The Odd Ones

There are a few coffee brewers that exist outside the categories I mentioned in my last post that may be of interest to home brewers. While there are many great "hybrid brewers" on the market, these two are definitely among my favorites.

Toddy

The Toddy brewer is an interesting device. While I have never used the home model, I have used it's commercial counterpart extensively, and I must say that I am impressed by its output. The device is essentially a large translucent paint bucket with two filters inside. The first being a reusable mesh filter that has a drawstring. The second is a disposable paper filter bag. You put the coffee in the paper filter, tie it off, then place it in the mesh filter. From here, you submerge the coffee in cold water. That's right, cold water. You then place the lid on the bucket and leave it be for a long while (usually a period of twelve hours). When the time has expired, you simply discard the paper filter full of grounds and serve the coffee. The resulting brew is very low in acidity and is typically very smooth. It is excellent for serving as iced coffee as the brew doesn't suffer from the watery nature that most iced coffees bear. One can also pour hot water into the coffee to serve as a hot beverage, though I feel for all of the hassle, you would be better off just brewing a fresh cup by another means. All-in-all though, this is a fascinating device that might be worth seeking out if you are really into iced coffees.

Abid's Clever Coffee Dripper

This is a really cool device. Like the Toddy, this method also adds a filter to what is otherwise an immersion brewer, but the way it does it is quite ingenious. If you look at the Clever, you'll likely notice that it bears a resemblance to nearly every pour-over brewer in the market. That's because it is, with one key difference. You see, what makes the dripper "Clever" is that the hole on the bottom of the cone only opens when placed on your coffee mug. Because of this you can steep the coffee like you would in an immersion brewer, but avoid any grit in your cup because there is paper keeping it out. It's a pretty brilliant idea. However, the thing that makes it really remarkable is its ease of use. Making drip coffee is a right proper pain in the neck if you don't know what you're doing and even if you do, the constant babysitting of the brewer can be a hassle. With the Clever, there is no real fancy technical process to it. It has definitely jumped up on the list of my go-to brewers recently, and I would strongly suggest it for anyone who is leaning toward a pour-over method for their home.

Remember, if you want to see these things in action, head over to BrewMethods.com

*I apologize for the irregularity of the posting times and content length. In the early summer I'll be switching to a firm schedule of weekly posts. Please bear with me until that time. :)

Selecting a brewing method:

Now that we've covered the basics of where to get your coffee, using filtered water, and getting a grinder (something I'll revisit with more detail shortly) let's talk about brew methods. A few posts back, I linked to BrewMethods.com which is a fantastic resource for covering all different types of instructions for a wealth of different methods. One thing that the site does not do however is talk about which method is right for you.

Now, you may be the type of person who likes their coffee more than one way, and that's normal. But when you're first starting out it's best in my opinion to focus on one method of brewing so you can discover great coffee via that method faster. As you can see when perusing devices, most coffee brewers come in one of two varieties, either a pour-over/drip variety or the immersion variety. There are also a few stand-alone products that don't quite fit into either of these.

Immersion

Immersion brewing is essentially the act of combining ground coffee and water, letting it steep, and then separating the liquid from the grounds. Popular immersion brewers include the French Press and Eva Solo. These are typically what I recommend to people getting started with brewing coffee at home for one simple reason: they are super easy to use. Coffee goes in, you may or may not stir it, you leave it alone for a few minutes and then your coffee is ready. There are no fancy techniques that go into it, there aren't a lot of issues with temperature loss and it is easy. Nine times out of ten if you are starting out brewing coffee at home, I'll place a Bodum press in your hand.

