Sweet Maria's Classical Italian Espresso Blend

Bought: As you'd expect, from Sweet Maria's. Their service is awesome and they do good enough packing of the beans that I think I'm just buying from them for some time to come. My tastes seem to match up with the main buyer's pretty well, so I have really enjoyed what I've gotten from them.

Roasted: 30 seconds into second crack, a solid Vienna roast with oils on the surface and everything.
Brewed: For the last week on the MC40 with a good 20-30 lbs pressure on the pack, at the espresso grind notch of the Solis Maestro.

It's all been good. I'm still getting crema a week after the roast. Most espresso fanatics say that three weeks is too old for good espresso, a week is about the limit. The Vivace only lasted three days for their sweet spot on crema and taste.

This stuff provided lots of crema all week. It's not all sweet, but the bittersweet is more like bittersweet chocolate. Lots of good low notes, great body, sweet aftertaste, no sours but some fruit (blueberry says the nose brain) acids to balance the caramels. No burnt tire or fuel oil tastes, which the Vivace blend would sometimes give. (Yes, I'm mostly comparing this against the Vivace as I've only gone through two or three pounds of espresso since I bought the machine).

The crema production allows me to do my first, rudimentary tries at latte art and it always tastes great in my milk drinks. I haven't had any off tastes or scents from this stuff, and the half a dozen folks I've brewed espresso drinks for have said that they like what I've done with this.

So I'll give it a 9 of 10 for ease of use, texture of the results, and the taste.

Sweet Maria's Classical Italian Espresso Blend

Bought: As you'd expect, from Sweet Maria's. Their service is awesome and they do good enough packing of the beans that I think I'm just buying from them for some time to come. My tastes seem to match up with the main buyer's pretty well, so I have really enjoyed what I've gotten from them.

Roasted: 30 seconds into second crack, a solid Vienna roast with oils on the surface and everything.
Brewed: For the last week on the MC40 with a good 20-30 lbs pressure on the pack, at the espresso grind notch of the Solis Maestro.

It's all been good. I'm still getting crema a week after the roast. Most espresso fanatics say that three weeks is too old for good espresso, a week is about the limit. The Vivace only lasted three days for their sweet spot on crema and taste.

This stuff provided lots of crema all week. It's not all sweet, but the bittersweet is more like bittersweet chocolate. Lots of good low notes, great body, sweet aftertaste, no sours but some fruit (blueberry says the nose brain) acids to balance the caramels. No burnt tire or fuel oil tastes, which the Vivace blend would sometimes give. (Yes, I'm mostly comparing this against the Vivace as I've only gone through two or three pounds of espresso since I bought the machine).

The crema production allows me to do my first, rudimentary tries at latte art and it always tastes great in my milk drinks. I haven't had any off tastes or scents from this stuff, and the half a dozen folks I've brewed espresso drinks for have said that they like what I've done with this.

So I'll give it a 9 of 10 for ease of use, texture of the results, and the taste.

Gah...

Had a one hour presentation extended by questions and explanations to two hours and I'm wrung out. Yes. It's the same presentation I gave Monday, but to another group, and it kept me an hour late from rescuing Jet from pre-school. He didn't resent it, but I did. Everyone there did thank me for the presentation and found it very interesting, and John says that I made a major step in getting cross-company influence in getting input for prioritization of our work. That's all to the good, but I was STILL stressed out and flattened by the effort it took.

So we went to the grocery store "to get Momma something that's BAD for her."

We ended up with baklava, which isn't that bad for me, and rainbow merainge (I can't for the life of me spell that). Jet got a "cookie monster" with cream between two pink cookies. John called to say he was getting us pizza. Jet and I also got him some cream cheese (lowfat) for lunches, and whipped cream for hot chocolate, and strawberry sauce since we had run out of the cheap chocolate stuff... and...

Well, yeah. Shopping when you're hungry is not a great thing.

A really funny thing is that when we stopped by the bakery and got our stuff, we stopped to get Jet one of the free cookies instead of my letting him have the monster cookie right there and then. The baker caught up with us and apologized for screwing up and putting a $2.49 instead of a $1.49 and I said, "Thank you. I really appreciate your fixing it. That's much better than the alternative." And he bobbed his head, "You're welcome." and he smiled. Thing is only *I* knew that I'd just spoken to him in exactly the same tone of voice I use on Jet when he does something by accident and then fixes it. Thing is, thinking about it, I could have just been surly or something and not thanked him and then I would have kicked myself for not thanking him for doing the right thing. It's good to do the right thing and nicer when someone acknowledges that. So I'm glad I did that.

Dinner was good. John and Jet went to help take pictures of the furniture our neighbor is trying to sell, and now they're all in the hot tub. I should probably join them.

But when Jet was using the potty he wanted me in there with him, and I leaned against the wall and bonked my head gently.

Jet said, "Mom, you shouldn't bang you head on the wall, you could hurt yourself." In a tone of voice I recognize ALL too well... :-) And then he continued, "And you could break the wall!" Hee.

"Thank you, Jet."

I'm for the hot tub... after I finish my Donkey Decaf latte.

Gah...

Had a one hour presentation extended by questions and explanations to two hours and I'm wrung out. Yes. It's the same presentation I gave Monday, but to another group, and it kept me an hour late from rescuing Jet from pre-school. He didn't resent it, but I did. Everyone there did thank me for the presentation and found it very interesting, and John says that I made a major step in getting cross-company influence in getting input for prioritization of our work. That's all to the good, but I was STILL stressed out and flattened by the effort it took.

So we went to the grocery store "to get Momma something that's BAD for her."

We ended up with baklava, which isn't that bad for me, and rainbow merainge (I can't for the life of me spell that). Jet got a "cookie monster" with cream between two pink cookies. John called to say he was getting us pizza. Jet and I also got him some cream cheese (lowfat) for lunches, and whipped cream for hot chocolate, and strawberry sauce since we had run out of the cheap chocolate stuff... and...

Well, yeah. Shopping when you're hungry is not a great thing.

A really funny thing is that when we stopped by the bakery and got our stuff, we stopped to get Jet one of the free cookies instead of my letting him have the monster cookie right there and then. The baker caught up with us and apologized for screwing up and putting a $2.49 instead of a $1.49 and I said, "Thank you. I really appreciate your fixing it. That's much better than the alternative." And he bobbed his head, "You're welcome." and he smiled. Thing is only *I* knew that I'd just spoken to him in exactly the same tone of voice I use on Jet when he does something by accident and then fixes it. Thing is, thinking about it, I could have just been surly or something and not thanked him and then I would have kicked myself for not thanking him for doing the right thing. It's good to do the right thing and nicer when someone acknowledges that. So I'm glad I did that.

Dinner was good. John and Jet went to help take pictures of the furniture our neighbor is trying to sell, and now they're all in the hot tub. I should probably join them.

But when Jet was using the potty he wanted me in there with him, and I leaned against the wall and bonked my head gently.

Jet said, "Mom, you shouldn't bang you head on the wall, you could hurt yourself." In a tone of voice I recognize ALL too well... :-) And then he continued, "And you could break the wall!" Hee.

"Thank you, Jet."

I'm for the hot tub... after I finish my Donkey Decaf latte.