Javalogy

La Minita – a gift from a fellow barista

2009-07-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

La Minita - a gift from a fellow barista

The other day my friend Nic Borneman gave me a small bag of coffee with the promise that I would thoroughly enjoy its contents. Nic is the head honcho and barista at the fine Red Bank Coffee in Two Rivers. He has been in the coffee business for some time now, which is to say that he knows his coffee. So I was expecting his little gift to be something special, and it certainly was.

Nic had pre-ground the coffee to a courser grind for French press brewing, a method we both agree reveals more of the desirable qualities and nuances of high quality arabicas.

The coffee came from the well-known Hacienda La Minita plantation in Costa Rica. Last month I wrote about another wonderful Costa Rican coffee from the same central Tarrazu region. The quality of the La Minita was further proof that this region produces exceptionally fine coffees. La Minita means “little mine” or, to be specific to this plantation, “little gold mine.” It is thought pre-Colombian peoples once mined for gold on the land that now grows coffee.

Hacienda La Minita cares for approximately 1,700,000 coffee trees on 680 acres. That’s around 2,500 trees per acre. The farmers lovingly tend to each tree, employing a system of pruning 350,000 trees and transplanting 150,000 trees each year. It is inspiring to imagine all of the work that goes into an operation like Hacienda La Minita, especially when you realize that everything is done by 80 individual, full-time workers with hand tools.

That core group of workers and their families live directly on the farm. 150 additional workers are brought in periodically to perform weeding. That number grows to over 600 workers employed during the harvest. Cap the image of all of those trees and all of the work that goes into caring for them with the fact that they produce only a single crop of coffee each year. It’s an amazing undertaking.

La Minita Coffee Farm. Don't recall what website I got this image from.

The plantation resembles in many ways “company towns” of days gone by, but perhaps with greater concern for their workers. Hacienda La Minita workers take advantage of community vegetable and citrus gardens; on site housing, dental care and a medical clinic provided by the plantation; a worker’s association that assists with savings plans (Hacienda La Minita contributes matching funds to workers’ savings); and even a plantation soccer team and other social groups. The story of this farm, their history, how they run their business and treat their people is very appealing.

And their coffee ain’t too shabby either. La Minita is considered by many to be the world’s finest estate coffee. According to Nic, “La Minita uses only ‘first-quality’ classified coffee seeds from each step in the production process and finishes with a unique hand cleaning. This final step takes a virtually perfect product and, with over 30,000 worker hours of effort, transforms it into the very special coffee that is bagged for export as La Minita.”

La Minita coffee has been discussed in virtually every contemporary coffee reference work and feature articles about the coffee have appeared in magazines such as Financial World, The Wine Spectator, and Saveur. There is a wonderfully interesting article Jim Daniels on La Minita that appeared in Cigar Aficionado magazine (titled “A Passion for Taste,” Autumn 1995) that you can access online at the Cigar Aficionado website. (Click here to go to that article)

As I prepared and tasted my own French press pot of La Minita I jotted down words that came to mind as I drank. My first impression was of butterscotch, hints of those little butterscotch candies I loved as a child. It had a delightfully luxurious and oily mouthfeel. Hints of nuts and buttered toast, and even a little plum-like fruitiness caught my attention. There was a nice lingering aftertaste, not at all bitter and acidic. Nic was right, this was a truly delightful coffee.

Organic Coffee – good for the environment and farmers alike.

2009-06-17T14:33:00.000-07:00

Organic Coffee - good for the environment and farmers alike

Bird friendly. Fair trade. Organic. Shade grown. Rainforest Alliance.

What lovely phrases. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of something, whether as a retailer or consumer, that markets itself as, for example, bird friendly or fair trade? These are terms that the coffee industry loves to promote and that make consumers feel good when buying coffee so labeled.

In my opinion, these are all worthwhile and valuable certifications. What person of good conscience would not want to support the earth friendly practices that these labels promote? This is an age where everyone’s favorite color seems to be “green” and “sustainability” is the buzzword of the day.

However, like most good things that catch fire in the popular consciousness there is also the inevitable co-opting of well-intentioned movements and terms for their marketing power. These days organic is good business.

