Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 13, 2016 - 02:26pm PT
Not really sure why, but I have completely delved into the surprisingly weird world of coffee.
I have been fortunate to be of a generation that has only known good coffee, but there are these amazing coffees being grown, picked and processed in very particular ways to create flavors you are probably not expecting from coffee.
I went to Thump coffee in Bend a couple weeks ago and the owner let me taste a coffee from Ethiopia that tasted like blueberries were mashed up in it, he explained that it has to do with the way the coffee cherries are left in the bean and allowed to dry and ferment which puts the fruit flavor from the cherry into the coffee bean.
As I get older I find that having a cheap hobby that I can enjoy while I'm injured is great!
Next time your in Bishop stop by The Black Sheep and get some of this if they have it in. I'm pretty fortunate that this small little town on the east side not only has great climbing but great coffee as well.
Coffee is natures way of telling us to get sh#t done.
Its also a legal drug that properly works and should be enjoyed as such. All the silly jive and ritual of any drug is fun with coffee if you do it right.
Youve got the right end of the game - being a wanker with complex order is lame, but getting into the growing, trading, and processing is interesting. Coffee has an interesting and often dark history worth knowing about as its the most traded commodity after heroin and oil.
Seek out the cypriot, bulgarian and armenian communities. Theyve been quietly drinking the good stuff for decades while weve been holding cups of caffeinated dishwater.
I love coffee but have had to curtail my intake 2 fold. Now I only have 2 shots a day and in 2 separate short single americano doses. I like Blue Bottle varieties as well as Vivace and slowly becoming a semi-local favorite of mine is Doma. We have a local roaster that sucks balls, it is as if they don't try, maybe they don't need to?. Anyway, it is one of those life is short things for me.
Cold brew is perfect afternoon coffee. When you just need to float the high, top up the addiction, but not mess with the come down before bed.
Great stuff.
I had a Kenyan coffee from a roaster in Vancouver BC that tasted identical to a jam made of black currents I picked up in Squamish, so good and weird and good.
Moka pot yes. Where you develop the feel for extraction. None of this drip bullsh#t.
Is that zombie runner that has/had the cult online store? Serious sh#t. Id trust them on coffee if so.
Coffee has fine tradition of subversion and radicalism. Was never meant to be a watered down yuppie urban time filler.
What is blowing me away is how great the customer service is at the better coffee shops in Portland, especially if you are interested in getting some knowledge about the coffee. From what I've been told there is no reason to be a dick in the coffee business because there is always something to learn, every single coffee is different!
Watch the documentary Barista if you want to see a movie about a barista competition... Weird and cool!
Skitch. Agree one shouldnt be a dick about the bean.
But ine should be outraged by the way some people corrupt it and screw it up then pretend they know its a good cup.
I sincerely stand by my statement, if you believe that a Mokapot is capable of proper extraction then that's between you and your tastebuds!
I have a Moka pot, la Pavoni, vacuumpot, v60 and an Aeropress and I only use those last 2. I prefer medium to lightly roasted coffee (mid to end of first crack) that has a bright acidity and no bitterness.
Do you have a refract omelet to determine your TDS?
I totally agree with you on taste. Its the purveyor i dont always agree we.
Me, i judge coffee as a drug. Quality of product, quality of extraction in relation to effect. Like any drug, my brain not my tastebuds is the final adjudicator.
If you want to try a really crazy coffee (no flavorings are added!) this coffee has some really incredible berry/fruity/floral flavors, but it's kinda expensive:
Thanks for the link. My favorite breakfast is at Paul's Diner in Fountain Vally: spam, scrambled eggs, rice, sourdough toast and plenty of Farmer Brothers coffee. Said coffee once described by the LA Times as "a decidedly mediocre cup of coffee."
Which still made enough money that Roy F. Farmer had to have an "accident" in his bathtub so that "investors" could loot the cash held by the company.
French press is and has been my go to coffee making method for a long time now. I've been eyeballing the aeropress. Anyone that uses both wanna give an honest comparison?
French press typically has a lot more body compared to Aeropress, the paper filter in the Aeropress filters out more of the oils, but you can get a steel filter on Amazon for the Aeropress.
