While Seattle may have seemed the only place to be in coffee this past week, Counter Culture has and is bookending the event with some educational events all its own: on Tuesday, April 22, Irish Barista Champion Colin Harmon accompanied a team from Nuova Simonelli to Counter Culture’s New York Training Center for a workshop called “Mythos One: A Colin Harmon + Clima Pro Event.” And tomorrow, Counter Culture is excited to present the anticipated Pro Dev (professional development) event, “Kenya + The Coffee Market,” at all of its U.S. Training Centers.
Last Tuesday was the first stop on Colin’s roadtrip across the United States, with about 25 people in attendance. After a relaxing half hour of meeting, greeting, and snacking, Colin, the Nuova Simonelli team (which included Cosimo Libardo), and the attendees settled in for the session.
Colin spoke eloquently about the Nuova Simonelli Mythos One/Clima Pro technology, going into detail about common problems with grinders ”noise, dose consistency, temperature, waste, maintenance, workflow/speed, aesthetics, and more ”and how the Mythos One solves for them. Colin cautioned against “pocket science,” i.e. word-of-mouth theories that get passed around the industry that have no basis in science, such as the myth that if coffee gets too hot in the grinder, it won’t grind as fine. “Does coffee get coarser the busier your shop gets?” he asked, then explained that no, hot coffee behaves coarser ”water goes quickly through it because hot coffee offers less resistance than cold coffee. He drew the analogy of solid, cold butter versus liquid, hot butter.
He went on to talk about the Clima Pro technology, like the Clump Crusher, micrometric adjustments, the “zero dial” that allows baristas to zero out, an angled burr set, the low RPM, silence, four-screw access for easy cleaning, and more.”Taste is everything,” Colin concluded the workshop by saying. He advised attendees to aim not for the right numbers on the grinder display, but for coffee that tastes good.
Here’s a blog from Colin on his relationship with Nuova Simonelli, that’s also pretty interesting. And if you can’t get enough Colin (we certainly can’t), then you’ll love this video about Colin and his Dublin company, Third Floor Espresso:
THIRD FLOOR ESPRESSO – ‘A Dublin Coffee Story’ from 3fe on Vimeo.
Next up at CCC’s Training Centers is what is sure to be a super interesting discussion about the Kenyan coffee market. Here’s the description of this event, which takes place from 3 “4 p.m. tomorrow: Join us for a survey discussion of what is currently huge news regarding systematic changes to the coffee market in Nyeri, Kenya. Despite the relative radio silence about the origin in U.S. news, big things are brewing in the land of our beloved SL-28. We’ll talk about the situation; what it means for the future of Counter Culture Coffee favorites like Thiriku, Kangocho, and other lots from Nyeri; and taste some of the fruits of Tim Hill’s recent experimentation, labor, and new-relationship building in other regions of the country.
For more information about tomorrow’s event, go HERE.
