Wacaco Company Ltd, is bringing their most compact and pro-oriented portable espresso machine to market. From that heritage and know-how Wacaco has developed a product that marries the convenience and versatility of an espresso maker that fits in the palm of your hand with the design and capabilities of a high end cafe quality machine.

Worldwide leader in portable espresso makers, Wacaco Company Ltd, is bringing their most compact and pro-oriented portable espresso machine to market. The Picopresso is a high end manual espresso machine based on Wacaco's patented and groundbreaking piston-driven espresso machine technology, as seen in the Picopresso’s predecessors the Nanopresso (released in 2017) and Minipresso (released in 2014).  The original Minipresso was the first of its kind and redefined the category of hand held portable espresso makers.

From that heritage and know-how Wacaco has developed a product that marries the convenience and versatility of an espresso maker that fits in the palm of your hand with the design and capabilities of
a high end cafe quality machine. This specialty coffee machine features a naked portafilter, so users will see delicious creamy espresso flowing directly from a standard 52mm 18 gram stainless steel filter basket during the brewing process. With the Picopresso there are no shortcuts. Each home brewer must master the art of manual espresso making by dialing in the correct grind size, tamping, and perfecting pulling technique – their reward; an authentic cafe-quality espresso that will rival any expensive high-end machine.

“The world of manual home espresso enthusiasts is growing, and Wacaco is positioned to be at the forefront of this movement,” says Hugo Cailleton (co-founder). “Our machines have enabled millions of our customers to adventure and brew remotely in some amazing locations.” This new brewer is an assembly of quality; dedicated to elevating and extracting the essence of each coffee bean in flavor and character.  With the Picopresso home baristas will have the opportunity to master both the artful and scientific aspects required by the “ritual” of espresso making.

The Picopresso is set to retail at $129.90 USD and will be offered at a discount of $99.90 USD during the launching period of June 15th - 31st via https://www.wacaco.com/pages/picopress

I was flicking though some old photos and spotted this one, an early small batch roast which failed. If you look at the right side of the photo, about half way down you’ll see a dot - that’s a bean that has over roasted and cracked - we call that second crack when the coffee is exothermic - just past the point of optimum roast for this bean. The coffee begins to loose its origin flavour and take on a roast flavour - kind of like steak cooked on the BBQ can change from having its desired texture and flavour to taking on the flavour of char grill - its a personal choice but I prefer to allow the coffee origin to shine through.

The benefit of a coffee subscription serves both convenience and variety. You'll never be without delicious fresh roasted coffee beans when they arrive at your door step automatically each month. Wine companies have offered a similar service in the past that has proven to be a hit with their customers, now coffee lovers can experience the same feeling!

One of the market leaders and pioneers of online coffee beans is Bay Beans, established in 2006, they've been offering their coffee bean subscription service for over 15 years now. There are a few ways you can join in the fun. You can select from either weekly, fortnightly or monthly deliveries, as well as select either your favorite bean or the most popular option is the random selection - its a different bean delivered to your door each month. 

Here is a list of the options available;

1. Classic Blends, just $27.26 per delivery. You can select from three coffee varieties;

• Forte (a cafe favorite)
• Espresso Master (this one has won a few awards!)
• Super Crema (for the strong coffee lover)

2. Specialty Blends, for only $31.06 per delivery

• Mocha Prince (caramel and chocolate tones)
• Fairtrade certified coffee (100% certified in Australia)
• Decaf ( quality Swiss Water Processed coffee removes most of the caffeine naturally)
• Premium Reserve (a special limited edition coffee)
• Random Variety (the most popular choice, which contains every variety in a rotation schedule)

The last option is by far the most popular choice - it provides for a different coffee for you to try each month. Its also great for offices for the ultimate variety. 

Every variety comes in different sizes to suit your needs, from 500g bags, through to 1kg bags and boxes containing 10x 1kg bags or more. 

As a general idea, if you are making 2 coffees a day, you'd consume 500g per month - if there are two coffee lovers in your household, opt instead for 1kg - you'll also save significantly by choosing 1kg. 

Delivery is free to anywhere in Australia and you have complete freedom to cancel or suspend deliveries at any time - there are no lock in contracts. We've been offering this flexibility for over 15 years and you benefit from the freedom of choice. 

"is your Bay Beans Creamy Chai Gluten free?"

​I didn't know the answer to your question, so have compared the ingredients list of the Creamy Chai (ingredients list below) with those listed on celiac.com as their Gluten Free Food List (here is the link; https://www.celiac.com/articles.html/safe-gluten-free-food-list-safe-ingredients-r181/ ) and also cross referenced the items that do not have an item name listed, such as COLOUR (150C), which is listed as CARAMEL III on the Australian Food Standards list (link: https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/additives/additiveoverview/Documents/Food%20additives%20-%20numberical%20May%202019.pdf )

None of the ingredients are flagged as having Gluten as far as I can tell. I am no expert on this though, so I've included the reference material I've used above for you to refer to.

