# Allpress Dalston Cafe and Roastery Opens



## risky (May 11, 2015)

http://www.allpressdalston.com/#/55dalstonlane

Looks nice but then I'm a sucker for anything on old industrial sites!

Supposedly their newest air roasting technology is the business



> "We wanted to build a roaster that was all about flavour. The ART roaster is more precise, the flavour of the coffee is distinctly superior - sweeter, smoother and longer lasting," says Michael Allpress.


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## jlarkin (Apr 26, 2015)

That looks and sounds like a big place! They're not just dabbling, are they?


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## robashton (May 9, 2015)

This looks pretty decent but... is that a mazzer on the bar (I can't tell between all the bokeh and over-exposed glossy photos)? Why do people keep on doing this? Why spend so much money on a great place and then *not* get a bloody Mythos or two?


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## Soll (Nov 10, 2013)

Looks great, might give this a visit


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## Rompie (Apr 18, 2015)

Tried some of the Allpress air roasted beans at London coffee fest, as chemex I think it really did make a cleaner cup - very sweet etc. It's exciting that they're expanding more.


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## jlarkin (Apr 26, 2015)

robashton said:


> This looks pretty decent but... is that a mazzer on the bar (I can't tell between all the bokeh and over-exposed glossy photos)? Why do people keep on doing this? Why spend so much money on a great place and then *not* get a bloody Mythos or two?


I think it's a couple of mazzers there. Maybe they ran out of money


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

They are hardly skimping!

I see an EK, a Mazzer Kold (I think), and I think a Mahlkonig deli grinder, and then a SJ... they have many options!


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

@Ant might like these guys


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## risky (May 11, 2015)

Dylan said:


> They are hardly skimping!
> 
> I see an EK, a Mazzer Kold (I think), and I think a Mahlkonig deli grinder, and then a SJ... they have many options!


Yeah pretty sure it is a Kold. With the money they've spent I'm sure they would have considered every grinder available, including the Mythos. They've obviously gone for the keep cold line of thought rather than keep warm.

Is the Mythos some guarantee of an excellent coffee shop?


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## jlarkin (Apr 26, 2015)

Personally, I'd like to see an R120 in there but that'd just make it even more somewhere I'd like to try out when I'm next visiting the big smoke.


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## jlarkin (Apr 26, 2015)

risky said:


> Is the Mythos some guarantee of an excellent coffee shop?


People used to think that, but now it's been exposed as a Myth-(you guessed it kids)-os *boom boom*


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## risky (May 11, 2015)

jlarkin said:


> People used to think that, but now it's been exposed as a Myth-(you guessed it kids)-os *boom boom*


Take a bow.


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

Maybe they wanted temp controlled but a conic. The heathens.


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## robashton (May 9, 2015)

Ouch.

I didn't mean to suggest skimping, but I've still not had a good spro from a kold.

I just don't get it - the mythos isn't a guarantee of a good spro, but its a bear minimum at least


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

robashton said:


> Ouch.
> 
> I didn't mean to suggest skimping, but I've still not had a good spro from a kold.
> 
> I just don't get it - the mythos isn't a guarantee of a good spro, but its a bear minimum at least


Maybe their target extractions taste better from a Kold (


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

robashton said:


> Ouch.
> 
> I didn't mean to suggest skimping, but I've still not had a good spro from a kold.
> 
> I just don't get it - the mythos isn't a guarantee of a good spro, but its a bear minimum at least


I dont get why an EK and a Kold aren't a 'bare minimum' ?


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## robashton (May 9, 2015)

jeebsy said:


> Maybe their target extractions taste better from a Kold (
> 
> Bleh tbh.


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## robashton (May 9, 2015)

Dylan said:


> I dont get why an EK and a Kold aren't a 'bare minimum' ?


Everybody has an EK these days for filter, and it's no guarantee of a good coffee either.

I'm sure the Kold is fine and everything for traditional spros and traditional ratios, but I just think we've done that to death and it's time to move on.


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

Is that Matt Perger's reflection off the EK or is he now endorsing La Marzocco too?


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

Foundation recently opened in Manchester looks almost identical.


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## jlarkin (Apr 26, 2015)

Hopefully Allpress do better coffee (well espresso, as that's all I can properly vouch for not being very inspiring)!


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## jlarkin (Apr 26, 2015)

TSK - did you notice if North Tea Power have the kold for their espresso blend? I think it was the same, I noticed it was a Mazzer but actually didn't know what it was at the time.


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

robashton said:


> Everybody has an EK these days for filter, and it's no guarantee of a good coffee either.
> 
> I'm sure the Kold is fine and everything for traditional spros and traditional ratios, but I just think we've done that to death and it's time to move on.


And why is a Mythos any different?


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

jlarkin said:


> TSK - did you notice if North Tea Power have the kold for their espresso blend? I think it was the same, I noticed it was a Mazzer but actually didn't know what it was at the time.


Yep mazzer kold for the house blend ( deer hunter )

Was dialled in to " cut through milk " I suspect ( strong and slightly under ) ...would like have tried the deerhunter in the ek43 , we asked but it wasn't dialled in ..


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## robashton (May 9, 2015)

Dylan said:


> And why is a Mythos any different?


Cleaner longer shots, more consistent grind, less traditional ratios necessary (100% and above), higher extraction.

I've not had a nice "clean" well extracted shot from a Mazzer Kold yet (I spent quite a bit of time in Notes at KX on this once), everything muddy and blegh (technical tasting notes here). So goddamned dull - what's the point? Coffee has moved on, it's not 2005/2008/2012/etc any more.

