstract Gourmet) is on his game today and has reported on the upcoming Barista Jam on June 8. Check out Matt's blog for a full description of the event or catch the brief 'events' notice here.

Sounds like a fun day.

Mouse

There is a grey blur living in our garage.

For the time being we will refer to this blur as a 'mouse' for Mrs Grendel's peace-of-mind, although to be honest it does rather have size advantage over the majority of Mus musculus (the common mouse).

After the sighting earlier this evening we corralled the two most expendable household members and conducted a 'hot zone' insertion by tossing both cats into the garage to see what they could do.

The results were unimpressive and some performance discussions may be required as our household will shortly be moving to outcomes based measurement for feline members.

It might be of course that the problem is more serious - it may in fact be an emissary of Rattus norvegicus - a brown rat.

Mouse or Rat, it is very, very fast. I was wondering what it had been eating as we do not store food of nay kind in the garage.

Then the explanation of both the presence of the rodent and its seemingly improbable rate of acceleration occurred to me - I roast coffee in the garage and while I just roast then take the coffee back inside, the floor always has a scattering of coffee beans both green and roasted.

I think our incisor enhanced visitor is a coffee snob and has been feasting (and getting a caffeine high from) the loose beans on the floor.

He'll have to go however. I can't have Mrs Grendel's heart stopping just when she goes out to the back fridge for my dessert!

The execution of a coffee snob rat raises all sorts of ethical considerations for me but I have reached an internally peaceful resolution:

I'll let the cats sort out the ethics AND the rat.

Origin

I am as guilty of using jargon as anyone else.

It is often hard to remember that not everyone inhabits the same world (figuratively speaking) as I and other coffee snobs.

One of the terms that gets lofted around in referring to coffee beans is their 'Origin' which is fairly self explanatory, but you will also hear coffee people talking about 'Going to Origin'.

Basically this is a form of pilgrimage for the coffee geek to the place where the coffee was grown.

Coffee buyers and roasters are frequent travellers to Origin and in this new world of relationship coffee where the roaster meets and knows the growers, travel to Origin is very important.

I've never had the opportunity to deliberately travel to where coffee is grown - I'd love to go to East Timor in particular as I think they have amazing potential and I'd love to see Australian coffee lovers develop strong ties to Timor Leste both in terms of aiding the redevelopment of the country and also to ensure that we can help them grow us the coffee we want - philanthropy and self interest are not mutually exclusive.

For coffee, quality is becoming more important than ever - and for a nation like East Timor we should ensure that they are given the opportunity to develop the quality of their coffee to its utmost potential. This will allow the Timorese to demand higher prices for their coffee, and ensure that we have a good, and fairly local source of quality coffee.

I don't know of any specific aid projects that are aimed at helping improve East Timorese coffee - and I am not sure I have the skills myself (in fact I know that I do not). However, I am going to spend a bit of time looking at the projects ongoing in East Timor, particularly those relating to agriculture and see if any can be supplemented or expanded to include the production and export of coffee.

One issue with any product from East Timor is GAS.

No, not vapours, snails.

Giant African Snails. Voracious gastropods of stupendous size that if released into Australia would cause ecological havoc. There have been a few incidents involving GAS over the years but it seems to have been largely isolated and eradicated each time. Anything coming from East Timor must be treated to ensure that the snails are dead - this includes coffee.

The projects that currently exist for East Timorese coffee appear to be mostly around raising the profile of the coffee in the marketplace. I'd like to see something a bit deeper and involving an exchange of ideas and visions between East Timor and Australia.

I look forward to the day when I can sit enjoying a cup of Timorese coffee with the family who grew it.

This sudden urge has been driven in part by the recent death of Mrs Grendel's Uncle Bobby. Bobby was a member of 2/2 Commando who served in East Timor during the Second World War. The members of 2/2 remember the Timorese with gratitude as they took great risks and suffered at the hands of the Japanese for the aid they provided to the Australians.

It's only fair that we repay the favour in whatever way we can.

Lost Empires

So you've got a small amount of Yemen Ismali, and a slightly larger amount of Peru SHG from Grace Estate. Both are household favourites but you don't have enough of either for a roast.

The greater dilemma was whether or not a pre-roast blend of these would hold up considering I like to give the Yemen the long slow treatment of a 20-23 minute roast.

