While I Was Away ...

OK, so heaps of stuff has happened since my last update. Heaps. In brief:

*Back from Sydney. (Miss y'all, Mecca.)

*Lots of training and behind the scenes stuff for the Vic Barista Comp.

*Super Jolly went missing; slumming it with a Kony.

*Robur becomes a permanent addition to the bench at work. That thing is so good that I'm embarrassed to have ever served coffee without it. We have had a heap of different grinders on the bench, but I'd trade all of them for a single Robur.

*Currently drinking the first iteration of Andrew's new blend for Maling Room. It's a simple, chocolate-bar style blend, done very well. Clean, but not afraid to stand up to milk. I respect Andrew's take on just going with the basics in times where fruity coffees are disappointing.

At the moment, I have mixed feelings about a number of trends happening in the coffee industry. When we talk about raising the bar, we are always implicitly talking about raising two bars; the lower one, representing the average standard, and the higher one, representing the state of the art. The lower bar usually represented establishments that quite overtly didn't give a damn, whilst the higher bar was usually held up by people willing to invest serious time and money. On the one hand, I'm concerned that we're starting to see a flocking to the middle, in which people are talking the talk, but failing to even put in a decent effort at walking the walk ... if not cynically ripping people off. On the other hand, we are also seeing an increase in establishments pushing up the top end. This blog will focus on the latter, as will I.

Until next time, when I hope to talk about some dudes who are doing it right, a teaser ...


... guesses welcome.