Here is the ingredients list of Creamy Chai;
Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Vegetable Oil, Sodium Caseinate (Milk), Emulsifier (471), Stabiliser (340), Anti-Caking Agent (551), Beta Carotene, Dextrose, Milk Solids, Tea Extract, Spices, Colour (150c).


I hope that helps. 

 "Do you have or can you source decaf chai latte powder? I dont mind purchasing 1kg+ Thank you"

What a great question, and one I haven't been asked before. 

Straight to the point, I don't sell 100% decaf chai, however I thought it might be helpful to go into some detail for you, to help make the right decision for your needs. 

There are two kinds of Chai, one is known more broadly as Chai Tea, which is prepared by infusing spices in water, similar to brewing tea. Caffeine from this traditional Chai Tea is usually around 80mg - that number can be manipulated by the time you steep your tea for - a shorter duration will result in a more mild tea, as well as less caffeine, as low as 50-60mg. 

The other kind of Chai, is known as Chai Latte, and is the popular non coffee beverage in Australia. The Chai Latte mixes I have on the website, both Bondi Chai and Creamy Chai are more tailored to the Australian market for flavour.  The caffeine in these is closer to 25mg per serve - while not a decaf, it is a lower caffeine alternative. 

When you compare that to coffee, non decaf is around 130mg, while even the decaf coffee contains caffeine, a lesser amount at a rate of around 10mg. 

So, while the Chai Latte has caffeine of around 25mg, it is around 1/4 of the caffeine found in traditional chai, similar to the comparison of coffee and decaffeinated coffee.

I hope this helps, Here is a link to the chai's;

Regards,
 
James Axisa
Chief Espresso Officer

www.baybeans.com.au
Mobile: 0428 555 535
Voicemail callback: 02 8208 3477
 
[I reply to all emails personally]

"Please tell me one thing. If I will order my coffee beans right now on your website, when can they be delivered to Baulkham Hills 2153, NSW? 

Also, I have a Jura Automatic Machine. Before this one we had a DeLonghi for almost 5 years but it needed to be replaced. I wanted to buy something manual (not automatic machine) but we are really lazy and again we bought an automatic machine. However, I really hope that Jura S8 will be a good choice and the coffee will taste great. How should we set the grinder to grind the coffee?"

With your coffee being roasted fresh this morning, if you order by around 11am, I am able to package your coffee and lodge it with the courier today - they can deliver it to Baulkham Hills tomorrow.

I completely understand your choice of automatic machine, in fact, it can be a better choice than a standard machine. With the automatic machine, you, your wife or visitors can make a great coffee at ease, whereas with a manual machine, perhaps you will always be tasked with the responsibility and you wouldn't enjoy it as much. 

For the coffee grind setting, it is individual to each machine, even of the same type. Aim for a grind that allows your coffee to extract in 30 seconds. If it is longer than that, you'd need to make your grind a little more coarse to allow the water to pass through more easily. If it is gushing out too fast, make your grind finer. 

"Could you help me choose a good coffee bean variety for home usage? I'm not a full expert as I'm using Jura s8 expresso machine but still I love great coffee. I need a minimum two types of coffee; One for my wife - can’t be strong or sour and needs to be delicate and good for cappuccino. Second for me - I’m in love with espresso. Coffee can be strong, slightly sour with good crema. We both prefer 100% arabica (not with robusta) with some additional aftertaste (like cocoa etc). Are you able to propose something for our first coffee beans purchase in Australia?" 

Hi, thanks for your email. 

I am happy to help! The Jura S8 is a great automatic machine and will love and care for your coffee needs - you've made an excellent choice to seek out fresh roasted coffee beans. It sounds to me like your wife will really enjoy Forte (I'll send you the links below). It is a mild to medium coffee with that classic brazil and Colombian flavour profile that brings out some chocolate tones. Mocha Prince steps that chocolate up a little, but does also tend to make the coffee a little more mild, but that could be a good thing here. 

For yourself, I have to give you two recommendations - Espresso Master is my favorite for espresso and long black coffee with a perfectly balanced flavour profile. If however, you're looking for something a little more adventurous, you'd have to give Super Crema a go - it really is quite bold and full of flavour, and that crema is really something! 

Here are the links to the different varieties - I hope it helps. 

Regards,
 
James Axisa
Chief Espresso Officer

www.baybeans.com.au
Mobile: 0428 555 535
Voicemail callback: 02 8208 3477
 
[I reply to all emails personally]

"We are having debate in the office about dual wall or single wall filters (we have the Breville dual boiler manual machine). What is better with your coffee beans? Also – for the large filter basket how many grams should we be using for one coffee, and how fine?"

