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Coffee Eighteen Months On
Add a shot of expresso when making any kind of
chocolate cookie to make it a mocha cookie.
This may turn out to be nothing but a passing fancy in which I will quickly
lose interest. If so 'tis best recorded quickly. I found a use for
'tis which is worth all the effort.
I am trying to avoid useless detail and simply mention what matters. If you
are interested in the details of the things that matter there is google. For
example immediately below I mention there are several ways of separating the
fruit pulp from the seed. I mention they produce different tastes which is
all that matters. If you want to know more about the methods, google them.
Coffee is
Coffee is the seed of a fruit. It is called a bean but it is not a bean. It
grows on a tree. This fruit is called a cherry. It has no particular
relation to a cherry tree than to any other fruit tree. All fruit trees are
related in a Darwinian sense.
There are several ways to separate the seed from the fruit pulp. These
different ways are the first of many ways to affect different tastes of
coffee. There are so many ways every person along the way can cause
different tastes after the climate, sun, rain, and soil do their
thing that you must be prepared to find the perfect coffee for you that
never appears again.
Types
There are two types of coffees, arabica and robusta. Arabicas always cost
more because they have to have a moderate temperature year round which means
a half mile to a mile up the side of a mountain in the tropics. Robusta will
grow at sea level in the tropics. It is obviously cheaper to grow Robusta
coffees if for no other reason than the price of farm land.
They are different. They taste different. Arabica is considered the better
by almost everyone. That has nothing to do with your taste except for the
snob appeal. Arabicas are often so poorly processed from farm to roaster
that the type is a negligable consideration.
Blends
The pros know what they are doing even though it may not be to your taste.
National brands, the kind that have TV ads, produce the same taste year
after year that appeals to a broad market. If you find one you like AFTER
trying a range of coffees don't be a snob. Enjoy the national brand.
Instant
Sucks. Don't. There is a reason it sucks. When first introduced it was
discovered people would not pay a premium price for it. Problem is taking
out the caffeine is an extra step that costs money so to get the same
quality it has to cost more. The solution was to use all Robusta beans, the
cheaper and poorer quality of the two, to make decaffeinated coffee.
Standards
Standards means enforceable beyond the native honesty of the vendor. There
are none.
There are at present no useful standards for coffee. Some vendors are
attempting to create them. This means anything you read in advertising
cannot be a lie because nothing is true except maybe country of origin. The
bad news is, country of origin, even if it is Columbia, is meaningless
information. This also means anyone can legally call the cheapest coffee by
the most desirable name. Get to know your vendor.
Tobacconists are common. Tobacco is highly regulated. When a variety name is
used it must be that variety although there is little to be said for quality
claims.
Shops specializing in coffee are rare. Fortunately there is the internet.
Fortunately also speciality coffee dealers are riding the wave of popularity
that motivated you to google the subject and find this article. Some such as
peetscoffee.com of California have found their way into national chain
grocery stores such as Sweetbay, aka Kash'n'Karry, here in Florida. Take a
look for specialty coffees next time you shop. Guys get off your fat butts
and join your wives for once. You can spend as much time studying and
choosing the perfect coffees as she does buying everything else.
Price
The problem for coffee growers is the lack of standards. Coffee is a
commodity. The price from best to worst is far narrower than for wines.
Consider national brands to be like table wines. In a typical grocery store
you can find a range of ten to one in price per ounce from table wine to a
bottled wine. For coffee the range is barely two to one.
What might be called co-ops for coffee are common which means everyone's
beans are mixed and sold in large quantities for a single price. The generic
name Columbian coffee is an example of this. National brands need to produce
the same flavors in huge quantities year after year which is made possible
by these co-ops. They have their place. I simply point out you can do
better.
The down side of this is there is no great profit to be made from high
quality specialty coffees as there is for producing a quality wine. That
means there might be a Dom Perignon of coffee out there but there is no
market to pay the price of the cost of producing it. Some are trying to
change this. Success is not guaranteed.
You can find a trustworthy coffee supplier who will deliver very specialized
types and blends that are head and shoulders about the mass market quality
for barely double the the price national brands. American wines were like
this fourty years ago. Enjoy coffee this way before you can't afford the
good stuff.
You can get a quantity discount for the 8 Oclock blend from Amazon for $0.50
per oz or get some premium single bean from a small orchard half way around
the world for $1.00 per oz. Yes there are coffees offered for more but you
have to look hard to find them at $2.00 per oz and you might have to have
sucker written on your forehead to pay it before you have mucho experience.
You are most likely to settle in the $0.75 range.
There are roughly four 5 oz cups per ounce of coffee beans at one rounded
tablespoon, 7 gm, per cup. To do your own calculations there are 25.4 grams
per ounce.
