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I’d agree especially around knowing the investors to get a sense of what their track record is given a lot of VC funds don’t actually deliver the returns they target…. Cavalier approach - Given where you are in your career what’s the risk of 12-24 month stint in a startup if the numbers work...

We never really thought about it until kids but now we aim to have 9-12 months essentials as a cash buffer (mortgage / council tax / utilities / food etc. ). On top of that we’ve got income protection insurance and critical illness cover which feel like good hedges as well in case something...

Have a Weber unibasket and a Pesado one. I like both. I think they enhance the flavour but I haven’t done blind tastings so no doubt some confirmation bias. I personally find them more forgiving than a VST basket - I still used to periodically get spritzing on the VST but the smaller holes...

Adding some food safe lubricant (molykote) to the outside of the gasket makes it easier to drop an e61 screen. If back flushing an e61 with detergent then remember to disaasemble the lever and cam and lubricate it afterwards. Loads of videos on how to do it. Also - If you steam a lot of milk...

Think with all these machines you have to factor in maintenance or you simply use and abuse and accept a big bill every so often. Clearly easy things you can do to reduce that like using boiler safe water, puck screens, flush the steam boiler etc. but eventually something will need changed e.g...

The faff with an E61 is if you backflush with detergent you need to re-grease the lever mechanism to avoid wearing the metal parts out. It’s not an horrendous job but a bit of a faff to do really regularly. I’ve found that using paper filters means I can backflush and re-grease about every three...

Checking in. I’ve got to a pretty static 105kg (5kg) down by being more conscious on the snacks at work and starting to up the exercise. Muscle mass seems to be going up which is good and I feel a bit fitter. Two reflections from consciously focusing on this: 1. My evening habit of eating...

Top paper filter is a game change for cleaning on an E61 machine. Puck screens on the other hand I simply can’t be bothered with the hassle of ultrasonic or steam cleaning them all the time.

I’ve found the high extraction baskets (I have a pesado and Weber uni basket) are less messy than I expected. I expected to get coffee everywhere given even with years of practice and a VST basket I still fairly regularly had that. Whereas with the High extraction ones barely any mess or sprays...

1300 here in London building and contents after shopping around. The majority (2/3) of the cost on the breakdown is unlimited building insurance cover. I think it’s a racket as they clearly just look at property ‘values’ and charge what they can get away with which in London means £££ and they...

The more unusual coffees I tend to find are getting nearer £40 a kg these days. I subscribe to gustatory.co which I’ve found gives a nice range of coffee and has a variety of subscriptions at under (as well as above) £30 per kg. You can also choose tasting note preferences which is helpful...

Fair challenge and I try where possible to get out for breaks but sadly it’s often the reality of life in a city job. No such thing as a free lunch. Whether I’ll regret it in the future is something to wrestle with.

When work blows up as it is lunch is usually a quick 20 minute walk out of the office to grab something and then back to the desk. Fortunately I have about 3 miles of walking in total each day on the commute which I do at a brisk pace.

January has been a mixed month. First couple of weeks were good - 3x a week on the peloton and really watching the diet saw me lose about 5kg. Downside was I got a new set of smart scales which increased my weight by 2kg :(. Since then I’ve hit a wall on the exercise as works blown up so it’s...

Hard to go wrong in Dubai hotel wise, overall quality of hotels is so high. Even the palm we found ok traffic wise when we’ve been there. Personally we tend to stay at the Jumeirah Madinat hotels as location is good and the whole setup is hard to beat for kids.

Vacuum insulated glassware often floats in water because it has an enclosed vacuum which means overall density vs water is lower. The vacuum being the thing which gives them better heat retention.

Think the stainless steel is £1999 now and the black / white finishes are £2400.

Size is absolutely fine - more just the mass market is 58mm portafilters so more accessories traditionally at that size but given how popular 54mm sage machines are you see lots more 54mm accessories (portafilters, baskets, dosing rings etc) than you used to.

I’m biased - but separate grinder and machine gives you more options in the future if this becomes a rabbit hole. I’ve used a friends bambino plus and it’s a great machine all round. Only quirk is the portafilter size but given how popular it is there’s a lot of 54mm accessories around now...

So we have a salt based house softener as we’re in London and the waters awful from a scale perspective. I feed the softened water to the Lelit via the osmio RO system as softened water is easier for a reverse osmosis system to filter. Net result is 30-50ppm water that doesn’t scale the Lelit...