I love the Jura Impressa range, and slowly but surely more and more people are coming online with awesome sites that help owners of the great automatics.
Here is a site for parts of the domestic range:
Description | Link | |
Internals of the Jura F50 | ||
The Ena 5 parts | ||
The J5 parts | ||
The Z5 parts | ||
Part summary | ||
Jura summary | ||
Although there are other varieties of coffee there only 2 major types associated to coffee that is consumed everyday. The one is Arabica and the other is Robusta, more are more different then humans are to chimpanzees. Looking at their chromosomes you realized there is a colossal variation.
The Arabica has 44 chromosomes while the Robusta has half that. Using a visual test once the bean has been removed from the cherry the Robusta bean is more circular and the Arabica bean is considerably more oval.
Most serious coffee lovers consider Arabica to be the king of coffee beans. It produces more aroma, has more taste and this is primarily since its oil content is more than double that of an Arabica bean.
Many blenders will state their case that Robusta is needed in the blend to balance the body, we disagree, if you start with quality it remains quality. However this is most likely why Robusta accounts for 40% of the worlds coffee production. It does also help that Robusta is extremely robust and grows very easily, and is especially for easy cultivation. It is resistant to coffee rust, is happy to grow in unprotected sun, and close to other Robusta plants, while purer Arabica prefers to grow in shade, and also matures differently
What most people "in the know do not know is that there are over 40 varieties of Arabica, and each one of then is distinctly different. The original variety of Arabica that left Africa through trade and smuggling is now called Arabica "typica". Typica has made its way back to Europe via the Dutch (from Mysore in India).
Through in breeding typical became Arabica "bourbon". Bourbon became the main plant that was used to seed the plantations in the "new world", which now dominates the coffee trade. The most dominant is actually a more inbreed version of bourbon and Brazilian plants, called Catura, which is well know for its poor taste but it yields more than bourbon and can grow in the sun.
"Typica" represents only 10% of the grown Arabica, and less than 14% of Arabica is shade grown, which produces the best taste nuances.
If you are a coffee drinker then look for shade grown coffee only
Over the past few years I have been asked to explain what makes specialty coffee so different. I have always used the whiskey industry explaining the specialty coffee is the single malt of the coffee industry; it is marketed mainly through word of mouth rather than through adverts that claim popularity, an increase in intelligence or ability or instant wealth if you purchase the latest option at blend.
Recently however I have though a better analogy would be the wine industry. In some ways in does make sense since the wine industry's quality is also driven by terroir and climate.
So here is my analogy.
Most people think instant coffee is coffee. It is as much as box wine is wine. Normally the cheaper the box wine the less tasty it is and the more "additives" it has. This is the case with instant coffee too. You can on a day where the blue moon shone perfectly at 90 degrees of table mountain get a good box of wine, so too it is theoretically possible to drink instant coffee.
Ah I hear you say but surely they are not all as bad as that well some well marketed instant coffee I would agree are a little above box wine. There is another well loved wine (often drunk in brown bags) that was particularly popular when I was a student, and from what I hear still is. The difference between box wine and this product is occasionally it is still drinkable, personally I still cannot drink instants at this level, I believe in desperation on a recent road trip I did try.
Now here is an interesting difference, in South Africa of the coffee that is consumed over 60% of it is instant coffee (luckily this number is depreciating slowly). While most wine drinkers will consider either of the previous options 10-15% of the time in South Africa.
So let us move on to bean based coffee then. When coffee is picked (no matter what varietal of Arabica or Robusta) it is graded. It is then graded on screen size and defects. Sizing of AAA is the largest of that co-op or farms size. Then it is tasted and only the top tasting coffee (they need to score 80% or higher on the tasting sheet) are reserved for specialty coffee. Specialty coffee is to coffee what a 4 ½ star rating in John platter (or similar) is to wine. Once a coffee is rated as specialty grade it is sold as per its region. The rest of the coffee beans (92-4% of the market, depending on the climate and terroir) is released into the general market where about 20-25% of it is made into instant coffee.
So back to the wine analogy, just like there are some very well known blends in the wine industry, so to are there well known blends in the coffee industry. Just as a guide Blanc de Blanc and Mocha Java is what I am referring too. Also brand in this level of market is important. Brand is recognised mainly for consistently. So a brand with a great following in wine has as more or less a standard taste every year, no matter what the climate dictated. In South Africa branded blends in coffee take up almost the rest of the coffee market not consumed (punny ha, ha), by the instant coffee market. Leave a small but increasing share in the coffee market for Specialty Coffee.
Before I continue let me distinguish between coffee speciality and specialty coffee. A coffee speciality is how it is prepared, for example espresso (yum), long espresso (gulp), Americano (some people call this normal coffee), cappuccino, latte etc).
Specialty Coffee is almost like a vintage cabernet. There are those who will rush out and purchase one because they believe that it is the thing to drink, slap it in the glass, that has just come out of the dish washer and consume it before it has had a chance to gulp some oxygen. That to me is almost as bad as purchasing specialty coffee and grinding it; sorry I actually am wrong it is far worse…
Then there are those that appreciate that they are dealing with a wine that represents the best an estate could produce. The lay the wine up and after an acceptable time decant it let it breath and get the best results.
Specialty coffee is the same. You can buy it ground, and you can burn it with water that is above 95 degrees, in your brewing method, almost making it not really worth the while. You can also submerge the nuances of the coffee in 60% milk and more sugar than coffee, but rather not.
Specialty coffee should be enjoyed within 2 weeks of it being roasted (opposite from laying up, since this destroys the taste). Should be ground fresh (opposite from letting it breath) to the quantity you require. And should be prepared by using water between 93 and 95 degrees (also depends on process). And like wine the brewing method should us something that is clean and does not damage the coffee.
Hopefully as more and more people discover specialty coffee we will see a larger percentage of coffee drinkers actually drinking coffee. Here are some stats, in Australia the majority of coffee drinkers no enjoy fresh roasted specialty coffee, in the states almost 30% of the coffee drinkers have converted to specialty coffee since the 70's. In Europe these numbers vary between 5% and 15% (Scandinavians in the lead again), the largest percentage in a country world wide is Ethiopia. We in South Africa are struggling around the 1% mark, but this is changing.
