Hello Shop Owners, When I was on the circuit lecturing at every Coffee Fest in the mid ’90’s one of my most popular seminar topics was how we hired, trained, and inspired baristi to make artisan espresso. Broadly, creating a Culture of Excellence is an infinitely complex affair, but it starts with a resume. In […]

Hello Espresso Geeks, By far the most common misconception I see with folks making espresso outside of Italy is passing too much water, too quickly, through the packed coffee. It seems to be a cultural phenomenon where the people are used to drip coffee or French press, they want to reproduce that with an espresso […]

Hello Espresso Geeks, During Covid restrictions we have suspended hands-on espresso training at Vivace. To keep my staff sharp I have made several DIY videos on technique. I would like to share a few of these with you. First up dosing and distribution, updated Second up let’s look at a Vivace extraction using the Niche […]

Hello Espresso Geeks, During ‘corona daze” we have been refining our espresso techniques. Earlier this year, in the Before Time we added the settling technique to our classical dosing and distribution techniques. It is as simple as tapping the side of the PF (porta filter) to arrange the powder before distribution and dosing using our […]

Dear Reader, I want to take a moment to completely explain why ground coffee, trapped in the grinder between shots, makes it very difficult to control the flow-rate of the espresso shot. Let’s start with the roasted coffee. The roasted bean will contain it’s own internal moisture after roasting. The higher the internal moisture in […]

Dear Reader, What Christian Etzinger has accomplished with his grinder designs is to transport the powder out of the machine into the porta-filter with perfect particle-distribution integrity. In other words, no micro-particle drift and no clumping. In addition there is no ground coffee trapped in the body of the grinder. (Only the unavoidable gram or […]

Hello expert baristi…we are planning our next Pro Barista class for mid November.  Contact Jes at trainer@espressovivace.com to get a spot.  We are limited to eight students, as always.   Here is a picture of the last class to graduate, with students from New Zealand and Korea.  

Assistant General Manager Zach started his journey at Espresso Vivace in 2022, but his love for coffee started in a hometown bakery and coffee shop in Eastern Washington.  Throughout the years, he built an appreciation for both espresso and the value small businesses bring to the community.  Zach’s penchant for learning and desire to improve […]