As a consumer, if you are truly concerned about purchasing coffee or other products that purport to be supportive of certain causes then you might want to familiarize yourself a little bit with some of the relevant terminology and certification requirements. We’ll look at some of the above certifications in the coming weeks, but for today let’s briefly focus on the term organic.

Among other things, the word organic implies natural healthiness, fullness of flavor, sustainable farming practices and no nasty chemicals. But just because something might say “organic” on a package doesn’t mean that it is necessarily as organic as you might wish it to be.

Most of us would rightly assume that a bag of coffee labeled as organic at the very least implies that it was grown and processed without the use of man-made chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides. However, there are also different levels of organic certification. In the United States the USDA’s National Organic Program sets the standards for production and certification of organic food products. In addition to forbidding man-made pesticides and fertilizers they also require a period of time of two or three years of continued organic farming practice, stringent documentation, periodic auditing and testing of the soil and product.

Different countries may have different organic certification standards, or none at all. The USDA has determined that foreign government certification systems need not be identical to the U.S. system, but they do have to uphold the standards of the U.S. system. The key to insuring that a bag of organic coffee is in fact organic is in knowing that a USDA accredited third party agency has certified it as such and that it bears the USDA Organic label.

You may not be able to detect much of a difference between a cup of brewed organic vs. non-organic coffee, as most of the chemicals that may be present in non-organically farmed coffee are thought to be burned away during the roasting process. But there are other good reasons besides taste to choose organic coffee when it’s available.

It is fairly common knowledge that farming practices that avoid reliance on man-made chemicals and pesticides are more beneficial to the environment. Natural, low impact farming practices can maintain and replenish soil vitality in addition to enhancing the surrounding flora and fauna. Just as organic production methods help protect the environment, so too do they help protect the people who work the farms by minimizing or avoiding their exposure to carcinogenic chemicals.

Since 2000, the average growth rate for organic coffee sales in the United States has been over 25% annually. The rate of regular coffee sales has been consistent but less than 5% annually. As a result of this impressive growth the price that organic coffee farmers are able to get for their product has increased as well. Increasing returns are leading to more widespread emphasis on organic and sustainable farming practices. It’s a win-win for just about everyone involved.

Costa Ricans have rich coffee history

2009-06-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

Costa Rican – drink this coffee; it’s the law

The law now requires you to plant and grow coffee on your property. Not much, just a few shrubs that you will be asked to tend so that they produce coffee cherries.

Of course that is not really required of people in the United States. But at one time it was apparently the law of the land in Costa Rica. While many citizens of this country would rightfully take umbrage at yet more government interference into their private lives and property, at least one nice thing did result from that old mandate in Costa Rica. The country and its citizens became very good at producing very good coffee.

Costa Rica is peppered with both large cooperative coffee plantations and small independent farms, big co-op mills that service the large farms and small “micro-mills” that the lone farmer and his family operate to process their own crops.

Costa Rica has an excellent climate and soil for growing coffee (along with fine cigar tobacco, a double bonus for the country). Flanked on either side by the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea it benefits from warm tropical winds and rain. Volcanic mountain ranges also bookend a central highland plain area of rich volcanic soil. You could hardly ask for better growing conditions.

I recently enjoyed a cup of drip brewed Costa Rican from the Tarazzu region, more or less in the center of the country, south of San Jose. This region is dense with coffee farms and estates as it is deemed one of the best locations for growing coffee in a country rife with ideal conditions. The high altitude, rich soil and shade conditions favor a slow growth that helps produce outstanding Arabica coffee.

Coffees from this region are generally described by the coffee terms “classic” and “clean,” meaning that they are silky smooth, without defects, and extremely well balanced. Sometimes the best examples of a clean cup are also so clean as to be almost uninteresting, with nothing that stands out or grabs your attention. Of course, as we’ve said a number of times in this column, a lot can happen from tree to cup to influence the coffee you end up drinking.

The particular Costa Rican Tarazzu coffee that I was drinking was not what I would describe as a classic cup. It was, however, quite good. I spoke with the barista and asked about the coffee. They did not roast their own coffee on site, but purchased it from a well-known and high quality roasting company that supplies coffee shops all over the United States. It had been roasted to an upper medium, or full-city roast and was only a week off the roast.

