Extraction Ah-Ha’s?

My wife and I where chatting last night while I was editing the photo-set for the cupping photo tutorial. She is also a coffee nerd, so our conversation led to a discussion of the vast difference between a well-extracted cup of coffee and a good coffee that gets ruined by over-extraction. This led me to muse that my biggest difficulty as a specialty coffee roaster/enthusiast/promoter is that most people don’t know when they are drinking a bad cup of coffee, or don’t care.

I think that if you’ve had the ah-ha moment where you’ve had a great coffee, then had the same coffee prepared badly, you’ll never be able to enjoy diner coffee the same way again. Over-extracted coffee just isn’t an option anymore, YOU DESERVE BETTER. Just having a great coffee doesn’t seem to be enough to cause this realization. Even the many classes that we do through our roastery don’t always take. For instance, we did this whole educational series in conjunction with the University of Tulsa. While it was really fun to do, and I think well received by the attendees, I don’t think we managed to foster this moment of comprehension in those who had not already had it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that in most interactions with the public, I have failed to create an ah-ha moment. My home grinder sales probably reflect this. I’ll do a whole big-assed post about grinders, particle size, and their affect on extraction in the near future. In the meantime, I think I’ve come up with a simple experiment that anyone can do and that as professionals, we can use to demonstrate this whole good-coffee-gone-bad phenomenon.

Here is what you’ll need:

• Some kind of pour-over (Hario or whatever). 
• 200 degree water. 
• One 6oz cup. 
• One 10oz cup.
• Some good coffee (something with a bangin’ acidity, like la Manita or another snappy central will probably have the best ah-ha ability)

Start by grinding 12 grams of coffee using a burr grinder set to a pour over grind(about a click finer than the drip setting on a shop grinder and maybe 2 clicks finer on a home grinder).

Make your pour-over in both cups and fill them all the way up.

Taste the 6oz. Taste the 10oz. Have your ah-ha moment.

Tthe 12 gram dose is perfect for a 6oz cup but a little light for a 10oz cup. What you should notice is that that bangin’ acidity, while present in the 6oz is washed out like stone washed jeans in the 90’s in the 10oz. This shouldn’t produce a crazy over-extraction, after all we’re looking for an ah-ha where the subtle becomes blatant and obvious. You should be able to detect some bitter alkaloids in the 10oz.

To coffee professionals, this is old hat. I really wrote this post with the average layman in mind who might not have the listed supplies. If you don’t own a pour-over or grinder, just go to your favorite specialty-grade cafe (not during a rush) and ask them to do it for you. Odds are they won’t mind, as education is what all us specialty coffee-pro-nerds are all about. I’m just saying, try it, then I defy you to drink coffee at a diner again.  I expect all of you to rush off and try this experiment post-haste, and when you’re done, please click submit and let me know what your thoughts are. Also, if you are a professional barista/ roaster/whatever, I’d love to see some of the comparative cup quality experiments you might use as educational tools. (Submit Button: Top of page, front of center. You can’t miss it.) I’m very curious to know what it takes to get people who drink great coffee at the cafe to brew great coffee at home. Look forward to hearing from you!

This one time at barista camp…Pt. 1

                

 At the 2010 Roasters Guild Retreat I met a guy called Barista Alex. Alex Negranza is a barista in Seattle and a blogger for WhyNotCoffee.com (which I highly recommend). One of the things that we talked about was the first BGA (Barista Guild of America) retreat “Camp Pull-a-Shot”.  The months went by, and certainly inspired by Alex, I started blogging. One of the first ideas that came to mind was to do a series of interviews with individuals in different stages in the craft of barista, as well as people working in different areas of specialty coffee, and ask them about their experiences at the first ever BGA retreat. Regretfully Alex wasn’t able to attend so I couldn’t interview him about camp but another friend of mine did, what follows is my chat with Rothko Hauschildt (coolest first name ever btw).

 I met Rothko at the USBC (United States Barista Competition) South Central regional competition in Austin last year.  It was the first barista competition either of us had ever participated in and we commiserated about our anxiety and nerves, then basked in shared congratulation for completing our presentations.  Rothko works at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Austin and is just crazy about coffee.  She was kind enough to do a quick interview with me and report about some of her experiences at Camp Pull-a-Shot.

J.Q. So Rothko, since we were in the USBC south central regional together that counts as at least one SCAA event, was Camp Pull-a-Shot the only other SCAA event you’ve been to?

R.H. Yeah, this was just my second but I’m planning on going to the Expo in Houston Since it’s so close. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my level 2 barista certification there.

J.Q. So I’m not very familiar with the BGA certification program.  Would you kinda give me a breakdown what the certifications are and how they work?

R.H. Yeah, Well the Level 1 is about knowing your basic barista skills, being able to do them well. It’s about knowing the SCAA standards and knowing how to make drinks according to them.  The questions [on the test] are coming out of what you learn in the level 1 BGA classes. Level 2 is a bit more advanced and begins getting into basic equipment maintenance, more advanced dosing, things about origin, bar efficiency, and lots of stuff that as your average barista you might not even be aware of.  