Pour-over

The trendiest thing in coffee today is pour-over coffee. This includes Melitta cones, Bee House drippers, Hario V60s, and the ever popular Chemex. Now, you can get good coffee from each of these products. However, sometimes doing so is a huge pain in the neck. The simple fact of the matter is, each one of these devices requires a different type of technique to get the most out of the brew and even then most baristas cannot come to a consensus on which technique works best. And while professionals in the industry may enjoy the process of "dialing in" their technique, the average consumer is likely to get fed up and pull out the Mr. Coffee. I think these brew methods are awesome in cafés but if I were a newbie I'd wait to see how serious I want to get about coffee before investing in one of these methods.

In the next post I'll talk about brew methods that are a hybrid of these, or that don't quite fit into either category. As always questions and comments are always welcome!

*Apologies for the delay in posting, last night was OKC's first ever Latté Art Throwdown, and this week has been filled by promoting it everywhere I could.

On espresso...

Espresso, the wonderful substance that has caused the coffee renaissance worldwide, allowing people to create sugary-milk beverages that still give them their coffee fix. For something that so many Americans consume every day in some form or another, there are a lot of misconceptions about what espresso is. It is my goal to clarify.

The Basics -

First and foremost, let's give a definition of what an espresso is. My personal definition is "1 to 2 ounces of liquid created by forcing hot water (190-203º F) through a puck of finely ground coffee with great pressure (~9 Bars) over the course of 20-30 seconds." While there is some wiggle room with this definition, I feel it captures the essence relatively well. Basically, the goal of making espresso is making a small cup of coffee quickly, and having said cup highlight and accentuate certain flavors in the coffee. It is strong, yes, but if made properly you can taste espresso that has a flavor you might never associate with coffee. Now that we've covered what espresso is, let's tackle:

What espresso is NOT -

Tons of people think they know espresso, and most of them have no idea what they are talking about. Here are a few things that you should dedicate to memory -

1) "eXpresso"

This is not a word. It has never been a word. It is also not a beverage or component of any beverage ever! Please strike it from your vocabulary.

2) A roast style.

Some people think that "espresso" means really dark roasted coffee. This misconception at least has some logic behind it. Back in the first boom of specialty coffee in the U.S., people were roasting their coffee darker, especially for their espresso blends. Secondly, the most commonly consumed espresso in the U.S., that of Starbucks, is not only roasted very dark, but they identify their espresso blend as "Espresso Roast." They then put this on the shelf next to their reasonably named Italian and French Roast which most would consider to be indications of roast style. It is not hard to see where the concept came from.

The problem with this however is that not all espresso is roasted to that degree. In fact, many people (myself included) enjoy espresso roasted much, much lighter. So when you try to say something is roasted like espresso, you are covering a huge spectrum of what an ideal espresso roast is to a great number of people. In the end, it is also just easier to not use this term than to try and force a meaning on it.

3) A type of coffee bean.

There are two types of coffee, arabica and robusta. From here, coffees have a varietal such as bourbon, geisha, typica, etc. From there the coffee is shaped by its place of origin, the soil it is grown in, what is grown around it, and its elevation. Nowhere on this earth is there a varietal called "espresso." There is no "espresso" region in Africa, the Americas, or Asia. There is no such thing as an "espresso" bean. Any coffee can be used in the creation of an espresso blend, and any coffee can be used on its own to make espresso. There are varying degrees of success depending on what you use, but regardless there is not only one bean that creates espresso.

4) A caffeine bomb*

People have it in their heads that espresso is laden with caffeine. In some ways they are right. Espresso has a high caffeine amount for a beverage of its volume. However, I have heard many times, "Oh, I stick to my normal coffee. I couldn't take all of that caffeine from espresso!" Well, that is just silly. The average American drinks at least 12 ounces of coffee every morning. A 12 ounce cup of coffee yields somewhere between ~97 to ~180 mg of caffeine depending on type of coffee, roast, brew method. A single shot (~1 oz.) of espresso yields ~30 to ~50 mg of caffeine. Ergo, to get the same amount of caffeine from espresso as you would from your normal morning coffee, you would have to have three shots of espresso, and even then in some instances your morning drip could contain more caffeine.