I personally love the Aeropress and find most French press coffee to have a muddy texture that I don't like, but that's probably more to do with the quality of the grinder more than the press.
I actually enjoy the little bit of cloudiness that my french press gives off but that me be just because I'm so used to it. I will probably buy the aeropress and the steel filter just to see. You can never have to many ways to make a cup of joe in the house. I'm actually enjoying some Peruvian from the Black Sheep right now.
Cragman
I have a VERY high metabolism and a very low body fat percentage. Coffee doesn't amp me up at all. I can finish a cup and be asleep 30 minutes later. It's always interesting how different people handle substances.
My dad claims that he is allergic to the oils in coffee, but he was diagnosed by a Navy Doctor, probably around the time he was drinking way too much. My sister and I drink tons of coffee without issue.
I like about three cups a day in the morning. Generally grind some stuff we buy at costco, guesstimate the amount for the filter and the water, and just go for it. Out in the sticks, starbuks instant is our got-to.
Lost my taste for 7-11 coffee and the like; but then again I always loaded it up with creamer and sugar, perhaps to hide the burnt ash flavor of it. Nowadays, I seem to prefer something of a moderate roast with a bit of nutty flavor to it.
I'm a fan of the Moka pot, especially since we don't have an espresso machine. Really like the stronger flavors of the darker roasts, especially Peet's Sumatran.
When we were on the big Island of Hawaii, I became a fan of Kona. Super smooth, but it lost quite a bit in translation on its way to the mainland. Just became bland without the citrusy notes.
After getting our first real latte in months when we were in Thailand, I also became a fan of using a French press to foam your milk. Just warm the milk before agitating it and you're good to go.
Original poster probably sampled Ethiopian Amaro Gayo @ Thump; its a great cup and what I'm brewing at home right now (last bit gets brewed tmw). All the hip farm-to-cup roasters are on it: Thump, Irving Farm, Brooklyn, No. 6 Depot, Temple. I've had from each and it tastes the same each time so maybe they are all of equal genius? Drank a Panamanian geisha earlier today - novel but not worth one bit of the hype.
In the end, its all just a cup of coffee. When I go climbing, I pick up a morning cup at DD (s'ok) or The Bakery (not as good as DD).
Phil-B: I was learning about espresso machines until I realized I don't really enjoy espresso. That is an "e-61" machine, which is the type of group head on the machine. A good one that can foam milk while you pull a shot costs around $2,000. I picked up a used La Pavoni lever machine for $400, probably more than I should spend since I don't care so much for the espresso.
Also: the reason your coffee tasted bland back in the states is coffee ages fast! I won't even bother with a coffee that was roasted more than a month ago, all of the citrusy brightness (fancy coffee/beer name for the tasty acidity) has somehow left the bean, maybe through oxidation? If a coffee roaster doesn't date the roast date on the coffee then I won't touch it.
I was thinking/learning about starting a coffee shop in a Podunk town in BFE, but I've decided to at least hold off on that dream.
The best thing to do is let sit for 6-10 minutes, but if you can't wait: You can try to pull up on the lever to attempt to release pressure, and rotate the portafilter handle to 90%~ and push on it to release a little pressure, it can still spit wet grounds.
The Pavoni sucks if you want to make more than one drink...partly because of the above, and mostly because the temp isn't regulated and gets too high. A master on a Pavoni might be able to regularly make two cappuccinos Ina row, but you need to have 2 filter baskets with both of them ready before the first shot is pulled.
If you're ever in Bishop I can show you a little bit!
Locker, try KlatchRoasting in the Upload area. They have many kinds of coffee and espresso and some of their single origin espressos are amazing. Their one from Salvador that they have right now is really good. I always make cappuccinos so I don't know how their regular coffee is but they always have a huge selection and if you order beans they come to you roasted a day or two before.
Good new hobby. Much easier than wine but more complicated than beer and less fog inducing than weed.
I've found the DeLonghi Magnifica to be a very acceptable espresso maker. Retail price is about $1200. You can get them for less when slightly used. I got mine on sale for $400.(Score!) Lots of crema.
There are many good coffee's the trick is to get clean uniform beans.
