Ok, pardon the early 80's pop-music reference, but there was a nice little article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine about "pour over" coffee. The Link Take it for what it's worth. The article notes that "where others perceive smugness and superiority, I see enthusiasm and curiosity...." Seems that 3 or 4 items are needed for this "pour over" experience. 1. Ceramic coffee grinder (optional, $49 at Williams-Sonoma) 2. Coffee dripper (plastic version $9 at W-S) 3. Filters for above dripper ($4 for set of 40) 4. Kettle with "swan's neck" spout ($62) This definitely goes for quality (and time) over quantity (and speed). Might be a good present for a coffee lover.
I took an admittedly cursory glance at this, and it seems to me that one is just doing by hand what a drip coffee maker does....
I took an admittedly cursory glance at this, and it seems to me that one is just doing by hand what a drip coffee maker does.... Next time please make your comment after putting forth more effort than a cursory glance. There are differences; differences that the "experts" say substantively contribute to better tasting coffee.
Pour-over brewers are a perfectly good way to make a great cup of coffee. However, that's insufficient to make a good cup of coffee. In addition, you'll need: 1) Excellent green beans that have been properly roasted. 2) Freshly roasted beans (and for some beans, properly rested) that have been recently ground (as in immediately before brewing). 3) A grinder that is properly adjusted and produces uniformly ground coffee. 4) A pour-over brewer that drains at a rate that assures proper steeping time. 5) Excellent drinking water that has been heated to 195-205 degrees F. Unfortunately, the vast majority of automatic drip brewers do not meet these requirements. Personally, I usually use an AeroPress which makes an absolutely wonderful cup of coffee assuming the other requirements are in place. It's basically a pour-over brewer with some significant improvements.
This is true. Japan imports most of the Blue Mountain crop. It's good coffee, but not the only good coffee. Guatemala and Kenya as well as a few other countries produce some of the better coffee.
So how different is this from the French press coffee we make every morning? I think this is pretty darned good, and now when we go to a regular breakfast place with the typical Folger's coffee pot, it tastes like hot water. Is this actually noticeably better than French press? Am I a step behind the hoi poloi once again?
Thanks, will check out the link in the near future. So far I haven't felt the necessity to purchase Indonesian ferret pooped coffee beans, might be a difficult sell to the spousal unit, and somehow unappetizing even to ever-striving-for weirdness me.
While you're at the Sweet Maria's site checking out the AeroPress, investigate home roasting. Sweet Maria's is the best web destination for home roasters. I order 20 pounds of green beans at a time (usually 20 different choices) a couple times a year. It's a relatively inexpensive and simple way to enjoy the world's best coffee every day. The downside is you'll have a hard time drinking almost any other coffee after you've become spoiled. For about the price of one latte at *$ I can drink fine coffee for weeks.
i would really like someone to convince me that a burr grinder is superior to a regular old grinder. i bet in a blind taste test, you can't discriminate between a burr grinder and thoroughly ground beans in a regular old grinder.
Endust, I know it seems like any old grind would do, but that's not the case at all. A whirly blade grinder produces everything from chunks to powder--an inconsistent grind. When that coffee brews, the powder and small pieces get over extracted and bitter. The bigger pieces and chunks get under extracted and produce weak coffee. The result is a poor cup of coffee. A good burr grinder will produce much more uniform pieces of coffee that extract similarly. That allows you to brew for the proper time to get good rich coffee flavor without over extracting which would result in bitterness. It's really a very significant factor in the process of brewing coffee. The affect is especially critical for espresso which amplifies the whole process. Pay $300 for an espresso maker and $100 for a burr grinder and you'll get crap espresso. Replace the grinder with a $300+ high quality burr grinder and the espresso is fantastic. I didn't believe it and started with a good $100 grinder. I could never get good espresso and finally accepted what the experts were telling me. I sprung for a $300 grinder and my espresso is now fantastic. The $100 grinder is now used only for drip coffee where it does fine. Not appreciating the affect a grinder has on coffee brewing is probably the single most common cause of mediocre coffee. It doesn't help that a good grinder is more expensive than a good brewer which doesn't seem right, but that's the case. The fact is, you need to pay attention to the whole process from start to finish to get exceptional coffee. Coffee is a hobby of mine that I've been perfecting for years. I pay detailed attention to everything starting with selecting the finest green beans in the world. Then there's roasting, rest time, storage, grinding, water, water temperature, brewing method, brewing time, hot coffee storage, and drinking. Espresso adds a few more factors to consider. The only downside is it's hard to drink any other coffee.
