The good folks at Prima Coffee asked me to introduce myself on the blog, and I said I would be happy to do so! This is my first week as the newest member of the Prima Coffee team, and I am thankful for being given this opportunity to be a part of the vision Prima has for coffee in Louisville and beyond.

Sorry for the delay, but this is my first day back in the office since the Bash. First off... wow! What an awesome success! So many people showed up and so much great coffee was consumed. Congrats to Chris Heiniger and Kenny Smith who took first and second place in the latte art competition, and a HUGE thank you to Chris Deferio for driving down from Muncie and gracing us with his coffee expertise.

There are so many more people to thank. I'm not sure where to begin and I'm sure that I will forget somebody. Here goes, thank you to:

This morning, I brewed a batch in the V60 at home, then brought it here to the office. Since I had a lot of leftover batches lying around my kitchen, I combined the end of two batches to get an acceptable amount of coffee for my desired yield size. The coffees? Roughly 60% of Costa Rica Don Mayo La Ponderosa Bourbon and 40% of Ethiopia Beloya Selection Eight, both of which were kept on the lighter side of the roasting spectrum.

This morning, I pressed a batch of Panama La Berlina Estate Typica. I remember it having a wonderful, full and round mouthfeel, quite viscous and pleasant. I go back and forth between thinking it's a bit syrupy and a bit hefty, like whole milk. No chalkiness, either, which is extra nice. And its taste? Brightness like a Central American coffee often has, with citrus fruit notes that fade into a graham cracker finish. It's a somewhat juicy cup, too, in that it doesn't give off too much of a drying sensation.

Last week, I wrote about what I perceive to be one of the most common misconceptions in all of coffee, the myth of the french press. This morning, I got a text message from my buddy Justin telling me that he's becoming frustrated with the fines he's getting in his french press brews.

A week or two ago, Kyle Glanville of Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea shared a thought on Twitter: many high-end coffee shops that pride themselves on the quality of their espresso serve downright mediocre filtered coffee. This is not a sentiment I can agree with based on my own personal experience, as I've not been able to frequent many such shops in person, but I do agree with it in principle.

Last night, I had the privilege and honor of hanging around with the staff at Quills Coffee as Kenny Smith helped them install their new La Marzocco Linea 3MP. To the best of my knowledge, it's the only paddle-group machine in the city, and by all accounts, it's well worth the investment. It took us a little while to get all the kinks worked out, and Chris Heiniger claimed to be nuzzled by a family of possums, but the early closing time of 4 PM yesterday still allowed us to get everything done by midnight or so.

Anyone who knows Chris Heiniger knows that the man just doesn't smile all that often. Or, if he does smile, it's fleeting and not easy to glimpse. Thus, it becomes all the rarer to see not only a picture in which he is smiling, but a picture in which he is posing and smiling. This Linea 3MP, which he will be working very closely and lovingly with, was deemed by him a more than adequate reason to pose and smile.

*Click*.