Houston Coffee Scene: Nicholas Lundgaard of Home-Barista.com

Nestled in Houston lies one of the most amazing home coffee-making set-ups in America. Nicholas Lundgaard, a moderator on the ever-famous www.home-barista.com forum, has chosen Houston as his home and brought with him this heavily modified La Marzocco GS3 and a special grinder he imported personally from Italy called an Elektra Nino. Nick goes by the username "shadowfax" on Home-Barista.com and can answer almost any technical coffee question aimed at him.

The coffee-making setup he built in his home could easily compare to that of any professional coffee shop in America. Nick personally removed the water pump from the internals of his espresso machine and upgraded to a more powerful model. He then procured a voltage regulator/exchanger in order to be able to control the water pressure output of his espresso machine using a knob. This kind of device has only been around for about a year, courtesy of espresso machine manufacturer Slayer. Nick rigged one himself, and with the already installed temperature control unit, he essentially has a coffee laboratory at home.

Nick's imported grinder is probably the only one in Texas and rivals the grinding capacity, speed and consistency of any shop around town. We thoroughly encourage any coffee geeks-in-training to send him a message through home-barista.com and help grow our Houston coffee scene even more.