April 2007 Newsletter

They're back! The "Combi" machines, that is. What started out as
the "Napoletana II", then became the "Imat Mokita Combi" is now
the Lelit Combi PL042. As usual, the ONLY major change in the
machine has been the decal on the front, with a few minor
cosmetic changes here and there. Other than that, same  300ml
brass boiler and 57mm  portafilter, same Lux grinder etc. etc.
This is excellent news for all the Junior, Napoletana and Mokita
owners out there because I have also imported a FULL set of
spares with the machines, and they are all totally compatible.

We are now the official Lelit importers, so I have plenty of
machines to sell. The price is excellent, $759.00 including GST
for the machine and grinder combination, in my opinion still the
best value around. There will almost certainly be other Lelit
machines available in the future as we rebuild the market after
the shabby treatment of the past 12 months.

Of course, I'd prefer NOT to import coffee machines directly,
because it means I have to take full responsibility for keeping
them running. This includes fixing things when they go wrong, and
sometimes a whole batch of machines will have a problem. Right
now, that batch of machines would be my last shipment of Rancilio
Silvias, where the portafilters have an electroplating problem
and the exterior chrome is flaking off. Rancilio have agreed to
replace all the problem portafilters on a one-for-one basis, so
anyone who bought their machine from me and has this problem
should email me so I can let them know when the new ones arrive.

This month's special is an old favourite, the full bodied, smooth
and spicy

Sulawesi Toraja
$38.00/kg

Deep toned full body with a long dark cocoa aftertaste, enlivened
with hints of clove and jasmine spice.
As with all other monthly specials, it will be on until I run
out, but once it's gone, it's gone.

This is something that quite a few customers seem to be unsure
of, since we quite often get  requests in the "Comments" box of
the order pages to "add in some of last month's special, please."
There are 2 reasons we can't do this, the first being that when a
coffee is no longer on the order page, I don't have any, and the
second reason being that we have no way of charging for the extra
coffee. Quite a few people seem to have forgotten that the new,
more secure order forms are processed directly via the bank. We
never get to see your credit card information, and no longer keep
records of credit card numbers.

I'll be gone for 6 days at the end of this month/early May so
that I can attend this year's SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association
of America) conference at Long Beach, California. This is a
typical "no fun" conference trip, where I fly there, spend 3
frantic days at the conference, then fly directly back. There
will be no interruptions to coffee bean deliveries but green bean
and equipment sales will be on hold. There should be few overall
problems as most of the action happens over the weekend.

Finally, there tends to be a lot of bleating on Coffeegeek and
other online forums about how finicky and demanding the Rancilio
Silvia is compared to other machines. I found this discussion
(www.coffeegeek.com/forums/espresso/blends/287461) where Silvia
outperformed a commercial LaMarzocco to be very interesting
indeed. Sometimes "geek" ideas of perfection can be a bit
extreme!

Alan