I found it to be very well balanced. The aroma was pleasing, not overpowering at all but light and fresh and hinting of garden cucumbers still on the vine. The drink was smooth, yet displayed a little brightness or acidity. It also impressed with a note citrus and even a little nuttiness, almost like a blanched, unsalted peanut. The aftertaste wasn’t so great, being a little too acidic for me to give it five stars out of five (that is, if I did, in fact, use a star rating system). Overall, it was a very good coffee.

It struck me that it might have been the perfect coffee for the warm, sunny spring morning we had that day. Gone (hopefully) were the last remnants of winter, when I seem to be drawn to heavier, heartier and bolder coffees. Spring calls for a change of attitude and a change in coffees. I guess serendipity was with me that spring day.

Here's what makes espresso so good

2009-05-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

Espresso – the good stuff

Last week I discussed a few of the misconceptions concerning espresso. This week let us briefly look at what espresso actually is and a few of the factors that make for a good drink.

Espresso, as a drink unto itself, is small. It is a one to two (sometimes three) ounce dose of coffee essence best served in a small ceramic, or “demitasse” cup that is typically two to four ounces in size. It’s a drink that requires a specific process and specific equipment to create. It is made by forcing water that is around 195°-200° F under a pressure of around 140 PSI (pounds per square inch) through approximately 7.5 grams (for a single shot) of finely ground and compacted coffee, for 25 to 30 seconds.

As you might guess, all of those variables combine to impact the quality of the drink. You do need a special machine with which to make espresso (stovetop moka pots not withstanding) and once that machine is properly calibrated for temperature and pressure the barista is left to control and adjust the other variables as conditions warrant. Modern automatic machines can also be calibrated to, at the push of a button, dispense the hot water for a specific duration of time, such as 25 seconds.

Some cafés prefer to have as much control over as many variables as are practical. Our shop, for example, employs a semi-automatic machine that allows us to control the duration of water flow. We have plans to take that a step further by switching to an “old school” manual machine where the barista also controls the time and pressure by pulling down on a long piston-like handle that forces the hot water through the compacted coffee grounds. The phrase “pulling a shot” originated with the use of this type of machine.

Good espresso is the result of a partnership of the skills and talents of both the roaster and barista. Roasters blend different coffees to achieve sweet and mellow flavors, distinct aromas, low acidity and rich crema. The barista then does his or her best to release and highlight those qualities into the cup.

Crema is the creamy, reddish brown foam that sits atop the drink like the foamy head in a glass of beer. It is where all of those delicious attributes of the coffee, along with the roaster’s knowledge and barista’s skill reveal themselves. The crema should be thick, creamy, oily and subtly sweet. If you have a shot with little to no crema, where nothing sticks to the sides of your cup as you drink it, then you’ve got a fair indication that the drink is sub-par.

Making consistently excellent espresso time after time is a task that requires much practice and attention to detail. There are, of course, an infinite number of possibilities with espresso. No two coffee shops, no two blends, no two baristas, are likely to produce espressos with the exact same flavor profiles.

In Italy there is actually a national espresso day, and a National Italian Espresso Institute that defines just what an excellent espresso should be, including an aroma that smells “of grilled bread."

Some have said that the perfect espresso may actually be an unattainable goal. The espresso that approaches perfection is referred to as a “God shot,” and those are few and far between. But excellent espresso should be expected of any self-respecting coffee shop. When you’re paying $2-$3 for a one to two ounce drink you should accept nothing less than a high quality beverage.

Italians order it in the morning and, while still standing, quickly gulp it down before rushing off to work, as though filling themselves with fuel for the day. We Americans seem to prefer to savor it for a few minutes and drink while sitting, collecting our thoughts before beginning the day. Either way, it is a drink worth exploring.

Get your fill of espresso

2009-05-06T15:39:00.000-07:00

Espresso

Espresso. It is the word and product that most clearly defines specialty coffee in most people’s minds. The business of specialty coffee has pretty well become a part of our cultural fabric by now.

Yet even with both independent and chain coffee shops in virtually every city, coffee recipe books lining book-store shelves and cable television programs dedicated to coffee, the word espresso still sounds a little exotic to many people (I still occasionally hear it pronounced as “expresso”).

Espresso is the foundation for all of those syrupy, sweet lattes and cappuccinos Americans seem to love and that Italians scoff at. Conversely, when served by itself it is also the coffee that southern Europeans love and many Americans think of as “too bitter.”