Hopefully this has cleared up some misconceptions for you. As always, feedback is appreciated, thanks for reading!

*The statistics I quote here come from CoffeeChemistry.com, which is ran by the Director of Science at the SCAA.

Brewing for beginners*

As a barista, nothing is more satisfying than serving a person a good cup of coffee for the first time. Particularly in my last year or so of public coffee service, I saw many great reactions. One customer stands out in particular in my mind. When I served him, he came and got his coffee, and then went to sit at a table on the opposite end of the room from the bar. With no more drinks to prepare, I went about my business cleaning. I kneeled down to clean the fridge and when I stood back up, this gentleman was at the bar staring at me, coffee in hand. Afraid that I must have made some error, I cautiously asked, "Is something wrong, sir?" He looked at his cup, and then looked back at me and said with great surprise, "This... is good."

This same gentleman proceeded to ask me many questions about the coffee, its origin, and why it tasted so different from coffee he had consumed before. I told him about the same things I have been talking about on this blog recently, mostly hitting on the points of freshness and grinding before brewing. Quite enthused about this new world of culinary coffee before him, the customer bought a pound of coffee and left the shop with a little bit of bounce in his step. I thought I had quite possibly made his day.

Fast forward to a few days later, when the gentleman re-entered the store, noticeably less enthusiastic. He sat at the bar this time, which is usually an invitation for conversation. As I brewed his coffee I asked the man how the coffee I had sold him was working out for him. Much to my surprise he said, in an exasperated tone, "Not well. I don't know what you guys do, but I just can't make it taste like you do here."

Whoops.

You see in my fervor of trying to push quality coffee into every home, I made a mis-step. I tried to oversimplify the process of brewing coffee. I told this man that if he switched what coffee he was using in the morning, he too could experience coffee as a culinary experience every morning without giving any consideration to what sort of brewing device he had, how much coffee he was using, or how it was ground.

You see there are a lot of ways to make coffee, and even amongst industry professionals, we don't always agree on what method yields the best cup. Thankfully, a very smart person has summarized a great deal of knowledge from many great minds in the coffee community on how to brew coffee in numerous ways in one convenient location, which spares me the trouble of writing out a guide on exact brewing methods. However, I do feel like there is a little guidance I should give before sending you off and washing my hands of the situation.

-Mr. Coffee is NOT your friend.

And he is not alone. There are tons of automatic drip brewers on the market today that have more bells and whistles than you can imagine, cost hundreds of dollars, and they brew terrible coffee.** Many of these brewers can brew consistently too hot, brew consistently too cold, suffer from inconsistent temperatures, not saturate grounds properly, etc. There are a number of issues that they can have, and at the end of the day it just simply isn't worth the trouble. Putting good coffee in these machines is a waste of money. Simply buy a manual brewer and put your extra cash into a good grinder.

-You NEED a good grinder.

That is right, the flat-blade propellor devices affectionately labeled by some coffee people as "whirly-blade" grinders will not cut it when it comes to brewing quality coffee. There is "science" as to why if you really want to know, but the bottom line is that you need a burr grinder. Quality burr grinders can be had quite cheaply nowadays if you know where to look. You can even save a little more cash if you don't mind doing things the old fashioned way.

-You NEED good water.

The general fact I always hear thrown about is that coffee is 98% water. Whether that is true or not, I'll leave you to discover on your own, but the fact of the matter is that water greatly affects the taste of your coffee. If you haven't been brewing with filtered water, it is about time that you start.

-Avoid the hype.

It seems like every week now some barista somewhere floods their Twitter feed with news of how a certain brew method is totally awesome and how everyone should try it. It then ends up on web communities such as Home-Barista where people dissect it and make graphs and charts detailing its merits and flaws that would be glaringly obvious to anyone with a Master's degree in both Mechanical and Chemical Engineering.***

Please don't think it is necessary to spend a ton of cash on gear to drink good coffee. Even with all of the coffee equipment that I have in my home, 90% of the time I end up drinking a brew from a french press simply because it is easy to use, clean, and the results are very consistent day to day.