OK, we have a burr grinder and a good water heating pot, heat it to about 190 every morning, pour the water over the coffee, lightly stir with a chopstick, then cover for four minutes, then press it with the French press. We usually get Ruta Maya coffee, medium roast. But my wife thinks buying small quantities of roasted beans is important, because they go flat or stale or something after opening. Yet the resident thread coffee impressario says he buys 20 pounds at a time and roasts them himself. Don't they go bad after awhile? How do you store them? Or do you roast only a small amount at a time? How do you roast them at home? Is this really a superior technique?
Green (unroasted) coffee beans can be stored for at least 6-12 months without any significant degradation. They're similar to dried pinto beans or popcorn in that respect. Furthermore, green beans get stored at their point of origin for up to a year before they ever get exported. Think about it, coffee is harvested and processed during a relatively short time period, but is consumed year round so there has to be a good way to store it. Therefore, it's stored as greens in huge warehouses in places like Brazil and Kenya, etc. Your wife is right, roasted coffee goes stale rapidly--it's similar to fresh bread in that respect. For optimum flavor roasted coffee should be consumed within one or two weeks of being roasted. You can freeze freshly roasted coffee in an airtight container for a month or more without significant degradation. Bring it to room temperature before exposing it to air to avoid condensation. Seal the container between uses and don't refreeze. I freeze and store freshly roasted coffee in 8 oz. canning jars so I don't have to bring out more than 2 or 3 days worth at a time. This allows me to drink coffee that is effectively within only a couple days of having been roasted even though I only roast every few weeks. Ground roasted coffee degrades at a much faster rate than unground roasted coffee. Once ground, it will go stale within tens of minutes as opposed to days as whole beans. A good analogy is what will go stale faster, an unsliced loaf of bread or freshly chopped bread crumbs? So, is home roasting worth it? Well, consider that most commercial coffee (including *$) takes two weeks from the time it's roasted until the time it hits retail shelves. By then, it's past its prime. And the bulk roasted coffee? Who knows how long it's been in the bin? And don't even think about commercially ground coffee. It's stale before it leaves the warehouse. Roasting coffee is very easy, and the results will be better than virtually any roasted coffee you can buy. I have had many people tell me that my coffee is easily the best they have ever had. That's not bragging, that's just the result of the process. What's the best bread you've ever had? The stuff from the store or fresh from the oven? Fortunately, there's a robust community of home roasters who love to share their methods. Sweet Maria's is the definitive source of information and the world's finest green coffee beans.
I read some of the Sweet Maria's site, very interesting. Might work up the courage to try home roasting. Which method do you use, brntornge? Pan, popcorn type popper, drum, or ??