Many people still seem to be confused and misinformed about espresso. They think of it only as that bitter, ultra-dark roasted little shot of coffee that contains two or three times the caffeine of regular brewed coffee. They may also think of it as that little drink that needs a quarter cup of cream and several tablespoons of sugar added to it before it is palatable.

Before we get into what espresso really is let’s address some of those misconceptions. Espresso is not a style or level of roasting the coffee seeds. It is not necessarily a dark or French roast, although that’s the common conception. The roast levels used for espresso vary according to the roaster, what coffees may be used, and even differences in region. West coast espresso is, generally speaking, often roasted darker than it is on the east coast, where lighter roasts seem to be popular. Of course, Starbucks, a west coast company, is viewed as the paradigm for dark roasted coffee. Since they are a very well-known specialty coffee company it is understandable that the darker roasts that they employ are thought to be ubiquitous by many. Returning to Italy, I understand that many Italian coffee roasters favor a medium roast for their espresso.

The point is that any roast level may be used for espresso. It is not the roast that makes it espresso. Creating espresso does take into consideration the blend of coffees that the roaster chooses combined with the level of roast that he or she decides will best achieve the desired qualities for that particular espresso blend. It is very much a creative process and a matter of taste.

Another misconception concerns the caffeine content of espresso. It is not the hyper-caffeinated drink that many people think it is. A shot of espresso (approximately 1 fluid ounce) contains about the same or even less caffeine than your average cup of joe. Again, speaking in generalities, a shot of espresso contains somewhere between 60 and 100 mg of caffeine, while an 8 oz. cup of brewed coffee might contain somewhere between 90 and 160 mg. But even those numbers are estimates, as there are a number of factors that influence the caffeine content of any particular espresso or brewed coffee.

Unfortunately, perhaps the biggest misconception about espresso is that it is a drink that one of my friends described as “nasty,” a bitter, acidic and far too strong dose of coffee oil. Unfortunately, he was right, about that particular shot. In my last column I praised the espresso I got at Café Soleil in Madison, Wisconsin. It was noteworthy for how good it was. Conversely, other espresso is noteworthy for how bad it is.

When prepared poorly it can be practically undrinkable. But – and this is significant – espresso can and should be a sweet, multidimensional and nuanced drink that stands entirely on its own, without the need for cream or sugar. When done well it is an attractive, rich, aromatic drink, more akin to a fine aperitif. It can be a little sip of heaven.

Next time I’ll discuss some of the things that make for an exceptional espresso.

High service coffee roasters do more than just roast coffee

2008-11-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

High service coffee roasters do more than just roast coffee

The specialty coffee business seems to draw an inordinate number of entrepreneurs who are driven by issues beyond financial motivation. Social and environmental issues are regularly championed and emphasized by retailers, roasters and coffee-related media. Many retailers and quality roasters go above and beyond the necessary and practical issues of business survival and growth by extending their reach into community enhancing projects, both local and global.

Of course many other (non-coffee) businesses are also intimately involved in helping to make their communities and the world a better place in which to live. But my perception is that the specialty coffee world does a better and more consistent job of heralding and promoting that kind of involvement among its ranks. Several truly high service roasters seem especially devoted to issues beyond their bottom lines.

“Locally,” that is in Wisconsin and the Midwest, there are some quality roasters who not only provide excellent, fresh roasted coffee to their retailers but who also make it known that part of their businesses involve bettering their communities. Alterra Roasters, for example, is a Milwaukee roaster that has experienced impressive growth since opening their first café in 1994. Now with at least nine Alterra cafés and many retail outlets, the company focuses not only on roasting quality coffee but also on partnering with community organizations that promote the arts, education and environmental issues, primarily in the Milwaukee area.

Alterra’s support of Second Harvest of Wisconsin is noteworthy. This organization distributes millions of pounds of food each year to people who need it in our state. The company donates a small portion of their sales to the cause and, perhaps more importantly, has raised awareness for Second Harvest’s efforts to feed hungry people.

On the west coast one company that is in many ways creating the paradigm for high service coffee roasters and is having a direct, positive impact on communities both local and beyond, is Dillanos Coffee Roasters in Sumner, Washington. I got to know some of the fine folks at Dillanos at last year’s CoffeeFest in Chicago. Although we did not develop a business relationship I found myself spending a good amount of time talking to them and absorbing their literature and company philosophy.

