vivace espresso

Discussion of various types and blends of commercially available pre-roasted beans, their best sources, prices, their respective merits, and the Vivaldi settings required to optimism flavor.
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michael

vivace espresso

Post by michael »

are there are temperature recommendations for the vivace dolce or the vivace vita 8)
coffeeowl

Post by coffeeowl »

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there are... D.S. prays 203.5F.
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Niko

Post by Niko »

:shock:
JohnB

Re: vivace espresso

Post by JohnB »

I was thinking of trying the Vivace Dolce now that the Toscano is gone. Anyone tried it recently?
Richard

Re: vivace espresso

Post by Richard »

JohnB wrote:I was thinking of trying the Vivace Dolce now that the Toscano is gone. Anyone tried it recently?
John, how did you like the Toscano? I have a bag of it portioned and in the freezer, unsampled, along with a bag of their Aficionado; they arrived this morning, the same day the Vivaldi board took a trip to Albany -- later.

Dolce? I haven't met many coffees I utterly and completely dislike, but that's one of them. That rubbery, resinous robusta flavor is, to my taste, just plain vile. Obviously not everyone agrees. :)
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ScottW
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Re: vivace espresso

Post by ScottW »

JohnB wrote:I was thinking of trying the Vivace Dolce now that the Toscano is gone. Anyone tried it recently?
After trying a lot of blends from a lot of roasters, Vivace Dolce is about all I drink now. Haven't found anything I like better. I just ordered another 8lbs of the Vivace Dolce (green) -- it is a slightly different blend than the pre-roasted Dolce, but is very close and performs great in a home roaster.
Richard wrote:Dolce? I haven't met many coffees I utterly and completely dislike, but that's one of them. That rubbery, resinous robusta flavor is, to my taste, just plain vile.
We must be talking about a different coffee -- perhaps you've had something called Dolce from another roaster? The Dolce from Vivace in Seattle is excellent, certainly nothing I'd classify as "resinous" or "rubbery". Highly recommended.
Richard

Re: vivace espresso

Post by Richard »

ScottW wrote:
Richard wrote:Dolce? I haven't met many coffees I utterly and completely dislike, but that's one of them. That rubbery, resinous robusta flavor is, to my taste, just plain vile.
We must be talking about a different coffee -- perhaps you've had something called Dolce from another roaster? The Dolce from Vivace in Seattle is excellent, certainly nothing I'd classify as "resinous" or "rubbery". Highly recommended.
We are most certainly talking about the same coffee from the same roaster; as is said, de gustibus non est disputandum.
JohnB

Re: vivace espresso

Post by JohnB »

Richard wrote: John, how did you like the Toscano? I have a bag of it portioned and in the freezer, unsampled, along with a bag of their Aficionado; they arrived this morning, the same day the Vivaldi board took a trip to Albany -- later.

Dolce? I haven't met many coffees I utterly and completely dislike, but that's one of them. That rubbery, resinous robusta flavor is, to my taste, just plain vile. Obviously not everyone agrees. :)
I liked the Toscano & will buy it again once they start offering a Priority Mail option & lower their shipping charges some. I settled on 17g doses pulled at 94C as my favorite & I found that it got better with age. 7-10 days post roast was my favorite with the coffee aging in the valve bag on my counter. Since it was only a 12oz bag I made no attempt to freeze any of it as I liked it enough to drink it daily until finished.

So the Dolce is mostly Robusta? High caffeine like the Liquid Amber?
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ScottW
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Re: vivace espresso

Post by ScottW »

JohnB wrote:So the Dolce is mostly Robusta? High caffeine like the Liquid Amber?
Absolutely not. It appears (looks and taste) to be mostly a monsooned malabar (arabica) with very little robusta. Certainly some people don't like Malabar, and they probably won't like Dolce either. But to say it has a lot of robusto is just factually wrong. Of course even the best coffee can be ruined by bad grind or bad temp -- and that frequently brings people to the conclusion that the blend is bad instead of looking at their own technique.
JohnB

Re: vivace espresso

Post by JohnB »

ScottW wrote:
JohnB wrote:So the Dolce is mostly Robusta? High caffeine like the Liquid Amber?
Absolutely not. It appears (looks and taste) to be mostly a monsooned malabar (arabica) with very little robusta. Certainly some people don't like Malabar, and they probably won't like Dolce either. But to say it has a lot of robusto is just factually wrong. Of course even the best coffee can be ruined by bad grind or bad temp -- and that frequently brings people to the conclusion that the blend is bad instead of looking at their own technique.