[edit]

I'm speaking as a consumer here, not as somebody who has a coffee set-up in my house. I've been to most of the good coffee shops in the UK and Europe, the grinder is consistently what lets them down (coupled with a lack of will to do anything outside traditional high dose low yield "aussie" shots). The local roasts then used in those coffee shops are then often lazy to couple with that.

It just smacks of "oh yah, more of the same".

[further edit]

In shops which then go on to use a Mythos (in my opinion currently the best dosing grinder available), the recipes change because they can, and also people have taste buds, the roasts then change too (for the better). When I see a mazzer in a shop it's usually a sign that they'll be doing crappy low extraction shots or they'll be stretching the ability of the grinder and it'll be on the side of "over" cooked.


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## robashton (May 9, 2015)

Just saying - if you're going to go to the trouble of roasting your own coffee because you think you can do better, why wouldn't you use the technology that's well placed to showcase that?

I suspect I'll be heading to this place in a couple of weeks on my next crawl through London and I'll let the taste do the talking...


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

Dylan said:


> And why is a Mythos any different?


Higher extractions are tastier


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## robashton (May 9, 2015)

jeebsy said:


> Higher extractions are tastier


Higher "clean" extractions - vocabulary building over here


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## garydyke1 (Mar 9, 2011)

robashton said:


> Cleaner longer shots, more consistent grind, less traditional ratios necessary (100% and above), higher extraction.
> 
> I've not had a nice "clean" well extracted shot from a Mazzer Kold yet (I spent quite a bit of time in Notes at KX on this once), everything muddy and blegh (technical tasting notes here). So goddamned dull - what's the point? Coffee has moved on, it's not 2005/2008/2012/etc any more.
> 
> ...


Bravo. Nuova Simonelli are a specialty focused company now. Mazzer say they are but IMO are not


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

rob-

It would be good to hear back when you have a chance to pop by, especially if you get the chance to talk shop about their choices of grinder. It occurs to me that a shop with such high investment couldn't really just buy their grinders willy nilly when even the newest of newcomers to specialty coffee learns pretty quickly that grinder is king, if the advantages of the Mythos were quite so clear cut then surely anyone starting up a coffee shop with an investment like this would know this...

I could be way off the mark, but even with my incredibly limited knowledge, if I were starting a coffee shop I would go through the process of tasting with a lead barista the output of each of these grinders to find the one I believed to be best, and looking through that website, I cant imagine they would have done anything less.


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## robashton (May 9, 2015)

It's hard to conceive - but this is the reality. Nearly everybody buys Mazzer so nearly everybody carries on buying Mazzer.


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

Dylan said:


> rob-
> 
> It would be good to hear back when you have a chance to pop by, especially if you get the chance to talk shop about their choices of grinder. It occurs to me that a shop with such high investment couldn't really just buy their grinders willy nilly when even the newest of newcomers to specialty coffee learns pretty quickly that grinder is king, if the advantages of the Mythos were quite so clear cut then surely anyone starting up a coffee shop with an investment like this would know this...
> 
> I could be way off the mark, but even with my incredibly limited knowledge, if I were starting a coffee shop I would go through the process of tasting with a lead barista the output of each of these grinders to find the one I believed to be best, and looking through that website, I cant imagine they would have done anything less.


Because they want to pull 21 in 32 out shots?


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

I remember when the Mythos One presentation was posted up here, and there was some debate about the assertion that between all the tasting they had done, flat burrs were better, so they chose them. Then many discussed how conics were better for some roast profiles and flats for others.

Perhaps the grinder suits their house roast, or simply, they prefer the flavor profile of conics, or even more simply they prefer the flavor produced by the Kold.

Perhaps they chose it because of a good deal from their suppliers or because they wanted to fit in with the crowd.

To me the former seems more likely, but I have zero business experience to base that on. It seems a bit presumptive to assume there hasn't been a basic level of sensible choice go into the grinders based on your personal experience of the Mythos being the King.


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

jlarkin said:


> TSK - did you notice if North Tea Power have the kold for their espresso blend? I think it was the same, I noticed it was a Mazzer but actually didn't know what it was at the time.


Don't think it's a Kold unless they've recently replaced it.


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

The Systemic Kid said:


> Don't think it's a Kold unless they've recently replaced it.


They defo had a Kold in there about 2 months back.


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## Xpenno (Nov 12, 2012)

The Systemic Kid said:


> Don't think it's a Kold unless they've recently replaced it.


They had a kold when we went last year for the forum day


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## jlarkin (Apr 26, 2015)

The Systemic Kid said:


> Don't think it's a Kold unless they've recently replaced it.





Mrboots2u said:


> Yep mazzer kold for the house blend ( deer hunter )





Dylan said:


> They defo had a Kold in there about 2 months back.





Xpenno said:


> They had a kold when we went last year for the forum day


In fact, when they first opened didn't they make a huge thing about having a Kold and that it was one of the most memorable things about the cafe?









(sorry just love the weight of replies this got).


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## Milanski (Oct 10, 2013)

It's a great space and their espresso tasted bloody lovely to me after LCF (when the place was still a building site). Those silos are mammoth when you walk in...

Funnily enough I almost took that building over myself about 15 years ago. Was gonna divvy it up into artist studios which would have paid for our own (music) studio space. Unfortunately I couldn't get the cash together for materials







budding entrepreneur thwarted by the inability to raise investment capital! Happy days.


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## Scotford (Apr 24, 2014)

They've recently acquired a mythos.


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## robashton (May 9, 2015)

Huzzah!


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

And a GS3?


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## robashton (May 9, 2015)

I saw that haha - maybe it's their test setup


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