The secret to bad coffee (Starbucks, Peet's, and other big names) is broken beans. Easy to spot.
You can clean bad coffee by sorting it on a cookie sheet. (Like we used to do to remove stems and seeds).
The big names also over roast to increase shelf life.
Dark roast is good if you want to add milk or milk foam. Strong flavor.
Medium roast is good for naturally sweet and chocolaty coffee. Needs no milk or sugar. Short shelf life, maybe one month.
Light roast is often citrus and other nice berry flavors. It is a pleasant break from other coffees. A great afternoon coffee. Short shelf life, maybe a couple of weeks.
Fresh roasted coffee needs about 5 or 6 days to be good. Yesterday or the day before is no good.
If the roasted beans smell good the coffee will be good. If they don't smell good just throw them away.
Coffee oxidizes which makes it taste sour. That is why the big guys nitrogen pack coffee.
Easier for me than wine, I can't drink the good stuff! Plus I am 100% caffeine addicted, and thankfully I enjoy alcohol, but I could easily live without it.
You're in Bishop? Lol I had no idea when I posted that link to The Black Sheep upthread. Next time you go to Manor stop by and grab some Smart Ass from Kicking Horse. It's a tad bit dark but it's pretty damn good. I stumbled on it a few months ago. My wife picked it up as a sort of joke. Mainly because, well, I'm a smart ass.
I have definitely drank a lot of black sheep coffee, but in the last year the quality is super inconsistent and their is only one Barista (Charlie) that has any coffee or customer service skills. Hopefully this winter brings in some experienced baristas, and the roasting gets figured out.
Coffees a brilliant drug. If i got even half as loaded as i do on coffee on any other drug, even sugar let alone tequila or grass, production would taper off and id be dead in about a year. Its an addiction well worth it, with minimal negative social impact compared to other drugs too.
Id go so far as to use the production as a model process for other drugs.
Skitch, yeah I figured it was oxidizing. Flavor changed so much in a couple of weeks.
I have a friend who repairs food sorting machines. The first batch of food through the machine after repair often gets tossed. It's still good, but they can't afford any possible issues so they toss as a matter of course. He often just grabs that food for home use. Best was when he had a job to fix the coffee sorting machines in Kona. Scored a few pounds of green beans that job.
However, roasting green coffee beans is quite the art. The first cracking produces a sh#t ton of papery skin. The trick is stopping the roast at the right time so it isn't burnt. He found an easy way to get a blond roast was to use one of those air poppers for popcorn. If you ran it on your deck, it just blew the paper into the yard. However, for darker roasts, you'd need a way to cool the coffee quickly. Air hockey table? It'd probably get ruined from the oils in the coffee.
Maybe it's time to start thinking about getting a home roaster too. sweetmarias.com has pretty good descriptions of the how-to.
If you really want to dive into the deep end, check out this YouTube vid on coffee varietals:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
that's my problem. Over about a 6 month period I go from a little cup a day in the morning to twice a day mega-mugs, then the stomach starts barking and I have to lay off for a month or so before I can start the cycle anew.
the sacred mega-mug. Just had to start an off month, it's got green tea in it now.
I once had to do a Nexium regime to calm it down, and this was back when Nexium wasn't cheap. The doctor told me "in reality, just quiting coffee will do as much for you as taking these pills". Of cousre it's illegal to say such things here in Costa Rica and I think the Policia de Café came and took him away.
so, any comments on the fine art of grinding and grinders?
I remember reading somewhere that you are not supposed to freeze coffee beans. The freezer removes moisture from the beans (it doesn't just freeze and retain the moisture in the bean)
Srbphoto: I do, look up "Carretto Roaster" if you want to see how I do it. It's a fun, but challenging hobby. I'll do an amazing roast, but then I can't duplicate it. Green coffee is only around $6-8 per pound, you lose 15% of weight when roasted.
So I roasted 2 new coffees last night, and I'm drinking one right now, a Rwandan, which is a bit premature, but it is great, there is a brown-sugar sweetness to it that is incredible. I'm super excited about this one.
Anyone living in the bishop area interested in starting up an informal coffee roasting club let me know?!? We can share beans and shipping, compare roasts and learn together this fun and relatively cheap hobby. Plus the more you learn about coffee the more you learn that you have a lot more to learn!