Of course everything begins with the coffee, and Dillanos produces an excellent product for a growing army of retail coffee shops across the country. Their company mission statement is as joyful and spontaneous as any company policy I’ve seen: Help People! Make Friends! Have Fun! And apparently that philosophy is more than just a catchy motto. The company makes a point of developing and emphasizing their relationship with the retailers who carry their coffee, working with them to help improve and grow their businesses. This is an especially appreciated attitude in these uncertain economic times. Dillanos also puts their money where their mouth is, so to speak, by donating time, product and money to local charitable organizations such as the Christian Children’s Fund.

As the company has grown so too has their vision of affecting positive change in areas outside of their local community. They began traveling to places like Guatemala and Costa Rica, directly helping coffee growers and their families. By living and working closely with growers Dillanos’ people are able to not only develop strong personal relationships and a shared vision, but also improve farming and processing methods. This has the ultimate effect of improving the quality of coffee produced, which leads to better prices funneled to growers and by extension improves the economic lives of everyone involved.

This philosophy of hands-on support and emphasis on all links in the coffee chain, from grower to roaster to retailer to coffee drinker, is becoming known as “relationship coffee.” It is a business model that is worth emulating, whatever the field.

Kenya produces wonderful coffee amid unrest

2008-11-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

Kenya, wonderful coffee from a country in turmoil

Last week I received some whole bean coffee from a friend on the west coast, a small bag of freshly roasted Kenyan AA. We have long enjoyed the fine coffees of Kenya and have rarely found them to be anything but excellent. This package from our friend was no different, and it got me thinking. Kenya is a country that continues to experience civil unrest and marked violence, as well as recent natural disasters. Yet they are able to produce and distribute an agricultural product such as coffee with relative consistency in quality and production. It is really somewhat amazing.

Kenya is the southern neighbor to Ethiopia, the alleged birthplace of coffee. Yet it’s been only a little more than a hundred years that Kenya has been cultivating coffee on its own. Catholic missionaries brought coffee seedlings to the country in the 1890s (in still another example of the intertwining historical relationship between coffee and religion). A coffee industry quickly developed, with the help of both German and British colonials, and now Kenya is consistently the 17^th or 18^th leading producer of coffee in the world, with close to half a million small farms and plantations growing high quality arabica plants and employing over six million workers. Most of the farms range in size from less than a single acre to just a few, and have joined together to form of a few hundred cooperatives.

The geography and climate of Kenya is excellent in the mountainous plateau regions of the country, particularly around Mount Kenya, north of Nairobi, where the rich, acidic soil and high altitudes are favorable to arabica coffee. Kenyan coffee farmers are some of the most skilled, knowledgeable and devoted growers in the world. Their farming methods are very earth-friendly, with little or no chemical use and a heavy reliance on natural and labor intensive methods like pruning and mulching. The coffee trees (technically shrubs) are lovingly cared for, with the main crop being picked right around now, from October through December.

Kenyan coffees are wet-processed, a method that, as the name implies, uses water to remove the outer layers of the coffee fruit and further separates the perfectly ripe cherries. Wet-processing also produces a fruitier, brighter, more acidic (though not bitter) coffee. Kenyan coffee is known for its distinctiveness, and is not necessarily a “smooth” cup like, say, Puerto Rican or Hawaiian. It is a coffee with a strong character, medium to full bodied, and a certain flavorful and aromatic intensity.

Kenya also employs a coffee grading system where the milled seeds are sorted and assigned grades based on their size and quality. AA is the largest size bean and the largest beans are also generally the better quality beans, as they naturally contain more flavor and aroma components than smaller beans. This is not always true, however, and there are other factors that are considered in grading the coffee, such as the density of the bean. An AA coffee may yet be separated into a number of different classes.

The coffees are then sold via auctions run by the government, with the best coffees naturally attracting the best prices. In the past this has resulted in better returns for the farmers and even greater incentive to produce the best coffees possible. In recent years, however, the turmoil in Kenya has apparently touched the auction system as well, with farmers complaining of corruption by officials. There have even been occasions of violence between growers and officials.

