Coffee Quality what what you buy

Interesting article: Coffee just isn't what it used to be.

Essentially, the article summarizes what is happening in the coffee market. When brand is more important than quality is the brand worth anything?

Coffee roasters have for years considered profit above all. When they could not procure product at prices that would mean they make super profits they are used too.

A quality brand puts quality coffee as the only driver to their coffees, is a rare find.

By blending coffee with lower quality blends lowers the quality of the blend, so to call a blend 100% coffee is another way of saying we cannot guarantee the quality. Remember that there are over 100 varieties of Arabica alone, never mind the Robusta varieties. Also remember that coffee is a crop and you get different quality crops.

Take all that and you realize that pricing and quality are linked. That said on the high end, sometimes there is good value. A good example is Yirgacheffe versus Los Naranjos. The one came 3rd in 2009 in the world wide ratings (Yirgacheffe) and the other 1st, but the one is half the price of the other.

How to tell if a green bean is quality --- the roast

Coffee as we know it goes through a few processes before it is even roasted. It is fermented (either using a dry or wet process) and then de-pulped and then it is a state know as green bean. Many years ago this is where the process stopped, it was mixed with fat and chewed. If you have ever tasted a green bean you will understand why this did not become a world-wide hit, as its roasted cousin eventually did.

When coffee is roasted, a number of things happen inside the bean that essentially is summarized as water being forced out of the bean, and the bean then goes from a light green to an amber and then light brown then darker brown. When the internal temperature of the bean reaches about 200 °C it goes through a process that is called the first pop. This sounds like pop corn popping, as the water and other molecules are forced out. At this point it starts it a process that exposes first floral, then fruit then herbal (see wheel). The finest coffees can be roasted into the nut and chocolate areas by a skilled roaster, the lower quality bean need to go through that process dry distillation areas for flavours to be exposed.

What is often forgotten is the reason why some of these darker roasts are now called their well know names. Namely:

• Italian
• Austrian
• French
• Portuguese

So what was the reason. Well look back at the history of roasting and blending. Blending became an art when the coffee lovers of the above countries could not get access to the finer coffees, because of crop failures and war. Three things resulted:

1. Roasts where extended to find flavour in lower quality product
2. Other products where found and roasted with the coffee - the most popular was and still is the Robusta bean
3. A combination of the 1 & 2, and the blend and blend master was born.

The blend master strived to get the same nuances that a single origin high quality coffee would produce on its own.

Now of course these blends rule the roast or is that roost. Since they became well know. A coffee company today has its hand forced to produce a blend. Like wines and whiskeys the most famous wines and whiskeys are blends. But the real lover of coffee is slowly re-discovering the beauty of a coffee that is a from a single grower or area that produces a great coffee. Some years it is excellent, some years okay.

If you love coffee start looking for these coffees...

Tasting of coffee or cupping with your machine

Coffee Tasting Wheel

The traditional way to do cupping of coffee, is relatively complicated (you can read about the process here: Coffee Cupping guide).

Recently I have been tasting by using a few of my machines, so that I get a more accurate taste to what I can expect when I drink the coffee.

The process of checking the coffee beans, is still the same, purer Arabicas have a more oval shape then the cross pollinated and grafted varieties (that where normally mixed with Robusta influenced plants). So you still inspect the bean as per normal, I like inspecting after the coffee has been roasted since you get a good idea of how the green been roasts as a group of beans. The more uniform the shape and colour the better.

The I brew a cup using either my dosing grinder and semi-commercial coffee machine or my Jura bean-to-cup machine, and look at the crema, after 10 seconds. if it is still quite deep and reforms easily then the coffee still is fresh, and the oils are good.

The using my nose only I smell the coffee, and try and see what smell I can identify, once I have a distinct smell that I can almost name, or name I take a look at the outer part of the Tasting Wheel and then work in. Some time I get a combination of smells from different part of the wheel, I try and see which one is stronger, and note both.

I then taste the coffee, letting it roll around my mouth to detect bitter, sour, sweet and the feel (in the middle of the tongue). I note those down. A coffee that feels heavy in the mouth is more bodied.

Try this with your machine and tell me how it goes.