I picked up a new breadmaker today from Cash Converters – it solves all my roasting problems by spinning right from the start. I roasted my first batch. I’m very excited. No more stirring by hand or spending ages waiting for a spin cycle to kick into gear.
I also used the new heat gun I picked up while garage sailing the other week.
I really only wrote this so that I could use that title. It would have been more appropriate had I written it tomorrow.
From a Crema magazine article on espresso preparation…
Heavy conical upper burrs pull the beans down, compressing them until they shatter into smaller fragments to enter the flat burrs, to be sheared into the final grind.
Seventeen grams of the fluff exits the edges of the flat burrs and drops into a chute along the sides of the grinding head. A whirling brass paddle smashes into the coffee, whisking it on a furious circular journey at about 450 rpm until it is forced out a square portal to tumble into the dosing hopper. After grinding, this is the first real assault on our sweet coffee – the impeller smashing it into lumps, bruising the lipids and destroying a little of the fragrance.
Because of the short, pressurized percolation cycle of around 25 seconds, the final consistency of the ground coffee is critical to achieve crema, and preserve the full amount of fragrance the bean has to offer. The flat burrs shear the bean into a complex consistency that looks like snowflakes under a microscope. To accomplish this the flat burrs must remain very sharp and require changing every 500 pounds. The goal of the grind is to achieve the highest surface area of exposed aromatic oils, lipids and sugars to be transported quickly by the brewing water into your cup. The rapid percolation cycle and pressure are the unique characteristics of the espresso method that allow us to preserve the most delicate fragrance through the brewing process.
Last time I posted something pointing out how awesomely unsustainable the use of water in production of coffee is people jumped up and down screaming and we ended up talking about the plight of battery hens.
Here’s another picture from Good (click it for full size) highlighting how coffee is not the worst of the bunch, and suggesting giving up steak as well. Greens arguing for not eating meat… that’s original.
A British coffee taster has insured his prime asset for $14 million. His tongue. So he’ll no doubt be steering clear of overly hot coffees from now on. From the ABC.
“Gennaro Pelliccia is the chief taster for Costa Coffee and tastes every batch of raw coffee beans the company uses.
He says his 18 years of experience in the industry has made his tongue a valuable asset.”
Ever wondered just how much caffeine is in your morning cuppa? No? Well, I have, so this article was interesting to me.
Apparently Robusta has twice the caffeine content of the much nicer Arabica. It also produces a better crema – but tastes like burnt rubber (kudos to Coffee Dominion for that description). I wonder if there’s a link between caffeine content and crema?
Anyway. Here are some figures from the article by Jerry Baldwin – one of the cofounders of Starbucks (he sold his share in 1987).
“In a couple of studies testing 90 different Arabica cultivars, the caffeine content varied between 0.42 and 2.9%. My morning cup would then vary between 84 and 580 milligrams, depending on which of these varieties was in my cup.”
“If your morning cup came from a commercial roaster who included Robusta in the blend, we have another level of complexity. Caffeine content in these coffees, in one study, varied between 1.16 and 4.0%. A straight 12 oz. cup, using 20 grams of the 4% coffee, probably wouldn’t taste very good, but would definitely provide more buzz: 800 milligrams of caffeine.”
“An espresso made from 100% Arabica, on average, has about 70 milligrams of caffeine per shot; a 12 oz. cup of drip coffee made my way in a press pot, using two scoops of coffee per 12-ounce cup — would have 200 milligrams.”
Turns out coffee is sustainable after all. Last week’s debate after my flagrant flippant disregard for the environment could have been avoided if only I’d read this article about coffee biodiesel.
The bowser of the future
I had posted something from Gizmodo on this a while back (and they’ve got another story on this today) but this piece from the Economist goes into the research in some depth. So I can have my coffee, and drink it too. Where coffee=cake=sustainable living.
“In the case of coffee, the biodiesel is made from the leftover grounds, which would otherwise be thrown away or used as compost. Narasimharao Kondamudi, Susanta Mohapatra and Manoranjan Misra of the University of Nevada at Reno have found that coffee grounds can yield 10-15% of biodiesel by weight relatively easily. And when burned in an engine the fuel does not have an offensive smell—just a whiff of coffee. (Some biodiesels made from used cooking-oil produce exhaust that smells like a fast-food joint.) And after the diesel has been extracted, the coffee grounds can still be used for compost.”
Here’s an awesomely cool (literally) coffee recipe (thanks to Lyle) here are the ingredients just to whet your appetite. Here’s all you need to know.
Ingredients:
• 4 scoops of good quality ground coffee
• 500 mls thickened cream
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature
• 250g (1 cup) caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 200g dark chocolate and or roasted hazelnuts, chopped
Espresso Syrup
• 2 scoops coffee
• 50mls coffee or orange liquor
• 60g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
This is a beautiful looking coffee review forum and coffee recipe repository. It will be interesting to see how it develops.
Here’s an interesting coffee article with the following environmental and economical message:
“Last year, Britons spent about £750 million on coffee, but only a small fraction of this on espressos. Think of the huge amount of money that would be saved if the majority of coffee-bar patrons switched to espressos from cappuccinos. The country’s milk bill would fall and its carbon footprint would shrink too.”
Not only is coffee an excessive drain on water stocks – milk is bad too. This is all very well – except the same writer also describes the cappuccino experience (amongst others – including the corretto – a shot with alcohol)
“There is no doubt that the most popular variant is the cappuccino (“little hood”), at its best a glorious drink consisting of equal parts espresso, milk and foam. The experience of consuming a perfectly made cappuccino is sensual to the point of decadence.”