J.Q. So level one is just covering the basics skill sets, and level two gets into more complex subjects. What was covered in origins? 

R.H. Just knowing about the whole process from the seed to the cup.  from farmers, and processors, to roasters and baristas, and baristas being the last point of contact with the coffee. Understanding the supply chain.

J.Q. you mentioned [espresso] dosing, what did that involve [for level 2]?

R.H. What they want to see is if you know your coffee well enough to be able to find the best dose for it. It’s all about knowing your coffee and knowing how to work with it.

J.Q. So I’ve been to several Roaster’s Guild retreats, and the schedules where really hectic, what was the class scheduling like?

R.H. It was intensive and it was really packed. They had twice as many people as they where expecting. They where thinking they would have fifty or sixty people and we ended up with about one hundred and ten. It was really sweet, it did mean though that there were certifications at 2 am which sucked, but I was lucky and got mine early in the evening (laughs) but yeah they where just blown away by the response.

J.Q. Did you find the classes to be really useful?

R.H. Yeah, there was a lot of information packed into them and sometimes it was hard to absorb it all, but yeah they where all really good. I didn’t think there was any fluff in any of them. We where lucky though [Vince Fedele] the inventor of the ExtractMoJo was there and taught a class on brewing and extraction methods, and he had some that we could test, and now I want to drop 300 bucks on a refractometer. But yeah it was great having him there because it brought more depth than just looking at that chart we’ve all seen. What all of it was really about though is knowing your coffee well enough so that you don’t blow it in the last minutes of drink preparation. Not to blow it after the farmer has worked in the sun all day and the processor has taken care and the roaster has put all of his knowledge and craft into it.  And when it gets to you, you can’t be pulling a 15 second shot and calling it good. you have to respect the work of the people who came before you and step up to it, and match that with your own quality. It was really good to be around a hundred other people who feel that way, because you don’t get that every day.

J.Q. Okay so the last thing I want to ask you about it the parties at night. Now at Roasters Guild we have a lot of fun after the days classes, how were the BGA retreat parties?

R.H. Oh my god. Johnny Cassitini from Simoneli did a keg stand. He’s like 73.

J.Q. I’d like a picture of that.                                                                      

R.H. There probably is one online. Yeah for a bunch of baristas it was a heavily beer oriented event. Mike McKim brought like 4 kegs over.

J.Q. That’s more kegs than us!

R.H. And if you had a car there was a liquor store right down the road.

J.Q. Ah, so good location.

R.H. Yeah, but you know I went to bed fairly early; gotta get my beauty sleep so I don’t have the good stories. You might want to talk to McKim.

 Alright, That’s the first of the series, I’ve got a couple more installments in my quest to find out what I missed at barista camp. 

Cheers!

(Footnote: the kegs where also sponsored by Marzocco, and Topeca Coffee)

The Holistic Barista. More Than Great Coffee, A Great Cafe.

What follows is a dissertation that I read earlier tonight to a promising group of young baristas.  

“Certainly it is understood among coffee professionals that barista is an art and a skilled craft.  While it is of chief importance that a barista be an expert in the various ways of extracting coffee and creating excellent coffee beverages I believe that there’s more to the profession than that.  We have a shared responsibility to produce an experience of aroma and flavor in a coffee drink, but I hold that the barista has other responsibility for excellence.  The holistic barista must also be excellent in customer service, and service to the cafe.
 
The barista is employed to serve.  Serve coffee and serve an experience.  To create a full experience the barista must create the environment and context where it occurs. which is to say that the cafe has to be clean and the barista should smile, be courteous, attentive, etc.  It can be easy to forget but the whole point of all our labors is to serve our customers.  It is a simple truth that without customers we would not be doing what we do.  All of the personal edification that may be derived from a pursuit of knowledge and perfection in coffee would be armature without customers to make it a profession.  They deserve cleanliness, attention, and courtesy, and perhaps even thanks.

Responsibilities to ones cafe can be plainly stated as, “part of your job is to be profitable”.  This may seem like a contentious point but I believe that it is crucial and we must reconcile ourselves to it.  We have chosen our employers and our employers chose us.  As a barista you must strive to be an excellent producer for your company.  Excellent customer service is profitable and sustainable for the cafe and is made of of many small exchanges like telling new customers “hey tell your friends about us” and asking repeat customers “do you have any coffee to make at home? I really enjoy ____.” or “do you use a burr grinder at home? the right grinder makes all the difference (if they’re interested explain how)”.  The point is that our collective goal is to make the cafe successfully. Besides it’s also true that larger ticket prices, and a growing clientele will make not only the cafe more profitable but also the barista who will accordingly make higher tips with a higher frequency. Larger ticket prices on up sales and added customers from word of mouth advertising that is gained by excellence in customer service and cafe presentation is good for us all.