That's a pretty advanced debate, it's a pretty small percentage of coffee lovers that care to think about it. 

The answer comes from why Breville introduced the Dual Wall portafilter at all.. the idea behind it is that it pressurises the basket then forces all the coffee out through a tiny nozzle, to then relax again and drip into the cup. its a fake internal bottom with its sole purpose to force coffee through a small hole, which in turn aerates the coffee. That aeration is what creates a foam like look to the extraction, which then mimics quality coffee with crema. The problem was that most of Breville's customers at the time were buying supermarket coffee, which was sometimes 12 or more months post roast (minimum 3 months), where the crema is dissipated after 6 weeks usually. This problem was compounded by companies like Lavazza who would leave their roasted coffee out to go stale before packaging it, so that the bags could be formed into bricks, and retain that shape during transit - wasted air means higher transport costs. 

So, that's the reason the dual wall was invented, and it doesn't really cause a problem with fresh roasted coffee at all, except it creates an unnatural path for the water under pressure to flow through the puck - water will take the path of least resistance and so it will head for the middle and not so much the sides - will that result in a weaker coffee? Will that reduce the flavour of your coffee? 

A traditional single walled filter allows a more natural path for your water to flow through the puck, and could mean your coffee tastes fuller. The only downside is if you are using coffee that is not fresh roasted, you will end up with a flat looking coffee. Its important to note that while double wall filters are intended to improve the look, they cant improve the flavour, and I think they can contribute to a decrease in flavour, both by the aeration process and the problem of water taking the shortest path and lastly by encouraging channeling of your coffee puck, like erosion on a dirt road. 

As far as to answer how many grams of coffee should be used in a basket, the Italians traditionally used 7 grams per shot, so that's 7 grams in the single basket, and 14 grams in the double basket. They also tended to grind extra fine and tamp very lightly. As coffee has evolved, we tend to up-dose a little, so 8 (or even 9 grams) per shot. So that's 9 grams in a single and 18 grams in a double - the trick will be to grind a little coarser and also tamp a little harder with about 15kg of downward force. Its all an experiment! I usually only use a double filter, or triple filter paired with a bottomless portafilter handle. The bottomless is opening up an entirely new world of coffee technique and training - the main idea with a bottomless filter is as a training aid, so the user can determine by sight if there is any channeling in the coffee puck or unevenness in the coffee grounds distribution. It certainly looks pretty during extraction, so it adds to the aesthetic, but when a shot goes wrong, you can end up with a squirt of coffee shooting out at your business suit! 

I hope this helps a little - let me know if I can explain anything in more detail.  

I received a customer email asking about coffee acid as it relates to PH levels.

The email reads as;

I am writing for my daughter whose dentist has told her she has chalky teeth and can no longer drink coffee because of its acidity. I read your article on this subject. Could you tell me please what is the pH of your coffee, including the decaf product you sell? If it’s close to neutral I’ll buy her some.

My reply was;

Thanks for taking the time to email. 

Firstly, its important to note the difference between acid, and acidity. Acidity is generally used as a term in describing the flavours of coffee, where acid is a scientific measurement on the PH Scale, with PH7 being neutral. Coffee generally sits around 5 on the PH scale, which is on the more neutral side compared to other beverages such as juice, beer, wine and softdrink. 

So, coffee is slightly acid on the PH scale, but there are ways you can bring that even closer to neutral if you'd prefer. Techniques such as cold brewing, or any other slower process such as french press / plunger will reduce the acid level of your coffee. Also increasing the grind size will reduce the acid level, which both these processes benefit from. You would generally use a coarse ground coffee for cold brew and plunger coffee. Another thing to assist with moving the PH level is the roast level - a darker roast has a more neutral profile compared to a light roast. 

Choosing an Arabica bean (all of ours are Arabica) vs a Robusta coffee bean will ensure you are selecting a bean on the more neutral side of the PH scale. 

If you are making your coffee with an Espresso Machine, a lower brew temperature will reduce the acid level on the PH scale, however that also introduces some sour flavours to your coffee and it will be less acid on the PH scale (moving to the right on the scale). 

Lastly, adding milk to your coffee will make your coffee less acid due to the calcium in the milk affecting the acid. 

So, while no coffee is neutral on the PH scale, a high quality coffee bean, prepared specifically to reduce acid can be of benefit if you are chasing a lower acid number on the PH scale. 

I recommend the Decaf Swiss water mountain process specifically due to the processing of the raw coffee being the only coffee that processes their coffee in a way that benefits the cause of increasing the PH number closer to neutral. While it is not intentional on the processors part, it works in your favour to move the PH number closer to Neutral naturally. 

Link to Decaf Swiss Water Process https://www.baybeans.com.au/decaf-coffee-beans.html