Mercury Espresso’s first ever coffee class
Thanks to a wonderful Christmas gift, I had the pleasure of attending Mercurcy Espresso Bar's first ever coffee class! Hosted by Matthew and Doug, the evening was a casual yet informative night, where we learned about some coffee history and took part in a wide variety of cupping techniques.
We had a very small group, only about 10 people or so, with a few regulars I recognized from the shop. The night lasted about two and a half hours, with Matthew and Doug answering many questions about techniques and flavours. I won't write too much about it, because I don't want to spoil the surprise of what happens for future classes... but if you're a seriously coffee lover, do yourself a favour and check out a class if you get a chance!
I've always wondered what it would be like to open my own coffee shop, and after the class I felt way more confident in my own coffee knowledge, but it was enlightening to see the passion these guys had for the bean, and the passion that went into their shop. It made me jealous. Maybe it's time for a barista class or a few part time shifts? If they ever need someone to focus solely on various forms of drip, I'm all over it.
You can find out more about the Mercury Espresso bar at their blog here, or stay updated with their twitter feed.
Day-trip in the city: Spots to visit in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood
Usually about once a month, I like to take a Saturday to explore a part of the city that I don't usually get to visit: basically anywhere way West, way east or way North. Last Saturday was my second "official" trip to the hood, but my first real chance to walk around.
The neighborhood, which as you might have guessed by it's name, has an abundance of two things: old warehouses and rail-yards, which as you can imagine, has attracted the creative-class and those who follow. Yet despite the huge presence of artists, the strip is maturing at a nice, gradual pace, unlike the mess at Ossington and Queen.
The neighborhood more or less starts at Keele and Dundas West, north of Bloor Street, and extends west (though there are a few hidden gems to the east). To get there on TTC, you can get on the 40 Junction bus at Dundas West, or board a 107 Northbound Keele bus up to Dundas West.
First off, four places make the trip worthwhile: Smash (2880 Dundas West), an industrial-vintage place that I've raved about before, the "Pure Scandinavian" design shop Mjolk (2959 Dundas West) which I wrote about yesterday, the Electric Revival Antique Lighting store (3075 Dundas West) and home to one of the city's other $12,000 dollar Clover coffee maker, Crema (3079 Dundas West).
A few other places worth visiting include Pandemonium, a used book/vinyl/CD shop (2862 Dundas West) that while small, and maybe a little pricey, has a great vibe and lots of obscure gems. I picked up a signed vinyl copy of "A New Celebration for All to Sing" (1972) by The Toronto Mass, and spotted one of the greatest album covers on "Gospel Guitar" by Joe Maphis... as you can see, it has a pile of technicolor squares framing a photo of Joe's double-neck guitar, what I think is an old delay/reverb unit, an old Fender Bassman amplifier, and a copy of the Bible. Sweet.
There's also another cool diner/coffee shop called "Cool Hand of a Girl" (2894 Dundas West) which I didn't get a chance to visit, but I've heard good things about. Same goes for Rawlicious (3092 Dundas West), an all raw food restaurant that I was going to visit before getting called away for some urgent business during my day-trip. One of the city's finer selections of DVDs can also be found at Big Daddy's DVD Shop (3044 Dundas West), which should be seen just for the sweet sign-age outside.
As for bars, because the Junction enduring several years of modern prohibition, they've only recently come up to speed, and now count Axis, The Troubador and Margaret as great places to grab a pint. Otherwise, there's lots of other interesting stores to browse, including lots of furniture places, thrift and vintage stores and various health food joints.
By far, the greatest cappuccino I ever had in the city of Toronto
I never was a big fan of the steamed milk side of espresso-based drinks; maybe it was because I was more familiar with the "big pile of foam" style of capps than I was the richer sophisticated "microbubble" form that finer baristas are capable of. Sure, when I was in a decent coffee place like Dark Horse or Mercury I'd grab the occasional latte, but I would generally gravitate to straight up double shot or Americano.
