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.

Brewing Fundamentals a great guide

There are many ways to brew great coffee, I found this an interesting read:

With wine the wine maker has complete quality control up to the time of bottling - coffee however requires that the consumer use a bit of their own craftmanship during preparation. There are a number of variables that can ultimately ruin a cup of coffee - temperature, weight, extraction time, etc.

The Coffee Brewing Center (CBC) looked at a number of factors to try and remove the guess work in producing the perfect brew. Led by Dr. Earl Lockhart, in the 1960's, their research has become thee body of knowledge in truly understanding the physics and science behind coffee brewing.

Before discussing the fundamentals its important to define some basic brewing terminology, namely: strength, extraction and brew formula. Together these three variables make up the building blocks of what creates aroma, taste and body in coffee.

• Strength refers to the measure of solubles present in the beverage and usually expressed as a percentage of the flavoring material to water
• Extraction or sometimes refers to as "solubles yield" - refers to the amount of solubles extracted from the bean itself and also expressed as a percentage.
• Brewing formula refers to the ratio of water used per quantity of coffee.

Brewing Control Chart

Much of Dr. Lockhart's work at the CBC was dedicated to the creation of the "Coffee Brewing Control Chart" which is still in use today. In essence, the brewing control chart provides a graphical representation of strength, extraction and brew formula in an easy to read format.

By measuring the soluble coffee flavoring content in brewed coffee relative to brew formula, the CBC was able to graphically represent "solubles yield" given the coffee to water ratio. This provided the industry with the framework in which to discuss and compare coffee quality.

To determine any one of these variables simply select a brew ratio (depicted as diagonal lines on the chart) and beverage strength or extraction can easily be extrapolated. This is discussed  in greater detail below, but for now, one important thing to remember is that, according to the CBC, the best cup of coffee is obtained when approximately 18-22% of the flavoring material is extracted from the bean. As such, this infusion would represent a beverage with a corresponding strength of 1.15-1.35%. When both these factors are met, the beverage is said to be at its "Optimum Balance" and is depicted as a grey box in the center of Brewing Control Chart.

SCAA Brewing Control Chart

Click for larger view (pdf )

Strength (solubles concentration)

The amount of flavouring material contained in a beverage will vary depending on brewing method used. Typically a drip cup of coffee contains roughly 1.2% flavoring material and 98.8% water. Whereas, a typical espresso will contain on average a flavouring concentration of 1.8-2.2% and ~98.2% water. Making coffee is a potent flavoring material.

Luckily, strength measurements can be made relatively easily using a number of different instruments. The most common include the use of hydrometers, conductivity, brix and and moisture microwave. Since their relatively cheap, TDS or - total dissolved solids - are the most commonly used in the industry. For all practical purposes, a TDS meter is just a customized conductivity meter that relates the amount of coffee flavoring material based on its conductivity across a coffee infusion. For example, a reading of 1800 TDS refers to corresponding flavoring material content of 1.8% and 98.2% water on the Brewing Control Chart.

Figure 1: Strength

Click for larger view

Extraction (solubles yield)

Approximately 28% of the organic and inorganic material in a coffee bean is water soluble. The remaining 72% of the material consists on insoluble cellulose which serve as important structural components for the bean. Upon the addition of hot water much of the soluble material readily dissolves to create important flavor and aroma compounds in the cup.

As shown in Figure 2, a 20% extraction (shown at the bottom of the chart) indicates that 20% of the soluble flavoring material was dissolved in water. For example, if 10 grams of ground coffee was used in brewing, the bean would have lost 2 grams of soluble material to water. Because the rate at which these soluble compounds dissolve vary, changes to grind, water temperature, brew time, coffee weight and brew equipment will invariably produce vastly different beverages. For example, extractions below 16% produces a beverage with a weak peanut-like flavor, while extractions over 24% producing over-extracted bitter characteristics. Well discuss this subject in other sections later.

For now, the key is to brew coffee within the "Optimal Balance" having 1.15-1.35% coffee flavoring material.

Figure 2: Extraction

Click for larger view

Although it may seem intimidating at first, using the Coffee Brewing Control Chart will provide for the basic groundwork in which to ensure consistent beverage preparation.

References:
Lingle, T. The Coffee Brewing Handbook. SCAA

Edited version of the originally found at: Brewing Fundamentals. | Brewing | Quality

How much is bad quality coffee costing you as a business?

It is not the first time I have read articles like this one: High quality coffee at the office – Would you still go the Cafe?

Here it is summarized and applied to South Africa

Do your employees love their coffee fix? If so they normally are quire fussy about the fact that it has to be a good quality coffee and consistently good. But the coffee at work just does not make the grade.

So as a result what do they do? A few times a day they make the trip down to the cafe or local coffee spot to grab their favourite brew. An employee normally does not consider how valuable the time away from their schedule is. But as an employer this down time is costing you a fortune.

What if you could have consistently great coffee at your workplace without leaving the office. A fully automatic coffee machine using real fresh roasted quality coffee beans, ground to perfection with a high quality conical grinder will produce that perfect blend every time at the touch of a button. Not only are you saving time out of busy schedules but now have the convenience of grabbing a great coffee right at your workplace.

Having a fully automatic real bean to cup coffee machine in the office also looks very healthy on the bottom line.
Lets have a look at some calculations. How much would it cost an employer with say 30 staff over the space of a year to pay for time away from the desk for Coffee.

• Number of Employees – 30
• Coffee Breaks per day – 2
• Average Coffee Break time – 10 minutes
• Average hourly rate – R50.00
This calculates out at a cost to the employer of R2,500.00 per week and R130,000 per year. That’s an expensive coffee break!

Your coffee is great, (but still no order)

I was once told by a colleague that puppy dog marketing is the most effective form of marketing. You give someone something they love and then they want to keep getting it.

Well if that is the case the question I ask the is over the last month we have given samples of our coffee to a number of people, everyone of them have come back to us saying the coffee is great. Of those two of them then carried on ordered from the person they had ordered from, and did not even blink.

Do they think our brand is so exclusive? I am blown away by how people make decisions. Anyone out there got an explanation?

Coffee Territory - A great blog

I found a great blog

Coffee Territory - Part 2

Here they have posts like:

• What temperature is appropriate?


• Coffee “Eskimo” recipe


• Jamaican coffee


• French coffee recipe

What I like about the blog is that they use real coffee in their recipes rather than the instant type.