In conclusion, I hope that you are now more enlightened on necessary considerations for good coffee. As always, feedback and comments are appreciated!

*If you read the post prior to this one, you might be slightly confused. Upon further thought, "Getting the most out of your coffee" seemed to be quite a broad idea that would take some great considerations, and more importantly, a great deal of text to fully cover. As I've said from the start this blog aims to give simple information for people who want good coffee. Perhaps once these ideas have been exhausted, the scope of the writing may change, but for now, I think this is probably for the best.

**Of course, there are always exceptions, but the simple fact of the matter is they cost several hundreds of dollars, and if you are going to get the most out of them, you still need to wake up and grind the beans you're putting in there. What's another minute of your involvement in the brew process?

***I love everyone at Home-Barista and spend a ton of time frequenting their boards. Thank you for making the graphs and charts that I am not well-educated enough to design on my own.

Where should I buy MY coffee?

The number one question I get asked by absolutely everyone comes in one of two variants, either the slightly aggressive, "Well, where do you get your coffee from?" and the sadly less common, concerned or excited, "Where should I buy my coffee from then?"

As always, there is a lot that one could write about this, but my aim is to pare down all of that and give you just the basics of selecting a coffee supplier. Towards the end of this post, I'll give a list of some of my favorites.

1) Make sure the coffee you are buying is fresh.

As mentioned in the last post, coffee should be consumed within 14 days of its roast date. Most reputable roasters or cafés will have no problem telling you what day the coffee you are buying was roasted on. Heck, most of them will have it printed on the bag. If they don't know, or don't care, DO NOT BUY IT. You will likely be purchasing stale coffee, and what is worse is that by purchasing stale coffee, you are telling said retailer that they can continue selling stale coffee. Make a stand for good coffee, always buy fresh.

2) Transparency

If you didn't already know, coffee is a fruit. The "bean" is actually the seed of the fruit. Long story short, there is a lot that goes into harvesting the good stuff and if you are paying a premium price for your coffee, you need to know where it is coming from. Sadly, some cafés or roasters who simply don't know, or don't care what good coffee is, will charge you $15 for a pound of their "Sumatra coffee" completely unknowing of whether it is quality or not. Look for someplace that can tell you why they selected the coffee they did, maybe for certain flavors. Even better, if the place can tell you the region, terroir, or farm's name that the coffee is from, they likely are going to be giving you a quality product.

3) A higher price

This is where I tend to lose people. "Can I not have good coffee at a value price?" Well it depends on what you see as value. Most people will gladly spend $15 on a bottle of wine that will yield 4-5 glasses and see that as a bargain. $15 can easily get you a pound of good coffee that can yield 28 cups. That to me is a great bargain for a premium culinary beverage.

Will specialty coffee ever be as cheap as Folger's? No. But you really don't want it to be. The "high" price you pay for coffee ensures that everyone who worked to get that coffee to you is making more money. And by paying more for certain "premium" crops, you are voting with your dollar for more high quality crops and giving incentive for everyone in the long chain of people involved to keep working hard at trying their hardest.

Alright, so some places to buy good coffee; let's start with the local guys:

-Elemental Coffee Roasters

Elemental was the first roaster in the Oklahoma City area to really stand up for quality in the cup in every roast, and for that I am very grateful. You can buy their stuff direct from them online, or pick it up at the local stores listed on their website.

-Coffee Slingers

While not a roastery (currently), Coffee Slingers sources some awesome coffee from those self-proclaimed "damn coffee hippies" at Barefoot Coffee in Santa Clara, CA.

-Gray Owl Coffee

This new café in Norman is serving up some fine product from the wonderful people at Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea.

-DoubleShot Coffee Company

Not quite as local, these Tulsa coffee craftsmen not only start some of the most entertaining debate in coffee culture, they also roast up and serve some great product in the process.

