Life is too short for bad coffee - The Off Topic thread

The Hound Gone Wild

3FE opening a new shop in Rathgar and advertising a shop managers position for €13 an hour. They're catching a lot of shít on Twitter for it. Anyone in the industry know if these are standard wages?

I've heard the owner say on a podcast that he gives 33% of takings to staff wages no matter the level of income so I'd expect that to be a baseline I suppose?

DaveyDave

All sorts of retail or customer facing rolls are underpaid. Most of them are overworked and abused by customers.

Hodors Appletart

25k a year for a managers role is pretty bad (assume a 37.5hr week x 52)

what are the non-manager staff on?

caviardreams

Hodors Appletart wrote: »

25k a year for a managers role is pretty bad (assume a 37.5hr week x 52)

what are the non-manager staff on?

Minimum wage or just over I'd say. Retail management pay is terrible, especially as it is Sunday working etc. too (and a very tough gig). That said I would have put the typical for a role like this at €30k per year - as 3FE are on the pricier side coffee wise I would have expected that level.

Hodors Appletart

God I've been so long out of retail, that's really bad.

Squidgy Black

The Hound Gone Wild wrote: »

3FE opening a new shop in Rathgar and advertising a shop managers position for €13 an hour. They're catching a lot of shít on Twitter for it. Anyone in the industry know if these are standard wages?

I've heard the owner say on a podcast that he gives 33% of takings to staff wages no matter the level of income so I'd expect that to be a baseline I suppose?

It's not that far off standard store management sort of wages, I know a few of my mates are on 13/14 quid per hour in clothing stores and that. Normal staff would probably be on 11 quid an hour just above minimum.

Think it's more just twitter as a whole taking umbrage that it's not paying exorbitant wages and pointing at stuff like cost of rent in Dublin, even though it's technically above the "living wage".

Hodors Appletart

The English speaking phone/chat agents who work in the company I work for are on 30k basic, anyone speaking a language we support are paid 33k, everyone is on mon-fri 9-5 too, no weekends or late nights

25k is a paltry sum to manage a coffee shop.

caviardreams

caviardreams wrote: »

Picked this up today but haven't tried it. Batch no. is 200421 so quite like roasted on 20 April 2021 I guess. €4 for 227g - they do a ground and whole bean of a Guatemalan and Brazilian blend

Tried the Brady's from LIDL - it's nice, decent, if unremarkable but tbh there have been a couple of "meh" beans in the last few badger & dodo subs which I would put in the same ballpark so could definitely see myself buying this if low on beans or now and again. €17.60 per kg so a good price point. A good solid drinkable coffee to me, on the chocolatey side. Might work better as espresso as it's what I'd class as a medium-dark roast (I'm using a clever)

Good to see an Irish business doing well anyway!

Hodors Appletart

Sounds like it's worth a try

caviardreams

Hodors Appletart wrote: »

Sounds like it's worth a try

As it's a new product line I may have got v lucky with the roast date being reasonable and not sure that will continue going forward and may affect things, and I imagine there may be some variability if beans change over time too.


Definitely worth a try - it definitely wasn't awful and I'd put it above the Aldi Velo tandem for example.

Hodors Appletart

Oh really, better than Tandem?

Bigbooty

Anyone get that Yemeni SO cloudpicker released to raise money for UNICEF? Just opened it there and it's cracking. Right up my street.

caviardreams

Hodors Appletart wrote: »

Oh really, better than Tandem?

I thought so but I'm really not a fan of the Tandem tbh so don't go by that. I really like Velo's other stuff, but not the tandem.
Still haven't tried the Dunnes BMX so must give that a shot.

Hodors Appletart

I really like the Tandem in the FP, especially at 1 Litre plus volumes

not a fan of it in Aero or other smalller methods really

Hodors Appletart

I was just in Driftwood in Finglas, they have bags of Upside Burundi with a date of 12/05 on them. I didn't pick one up because I've just opened a couple of bags of B&D, but someone might be interested

TheRef

I got some free bags of Velo Tandem with my new Sage DTP. Wasn't particularly impressed. Moved quickly to the PS Roasters range and they were significantly better. Bought the Velo BMX in Dunnes recently and on that now. Won't be buying it again.
It's fine but life's too short...

Krusty_Clown

Finally got around to roasting some of the natural Myanmar Catuai. I went a little darker than I normally would, but even just 24 hours later, it's an incredible cup. It's like a chocolaty version of an Ethiopian natural. Never tasted anything quite the same. Definitely one to look out for if you like natural processed coffees.

caviardreams

More new coffee brands coming to LIDL including Soma: https://www.shelflife.ie/lidl-makes-e2-5-million-supply-deal-with-irish-artisan-coffee-producers/

Squidgy Black

caviardreams wrote: »

More new coffee brands coming to LIDL including Soma: https://www.shelflife.ie/lidl-makes-e2-5-million-supply-deal-with-irish-artisan-coffee-producers/

I've had some of Soma's stuff, they're great roasters. Should be interesting to see how it works out.