What are the flavors you notice with the Dolce? Can you compare it to any of the popular Espresso blends?
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ScottW
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Re: vivace espresso

Post by ScottW »

JohnB wrote: What are the flavors you notice with the Dolce?
I would describe it as sweet, with a very slight chocolate aroma/flavor. Sometimes the latter is more noticeable than others, probably due to variations in my grind/tamp. My wife claims to taste caramel, especially when its roasted a little darker -- but I can't say I really picked that out. If you move towards a shorter/stronger shot, the sweetness is accentuated. It makes a great ristretto.

I recall reading discussions where people commented on Dolce being "unforgiving" or "finicky" -- that if you get the temp or grind off a bit, you can get some really nasty results. I initially noticed a tendency towards sour shots, but bringing the temp up to 95-96c made that disappear. Its probably a testiment to the S1, but I've had very consistent (and good) results.
JohnB wrote: Can you compare it to any of the popular Espresso blends?
It is very close to Malabar Gold, both based on "looks" in the bag (unroasted) and in the cup. I went back and forth between these, especially since I can get Malabar Gold a fair amount cheaper than the Vivace. But in the end I settled on the Vivace based on taste.

There *is* some robusta in Vivace's blends, but it certainly doesn't dominate. Here is an excellent/balanced piece about the use of robusta, including comments from several prominent roasters, including Shomer's comments specific to the Vivace blends.
http://www.coffeegeek.com/opinions/cafestage/02-01-2006

In the end, its all subjective and no two palates are identical. Just because most reviewers give Dolce pretty high marks, that doesn't mean everyone will like it. Heck, I know people who really like Folgers! :shock:
JohnB

Re: vivace espresso

Post by JohnB »

ScottW wrote:
JohnB wrote:
JohnB wrote:
There *is* some robusta in Vivace's blends, but it certainly doesn't dominate. Here is an excellent/balanced piece about the use of robusta, including comments from several prominent roasters, including Shomer's comments specific to the Vivace blends.
http://www.coffeegeek.com/opinions/cafestage/02-01-2006
Interesting article! What did they mean by this:

"Alves also argues that a caf
Richard

Re: vivace espresso

Post by Richard »

ScottW wrote:In the end, its all subjective and no two palates are identical.
Mm-hmm. As I wrote earlier, de gustibus non est disputandum.
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ScottW
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Re: vivace espresso

Post by ScottW »

Richard wrote:Mm-hmm. As I wrote earlier, de gustibus non est disputandum.
Yes, but that's also an over-simplification. Fortunately, MOST humans have similar tastes and that allows us to generally get value from the evaluations and opinions of expert tasters (or an arbiter elegantiarum, if you prefer), reviewers, and other contemporaries. Certainly there will be those who fall outside the norm and have unusual tastes, and their personal like/dislike cannot be disputed. But for the vast majority with more "normal" tastes, those individual experiences are anomalous and irrelevant.

Of course I still wouldn't dismiss the possibility that your bad experience with Dolce stemmed from a bad batch, or something in preparation. In your thread about Dolce on HB, someone did in fact report getting some that was terrible when purchases before/after were good. And in that same thread, you yourself said:
Richard 5-25-07 on HB wrote:Dosed at 19-20g, a 1.0-1.5oz ristretto in about 30 seconds, the resulting shot was wholly different than what I was pulling a couple of days ago, and the aroma in the cup was essentially that of the ground coffee. Interestingly, the resinous, rubbery stench of the spent puck that I was experiencing earlier was thankfully absent, too.
So I think you'd have to agree that grind/tamp/temp/time can make a big difference with this blend. After all, ipse dixit. :D
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ScottW
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Re: vivace espresso

Post by ScottW »

JohnB wrote:Are they referring to the caffeine content or something else?
I don't know -- I was puzzled by that statement as well and wish the author had asked for a further explanation.

Alves might be referring to the caffeine load, as you suggest. But using the common assertion that robusta's have 2x the caffeine of arabicas, adding 10% robusta to the blend would only increase the total caffeine load by 10% -- which would not seem significant enough to support his "rest of the day" versus "couple of hours" comparison.

He also does not appear to be referring to taste, since in the previous paragraph he says that in taste tests the flavor of the robusto itself was undetectable until reaching 10-15% of the blend.

I think the most important things I took from that article were (1) Not all robustas are created equal -- like any bean, growing and processing will affect the character; and (2) The effect of adding robusta will be different depending on the rest of the blend, due to the way it interacts with the other flavors in that blend. Those factors would seem to better account for the very different opinions amongst professional roasters/tasters than would a simple "difference in individual taste".
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