On the list of things done lately... Beyond learning what it's like to work 35+ hours a week and be in 17 credits worth of classes... I managed to finally bust out my flat espressocraft tamper. Peter at Blacksheep has been rocking the convex model. Not bad. I've never had two identical tampers before in both versions... so went to play.

The convex tamper which we've been using initially altered my tamp a bit. I had to kinda over-pack a bit more... Even then, there was a lot of "fruit" shining through the espresso.

Then I busted out my flat tamper. Which made me feel a little closer to home... I pretty much was able to use the same method I use in competition... which is yet to fail me... The espresso you ask? Thick, carmel like coffees just rocking my world... The flavors were more intricate and full bodied. Of course, we were rocking Paradise's Classico. We're still playing with our methods in this madness, but for now I am sold on the flat bottom tamper.

In other news... I called Stumptown last week. The idea was we wanted to carry Hairbender as a second espresso to introduce our coffee nut customers to something else. Something wonderful... but being on this side of the Rockies, I was gracefully rejected... Thanks Matt... Anyway, the significance to this is that it was the first time I realized how far from home I am. Honestly, I don't like it, but whatever. I keep focused on the positives, like how I am educating a whole new region of baristas, and forget the negatives, like how much being in a Starbucks/Carribou dominated area sucks.

The other positive side to the story is I was informed on some packaging options Stumptown is looking into that could allow them to work with a cafe in my region... I have two opinions on this. A) "Sweet, world domination and a piece of home my way" and B) "Please just don't sell out and change too far from the sweet punk rock paper bags!"

That's all for now folks, but with the stuff that's been going on in life, I am sure there will be more to tell soon!