Neal Wilson ✅ @neal@social.typica.us

Just got a cold sales call from someone who, after the usual BS wanting to make sure they're talking to a decision maker without saying why, said what they do, asked me if I needed that, and when I said no, asked if I wanted him to take me off his list. I wish more places did that last bit and it inclines me toward contacting them if I ever did find myself in need of their services.

The chapter now also starts out with a really nice photo showing the vortex you can get with a good water pouring velocity. Use the vortex to draw the coffee grounds into the water instead of moving the water stream around the cup chasing the dry grounds.

Put together a figure for the cupping section of the ebook on improper v. proper spoon rinsing. People have caused entire groups to fail their Q exams by doing the one on the left.

Hmm... It looks like some time between 2009 and 2015 the whole bean degree of roast measurement was removed from the SCAA cupping protocol in favor of only a ground measurement. That's actually a good change, but I'm a little surprised that I'm only noticing that now.

Needed cat stuff but found the grocery store had both the good local cherry cider and resumed stocking one of the dairies that makes a good and proper ice cream. (they also make delicious but out of my budget organic milk)

(Miku awoos in this game)

Restarted a game of Hatsune Miku VR that had been previously suspended and it positioned me substantially farther back than a properly reset view. Decided to try playing it that way. Melody icons arrive substantially off beat, but the extra time to see them made it a little easier despite that. Ended up with a bunch of new personal high scores that probably can't entirely be attributed to genuine skill improvements.

The cat has found a pile of blankets to curl up on.

One of my employees asked for a 3D printed cat so I downloaded and printed a cube cat. She says one of her cats likes it and sent a picture of the 2 of them. I'm not posting that here because her cat deserves its privacy.

I apparently can't count tonight. It's only a 3 point difference with 2 points between the light and dark roasts.

It's replace the water filters on all the coffee equipment day today. Racine has award winning water (yes, there are apparently awards given out for tasty tap water) that's almost ideal for coffee so I'm not trying to change the flavor much, but scale is an issue so the filters are there to prolong the life of the equipment.

It's also nice when others find the flavors that I was trying to bring out in the coffee and especially to see agreement from such a highly trained expert panel (even if I think Q form scores are of dubious relevance to production roasts).

One of the people who got the Roasting Styles Exploration Kit put the coffee in front of their company's sensory panel and was kind enough to send their analysis. The score spread was 4 points across the three coffees, with the highest scoring one being the medium roast, the light roast scoring 1 point lower, and the dark roast coming in the remaining 3 points below that. Interesting to see their tasting notes.

cat

Your favorite Touhou character is:

Proposed basically taking the 3 hour class I've been teaching at trade events lately and compressing that down into a 30-40 minute lecture/tasting with Q&A after. The audience is different, so that's not as difficult as it might sound.

I'd get paid for this. Not a lot, but more than my costs, so that's nice.