Besides one would assume that Sammy Piccilo has great customer service skills, James Hoffman can sell a customer on the merits of owning a burr grinder, and that back in his days spent behind bar Stephen Morrissey probably kept his milk fridge clean.
just saying.”

K-Cup Comparisons

I went to my parents, house today to help my father move a piano. Fun stuff. On the up-side he showed off his new Keurig coffee maker. My folks are really into their new machine and they use my coffee in it daily, they also use pre-ground inserts of Green Mountain. Woof. 

Naturally, I had to test this thing out. These are my findings.

Right off the bat, I can never endorse any use of pre-ground coffee.  The fact is that within an hour of grinding coffee, even if it’s flushed with nitrogen, you lose almost all of the cO2 and volatile organic compounds that make up the complex aroma of a specialty grade coffee. But that’s no great obsticle for the K-Cup, just ditch your inserts and grind your own coffee. 

The basic operation begins with turning on the machine which heats the water. While waiting, grind your beans and load your reusable insert with grounds and place it into the machine. A note on this step, if you use the pre-made inserts, they push up an O-Ring on the machine and for the reusable pod you need to make sure this O-ring is scooted back down into position or you’ll have a mess on your hands.) Finally press the button for small, medium, or large cup.

Watch, marvel, oh and ah, or whatever. 

Drink.

Okay, what could possibly be wrong with the cup of freshly ground coffee produced by this wonder machine? Allow me to rewind and insert*.

“Press the button for small (*slightly over-extracted), medium (*completely over extracted), or large (hot water with bitter coffee alkaloids).

Watch, marvel, ect.

Drink your better than Folgers in an auto drip, but none the less no longer specialty grade, moderately to overwhelmingly bitter brew.

What I would advocate is a pour-over.  

A pour-over is simply a ceramic or glass cone into which you place a coffee filter and an appropriate amount of grounds.  After placing the cone on top of a coffee cup, gradually pour 200 degree water over the grounds to fill your cup with a perfect (if you get things right) specialty coffee.  I love this method because you can control your coffee dose AND grind AND water temperature which helps you to find the perfect balance and an ideal extraction.

I’ll write more about this subject in a later post; and as a teaser my co-workers and I are working on an instructional video all about the perfect pour-over.

I’d like to finish off this post by tacitly endorsing K-Cup for people like my parents. The thing is, these people have had a son that has been a specialty coffee roaster for years. They’ve had french presses, grinders, and various other coffee-brewing contraptions, but they have continued buying pre-ground coffee and making it in their auto-drip coffee maker. My hope is that the ease of the K-cup will at least encourage them to use freshly ground coffee.

As for you gentle readers, please do better than bitter. Get a Hario, or a press pot, or an espresso machine (if you’re a real junkie). But no matter what you do: Please, please, buy a burr grinder; it makes everything better.

Just some shameless pimping on my part, Topeca Coffee sells all the stuff you need to make great coffee at home. I kinda work there, so…yeah.

Just Some Pictures

  Luchador Enjoying Morning Cafe.

   (pictured Connor Garbe, Barista, JoeBot’s Coffee, Dwelling Spaces)

 

Cupping Spoons.

Fly Over Of Coffee From Tree Through Mill

I think that from the outset we should engage in some remedial discussion about coffee; and ask some simple questions such as, what is coffee and how is it processed?

 So for this post I will take any beginners on a whirl wind photo tour through the beginning phases in the life of coffee on it’s way to export from it’s country of origin. And for any coffee aficionados who already know all this, there is still pretty pictures.

 First off, coffee is an agricultural product, but more specifically it is the seed inside the fruit of the coffee tree (more of a shrub really). 

 

 Coffea Arabica is grown at altitudes above 900 meters and longitude 24degrees N and 25 degrees S.  There is a link to the coffee belt on my first post, but simply put coffee is grown in equatorial places and specialty coffee is grown at high altitudes. 

  After the cherries are harvested by hand,

they will be sorted and washed at the mill.

  Once milling is complete the coffee is “in parchment” which means that the seeds are covered in a thin membrane.

The coffee in parchment is then spread on the patio to dry.

Once the coffee is dried to about 12% moisture content it gets bagged up and stored until it’s about time to ship, at which point dry processing occurs.  I’m not going to go into every step in dry processing but sufficed to say that defect beans and detritus are removed along with the parchment by mechanical means and the coffee is then gone through by hand to remove any defect beans the machines missed.

  Whew, so that’s a super quick overview of what coffee is and what it takes to get it ready for the roaster.  I’m going to call this good for today, if you have any questions shoot me an email, and if you have any thing to add to this discussion click the submit button and contribute.  oh yeah and lastly if anyone has origin pictures from farms and mills in Africa and Indonesia i would really appriceate the use of them as i have only been able to afford travel to central america.

photos by Jeremy Charles