Day 20 The Modification

Before

After

Dear readers, the last couple of days have been somewhat of a whirlwind, it being the end of the semester.  Today, I finally got enough motivation to attempt a homemade modification for the LaPavoni espresso machine.  The modification is with the steam wand tip.  Most LaPavoni's have a tri-tipped wand, which can sort of be made out in the picture; other wand tips that I have seen have only one hole.  So in an attempt to create the perfect foam, I thought it was time to try a modification.  I saw this done on my favorite espresso  youtube video.  Please not that the dude is using almost the same machine.  Instead of buying his I decided to create my own.  So I went to Home Depot and bought a $0.60 cap nut and drilled a 1/16 hole in the bottom.  You may think that this seems like a relatively easy project, which it was. However, the difficult part of the project was the motivation behind it.

Silky smooth Microfoam

     After my first steaming test, I immediately regretted my laziness.  The foam that resulted from the single hole tip was incredible!  Unbelievable, it was like I hardly had to do any work to steam the milk.  As a result I had to share the brilliant endeavorer.  The whole while, I had John Mayer in the back ground encouraging me with his Trio band, with members Pino Palladino on the bass, and Steve Jordan on the drums.  The John Mayer Trio makes for some great background coffee music.  I've realized that not many people have heard of John's trio band, so here is a link to Amazon to either listen to it or purchase it.  It is recorded live and sounds quite good.

Day 15, may look bad but taste pretty darn delicious

Well here we are, a Wednesday, and again a blob of latte.  However bad it may appear the taste more than covers the looks!  Which I have come to find is a quarter of the battle.  For those that are curious, I finally figured out the proper method to make the frothed milk taste delicious.  For a spell I found that the milk always tasted a little spoiled.  I recently found out that the taste of milk is based on the final temperature it reaches before cutting off the steam and pulling out the wand.  The exact temperatures, according to numerous sources, especially one source being Scott Rao, is between 150 - 160 degrees F.  Before I would pull the wand out around 120-130 leaving it a little cold to the lips and pretty foul to the taste buds.  

In the spirit of defining what makes a good coffee shop, I have decided to continue with that question for today as well.  Some of the comments mentioned are as follows; a good friend, a good tasting drink (for my mom, it was a mocha), a comfortable atmosphere (in Java's case that would be an organic feel), and a somewhat laid back staff.  So, if these are it what takes to produce the right coffee shop experience then what would be some specifics for those answers.  For example, what defines an 'organic' atmosphere, is it a certain type of music, wall colors, a distinct style of furniture, etc.  For those that already posted thanks for your input, for those that haven't weighed in, here is your chance again.