I have always had a taste for good coffee since a co-worker brought some Kona coffee into the office way back in the early 1970's.  After tasting that smooth and flavourful coffee from the mountains of the Big Island of Hawaii, I was hooked on good quality coffee.  About the same time, Melitta cone filter drip systems hit the market in Vancouver (where I was living at the time), and I found a new way to brew coffee that tasted appreciably better than the old methods.  In the intervening years, I have migrated from one cone filter drip coffee machine to another.  I also tried many coffees from around the world, but still preferred pure Kona when I could get it.

I like a strong brew of coffee, and even when drinking Kona I would make it stronger than most would like.  I always add some milk and a bit of sugar - not too much of either to overpower the coffee, but just enough to give it a rich and smooth taste.  I can drink coffee without sugar, but not without milk.  I prefer milk over cream, since I find the cream kills too much of the coffee flavour.  Hot milk is preferred over cold milk, but I'm not above adding cold milk then microwave the coffee for 20 seconds or so to restore the temperature.  Some would say that is sacrilege, but hey...I like hot coffee, and I don't always want to bother heating the milk up first!

In 2003 I started researching the new wave of super automatic espresso machines hitting the market.  These have been very popular in Europe for several years now, but they are not yet too popular over here in North America.  The more manual varieties of espresso machines also have a limited market here in North America.  I find this quite curious, considering the virtual explosion of coffee shops and emporiums all over North America, particularly in the Pacific Northwest (Washington State, Oregon, and British Columbia) region where I live.  After all, in Vancouver and Seattle, Starbucks have coffee shops on all four corners of some downtown blocks!  (By the way, I'm not a fan of Starbucks coffee.  I find it roasted to the point of being burnt.  Nonetheless, I wish the company well.)

Anyway, back to the super automatics.  After a great deal of research, I decided to purchase a Swiss-made machine: the Solis Master 5000 Digital. This super automatic brews espresso with a single press of a button.  The machine grinds the beans, doses and tamps the grounds, brews the espresso, and ejects the spent puck of coffee into a waste container.  The only thing left to do manually is steam the milk for a cappuccino, and the machine even makes that task a snap - it will pump steam all day (to quote my dealer).  It also has an auto-clean cycle, so you can depend on this machine to deliver consistently good shots of espresso day after day, week after week.

I used the Internet to do my research (CoffeeGeek Review), and initially had planned to purchase this machine out of Toronto from Espresso Planet.  This actually makes some economic sense, since no provincial sales tax is collected on out-of-province sales in Canada, and most online stores offer free shipping.  After giving this some further thought, I decided instead to seek out a local company to deal with.  I was concerned that these super automatic machines are so complex, and have lots of subsystems. I wanted to have a local dealer to go to if anything went wrong.  As it turns out, one of my former computer consulting clients was an espresso machine dealer here in Victoria, serving (mainly) the coffee shop and restaurant market.  David and Elaina Konoby Sinclair owned and operated Machines and Beans Espresso at the time, so I contacted them for further info.  Machines and Beans sell and service only Swiss-made coffee machines, including Solis.  After David gave me a personalized demo of the Solis Master 5000 Digital, I was sold.   I had to buy some nice stainless steel chromed double-walled cappuccino cups to go with the new coffee machine (see above photo), and have since purchased other sets of cups.

My taste in coffee has evolved, especially in recent years.  Kona is still a favourite of mine for filter brew coffee, but using pure Kona is proving to be impractical since it is just too expensive and is in such short supply (outside of Hawaii).  There are many other good quality coffees to choose from.  For several years while I was drinking filter brew coffee, I bought nothing but Torrefazione Italia's Palermo blend - a rich and dark southern Italian style coffee. Then the local Torrefazione shop was converted to a Starbucks. I have also favoured a Fair Trade coffee roasted here in Victoria by Level Ground.  I purchased their Café San Miguel dark roast from the local Ten Thousand Villages shops.  I haven't drunk a great deal of South American arabica coffee, but I find this roast has the rich full-bodied taste I have sought over the years.  It also happens to be quite a bargain. The fair trade designation also ensures more of our retail coffee dollars go to the coffee farmers instead of major corporations and middlemen.

Now that I have this fancy espresso machine, I find myself constantly seeking a source of quality espresso roast beans.  Machines and Beans sells illy coffee exclusively through retailers, so I initially used these beans in the espresso machine. It is quite amazing to see the fanatical quality control illy puts into their products.  However, I have changed coffee as the local prices of illy coffee climbed into the stratosphere. I now purchase espresso beans from my local coffee shop Castello Coffee, since I know the guy who blends and roasts the beans so the quality is there.  I also like Caffé Fantastico's Causeway roast and Discovery Coffee's espresso roast.  All three local sources offer fresh quality roast and reasonable prices.

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