This was my problem last Saturday night and the result I named the "Lost Empires" blend (given that both Yemen and Peru have been home to ancient empires).

The result is a very warm rounded coffee - nice and chocolaty, and as a bonus it got the Mrs Grendel 'thumb's up'.

I'd consider adding a PNG or Kenyan to add some additional brightness which I have generally found becomes nutty flavours through milk - but really it is great as is.

One of those felicitous coffee blends you never really plan they just happen.

Micro roasting of coffee often results in the unexpected. And when you hit it just right, you have to adopt the Buddhist approach and enjoy the beans for what they are in that roast alone and will never be again.

Its a bit like making a sand mandala out of coffee beans.

Lambretta

Lambretta on Kingsbridge are a new Pizza and Pasta restaurant that opened yesterday in the far Northern end of Perth.

The owners, Lucy and Mark are neighbours of mine and chefs who have worked in and owned some of Perth's great rustic restaurants.

When we heard they had bought the formerly lacklustre local pizzeria - well 'pleased' would be an understatement.

Lucy is very handy with mosaic tiling and in the major refit they conducted actually tiled the pizzeria name onto the bench.










FIRST TASTE. . .

Wow.

ok

Wow.

The gas was still not connected so there was no pasta on offer, but the Pizza oven was certainly working.

We chose two half and half pizzas - some with ingredients I wouldn't normally select (pickled eggplant for one).

The bases were very traditional Italian style bases - thin and light with enough chew to be pleasant in the middle and a nicely gentle crisp outer edge.
The toppings were really terrific - crisp, sweet red onion, a really nice Italian style sausage - not a mass produced "Hans" or "Don" style salami, but a real Italian one. Fresh mushrooms, and roasted peppers set the whole pizza off very well.
We also (very naughty night) tried the desserts.

Again - yum. and get this - we actually have a place in butler where you can go late at night just to pick up a dessert!

We tried the tiramisu and the sticky date and while the sticky date was my favourite both were excellent.

Finally in Butler - a place to get good food!

Now, being neighbours you might expect that I'm biased - and yes, there is a part of me that wants to see them do well, but at the same time there is a part of me (the biggest part actually) that just wants a place to get great pizza.

Blissfully I am able to satisfy both parts of my nature in this case and give an honest positive response for their Pizzas.

Back to Zekka

Chris, Sam and I dropped by Zekka this morning to see how they are travelling.


Very pleased - coffee was even better than last time, and the eggs were brilliant - this time I had the really piquant chorizo they have as a side for the eggs and along with the tomato relish is was quite a treat.


Great to see they are doing well and they certainly have a loyal following of daily regulars.


I think I rumpled the fashion side of the business by sitting in proximity to the stylish clothes - I make anything look less than stylish!


On the way out I saw this mask - Just the kind of thing Mrs Grendel loves - I'll have to ask where they found it.

Does Perth Need a Coffee Guide

Corey from Epic and Leigh from Urbanistar both showed me copies of Melbourne coffee guides this week.

One of them was fairly straightforward and the other had gone as far as providing a 'bean rating system' to rate the cafe.

While I remain ambivalent about rating one cafe against another I quite like the idea of having a published guide to Perth Coffee with photos - in much the same way as these small format books have been prepared for the Melbourne specialty coffee scene.

But do we need it? My blog is only one of several coffee blogs in WA, and there are publications such as Crema, Spice and Menu adding to the mainstream media mix of the West Australian, Sunday Times and WA Business News.

I worry that a small format book, which would cost money to produce and need to be sold to cover costs, might date too quickly and become unreliable.

Any thoughts from those in WA or from those in places where such books are in use already?

CoffeeSnobs Accredited

Javaphile, a member of CoffeeSnobs.com.au is based in Minneapolis. On behalf of CoffeeSnobs he was granted press credentials for the 2008 Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Annual Conference - which coincidentally is being held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

The conference has just finished and Javaphile has returned and posted a host of pictures up on coffeeSnobs of all the latest and greatest gear available.