Coffee roasting is one of those things that's easier than you'd think, so give it a try. As many home roasters do, I've advanced to a custom contraption that's somewhat unique. Its major components are a bread machine from the Salvation Army to do the stirring, a stainless steel mixing bowl for the beans, and a countertop convection oven from a resale shop for the heat. It roasts one pound of greens in about 12 minutes which is a sweet spot. However, I suggest starting with a hot air popper since it's cheap and readily available with little effort. You can pick one up at a second hand store for about $5. Just make sure the air enters the chamber from the sides and not the bottom and you're good to go. It will roast about a quarter of a pound at a time. If the roast time is less than 6 minutes, run it through a long extension cord to drop the voltage a little or roast fewer beans and that should get the roast time long enough--in the 7 to 14 minute range or so. To get started and to get the hang of knowing when to stop the roast by listening for the cracks, get a couple pounds of wet processed green coffee from Mozart's. A pound from Guatemala and a pound from Kenya would be good choices to start. The beans most likely won't be of the quality you'll get from Sweet Maria's, but they should be good enough to know whether you'll want to invest in an order from Sweet Maria's. You can order any amount you want, but the best shipping deal is at 20 pounds. Take your first roast or two well into second crack so you know what to listen for. Just be sure to stop before you start a fire. It won't be the most drinkable coffee (about what you'd get at Charbucks), but it's important to learn what to listen for. After that, stop the roast between first and second crack to bring out the origin qualities of the beans. Also, take another roast slightly into second crack (like 10-15 seconds) and compare the results to see which you prefer. If the coffee flavor is unfamiliar it could be that you've never tasted good freshly roasted arabica coffee that's properly roasted and prepared, especially a bright coffee with good acidity*. Stick with it, with a little practice the results are very worthwhile. You will discover that coffee contains flavors you never imagined. Just read the reviews at Sweet Maria's to get an idea of the range that's available. I strongly suggest a good burr grinder and an AeroPress to make a couple of mugs of coffee. It's fast and makes a fantastic cup of coffee with your freshly roasted beans. *Acidity in arabica coffees is almost always considered a positive flavor attribute, yet the term can sound unattractive. People may relate acidity to stomach discomfort, or to sour flavors. This would be incorrect. The acidity in good high-grown arabicas imbues the cup with delicate flavor accents, complexity, and dimension. Good acidity is fleetingly volatile, a momentary sensation, giving effervescence to the cup, and informing the mouthfeel as well. Coffees with no acidity can taste flat. Acidity is not about quantity, it is about quality, and good coffees have a complex balance of many types of acidity: malic, citric, acetic, phosphoric, quinic, to name a few ... and a whole set of chlorogenic acids that are very important to flavor experience as well. Kenyas, which by flavor are some of the higher acid coffees, actually have measurably less than Brazil arabicas (of quinic and citric acids), more of others (malic, phosphoric) and far less than some robusta coffees (chlorgenic acids)! Dark roasts tend to flatten out acidity in flavor. But contrary to the taste, darker roasts have more acidity than lighter roasts. So quantity does not always follow perception. Acidity in coffee might be described by terms like bright, clear, effervescent, snappy, dry, clean, winey, etc. Coffees without acidity tend to taste flat and dull, like flat soda. Acidity is to coffee what dryness is to wine, in a sense. Different coffee origins will possess different kinds of acidity; like the wine-like high notes of some African coffees versus the crisp clear notes of high grown coffees from the Americas. Unpleasant acidy flavors may register as sourness. --Sweet Maria's Glossary
well, hell, i guess i should invest in a burr grinder if i'm going to pay $12 a pound for a week's worth of beans.
Wow, brntorng has a PHD in coffeeology. But what do you mean by a "good" burr grinder. We have a burr grinder, but an inexpensive one. Seems to work ok, and the grind it adjustable. What does a more expensive one do that this one won't do?
There are quite a few good choices and some of the grinders are sold under multiple brand names. Baratza is an American manufactured line that offers excellent value although there are many others. Their Maestro or Maestro Plus are excellent for anything but espresso and their Virtuoso Preciso or Vario units are excellent for espresso. The Virtuoso is acceptable for espresso, but it doesn't offer the fine adjustment the other models do. I've heard good reports from owners of Baratza refurb units that save a few bucks. For a broader selection with some user reviews, go to Whole Latte Love. Also, CoffeeGeek is an excellent source of reviews. Generally, the better units will grind more uniformly which is important. For espresso, a fine grind and fine adjustment is also important. An antistatic ground coffee bin is an especially nice feature or you'll have coffee grounds flying around on a low humidity day.
I was told that the song referred to squinting your eyes while getting ready to rub one out. So no. I'm not turning Japanese.
