Look look what somebody got for himself today as a late birthday present:
I did not know until yesterday that my hometown is home to one of the shooting stars amongst German private roasters of recent years. Not only do they now run three very nice, unique cafes in town now, but they are delivering their blends to all places in Germany now, and to the German parlimanet,s becasue many people in government demand this coffee and no other
. The beans they sell are never older than 3 days
maximum, and if they have many visitors over the day, they get new beans even mor eoften, up to every day. And you smell and taste it! I already tried three of their five expresso mixes, and they all three are probably the best I have ever tried, one of which winner of some culinaric silver medal. Guess I found paradise today.
The Brikka arrived today, too, and while the foam still needs experimentation with the grind setting, by taste it works very very well. You enter 80-85 ml of water and get around 70 ml of coffee. I already love it. For some reason it works better than the older Bialetti that I once had in my university years. Maybe that valve and quadrupled working pressure really makes that big difference. If you consider to buy a Bialetti in the future, prefer the Brikka over the Moka Express any time! The price difference is only very very small - the quality difference is not.
But I need a new grinder. I am still using this one:
Build before WWI, maybe even late 19th century, we are not sure. Surprisingly, it still works well for grinding ordinary coffee powder like you use for filter cafe or French Press. But doing finer grind for espresso - there it fails. I am researching for a good espresso grinder, I really need one. I currently improvise with a muesli grinder for wheat and cereals, with a stone grinder, and indeed you can even create powder for Turkish coffee with it - but you need to work on the crank for 10 minutes - for one cup of coffee. that is not what I would call an optimised working technique.