It's good to see things move towards a more accessible market

MiskyBoyy

Tesco have Warbler & Wren coffee now, €5 per 200g

https://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=308858959

Picked up a bag but haven't tried it yet.

https://www.hotpress.com/lifestyle-sports/warbler-wren-guardians-best-coffee-dublin-cup-bean-22778363

Hodors Appletart

it's white label lavazza

Scroll down here

caviardreams

I've been wanting an electric gooseneck variable temp kettle for ages and think it's time as a birthday treat. It would open up trying a V60 etc. to me, but at the moment I only use a clever dripper so maybe I won't notice any upgrade until I move to pour over?

Any recommendations? Looking at the Fellow stagg but a cheaper option would be nice!

Squidgy Black

caviardreams wrote: »

I've been wanting an electric gooseneck variable temp kettle for ages and think it's time as a birthday treat. It would open up trying a V60 etc. to me, but at the moment I only use a clever dripper so maybe I won't notice any upgrade until I move to pour over?

Any recommendations? Looking at the Fellow stagg but a cheaper option would be nice!

Bonavita sometimes pops up on sale some places, or else just go with a standard gooseneck and a thermometer. I've one of the electric Hario v60 kettles and the thermometer lid (that I managed to get cheap on eBay), but any digital thermometer with a nice display would work

caviardreams

Picked up a bag of Viking Blend by Coffe House Lane in the Grow with Ireland Aldi specials - €5 for 227g. They also had their 1690 blend there.

Production date looks to be 28th May from the batch code. There was another Irish brand there but the roast date was 16th Feb so left it.

Enrico Palazzo

caviardreams wrote: »

I've been wanting an electric gooseneck variable temp kettle for ages and think it's time as a birthday treat. It would open up trying a V60 etc. to me, but at the moment I only use a clever dripper so maybe I won't notice any upgrade until I move to pour over?

Any recommendations? Looking at the Fellow stagg but a cheaper option would be nice!

Won't make a difference for clever as there is no need for flow control. Also, a plain gooseneck pot will do the job just fine for V60. Enough to pour boiling water in, use a thermometer and a timer to see how long it takes to drop to the desired temperature the first time and then just reproduce the volume and time moving forward. With my setup it takes 25 seconds for 0.5l of boiling water to drop down to 94 degrees in the pot. And the pot was like 10 euro.

caviardreams

2.50 for filter is a great price in fairness! Have you tried their beans at all?

Hodors Appletart

My mrs brought home some of this stuff from Aldi yesterday

Link

Blake's Culture Blend - BB Feb 2022 so roasted a good 4 months ago, but that's not the worst part.

The front of the bag is fine

Peruvian and Indonesian whole-bean coffee, blended to perfection to create a full bodied rich smooth taste with a hint of fruitiness

all good, sounds ok if not a bit generic on the descriptors.

But on the back! I'll break this paragraph up into it's component parts, and give a commentary on each part if you don't mind.

A blend of three beans - Oh, wonder if it's two peruvian or two indonesian

designed to give the coffee a nice body, with low acidity and a hint of sweetness - sounds ok actually, a bit better than the front description anyway

The main bean variety used is an Arabica bean - Main bean? Main? what?

Sumatra Mandheling Raja Gayo cool, the indo bean is Arabica.

This gives the blend a nice smooth body - right, surely a SO Indo bean is bring more to the party than "smooth body"?

To this we add some Peruvian Arabica HB Grade One, which gives the blend it's sweetness and a hint of fruitiness - no origin statement for the Peruvian at all.

To this we add a small amount of Robusta - aw hell naw

for that extra kick of caffeine - and what flavour profile is the Robusta bringing? no mention of that?

20.5/330ml Clever Dripper, Hoffman Method

Tastes ok, it does have that kind of rich chocolatiness suggested by "body" "sweetness" "rich" and "smooth", the fruitiness is kind of orange peel bitterness in the finish, which almost tips over into acrid (it smells acrid in the bag).

Little bit of cardboard/paper in it too, but I'll put that down to age.

caviardreams

Thanks for taking the hit on that one for us all! :pac:

The Coffee House Lane Aldi blend is grand - a medium dark roast imo so may work better in espresso. Can't taste much of anything in it. Would have the Brady's in LIDL above it for sure.

Good roast date on it though and 100% Arabica from what I can tell!

caviardreams

How's the flair going for you? Toying between the Robot and the Flaire at the moment - both look ace!

caviardreams

Hadn't even thought of the Rok thanks!

Really helpful thanks for taking the time.

Weepsie wrote: »

I use it 4-5 days a week (probably 10-15 times a week) so I've no complaints. I still use the V60 a lot when I want something different, and I'm going to soon settle on go to espresso beans and stick with them.

Ah stop, where's the fun and frustration in that! :P