Lightmist Coffee

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Pour-over coffee setup with Origami dripper and glass server on a scale

It’s been a while.

A lot has changed since my last post. Last July, Sherry and I moved to Taipei with the boys and the dog. And somewhere along the way, a coffee hobby turned into something more serious. I started a coffee project.

It’s called Lightmist Coffee (微嵐咖啡). We focus on ultra-light roasts, the kind where you can actually taste the origin, the terroir, the processing. Clarity over intensity. If you’ve ever had a light roast that reminded you more of tea or white wine than “coffee,” that’s the neighborhood we’re in.

The coffee thing started back in 2002 when I was in Austin doing some consulting work on the side, hacking on Linux kernel extensions. The consulting money paid for a Rancilio Silvia and a Rocky grinder, and that was it. I was hooked. For a long time it stayed casual, just making espresso at home. I moved to San Francisco in 2007, and it wasn’t until after COVID that I really fell into the Bay Area specialty coffee scene. That’s when things escalated: dialing in recipes, geeking out on water chemistry, the whole rabbit hole.

The name comes from Mt. Tam, the mountain across the Golden Gate, where fog rolls in around golden hour. That quiet, misty clarity felt right. The Chinese name, 微嵐, uses the 嵐 from my Chinese name (吳以嵐). It means mountain mist.

What we actually do: small curated drops. We source from top independent roasters around the world, and ship in small numbered batches. Every box comes with the water recipe we used when dialing in, because water matters more than most people think. We’re transparent about everything: the sourcing, the process, the numbers.

I also started the Taipei Coffee Group (TCG), a community of specialty coffee people here in Taiwan. It’s still early, a Discord server where people share brewing experiments, compare recipes, and do group buys. It’s the kind of thing I wished existed when I first moved here.

I’ll be honest, I’m still figuring out the right audience for Lightmist here in Taipei. The specialty coffee scene is vibrant, but ultra-light roasts are a niche within a niche. We’ll see where it goes.

If any of this sounds interesting, follow along on Instagram: @lightmist.coffee. That’s where we announce drops and share what we’re working on.

More to come.

Hal’s Boston Bound 2015 training schedule calendar links

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I usually use YourTrainingCalendar to generate my training schedule, but this time I’m following Higdon’s Boston Bound program instead of his Advanced 2, and YourTrainingCalendar doesn’t have that program yet.

I actually bought Hal’s program at TrainingPeaks, but to sync to Google Calendar I need to upgrade to Premium. So instead I created my own calendar and made it public. Here are the links to add to your own calendars.

URLs

To add to Google Calendar, find the “Other calendars” drop down menu.  Select “Add by URL” and copy and paste this link into the field: http://bit.ly/bostonbound15

And if you want to change the calendar color to the Boston yellow, the hex code is #ffde00. (at least what’s what they’re using on their website)

Good luck!

The San Francisco Marathon 2014

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340_SFOHero.original

I’ve always wanted to run the SF Marathon, so when we decided to move back I signed up for it right away. They had a 3:00 pace group, so I started the race with them. We were clocking 6:40 miles and had more than 30 seconds to spare after the downhill sections after coming back from the Golden Gate Bridge. A friend from my running group joined me in Golden Gate Park and paced me for a couple of miles, it was awesome and resulted in a pretty fast mile 18. I started to fade at mile 19, at around mile 20 the 3:05 pacers passed me. I think sub 3 at TSFM was a bit aggressive especially with inadequate hills training. Since I already got my BQ, I just took it easy on the downhills in the last 10k. I was mindful with my quads and didn’t want them to cramp up. I also didn’t want more black toenails. I ran high-7 and low-8 min-miles only and it was a pretty comfortable stroll to the finish line. I finished with a 3:11:00, which I’m pretty happy with.

Detailed results

Time 3:11:00
Overall Pace 7:11
Overall Place 138 out of 6580
Gender Place 132 out of 4287
Age Group (M35–39) Place 15 out of 648

Splits

MileSplits
16:46
26:41
36:53
46:38
56:40
67:30
76:37
86:40
96:43
107:12
116:21
127:15
137:08
146:43
157:15
167:33
177:21
186:45
197:32
207:51
217:32
228:14
237:48
248:26
257:44
268:09
0.277:24

TSFM2014

graph

Gears

I have a decent collection of running shoes:

  • Saucony Peregrine 4 for trails, really love these, I got about 142 miles in them
  • Adidas Energy Boost 2.0, ran Grandma’s with these, racked up about 240 miles in them, mostly longer runs
  • Newton Distance S III, ran SFM with these, was curious about the brand, decent shoes, only have about 128 miles on them so far
  • Altra One2, just got them, very light weight, zero drop, the sizes run a bit small so maybe get a half size bigger than usual

Other gears

  • RooSport pouch, I picked up one of these at the Grandma’s expo. I used to run with running belts and switched to this. The RooSport doesn’t bounce at all, and it holds my phone and a few Gu packets. I’ve done many long runs and ran SFM with it, no chaffing at all
  • Feetures socks, only socks I run with now, super comfy, no chaffing or blisters after over 1k miles in them. They’re also available for cheap at Nordstrom Rack
  • Meelectronic M6P cans, cheap $25 cans with volume slider and button, solid inexpensive running cans
  • I picked up an Elevation Training Mask, will start training with it on

Recovery

I picked up a pair of SKINS RY400 recovery compression tights before Grandma’s. I put them on shortly after the race and had them on 24/7 for 3 days. They helped a lot. I now sleep in them after harder workouts. If you want to recover quickly, I highly recommend them. I hydrate with Nuun tablets after workouts, the flavors are tasty and sugar-free. I take Gu Recovery Brew after long runs, and after races I drink Hammer Recoverite.

I just got a Roll Recovery R8 massager, it’s pricey but works really well. I use it in addition to my Tiger Tail and Grid foam rollers (yes I have 2, the original 13″ one and the 5″ one for travel).

Onward

I will attempt sub 3 again at CIM. Maybe one of the Tahoe marathons too, but should probably just focus on CIM. I’ll do Boston 2015 and probably the Boston 2 Big Sur Challenge, that’s to run Big Sur, a pretty hilly and difficult course, 6 days after Boston. I already signed up for TSFM 2015, I should be much better prepared for it next year.