Don't kid yourself. There is inherent difference and complexity and great
variety but there is no absolute better much less best any more than there
is for wine. Even those with the greatest taste in fine wines have a
favorite and affordable every day table wine. You can find the same for
coffee. There is so much variety available you can't help but find an
affordable favorite if you take the time to look.
The upside of this is the price spread is so narrow you don't need to find
the equivalent of a table wine for coffee. You can have the best all day
long for pennies more than normal.
Rarity
Some dealers hype rarity and price as going together. There is no connection
between rarity and quality. Coffee is not wine. In fact wine is not wine. It
is not just the type of winery but the year. The same kinds of seasonal
variations that affect wine quality also affect coffee quality.
Coffee does not age to a better quality. When there is a good year, enjoy
it. The best you can do is buy well sealed small packages and store them in
a deep freezer. Do not take out and refreeze as moisture will condense on
the coffee and that is not good.
It is all in the roast
Coffee must be roasted to given it any flavor at all. All kinds of chemical
reactions take place with roasting that are far beyond any non-technical
discussion to address. See the book on Caffeine below as a start if it
really interests you.
Coffees are blended for particular roasts. Trust your supplier's judgement.
If you prefer dark roasts look for coffees recommended for dark roasts. Your
supplier is interested in you for repeat business not as a one time shill.
Once you learn what you like you will forget all you read here.
Single beans generally do best at a particular degree of darkness. Again
your vendor has experimented and found a good level of roasting. Do not go
by a named roast. There are no standards. They are just descriptive names.
French roast does generally mean very dark but that may not be best for a
particular bean. So do not search vendor websites for named roasts. That is
like choosing a car by color. If you like dark just look for dark. You will
find coffees that are best roasted to the dark side and to the optimum
darkness for the bean.
A generality is that light to medium roasts bring out the inherent flavor of
the bean while medium to dark adds flavors inherent to roasting. Consider it
a bit like making toast.
Caffeine
Considering the commodity pricing of coffee it is surprising so much
research effort has been invested in it and its active ingredients mainly
caffeine but also some closely related compounds.
See: Caffeine ed. Gene Spiller, 1998 CRC Press, ISBN 0-8493-2647-8
Compare the detail in the section on coffee to the section on tea. A degree
in organic chemistry wouldn't hurt either. Without one just look at the
quantity of detail. It is the sort of thing you might expect from chemists
wired on coffee.
Lets face it caffeine is why we have a fetish for coffee. The stuff really
does not taste that good. It is an acquired taste. If it tasted as good as
it smelled everyone would love it. It is the same for alcohol. There are
non-alcholic beers and decaffeinated coffees. They exist for the
socialization that goes with drinking them not because they taste good.
We want the buzz from caffeine. It comes with the taste of coffee. Finding a
better tasting coffee is making the best of a bad lot while indulging in the
social belonging. But since we have acquired the taste for coffee there are
quite a variety flavors just as there are flavors of whiskey around the
basic alcohol.
My personal experience is that in a high pressure office job I could and did
drink ten or more cups a day without jitters. I did try caffeine pills at
that time. They always gave me the jitters. As with tea, I suspect there are
counter-balancing chemicals in coffee which prevent jitters. You mileage
will vary.
Making coffee
There are seven basic methods of coffee brewing. Given the varieties of
coffees, the different roasting levels, the different grinds and the methods
one could legitimately spend several years doing broad testing of all the
combinations. Therefore when you find a coffee you like, ask how it was
made.
In the US drip coffee is the most common. Drip grind is the most common kind
in the stores. It is also a medium grind so you can try finer and coarse to
fine tune the taste. Of course the down side of fine tuning the taste is a
different coffee or different roast of the same coffee and you start over.
Generally the rule is the longer water is in contact with the coffee the
coarser the grind should be. Accordingly espresso being the shortest at
about 25 seconds has the finest grind. Problem is Turkish coffee is highly
regarded and is so fine it is described as a powder and is brought to a
simmer three times before serving. Consider anything and everything said to
be no more than a suggestion as a good place to start.
Consider two popular drip coffee machine types, the basket and the conical
like Mr. Coffee. The makers of basket types tend to compete on how quickly
the coffee is brewed so the finer the grind needed. Conical baskets are
inherently slower so a coarser grind is needed. Notice the coffees at the
groceries are all labeled simply ground coffee with no indication of which
type of coffee maker it is intended for. Grind your own beans. It is the
only way to go.
Make coffee every which way you can to find what you like. It is proper to
say there are no rules. Keep in mind that a great method for one coffee
might not work for a different coffee nor is the same coffee made by
different methods going to taste the same.
The reason is the taste is governed by how much of which compounds are
extracted from the bean. This is determined by both water temperature and
the time it is in contact with the beans and the fineness of the grind. What
tastes best to you has no connection with time or temperature so every
method is a compromise. There is no best.