And yet, in spite of the uncertainty the country as a whole has experienced, the Kenyan coffee industry has somehow managed to continue producing and exporting excellent coffees to the rest of the world. Let us hope that they are able to overcome the challenges they currently face.

Presidents, coffee linked throughout history

2008-10-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

U.S. Presidents and Coffee

In a few days many of us will be voting for the next President of the United States of America. It seems an opportune moment for a quick peek at the role coffee played in the lives of a few Presidents past.

First, a brief preface: one of the pivotal moments in U.S. history took place one night in December 1773, when a group of American Patriots stole aboard British ships in the Boston Harbor. Angry about the British tax on colonial tea they tossed a few hundred crates of the stuff overboard. This display of protest and theatrics was significant not only in the making of America, but also signaled the beginning of the country’s change from a primarily tea drinking nation to one where coffee was, and still is, king.

It didn’t take long for America to fully embrace the new “liberty tea,” as coffee was called in those politically charged days. President George Washington and wife Martha helped elevate the stature of coffee over tea by serving it at formal, state dinners. In those days it was the custom, after dinner, for men and women to retire to separate rooms for socializing. It was apparently Washington’s habit to briefly join the ladies for coffee and conversation. Fortuitously, it was also a coffee house that played a role in Washington’s own Presidential inauguration. During the ceremony it was discovered that no Bible was present upon which Washington might make his oath. A messenger was sent to quickly retrieve a Bible from the nearby “Old Coffee House,” so that the inauguration could be completed.

John Adams championed coffee in a letter to his wife Abigail. He recounted an experience he had had with a patriotic Inn Keeper who refused to make tea but would provide him with coffee. Adams concluded, “Accordingly I have drank coffee every afternoon since, and have borne it very well. Tea must be universally renounced. I must be weaned, and the sooner, the better.”

Thomas Jefferson enjoyed coffee so much, in fact, that he designed his own silver coffee urn, from which the drink was served at breakfast and dinner. He kept an inventory of green East and West India coffee beans at Monticello upon retiring from the Presidency, and reportedly went through a pound a day. He declared coffee to be “the favorite drink of the civilized world.”

One popular coffee-related quote comes from President Abraham Lincoln, who cynically said “If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee." Lincoln, ever the man of temperance and moderation, often had breakfast consisting of nothing more than a single egg, toast and coffee.

Lincoln’s General and later President himself, Ulysses Grant, considered coffee a vital staple for his men. While his troops often foraged for food during the Civil War, Grant made sure to include coffee along with ammunition and medical supplies in the fleet of wagons and supply trains that sustained his army.

Teddy Roosevelt is surely the President most closely identified as a coffee lover and connoisseur. He reportedly drank a gallon of coffee a day, and is popularly thought to have first spoken the phrase “Good to the last drop!” that became the well-known slogan for Maxwell House Coffee.

President Dwight Eisenhower was also a prodigious coffee drinker, consuming up to 15 cups a day. President Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, was more measured in his coffee drinking, humorously declaring, "I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon."

Of the two candidates currently vying for the office, Barak Obama is reportedly not much of a coffee drinker, although when he does partake he prefers it plain, without cream or sugar. John McCain, more the coffee lover, is said to enjoy his coffee with cream or as a cappuccino. Make of that what you will.

Burr grinders another option for fresh-grinding coffee

2008-10-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

Coffee grinding part II: burr is the best.

Last week we touched upon two of the three basic methods for fresh-grinding coffee: crushing and chopping. Crushing is done most commonly with mortar and pestle and can produce a very fine, powdery grind used most often in brewing Turkish coffee. Crushing is a time consuming task not very practical for busy mornings. Chopping is the method employed by most home coffee grinders, and uses a whirling metal blade similar to that of an electric blender. This is a perfectly suitable method for home brewing, and if everything else is up to snuff (you’re using good quality beans, have good water, grind right before brewing) you should get a good cup of coffee.

However, it’s not uncommon for people to purchase a pound of coffee beans from their favorite coffee shop only to return and complain “It’s good at home, but not as good as when you make it here. What am I doing wrong?” Well, they’re probably not doing anything “wrong.” Certainly part of the added enjoyment you perceive in coffee shop coffee is in the coffee shop itself. Just as hotdogs taste better at the ballpark, so too coffee tastes better at your favorite café. But it’s also fairly certain that the equipment the coffee shop is using is a good deal “better” than what most home kitchens have on their counters. One of the most important pieces of equipment in either environment is the grinder. Any coffee shop worth its salt uses the third method of grinding alluded to above: burr grinding.

