Thanks to the Barista

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Originally uploaded by Terryz1.

To all of them everwhere for that matter......I hope that someday we see more carrer motivated baristi. Man, I had some coffee on this last trip to Italy. The man in the photo however poured me one of the better shots I had during the trip.

The Italian Journey.

Well, I had great intentions to post while on vacation, but I was on vacation. It was good to take a break from the keyboard and spend time with my family ;-) As Dave noted in an earlier post, we moved Espresso Parts! Man what an effort it takes its toll and then either you take a break, or it breaks you. The staff at espressoparts.com, is incredible and they didn't skip a beat along the way, Thanks guys and gals!

Coffee is our gig, day in and day out it is what we do. Our dedication to the art of the Barista, and to the equipment that creates quality coffee is in my opinion, unparalleled. While traveling Italy and France we had good coffee, but nothing excellent. It was actually two days in Rome before I even had espresso! I know that might seem odd, but I was simply just worn, and needed to take a break.

There is a coffee revolution here in the states, take my word for it. I'm not saying that it is great all over, but what we are doing for coffee and espresso preparation will make its mark in coffee history.


While on vacation we did indulge in one work related stop.

Kent Bakke, of La Marzocco had arranged a visit for us to the LM factory in Florence. A driver from LM picked us up at the train station, and then drove us through the amazing countryside of Florence to the factory. My wife and kids said I was grinning ear to ear and you know what? They were right. I love to see places like this and it warms my heart to see machines that I get to work on being assembled. Our guide through the facility was Clare Featherston, of the La Marzocco technical center. Clare was awesome, and spent several hours with us, showing us around and telling us the history of La Marzocco. We also had the awesome pleasure to meet with Piero Bambi, whose family started La Marzocco. We had a great visit and talked coffee, and machines, before heading to a local spot for a fantastic Florentine lunch.

Thanks to Clare, Piero, and Kent, for taking time to make our visit enjoyable!

Here is a link to some pictures of this stop, and visit to La marzocco.

OK I'll post for Terry

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Originally uploaded by Terryz1.

Look what I found on TerryZ's Flickr page.... He's hangin with Piero Bambi of La Marzocco.

Don't have too much fun without us dude!

Well I guess its my turn to post a blog. Terry Z is supppose to be chiming in from Italy but I think he is either having too much fun or is too caffeinated to blog.

I'm real happy to be finished moving needless to say. Settling in is going to take some more doing but the building is great. We were without espresso machine for a bit. Then we finally set up a new Vibiemme Domobar Super Manual Lever in our espresso machine repair area. For all those in the market for a higher end prosumer machine I'd give this a strong look. I enjoyed using this espresso machine immensely and I really loved the lever operated E61. It made some primo espresso out of the box. Now the Domobar is wrapped back up and ready to be shipped off for a review which will hopefully be featured on over at Home-Barista.com.

We are back using our good ole modified Wega Lyra. For me using this espresso machine is kind of like visiting a really good friend you haven't seen in a while. I feel "in tune" with the Wega and we have it dialed in nicely for our Olympia Coffee Roasting Espresso Blends.

Oh yeah! Be sure to check out our newly updated Links Section and the very beginning of our "Espresso Machine Glossary"