I roast green coffee. My roaster is an old popcorn maker with mods. I drink espresso so my expensive equipment is the Mazzer super jolly grinder. I pair that with a La Pavoni Europiccola and manage decent shots. I get my beans from Sweet Marias.
Jebus, have you tried the Japanese iced coffee method? Looks like the difference compared to cold brew is heated extraction then cooling rather than cold extraction.
I'm a gen-Xer on the outside and a millennial in my head.
I don't like wine, but I definitely "look for" interesting tasting "notes" in coffee.
I really do not understand why people get bent out of shape and have strong opinions about other people's preferences. My guess is people just try to start fights so they can get a few seconds of attention, I know I have done that before.
Who the phuk has time for dripping, especially in this crowd? Ya gotta grind and boil and
wait and clean up and worry about re-cycling and all that shet! Fire that espresso machine
up and get on with it!
Just one more religion to fight about??? No thank you.
Just like I don't want the Mormons telling me how great their way of living is, but I'm fine with them making their choices, I believe their are multiple ways to get caffeine into your brain and its up to you to choose your personal favorite.
Smug levels :) I was chasing the perfect shot thus the mazzer. There are very good hand grinders made but I'm lazy and it gave me an excuse to run power into the cave.
Pirn is a great analogy, but like porn theres a spectrum of quality, effect and specificity. Each to their own of course, but some people entertain unconvincing ways of explaining their tastes.
I splurged last year and got one of these. It's great because it doles out exactly 17.2 grams every morning. Makes consistent espresso pulls much easier when you always have exactly the same amount of grounds.
Man, you guys are killing me with all these high quality grinders. I went with this bad ass grinder. It makes a great french roast grind but it's a joke for espresso. But it was CHEAP and I always use the french press.
Got two different kinds of Ethiopian roasted beans after readin the thread, best home brewed coffee I've had to date (aeropress). Thanks for the heads up Locker.
The type of brewing method should dictate how good of a grinder you need.
For espresso you need a grinder that produces a bi-modal distribution of sizes so that the smaller grounds fill in the voids provided by the larger grounds, but without a lot of grinds falling outside of the two necessary grind sizes. I don't understand how this is done.
Most other types of coffee brewing taste best with a uni modal distribution of particle sizes so that the water extracts evenly from each ground.
If you try to use a Mahlkonig EK-43 (one of the top grinders for espresso) for a pour over you are going to have a bad time. The smaller particles will basically cause the coffee to become a plug and the water will move too slowly through the coffee resulting in over extraction, which causes the coffee to taste too bitter. If you use a grinder that is great for pour-overs and French press then the grinds don't create that plug necessary for slowing down the flow of the water through the portafilter (that's the handle with the filter that the coffee is in). When the water flows through the coffee too fast you will get under-extraction of the coffee which results in a sour espresso.
Particle six, temperature and contact time are three important variables to getting the "correct" tastes from coffee. Under-extraction is caused by water being too cold, grind size being too course, and/or to limited of contact time between the coffee and water. Over extraction is caused by the inverse of those variables.
If I roast a coffee a little too long then I will try to under extract it a little to limit the bitter tastes and give a little brighter taste. For really light tasting coffees I will often user a higher temperature water to bring out more flavors to prevent the coffee from tasting too acidic.
A good barista should be "dialing-in" the espresso grinder through out the day and using taste as her guide.
The reason "coffee snobs" dislike the whirly-blade grinders so much is the lack of grind size control they provide, which will often result in a muddy tasting coffee compared to coffee prepared with a conical grinder.
But as with everything else you shouldn't worry about what other people think is good, if you have fun on your $200 Kmart bike then you probably don't need a $6,000 downhill bike... I personally can't drink "good" wine because I can't stand the dryness, I want my wine to taste like sweet grape juice!
Skitch, you should try something other than the wine equivalent of $200 Kmart bikes. :-)
I suggest a '07 or '08 Trimbach or Schlumberger Riesling. Jess sayin'.
A friend is divesting himself of his home roasting setup and gave me his kit.
There are two systems in his kit.