When the second Dark Horse opened up on Spadina, I visited on my way to work as often as I could, just enjoying the slow pace that is rare at the shop these days. I had a chance to chat with Sam James, who was one of the guys involved in launching the new location, when I went in, and eventually he asked me why I'd order an Americano all the time (Little did I know that SJ was one of the city's most lauded "celebrity baristas." Furthermore, I found out this past September at a friend's wedding that one of our mutual friends knew Sam from his skater/male model days. Small world).
So I told him that I just felt like I was just drinking a lot of milk whenever I would usually order a latte or some other variation... he said that I must have never had a "really good" cappuccino before, and told me the next time I came in, that he would make me the best capp I would have ever had in my life. So I took him up on his offer... and he was right. A good capp is light, sweet and compliments the espresso in a very delicate way. It's not meant to be a giant heaping of milk, but just a small amount to almost aerate the espresso into a whole other drink.
Thankfully, SJ is not the only guy who can pour a decent latte: both Dark Horse locations in the city continue to have baristas in their employ that make fantastic drinks, along with folks at Mercury Espresso, Manic and even at Sam's own "Sam James Coffee Bar" (mostly Sam, but not always). (FYI: His are the best).
And for anyone intimidated by snarky baristas: don't be. Or at least, don't go back. For example, despite the reputation of the owners of Bulldog Coffee on Church having a reputation of neighborhood nice-guys, I recently met one of the jerkiest baristas ever one Sunday afternoon. The short of it is, after asking him if there was anything special about the cafe's signature drink, (the Bulldog), he gave me attitude while demonstrating that it was merely a run of the mill steamed-milk-and-espresso drink that was slightly larger than a cappuccino and slightly smaller than a latte (yeah, their "medium." Wonderful). So with that said, if it's not your neighborhood place, I wouldn't suggest making the trip down to Church for a trip to the Bulldog.
Instead, make a jaunt to either Dark Horse location, or better yet, Sam James' place. Life is too short to have lousy coffee (or lousy service for that matter).
Simple coffee: The beautiful Chemex
Yet again, thanks to Boing Boing and it's awesome power to expose the most amazing things in the world, I've gained another instrument in my coffee arsenal: The Chemex brewer.
A generous gift from a friend, who had a tip from someone who watches me gaze over the Intelligentsia website with a sense of awe and desire, I received the pot, along with a couple boxes of filters a couple months ago, and it has become my exclusive brewing method ever since.
The coffee it makes is very similar to the "clean" brew that the vacuum/siphon pot makes, except it's virtually free of any sort of bitterness or acidity. So much so, that it's far to easy to gulp down an entire pot... and amazingly, if you let the coffee sit in the fridge, when you go back to warm up a cup, it still is free of any bitterness.
It's almost as demanding as the vacuum pot; there's a multi-step process of starting the "bloom" before manually pouring your hot water on the grounds, and a very careful pouring method that must be observed.
While everyone raves about the design of the pot (it is quite beautiful really, and I'm partially to the vintage "wooden collar" style), the nature of the coffee is truly sculpted by the special Chemex filters. It's a square filter folded down into a cone shape, and is made of a specially treated paper much heavier than your usual filter.
It's a pretty common theory amongst baristas and most hard-core lovers of the bean that any form of espresso, alongside steaming milk, is something best left to the professionals who pour thousands of cappuccinos and lattes a week. They say, don't bother with your home machines... they might pay themselves off in a few years (if you got a decent one), but you should really stop drinking your lousy home capps and leave it to the experts.
So while I agree, it's also interesting to note that most decent cafes won't brew "drip" coffee, just for the fact that it's hard to keep it from going stale in a matter of a year or so. It seems a lot easier now to get a French Press to go, or let an expert like Sam James make you a vacuum pot of coffee (which if you do it yourself, can be pretty hit-or-miss sometimes).
That's what makes the Chemex pretty cool; this is the simple, affordable instrument that allows you to make coffee like the experts do (as long as you are grinding up your freshly roasted beans, natch). For example, when Toronto Star food writer Corey Mintz had Stumptown Coffee roaster Duane Sorenson over for a meal, he brought a Chemex with him.
So while I'm not a coffee expert by any means, it pleases me to know I'm not too far off the mark of perfection with my usual morning cup.
