The journey from coffee lover to coffee roaster!

It all started with my love of cycling. There is a tight link between the cycling and coffee world. Espresso before sessions. Caffeine in sports gels. Coffee companies sponsoring cycling teams of the past. The history is there. So as a keen cyclist I decided to buy an espresso machine neatly 10 years ago. I have never really looked back.

My first was a beautiful Rocket Giotto. I had 7 years of great fun with it, learning to keep it clean and replace the parts as they wore out. Being built around the famous e61 brew head meant it was pretty bombproof and easy to take care of and service. However, with a single boiler and no PID, there was quite a lot of flushing and tweaking each shot you pulled, but get it right and the shot sung.

I decided on an upgrade.

I was looking at the Rocket line of machines (R9 one), the Lamarzocco Mini, and out of nowhere the Decent Espresso DE1. I went with the Decent, which i have to admit was a brave choice. There is no real provenance there, the technology is on the bleeding edge, and compared to the other brands – its looks are polarising. I have to say, I am very impressed and there is a bigger post coming.

So impressed with the control I now have over my shots, I wanted to move on to roasting. The control from green coffee seed/bean to the final cup appealed. I can get quite obsessed over things.

My choice of roaster to start was the Aillio Bullet – there is a whole post to come, but safe to say, for small-batch, repeatable quality roasts, it sits at the top of its tree. There are upgrades of course, but for now…. this is where it is at.

And here we are today. A pretty new roaster but obsessed. I look forward to sharing the journey.