Life at Slow Train

Life's good in Sheridan today. Not angelic, as they say, but good. The sun is shining, the air is crisp and clean and fresh. Not a trace of petrochemicals.

the sweet aroma of coffee and tea has set in, happily, it's begun it's entropic permeation of our walls, our floors, our very bodies. When at last I go home at the end of a day, as I embrace my wife and we exchange the details of a busy day, it's the scent of coffee, sweet essences of espresso, mint tea, cardamom, sugar and cinnamon that embrace her perhaps more tightly than I do.

Every day now, I hear from a customer or two who report a magnetic drawing, deeply in the underparts of their souls triggered by the incense wafting through the vents and door-cracks in our fine storefront.

Yes, it's fine in Sheridan today. I mean that in a very old fashioned way, too. When queer was quite queer, when cool was not quite cold, and a fine day was very fine.

There's an energy in town today, I can feel it. I can't put my finger on a reason why. It's probably because I'm listening to a very avant garde band called Baka Beyond playing some GREAT stuff. They call themselves the first "African Celtic Crossover Band". Love them. Love them. Can't recommend them highly enough.

Afro-Celtic vibes are lilting softly throughout the inner and outer Slow Train. I don't know how they do what they do. it's the flutes. it's the xylophones. it's the drums made with bits of real animal skin.

It's good. It's good. But it's insidious too. Something's not quite right. Can't put my finger right on what it is, but something.

I started twittering last night. Never have twittered before, it's not so bad. I forgot my passcode by this morning, however, and now I'm trying to remember it.

I went to a GREAT coffee shop in Vancouver, British Columbia the other day, it's called Bump n Grind. They use a synesso! Very exciting. No Mazzer grinders, instead they use Anfims all around. Interesting. I've heard great things about the Anfim, but haven't used one yet. The most I've seen them in use is as a backup or single-origin grinder in select coffee shops, almost always accompanied by the more traditional Mazzer Major or Rubur. Oh that Rubur. It's so beautiful. a full 28.5 inches tall. Beautiful, polished and efficient. This is the piano wire to my assassin. My weapon of choice. At 220v, it's 83mm conical burrs spin at just 500 rpms. Compare that to the relative speed-demonry of my current grinder, a mazzer major, whose same 83mm burrs spin at 1400 rpms. The concept is this; I want my coffee--your coffee-- to undergo as few stressful procedures between the tree and your cup as possible. Every time I expose your bean to something else naturally stressful, be it environmental heat, sitting on a dock in Los Angeles for 6 months, spending a lot of time lonely, sitting in a bag after being roasted, or grinding it poorly, every time one of these is perpetrated on your bean, it suffers. The slower, the cooler, the easier we can grind the better. So a very LARGE conical burr, (think new millennium millstone), spinning at very LOW speeds will produce a very consistent and low stressed ground coffee. I hope you understand.