Burr grinders use either two rotating discs or cone-shaped elements, and have a serrated blade-like surface that mostly cuts and slices the coffee beans as opposed to the chopping done by a whirling blade unit. The ground coffee particles are thus much more uniform in size and shape, which makes for a more consistent extraction of coffee flavors when brewed. There is also less filter clogging from the finer particles that are inevitably produced with whirling blade grinders, again resulting in more even extraction during brewing.

Conical element burr grinders are preferable to the disc type as they are less prone to clogging. They generally rotate at a slower speed, therefore producing less heat than the disc type. Heating coffee while grinding may adversely affect its taste when brewed. But burr grinders, using either discs or conical elements, are much preferable to whirling blade grinders. Fortunately, some good quality home burr grinders are available at finer kitchen appliance stores. Jura-Capresso, a company that specializes in coffee appliances for the home, makes a very good burr grinder that sells for under $100.

It is important to match the grind with the method of brewing as well, and burr grinders allow more flexibility and precision in this area than whirling blade grinders. Blade grinders generally limit you to three basic grinds: coarse, medium and fine. Most home drip brewers will call for a medium grind, while the French press method will favor a course grind. Getting different grinds from a blade grinder is a function of time, that is, it depends on how long you hold the button down that keeps the blade in motion. With a good burr grinder it is the proximity of the grinding/cutting elements to one another that determines the fineness of the grind. You can adjust this manually on the grinder to get a precise and consistent grind for whatever particular brewing method (or even specific filter) you prefer, time after time.

I confess that I’ve used just about every method of grinding and brewing imaginable, from crushing beans with a rock while camping and tossing them into a kettle of water steaming over a campfire to using the highest quality precision equipment in our shop. I’ve enjoyed making every single cup. However, for day-to-day coffee drinking, I want the very best cup I can make each and every day. Proper grinding is one key to getting that perfect cup.

Grinding coffee almost as much fun as drinking it

2008-10-08T07:23:00.000-07:00

Grinding coffee, almost as much fun as drinking it

As we’ve discussed in previous columns, there are a number of factors and steps that go into making a superior cup of coffee. One that often seems to get marginalized is the importance of the grind in coffee preparation. I blame this on the wide acceptance of preground and canned grocery store coffee. Most of us were practically raised on the notion that it is perfectly natural for coffee to come to us in a preground and packaged state. Until the popular resurgence of the neighborhood coffee shop in the national consciousness in the mid to late 1980s I’d wager that many people barely knew what actual coffee cherries even looked like. The idea of grinding one’s coffee from whole beans at home conjured images of those old hand-cranked, wooden coffee grinders, the type used by pioneers in covered wagons or mess cooks during the Civil War.

Today, it is fairly well accepted that grinding fresh coffee immediately before brewing produces a much more flavorful cup than using preground coffee. The reasons for this are rather straightforward. As with almost all food products coffee is subject to the effects of oxidation. Like cheese, bread, beer or wine, once coffee beans are exposed to the air (and they always are, in spite of how they may be packaged) they begin to oxidize and stale immediately. The oils within the seeds contain most of the good stuff that produce aroma and flavor, and when those seeds have been ground more surface area is exposed and the coffee stales even faster. With quality coffee you may taste a difference between a drink using freshly ground beans and the same coffee using beans ground an hour or less prior to brewing.

If you drink coffee in the form of espresso grinding immediately before brewing is absolutely essential. The difference in taste between espresso made with ground-to-order coffee and espresso that has been made with stale grounds is quite noticeable.

Here’s your homework assignment for the week: go to your favorite coffee shop (we’ll assume that they do everything correctly, from using good arabica coffee to tamping and pulling the shot properly) and ask them to pull you a shot into a demitasse cup with freshly ground coffee. Enjoy that shot within the first few minutes, read your Herald Times Reporter for a little while, and then ask them to pull another shot with ground coffee that has been sitting around for some time (most shops keep a container of ground coffee from the day’s grinding for use in cold espresso drinks; ask them to use that preground coffee). The difference in taste between the two drinks should be obvious, while the only difference in their preparation is the time from grind to cup.