The links below are directly to the CoffeeSnobs forum entry with the relevant pictures:

SCAA 2008 Espresso machine pics

SCAA 2008 Roaster Pics

SCAA 2008 Grinder Pics

SCAA 2008 General Pics

SCAA 2008 Other Brewers of interest

Given that is is very hard for most Aussies to see such a collection of gear at any one time it is a great window into the world of coffee in the USA.

Thanks Javaphile for taking the time to get out there on our behalf!

Tamper - Part Two

I haven't forgotten to write the second part - but I'll wait a couple of days until after the traffic from the Barista Comp has subsided and we've all recovered.

Excellent Photos

For some fantastic photos pf the Australian Barista Championships I recommend Sydney Low's website where he has photos of David, Con and Jen's performances.

Thank You

Thank you to Emanuele Muratore, our fearless and intrepid barista, competitor, reporter and photographer for delivering on his promise to keep up-to-date those of us who had to stay behind in WA.

His sterling work has meant at times I've felt almost as excited as if I was there.

Ok - not true, the screams around here were the two junior Grendels beating each other up rather than the supportive cries of a barista's posse, but hey, I'll take what sound effects I can get.

Thank you Em - brilliant job and much appreciated by all of us here.

For those wanting to try Emanueles' comp. blend, he'll have it in Ristretto (Central 160) this week for as long as it lasts.

2008 Australian Barista Championships - wrap up

Barista Competition:

While there was a big gap between David and the others there was only half a point in it for 2nd and 3rd.

1st David Makin of Veneziano Coffee (841 points)
2nd Con Haralambopoulos of 7 Grams Cafe (741 points)
3rd Jen Murray of WA Barista Academy (740.5 points)


Latte Art Competition:

How's Con eh? placing in both events!

1st Habib Maarbani (30 points)
2nd Erin from Veneziano (27 points)
3rd Con Haralambopolous (25 points)


Australian Cupping Championship:

1st Catherine Ferrari (6 from 8)

Still waiting on more information for this category!

Latte Art Champion

Habib Maarbani of NSW is the Latte Art Winner with a 100% score of 30 points.

This is great for Habib who managed third place in last year's finals - congratulations!

Habib will be off to Copenhagen with the Australian team and I know he'll do us proud. Perhaps he will consider moving to WA before Copenhagen so we can quickly adopt him.

A quadruple rosette was the winning pour.

Erin from Veneziano scored 27 points for second place and Con Haralambopolous managed 25 points for third place.

A WA Champion!

Western Australia has a champion at this weekend's Australian Barista Championships.

Catherine Ferrari of European Foods is off to Copenhagen to represent Australia after her win in the Cupping Championships this afternoon.

Congratulation to Catherine - and to Her mother Anne who was obviously passed along the right coffee genes.

It will be great to have a West Aussie representative in Copenhagen. I need to do some kind of deal so we can have our own correspondent reporting direct from Copenhagen - when she's not cupping of course!

Catherine, pictured at the time of the WA Cupping Championships

Controversy

Controversy at the ABC this afternoon.

Hazel, as I mentioned earlier, took an unconventional approach to palate cleansing and warming up the judges by serving a 'cupping' of her blend.

There is some contention about whether or not this is permitted as apparently the only palate cleanser is supposed to be water served by the competitor.

I don't know if this figured in the end result but I hope to have more information shortly.

Dave Makin - ABC Champion

Congratulations to David Makin, once again the Australian Barista Champion.

Well, his plans for retirement will have to go on hold until after the WBC in Copenhagen.

Dave finished well in front with a polished performance. Second was Con Haralambopolous - and very well done indeed to come in as the wildcard entrant and place in the top three.

WA's own Jen Murray also grabbed honours with third place.

Hazel

Hazel has kicked with a cupping - Can't see the images too well, it seems she's educating the judges about her coffee first before she serves the espressos.

Unconventional but interesting!

Also unconventional - apparently Hazel is using Mountain Top coffee 549 - using TWO grinders and the beans in each grinder have been roasted to different points.








Hazel's performance was calm, assured and the depth of the descriptions added a lot to the performance.

Dave Makin to retire

Dave Makin has finished with time to spare. Apparently he was using a double estate blend with a Daterra from Brazil and and El Salvadorian coffee.

David announced that no matter what the outcome of today he will be retiring from Barista Competitions - reports are that it was a very smooth and polished performance and he will be one to watch in the points.