In today's internet age, one is never too far from good coffee, and nearly any roaster can have a pound or two on your doorstep in two to three days of the roast date for usually around $5 in shipping. Here are some companies that aren't nearby, but are doing some awesome stuff that you need to try.

-Counter Culture Coffee

Without a doubt, Counter Culture is my all-time favorite coffee roaster. I've never had a bad coffee from them, and believe me, I have tried a LOT. On top of that, the people who work there constantly push the industry to evolve, grow, and really put the focus on the people who make our morning cup so special, the farmers.

-Stumptown Coffee Roasters

Stumptown has a simple goal: to have the best coffee out of anyone, anywhere. One of the "big three roasters" (the others being the previously mentioned Intelligentsia and Counter Culture) Stumptown has a lot of resources and does a lot with them to always try to stay on top. You'll pay a hefty price for some of their coffee, but there is no denying that it is excellent.

-Ritual Coffee Roasters

Ritual always has a small, but interesting selection of coffees that are as full of flavor and personality as the awesome people who run the place. Plus, they have the coolest logo in all of coffee-dom.

Anyway, I hope that gives you some ideas as for what to look for when buying coffee. As always, comments are appreciated!

Next post: How do I get the most out my coffee?

On this blog, and the reason for it's existence.

It has long been said that coffee is the second-most traded "commodity" in the world, only oil surpassing it, and though recently the soundness of that statement has been questioned, I cannot help but think it is in fact somewhere high in that list. Regardless, one thing is true: people enjoy coffee. Some people enjoy it a lot. Yet, sadly, many of these people who enjoy coffee, don't really know what good coffee is.

This former statement is one that often causes confusion for some people, and anger in others. The usual logic is, "But if I enjoy something, how can it not be good?" I would argue that while many people enjoy a McDonald's hamburger, it is not the best example of what a true hamburger, or even what food can be. Like many things in America (I'll limit this blog to my country of residence. Jim Hoffman, Mark Prince and so many others have websites and blogs so full of excellent information regarding coffee culture in their countries, I'd be a fool to attempt to try to comment on what I think goes on outside the continental U.S.), coffee has gone through many changes throughout the years, and not necessarily for the better. I'll spare the history lesson on how and why, as many books and documentaries cover this in more detail than I ever could, but the fact of the matter is that what you likely drink in the morning is a far cry from true, good coffee.

Now that I have danced around the subject enough, what makes coffee "good?" In my opinion, there are a few qualifiers:

1) The coffee is a specialty coffee.

What is specialty coffee? Again, one could write a book on the subject, but a brief definition would be: Coffee that is grown in an ideal environment with considerations for elevation, soil and climate, harvested at a precise time of ripeness, processed in a caring, attentive manner, shipped safely to a roaster, and then roasted in small batches with again, great attentiveness and care. A very small percentage of all the coffee produced in the world can be considered "specialty."

2) The coffee is fresh.

I'm not here to get into debates about what freshness is, or if a coffee can be too fresh, I'll leave such arguments to the experts. I'll set out easy to follow parameters in which most people will find little to argue with. From the second coffee leaves the roaster, it has a shelf-life. That coffee needs to be consumed within a 14 day period. You may notice changes in the taste as the coffee ages in general, but after two weeks there is going to begin to notice a sharp drop-off in terms of the flavor you get out of your cup.

3) The coffee beans remain whole until brewing.

While there is science that explains this, I'll keep it brief: Ground coffee loses flavor faster. This isn't just from a coffee geek standpoint, normal people notice this. If you brew a cup of freshly ground coffee next to a cup utilizes grounds that had been sitting out for an hour, nearly anyone can tell a difference.

Hopefully this answers some questions. Coffee friends, if there is anything that you feel I have gotten horribly wrong in my attempt to summarize, please leave me a note in the comments section.

Next post: Where should I buy my coffee?