Due to the popularity and stability of the Iberital MC2 grinder in the UK consumer market we have made a decision to use the doserless version for our home coffee training.

Where a client already has a grinder, they will be trained on their own equipment, using the Iberital MC2 grinder as reference after dialling in the grinder to produce a consistent grind for a good extraction.

A good grinder is the most important asset in your coffee equipment and maintained regularly, will outlive most espresso machines.

Using a sub-standard grinder will devalue your overall coffee experience.

With prices of the Iberital MC2 starting from £100 this grinder is a mid-market model at entry level pricing.

The coffee blogging scene is expanding and the 2 newest bloggers that have come to my attention are Chris and Seamus

Chris, a moderator at Coffee Forums UK and Head Barista at Cafe Aroma in Lincoln has a blog

Seamus, one of the newest CFUK members and 9 months into the industry has entered the online world as well. View his blog here

Welcome to both – quality coffee blog contributors are still a minority online.

We’ve just returned from our first day in Budapest, sampling a few of the many cafe’s and restaurants recommended to us through contacts at TMC as well as various guidebooks and online resources.

The cafe scene here is amazing. There is no shortage of places to choose from, with prices to meet all budgets. From chain stores to independents, Budapest has the scene covered.

The local currency is the Hungarian Forint (HUF or Ft) and it is roughly pegged to the Euro at €1 = 250 Ft (At the time of writing this was equivalent to £1 = 310 Ft)

Hungary is better noted for its selection of cakes and pastries which serve as a perfect complement to a decent coffee.

First stop was Gerbeaud, an icon in Budapest, located on Vorosmarty Ter, directly above the M1 Metro Station and only seconds from Vaci Utca, the main pedestrianised street on the Pest side of the Danube. The service was surprisingly good (I had read mixed reports) and the meals hearty. Not the cheapest food to be found, it is highly recommended and I can see myself returning later in the trip to sample more of the cakes and pastries from their range.

Later in the day we dropped in to Coffeeshop Company on Vaci Utca. This is an Austrian based chain store with a global reach. They have a vibrant menu catering for all tastes with a range of coffee blends as well as a good selection of bagels and iced drinks. The drinks were all served in Paper Cups (with the exception of the ice-blended range which was served in plastic). The coffee was decent and better than what can usually be found in the UK chain cafes’.

Tomorrow we head for Buda to check out Koruna Kafehaz and Ruszwurm (time permitting).

Prices (as at 02 June)

Gerbeaud – Latte – 750 Ft

Coffeeshop Company – Latte – 500 Ft

In the coming months we will be bringing you coffee commentary about cafe’s that we have visited around the world in the past 12 months in search of both traditional and revolutionary coffee.

Next week we intend to spend many hours sampling the cafe scene in Budapest. We have been given a shortlist of 3 ‘must visit cafe’s’ that we will be visiting.

Check back on 08 June for a review of our recent trip and a preview on what is coming up over the summer months.

Blogging about Coffee is a way of introducing more people to the specialty coffee industry and the taste sensations that await them.

Your blog may be for fun or as a log of your exploits to date – when you achieved the perfect grind, how you taught yourself latte art, or for commercial reasons – to launch a new product or service, a new company or even to highlight a new Barista or Trainer who may have joined your company.

The ultimate goal is to rank well on Google Blog Search and in Blog directories, so that other coffee lovers and prospective clients can read about your company.

The media often use quotes from blogs, quoting the source as your blog and a link which can bring hundreds of readers in during a short period of time.

Content is important and your blog must be factual and referenced where possible. New laws in the UK make it illegal to ‘make your company appear popular than it really is’ by posting fake blogs to support or promote your company. We welcome these new laws as it invites companies to operate on a level playing field.

Top 7 tips to start blogging and get your site noticed;

1. Host your blog on your own domain – you want to be the beneficiary of the exposure, not a large faceless organisation

2. Customise your blog look and feel – make the design stand out from the rest

3. Post regularly – content that changes is key here and keeps people coming back for more

4. Enable the RSS or Atom feeds to automatically push content onto other sites every time you post

5. Encourage interaction – invite comments but monitor for spam

6. Link to other websites and invite relevant parties to link to you

7. Quote your blog link in PR or marketing literature

Do you have a blog that has been started off the back of reading this? If so then contact us to arrange extra exposure for your site.

Our window to the world is nearing completion with the first draft delivered by our development team today.

I was impressed with the look and feel of the site and have lots of work to do now to ensure all the copy on the site is easy to understand and inviting to read.

Interactive and informative websites are important to the consumers of today and have largely replaced Yellow Pages adverts, giving users a much more interactive experience and access to far more information than ever before.

Branding is important and we will be tieing in our blog with the finished site colours as soon as the full code has been delivered, at this stage we expect the files early next week.

As with all websites we will go through a soft launch process and bug fix where possible, testing all links and contact details are working and then unleashing it on the web.

We’re already picking up a small number of ‘hits’ per day from interested parties.

The only way is up from here…