1. The whirly popper is an electric popcorn popper with a wire that spins on the bottom of the pan. This isn't hot enough, so he added a small convection system to the top. I ran this system for a few days with 2/3 cup of green Guatemalan beans. Did runs of 22:00 and 30:00, but all I got was a weak roast.
2. The air popper with an old can for chimney. I ran 1/2 cup of beans for 5:00 and got this dark oily roast:
For cooling, I have a fan mounted to the bottom of a small bucket and put a colander on top of it
I can put an ice pack inside the bucket if I want the air to be a bit cooler before it hits the colander too.
My friend says the coffee will degas CO2 for a day or so before it hits optimum drinkability. Not sure I can wait though. . .
Anyone else here notice that all the really great coffees are east African Rift Valley types? I've known that for years ever since I was at Stanford where my lab tech had been laid off from Hills Brothers in San Francisco. He convinced me the African beans were the best!
The best African coffee was from Zimbabwe, but it's no longer available--at any price! Highest caffeine content of any coffee! It was what I drank when working very late and needed a real boost!
Have we discussed burr grinders here? Does anyone have a strong preference? aim waiting on a capresso, but i have heard good things about baratza? Any takers-and this will primarily be used for drip coffees, not pulling shots.
A simple Chemex pour over is my go-to brewer. I have a vacuum press that I bring out sometimes, too.
While there are quite a few good coffee shops around, nothing beats roasting at home. The process, smell, quality (and price!) can't be beat.
If anyone has questions about the process, definitely hit me up.
All time favorite coffee was the old (no longer available, the exported died in a car accident) Harrar Horse Ethiopian. I've tried many "Harrar's" since and nothing comes close to the amazing blueberry notes in the original.
Baratza has a grinder coming out called the Sette that I'm interested in, The Hub coffee shop in Reno is using one for their decaf espresso and they say it works well for small batches, as long as it doesn't get too hot. I wonder why grinders need to stay cool? Is because warm coffee beans grind poorly?
I have a Baratza Vario W and love it. You wouldn't believe how much difference it makes to the taste of the coffee. I used to have a Gaggia MDF and this is so much better. The new Sette looks really good for a great price point.
" A new report from Australia's Climate Institute says coffee production worldwide is in danger because of climate change. It cites a study that says "hotter weather and changes in rainfall patterns are projected to cut the area suitable for coffee in half by 2050."
Man, you guys are killing me with all these high quality grinders. I went with this bad ass grinder. It makes a great french roast grind but it's a joke for espresso. But it was CHEAP and I always use the french press.
You can significantly improve the uniformity of particle size with this style grinder by simply picking it up and inverting it a couple of times while it grinds.
You can significantly improve the uniformity of particle size with this style grinder by simply picking it up and inverting it a couple of times while it grinds.
I have that down to an exact science. I thought I was the only one who ever did that. My wife looks at me quite strange when I pick it up and invert it while it's grinding. lol
This month's Pasadena Audubon meeting will feature a talk by a reknowned birder on bird-friendly coffee growing practices. Who knew birds liked a good cup o' joe?
So I am looking to buy a new espresso machine and was looking at the Gaggia Classic. I read that it has an aluminum boiler as opposed to a brass boiler found in higher end machines.
Any thoughts on this?
I also read that the Classics are no longer made in Italy, which is disappointing. So I might be looking at other machines in that price range that are made in Italy.
My local store has a brand called Avanti which claims to be made in Italy with brass boilers and a sharp price point but I'm not finding any info online. The story is that this is an 'in-house' brand where they take parts and pieces of other machines and put them together and brand them.
I'd love a Rancilio Silvia but that's out of my price range.
The new Costco business center stores have huge bags of really good roasted coffee, whole bean, for incredible prices. (you could rebag, label and resell at 3-5x mark-up)
I got a 2 pound bag of this organic Mexican coffee that is like sipping dark chocolate. Soooo Gooooood.
heroin has arguably a more important medicinal effect, but yeah, social acceptance is important for a drug to really get done up just right. coffee is good, caffeine is better, I say.
We drank some more coffee. Yesterday's fresh coffee isn't as good as today's fresh coffee, but it is far, far better than no coffee.
--Robert B. Parker, "Bad Business"
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