Want to get inspired? Check out the most high-energy coffee brewing how-to video you'll ever see here.
Previously, my post about the siphon method.
In Ontario’s Royal City: Guelph and one of the province’s best bed and breakfast joints
After numerous trips to Kingston as our go-to "out of town" trip, we decided to try something totally different this week, and head west... to Guelph. Lured by the best looking google result for "ontario romantic hotel jacuzzi" (once somebody gets their mind set on something...), we settled on the Norfolk Guest House (check their site for photos).
I've stayed at a few Bed and Breakfast places, mostly awesome, and one horrible one (Hello "A Pillow and Toast" in Niagara-on-the-Lake, you are the horrible one... two single beds pushed together do not make a king), and I would put "Norfolk Guest House" in the AWESOME side of the scale.
Like any B&B, staying at a place like Norfolk is a little pricier than a regular hotel; but when you factor in things like breakfast, personal service and a unique experience, places like this one shine, especially in terms of value. We ended up staying in their "Grandview" suite, which came with a queen sized bed, jacuzzi hot-tub, "custom" shower w/ multiple heads, separate office, usual TV & DVD player, fireplace, available internet, and a wrap-around balcony. It was seriously nice.
Janet, the owner and operator of the house, was very friendly and very enthusiastic about Norfolk: you can tell from her passion that she's in it for professional service, and not a retirement hobby. She gave us great suggestions for eating in Guelph, and was very helpful whenever we had questions, and has elegantly decorated the entire place.
Despite our many picky food requirements, breakfast was great, and served at a table spread with a subtle jungle theme (cheetah plate, leather ostrich place-mats). Personally, I'm not a fan of eating breakfast with strangers, but the table at Norfolk was big, so when others joined us, we didn't feel like our space was invaded.
Because I'm suspicious of any overtly glowing review, I'll mention a couple things that I didn't like. We spent a lot of time in the room, and while it was housed in a gorgeous antique wardrobe, the flat-screen TV could have been larger, and I would have liked to have had proper HD in the room. There were lots of strange "signs" all over the place, explaining every light switch and other functions, which while I'm sure prevents having to explain them all the time, detract from the overall classiness... especially when the most confusing thing, turning on the fireplace, had no "guide."
As for the city of Guelph... it's a small campus town. It's not very large, but it has a quaint little downtown core that's within a 10 minute walk of Norfolk, and can be traversed in about 15 minutes. There's a large amount of bars on MacDonell street and the area around it... Jimmy Jazz is the notable rock club, but your typical college circuit bands pass through many of the core's other venues.
Sadly, some of the places I've heard about before and went to check out, like the "Daydream Nation" record store seems to be long gone, as well as a few other places, which look like they have been replaced by much more upscale places.
However, my own highlights while visiting Guelph included:
- Bin 23, hands down the best restaurant in Guelph. The owner, Gus, is extremely friendly and serves up a well-rounded, fresh menu with a strong local flavour. If I was in the area again, I'll go back.
- Planet Bean Coffee, which I assumed would be teeming with student life, but wasn't, made great coffee they roasted in-house, and had some awesome merch for sale, including ceramic mugs with the shop's logo. In my opinion, the only place to get coffee in you're in Guelph.
- The Soccer Fanatic, a well-stocked store with everything football related you could ever want. Jerseys, flags, keychains, totebags, mugs, pins, plush Manchester United sneakers, everything. I knew when I saw the custom stain-glass TFC logo in the window that I would find some kindred spirits inside. The stained-glass logo wasn't for sale, but I would imagine if you wanted to procure one for yourself, they could put you in touch with it's creator.
- This antique/curio store that opened a few weeks ago had just incredible objects, mostly toy-focused, but also had lots of outdoorsy items procured from estate sales. I picked up a couple things for a great deal, which I'll blog about in the future... but a couple things I didn't get but still found awesome was a vintage Granada fake SG and amp set (only 200 bucks!), a vintage Gibson electric lap steel (no amp, but a steal at 450), screen printing blocks from a funeral home (morbid, but awesome), and lots of cool x-rays. I would do a road trip to Guelph next summer just to check this place out again, a lot of their stuff matches our light industrial/messy apartment style.