This is why the Fair Trade coffee movement is doomed to fail.
There is no emphasis on a quality product.
DR Wakefield & Co is Britains leading Fair Trade Wholesaler. Here’s a quote from the CEO Simon Wakefield on tasting notes produced under the Cup of Excellence Program – which was set up to reward farmers for a quality product rather than quantity:
“It is clever marketing. But after the beans have been roasted, ground, kept on somebody’s kitchen shelf, made into coffee, and then milk and sugar have been added can you really tell me that you can taste a difference?”
Fairtrade instant here we come.
I hate the Greens. And the environmental lobby group. Which is a good thing – because not only does my coffee machine produce the carbon emissions of say a motorised scooter – drinking coffee is the least sustainable environmental exercise around when judged by water consumption in production. That is pre-cup production too.
From the Economist:
“A cup of coffee, for example, needs a great deal more water than that poured into the pot. According to a new book on the subject, 1,120 litres of water go into producing a single litre of the beverage, once growing the beans, packaging and so on are measured.”
500 billion cups of coffee are consumed globally every year. It’s big business. And you thought I’d chosen such a niche topic to keep writing about.
The coffee industry is facing problems though. The tough economic climate means people are cutting back on expensive coffee, and even drinking instant. Partly thanks to Starbucks’ new instant product. Via. Which gives me one of those involuntary shudders.
This discussion – particularly the impact of the economic climate on coffee purchasing – was the topic of a recent post from Hungry Magazine.
“VIA™ also focused me on what’s not happening at the local level. If you recall, I mentioned I just drank French pressed whole bean grocery store bought Starbucks. Up until a few months ago I was an exclusive Intelligentsia and Metropolis coffee drinker. But with the economy tugging at me and 12 oz of locally roasted beans costing $11.99 or so, I started experimenting with the $8.99 and $6.99 options available at the grocery store. I was convinced I’d probably end up where I started from, but I needed to see what was out there.”
The post drew some interesting comments from the CEO and bean buyer from Intelligentsia Coffee – arguably the pinnacle of the “specialty coffee” movement.
One of the economic problems facing the coffee industry is best expressed by these two maps. The countries producing coffee are very different to the countries buying it. Picture one represents coffee producers, picture two coffee drinkers. 
Here are the pick of the comments from Intelligentsia buyer Geoff Watts.
“Your average coffee farmer today is making less money per pound of sold coffee than his grandparents did, in real (unadjusted) dollars, despite drastically higher living costs and production costs.”
Meanwhile, the mainstream first-world consumer has held stubbornly to the idea that coffee is a cheap luxury, that the $1.00 bottomless mug is somehow a right or a deserved privilege.
It is this very attitude that will continue to ensure that the modern smallholder coffee farmer has little hope of escaping a life of extreme poverty.
Cheap coffee (and by “cheap” I mean low cost, which typically equates to low quality) is one of the many forces shackling the developing world and suppressing opportunity for advancement for a huge chunk of the planet’s population who depend on coffee to make a living.
I would argue that even downright crappy coffee ought to carry a higher price tag than it currently does, especially considering the higher production costs that most farmers face today.”
Thanks to a miracle of modern (or ancient) science I will now be able to engage in space travel. Hot coffee consumption in space has been made possible by this wonderful invention.
I was wondering how much someone who spends as much time as I do reading about coffee could learn from a three and a half hour coffee school. The answer – not much, and a lot.
We took the three hour course at Coffee Dominion. It’s $75 and basically includes all you can drink coffee and three hours of hands on training.
The thing about coffee is that there’s an incredible amount of diversity in thinking and practice that it’s hard to nail down any one particular theory.
For example – many people argue that tamping (the compacting of coffee in the filter basket) is not only essential – but must be done with 10kg of pressure. Other people argue that as long as the distribution and dosing of the coffee in the basket is even, tamping is irrelevant.
What really matters when it comes to making a coffee is consistency of method. That was hammered home tonight. As long as your dosing is consistent – that is the same amount of coffee in the basket, prepared the same way, and your tamping is consistent – the only variable is the grind. The grind will vary based on humidity and variables like type of bean, depth of roast and time since roasting. If your method is the same this is the only change you’ll need to make.
I disagreed with a little bit at the start, we had a sit down session where we were told that single origin coffee is no good for espresso. I like single origin espresso. That is one type of bean from one place. The argument is that espresso requires a dark roast, that diminishes the flavour profile from the bean – so to keep espresso interesting you need to mix a broader variety of flavours. I disagreed. I don’t mind espresso made from a light roasted bean. But that’s less than relevant in the broader scheme of things.
The “cupping” was interesting. Cupping is the primary method bean buyers use when determining what beans to order. It’s basically hot water poured over ground coffee. It’s that simple. No plunge, no brewing, no steeping. It’s just coffee and hot water. The coffee forms a crust. You break the crust that it forms and sip the coffee. Then you figure out the flavour profile – it’s similar to wine tasting really.
Milk frothing was interesting too – I struggle to get the texture right. The goal is to make “silk from milk” and to avoid big bubbles.
We also got to look around Coffee Dominion – where all the behind the scenes magic happens. Including a little excursion into the roasting room. I’ll put pictures up shortly.
It was a good learning experience – and worth doing. We’ve even got certificates to show for it.