There are basically three methods of grinding coffee available to most people: crushing, chopping or burr grinding. There is a fourth method known as roller grinding but this employs large, expensive machines and is used primarily by the big commercial producers (the preground, canned grocery store coffees).

Crushing, with something like a mortar and pestle can produce a powdery fine coffee that is suitable for preparing Turkish coffee, but most people in the U.S. don’t drink Turkish coffee and it is a bit too labor intensive to be a practical daily method.

Chopping is what a food processor or blender does. It is also the method employed by most of the lower cost home coffee grinders that use a whirling metal blade. The drawback with this method is that the ground coffee particles are widely disparate in size and shape. You want to match the grind to the type of brewing method, and that is much more challenging when the grind produces particles of varying shapes and sizes. This is an acceptable method for grinding your coffee if you are price conscious or not overly concerned with getting optimal results.

You’ll have to read part two next week’s column to get the rest of the exciting story on optimum coffee grinding.

Ethnic Fest and cultural celebration via coffees of the world

2008-09-24T10:52:00.001-07:00

Ethnic Fest and cultural celebration via coffees of the world

As many of you know, this past Saturday Two Rivers held their annual Ethnic Fest event. It’s basically a day-long street party that showcases a variety of live music, ethnic foods, arts and crafts vendors and community interaction as thousands of people fill the street. It’s a long, busy day for us at the shop and one that is also very enjoyable as we invariably get to meet new people and even sneak out periodically to enjoy a little bit of the party ourselves.

The core mission of Ethnic Fest is to celebrate different cultures, and it does that fairly well, given the size and resources of the community. And yet there’s a great deal of room for this wonderful event to grow, and to celebrate even more of the many and diverse cultures of the world. That thought occurred to me the following morning as I opened a small packet of roasted Guatemalan coffee beans, set my grinder to a course grind and made a small two-cup press pot (a simple method of brewing that many believe is the single best way to release and enjoy all the good stuff in a coffee, and one that I’ll discuss in a future column).

This particular Guatemalan coffee is from the Rio Azul Cooperative, located in the rural town of Jacaltenango near the Sierra Madre Mountains in western Guatemala. The 180-plus hardworking individuals and families that make up the cooperative have built a reputation for growing and producing high quality coffee. The coffee farms outwardly appear more like natural jungle than what we would recognize as farms, with the coffee trees growing seemingly haphazardly amidst shade trees and other flora. The members all live within a few miles of the co-op wet mill, where they carry the sacks of picked coffee to be processed.

Rio Azul produces approximately 160,000 pounds of green coffee a year, an impressive number considering that each coffee tree produces only around one pound of cherries per year. Many of the co-op members are organic certified and more than two dozen are also beekeepers who produce over 15,000 pounds of honey annually. This is traditional, “old school” farming at its finest.

The coffee I was drinking was evidence that this co-op was doing something right. The aroma was lovely, with a kind of wet earth and sweet grassy smell. The taste was rather bright, with a nice acidity and a fairly light mouthfeel. The aftertaste left a faint lime or lemon citrus impression. The package suggested that I might discern notes of cinnamon and mango, but I confess that those were beyond the sensibilities of my palate.

One of the things I enjoy about coffee is learning about its place of origin and the people who produce it. Specialty coffee, more than any other product I can think of, is a business of cultural connections and relationships. It is worth noting that, generally, when you buy coffee that has come from small farms and co-ops you are truly supporting and having a direct positive impact on those farms and families. Furthermore, greater numbers of coffee roasters and retailers are making direct connections and building personal relationships with coffee workers like those of the Rio Azul cooperative. These relationships help foster higher quality coffee and better standards of living and working for the folks who produce it.

As I sat and drank my Rio Azul coffee I read and learned more about this beautiful country and the hardworking people who grew, picked and processed the cup I was enjoying. This tiny area of the world is just one of hundreds that produce outstanding coffee, and each has its own unique story to tell. What better way to introduce people to even more of the cultures of the world than via a drink that virtually everyone knows and consumes each day? It got me thinking; so don’t be surprised if you see a strong coffee element at next year’s Ethnic Fest.