- We had another dinner at the Albion hotel, which was a little overpriced for it's decent pubfood, but the atmosphere was nice and comfortable, very worthy of some hang time.
As for other things we never got around to, we never did get to have a decent look around the Bookshelf Cafe and Cinema, or eat at restaurants that also sound amazing, like Ein-stein's Cafe, Other Brothers, Diana's Downtown, Bistro Six and the Red Brick Cafe.
Because the weather was lousy when we were in town, we took a lot of cabs back and forth between downtown and the Norfolk, but each trip was only around 5 bucks, which wasn't bad. If you found yourself in Guelph, don't bother waiting for a cab on the street... just call. They'll come quickly.
Overall, I would describe Guelph as the kind of place Belleville could be if it really wanted to. If Belleville cleaned up it's downtown core (ie maybe moving the strip club more than 20 meters away from downtown city hall and farmers market), then a Guelph-type potential might be in it's grasp.
So that's about all I have to say about Guelph. If you're looking to take a short vacation outside of the city, I can't recommend the Norfolk highly enough (it even has online booking!!) as a great place to stay, with a handful of interesting options in the city to keep you entertained.
Well, take a look at this giant concrete coffee cup
I spotted this on Saturday during my last stop at Mercury Espresso Bar in Leslieville. I should have asked about more details in regards to this piece, but I was just too ready to devour my iced americano instead. There also appeared to be scotch tape shells of this statue in the window as well. Whatever it is, I love it. I would be proud to have this as a yard statue or maybe a decorative lamp stand.
(The title under the statue says "Large Coffee Cup, Cement, 2005).
Kudos to you, unknown artist. Once I find out who you are, I'll update this post accordingly.
For the love of coffee: The joys of the siphon method
These days, I'm finding it harder to enjoy the simple drip brew coffee, especially made at home... between my beloved siphon coffee setup and my new stove-top Moka pot, I just can't bring myself to fire up the old drip anymore.
Sure, I'll sometimes whip down to Coffeetime or True Brew or even Starbucks when I need a cup in a jiffy, but on a Saturday or Sunday morning, or on vacation, I'll take the time to set up the vacuum.
The siphon, or the vacuum pot, which looks suspiciously like a bong or underground meth lab when it gets set up is pretty simple in concept: water boils in the lower chamber, passes into the upper chamber where it makes contact with the grounds for about a minute (I prefer shorter contact time with a finer ground: your mileage may vary), and then passes through a cloth filter on it's way back down.
When finally sipped, the coffee is clean and powerful, free of any grind and other impurities that come with other setups. Maybe it tastes better because it takes a little more work to get going, and clean up is definitely a hassle, but for the outcome, all the effort is worth it. (It's called a siphon because of the way it uses pressure to pull the liquid between the chambers. It's also called a vacuum, because it vacuums all the moisture out of the grounds in the top chamber).
I've seen vac pots behind the counter at both Dark Horse locations here in Toronto, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone brave enough to take the plunge. I got my pot from the Green Beanery in the Annex, so if you want to find out more about the process, go in and ask them.
Or, if you stop by the apartment, Ill happily share a pot with you.
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The first day back to work (and reality) after vacation
Is there a work day no sweeter than the one after some time off, like the one after a long weekend, or a month off to travel to somewhere exotic, say Thailand or Paris? (Actually, I wouldn't know the latter, but I digress).
There's nothing like those first few minutes, back at your desk, piping hot coffee in hand, eagerly logging into Outlook and loading up a heaping pile of email, some urgent, some miraculously solved before you're needed?
People will say, "You look refreshed," or "Hey, you got some sun," and you'll regale your office-bound buddies with stories of the exciting and not-so-exciting adventures you had, with that bright and perky enthusiasm that accompanies a totally clear-headed worker bee.
Sure, you could say that the time right before a vacation is perhaps more sweet -- but I would disagree, for those days are often stressed, packed with piling up instructions to less enthused coworkers, all the while the clock seems to tick more slowly, as if trapped in a warped fourth dimension of time.
No, I'll always enjoy those mornings back on the job... even if it only lasts about 15 minutes or so.