Simple rules
- If you grind your own coffee beans start at medium.
- Make a big change finer and coarser to see which direction tastes better
and refine from there.
- After getting the taste you like change the amount of coffee to get the
strength you like for that particular coffee.
You can see from the entire process why you can either make a hobby/fetish
of making coffee or you can find one you really like and make it the same
every time.
Cup size
There is no agreement on how many ounces in a cup. That includes home coffee
machines which range from 4.5 to 6 oz per cup. The right amount of coffee
per cup of water as marked on your machine may be wrong for your neighbor.
The old amount may also be wrong for your new coffeemaker. Change quantity
first or stick with the same manufacturer or use a standard measuring cup
and not the filler lines on the pot or machine. The quick solution is to use
the pot of the old machine to measure the water regardless of the markings
on the new machine.
It is easier to change the amount of water than to deal with level and
rounded and heaping tablespoon as measures of the amount of coffee.
Roast your own
All roasting methods produce smoke as a thin skin around the bean burns.
Producing a dark roast without a fire is a challenge. Producing a consistent
roast requires lots of practice.
In the good old days Ma would put green beans in a pan over the stove and
when roasted add water, bring to a boil and serve. Ma ain't what she used to
be but in the old days she had a lot of practice. Ma had a wood burning
stove so there was already smoke in the kitchen.
Grind your own
Green beans suffer a slow deterioration over a year. Roasted beans
deteriorate quickly. Ground roasted beans, the kind you buy, are quickest of
all.
In the good old days Ma roasted the green beans over the stove then added
water and brought to a boil. In the middle of the 19th c. coffee grinders
started becoming common. This gave more control over quality. Coffee pots
simply had a strainer behind the pouring spout to keep the grounds out of
the cup.
In living history roasted beans were sold in convenient bag sizes and
grocery stores had powered coffee grinders. I remember them back in the 50s
in the A&P. After that convenience ruled and they disappeared. Recently
they have a made a return with displays of specialty coffees in bean form.
This is better but it does not solve the main problem. As soon as you grind
it rapid deterioration starts. The longer it takes you to go through a bag
the lower the average quality.
And it is sold in cans. As soon as a can is opened fresh air starts
deteriorating the coffee. The smaller the can the better? A week's worth in
a can is better. Several small cans are better than a large can.
We have progressed from the best way to make coffee, roasting just before
brewing, to the worst way to make coffee using pre-roasted, pre-ground
coffee from large cans.
Making the best coffee means stepping backwards in time. We are shedding
layers of convenience in return for quality.
Grinding is the only way
The first thing to try is buying in roasted bean form and grinding before
brewing. The problem is a grind should result in uniform size. A blender
does not so you need a special make grinder. Cheap grinders that are small
blenders have the same problem. Burr grinders are the only way to go and
start at about $50. Find one by Krup at Sears for about that price. US
made burr grinders rarely produce uniform grinds. European grinders almost
always produce uniform grinds and as European grinders are also made in
China the price still starts around $50. Of course you can pay hundreds if
you like. Your choice. These also suffer from the problem of no standard
cup size so you will have to adjust the amount here by trial and error.
But before you buy see what your blender will do. Back in the 70s I used a
Hamilton Beach blender to grind beans and it worked just fine. It produced a
uniform grind that was finer the longer it ran exactly as it should do. In
my present Black&Decker blender it is far from uniform. To be fair it is
not advertised to grind coffee beans. It produces all sizes from powder to
large chunks. That is not good as you will lose control of what you produce.
I have no idea what today's Hamilton Beach blenders will do.
Grinding can be easily done just before brewing. Just before is imporant.
When you grind coffee the kitcen will fill with the fine aroma of coffee.
What escapes to the air is not available to rise from the cup of coffee and
smell is most of taste. Ground coffee should go immediately into an air
tight container. Consider Mason jars that are used for canning food if you
need to grind a lot at one time. They are cheap and last forever. Store them
in the dark if possible but never in direct sunlight. This is not critical
as light cannot penetrate very far but if you are going to the trouble in
the first place there is no need to make matters worse.
The Krup model grinds the amount you set and keeps the unground beans in an
air tight hopper. It adjusts for both amount and fineness and shuts off when
when the amount set for is done.
ODD FACTS
- Paper filters remove oils one of which significantly raises serum
choleterol. Removing oils reduces the "body" of coffee as expressed by mouth
feel. Serum cholesterol is the kind your doctor warns you about being too
high.
- Other names for coffee come from its history. Mocha is a port in Yemen
on the Red Sea which was once the major port for Arabian coffee. Java was
the colony where Holland created large coffee plantations to meet the demand
in Europe.
- If you like strong coffee but have a problem with stronger meaning more
bitter you are drinking a low quality blend containing the cheaper robusta
beans. The solution is find a blend that is all arabica beans.
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