Latest on the Finals

The finals are underway!

A very blurry Jen getting ready to compete (I think!)

Day one Round up - in brief

Con is through to today's finals, Habib from NSW scored 30 points with a quadruple rosette, Erin from Veneziano scored 27 points for second place and Con managed 25 points for third place.


Sorry it really is that brief. . .

Repecharge Winner

The winner of the repecharge and entry into tomorrow's final is Con Haralambopolous, of 7 Grams Espresso in Richmond.

Apparently Con managed to win despite some setbacks in his setup time and given the competition he was up against on the day the performance in Comp time must have been superb to watch.

Congratulations to Con and best of luck in the finals tomorrow.

I haven't yet heard how the Latte art went - maybe tonight I'll get another SMS (HINT!)

Emanuele

It looks like Emanuele managed one last photo before the battery died - one of his own performance.

I hope to have a result for the repecharge shortly.

The Programme

Just so you know where we are in time - below is the programme for today and tomorrow.

I'll have a couple of AFK (away from Keyboard) periods - soccer training and a birthday party with the Junior Grendels!


If I can figure my 'Blog via mobile' arrangements I may even geek out enough to do that.

Finals Programme

- National Finals -

Melbourne 3 - 4th May, 2008

Saturday 3rd May

• Open Heats/Repecharge Heats - 8:30 am
• Latte Art National Championship - 4:00 pm
• Presentations and Announcements - 6 pm

Sunday 4th May

• ABC Final - 10:00 am
• Cupping Championship final - 3:00 pm
• Presentations - 5:00 pm

Con - 7 Grams Espresso (Richmond)

Melbourne espresso legend Con Haralambopolous, of 7 Grams Espresso in Richmond (home of the 2007 Latte Art Champion).

As well as competing today in the Repecharge, Con, as the 2008 Victorian Latte Art Champion will be taking on the rest of the Country for the Latte Art crown.




And that looks like a terrific shot glooping into the top of Con's signature drink!

Update

Just to update, I am remote live blogging the Repecharge event at the Australian Barista Championships today. Emanuele Muratore from Ristretto Espresso in Perth CBD is our correspondent and is working his phone hard to get me the photos.

Emanuele will also be competing so I expect he'll stop at some point to take a break from sending images through to actually get behind the machine.

So far this morning we've seen Tracy from Mooba, Nick from Beaufort Street Merchants and Vanessa from Epic all showing their prowess behind the competition La Marzoccos.

Vanessa from Epic

Ahh she took the candles with her all the way to Melbourne!





And working the machine like the Champion she is. . .





Is it just me or does that machine look different from the special WBC machines we've seen everyone else using?

Nick Hind

Nick Hind of Beaufort Street Merchant - you can see him starting out his competition time.



And getting down to the Grind:

ABC - Tracy

First photos are in from Correspondent Muratore!


Tracy of Mooba has kicked off in the Comp.

Good tamping style but I think the wallpaper behind the Comp machine could sour the milk!

Australian Barista Championships

The Team from WA are already in and competing this morning.

Emanuele Muratore and a number of other WA coffee notables are going to keep us updated via mobile multimedia content which I will post up here as soon as I can get it.


While we will have to wait until tomorrow for the full results of the 2008 Austalian Barista Championships we should at least learn early on if any of our crew make it through to the finals as a wildcard following the repecharge session today.

To those going East

I found the phrase below the other day during my project research and I just love the prose that has gone into the criticism:

"tasteless mawkish and weak, the flavour and spirit all gone and nothing remaining of the real stuff save the shadow which mocks the lip and the palate with unreal seeming a flat flavourless baseless fabric of a vision; the very corpse of a cup of good coffee" The Monthly Review By Ralph Griffiths

I'm just dying to find a cafe to use it on. In reality though I hope I never do.


And with that I'd like to wish the very best of luck to all the West Aussies heading over East this weekend for the Australian Barista Championships. We have quite a team going over competing and judging in the Barista, Cupping and Latte art competitions.

May the words 'Mawkish and Weak' never appear on your score sheets!

And please, SMS me often with updates and photos!

I look forward to being called on to serve as baggage carrier and milk jug washer by any winner (in any category at all) to the WBC Copenhagen - pleeeeeeese. . .