GroundLevelCoffee

… of coffee cupping.

It’s one of those things that you wish you could do, but don’t know the best place to begin.

Perhaps it’s best left up to the experts - but they may be wrong. And we each taste differently and enjoy different aromas and flavours.

Another thing with aromas and flavours is that they allow or encourage us to reminisce - they hint at something in our memories - maybe a place, or an occasion where we smelt or tasted that before.

But at the end of the day I think it’s important when trying coffee to know if it’s good and if it’s worth drinking (or buying), and how something better may be able to be coaxed from the bean through a different roast.

In recent weeks I’ve had a bit of a search over the net for information about coffee cupping. There’s a Beginner’s Guide to Cupping on CoffeeGeek. Fortune Elkins often speaks of cupping on her bread coffee chocolate yoga blog. (Like here for example). Tom Owen from Sweet Maria’s has a monochrome copy of the SCAA’s flavour wheels available.

I’ve tried cupping only a few times. The first time was at a coffee geek gathering early last year. The second time was at the OzGreens gathering at Toby’s Estate a few weeks ago. That again piqued my curiosity and so I’ve sprung for a copy of Ted Lingle’s Coffee Cupper’s Handbook from Sweet Maria’s.

It arrived today and so I’ll commence a deeper journey in the future into cupping. The mysterious art may lose some if its mystery.

The Aeropress arrived late last week and I’ve had a chance to make a few brews with it.

First impressions are that the variables take a bit to pin down. How much water? Temperature? Quantity and grind? Do I dilute the product? If so, by how much.

After probably 8-10 cups over the weekend, I can produce something drinkable. I grind around 1 2/3 scoops of coffee at a grind perhaps half way between my usual espresso and SwissGold/plunger grind. I use enough water to come to the top of the oval ‘2′ on the Aeropress piston. I dilute around 1:1 with hot water and add my usual milk. The result is similar to a moka pot or Americano-style drink in terms of flavour and strength. I’m guessing my grind is a tad too fine because plunging the Aeropress takes a deal of effort - I wonder how easy it would be to break a cup?

It seems to require about twice as much coffee as the SwissGold, but with a relatively short extraction time (30 seconds, maybe), I guess that makes sense.

The coffee from the Aeropress is stronger but thinner than my usual brew from the SwissGold. There are no fines, and the coffee lacks a bit of the substance as a result. You can drink to the bottom of the cup without coating your tongue in mud.

Clean-up is fairly easy - about on a par with the SwissGold or a plunger.

For some reason one of the better accompaniments to coffee is biscotti. I’ve tried only a couple of recipes for biscotti in the past couple of years, but this was the better one. It uses pistachios rather than almonds.

Pistachio biscotti

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
20 minutes standing time
Makes 1 loaf

50 grams butter, softened
½ cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ cups plain flour
¼ teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon baking powder
100 grams shelled unsalted pistachios, roughly chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line an oven tray with baking paper. Place butter and sugar in the small bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

2. Sift flour, allspice and baking powder and add to the mixture. Fold in pistachios using a metal spoon. Shape dough into a 30cm-long log on a lightly floured surface. Place the log on the prepared baking tray and bake for half an hour or until it is golden brown and firm.

3. Let stand for 20 minutes until cool. Using a serrated knife slice the loaf on the diagonal into 1cm-thick slices. Place slices onto a prepared baking tray and bake for further 10-15 minutes until slices are crisp. Cool for 5 minutes then place on a wire rack to continue cooling.

(This recipe came from the December 2003 issue of Better Homes & Gardens, but I couldn’t find it on their website.)

Having returned from holidays earlier this week, that first evening I fired up the Diadema, bunged some Dominican beans in the Macap and proceeded to pull two “15 second blonde gushers”. Was it the beans? The grind? Problems dialling in the grinder? A machine that had sat unattended for a week? Poor dosing, distribution and tamping? I didn’t know.

The next day was a similar story even with a finer grind - blonde, fast, gushing.

Day three saw an improvement. I’d roasted some 1-1-1 blend a day earlier and, though it hadn’t rested enough, it was my bean of choice for that evening’s lattes. The time was better - around 22 seconds; the colour was OK - browny-red rather than blonde; and the stream was OK - about 50 ml.

Day four was a repeat of day three - “must have been the beans”. Maybe.

Day five - today - saw a slightly larger dose and harder tamp. Shots were in the vicinity of 28 seconds for the doubles, and the quantity was a tad on the small size: Ristrettos. Not bad as lattes.

The moral? Stick to basics: Beans, grind, dose, distribution, tamp. In this case it was predominantly the beans: The Dominicans were roasted for plunger and were around 9 days old. I would have eventually pulled a decent shot from them at a finer grind, but it would have taken a couple more days.

We’ll soon be embarking on a week’s holiday ‘in the country’. Since an espresso machine and grinder isn’t near enough the top of the packing list, I’ll take a lighter approach to coffee-making for the duration.

The kit will comprise:

• A SwissGold one cup coffee filter
• A Zassenhaus knee mill
• A 7 gram scoop
• Two types of pre-roasted beans: A Dominican Republic and an Ethiopian Harrar.

On the bean front, I reckon the Dominican is one of the best coffees I had last year, and the Harrar will offer a good contrast to the Dominican.

I reckon that kit is about the smallest and lightest allowing for on-demand grinding. For those times when more than one cup is required, the SwissGold also serves as a very useful filter through which steeped coffee can be poured.

It’s twelve months to the day since I bought my current espresso machine: To me it’s a Diadema Junior lever but it goes by a variety of other names. In the US it’s a la Valentina; the machine is physically badged as an Arte di Vittoria -replete with the ‘Winged Victory’; but it’s manufactured by BFC and the compliance plate calls it a BFC Junior (Plus).

So what is it? A single-group, semi-commercial machine with heat exchanger and E61 clone group. A picture can be seen at the CosmoreX Coffee site.

Am I happy with it? Overall, yes. It’s been a source of occasional frustration; and I’m sure I only get 70% quality out of the machine. Some shots I’ve pulled have been fabulous, and other have been nearly undrinkable crud. The expression that the majority of problems are caused this side of the portafilter is undoubedly true.

There are so many variables behind a cup of coffee:

• Beans - type, age, how processed, storage at every stage
• Roast - roast method, profile (temperature ramp and time at different temps), degree of roast, length of rest period
• Grind - fineness, consistency, how long ago, tamp & distribution (where applicable)
• Brew method - plunger, vac pot, moka pot, espresso machine, filter/chemex, other drip, etc.
• Water - temperature, water hardness, water pressure (espresso machine)

To name a few

Some are controllable, some are not. Some are significant, others not so much if at all.

One thing that is controllable and qualitatively discernible is the rest period. That refers to the time since the roast that the beans are ‘consumed’. Most beans I use are used between 1 and 10 days after roasting. Rarely less than 1 day, and I try to avoid beans as they close in on two weeks old.

Different roast methods and different beans benefit from differing rest periods. Last week I roasted some Jaque beans in an Imex. On day 3 they were a bit ‘bright’, but on day 4 they’d changed and become rounder and more complex.

I usually leave beans for my espresso machine to rest for 3 days before grinding. For plunging I’m not normally so fussed - but these Jaque beans at 4 days were noticeably better than at 3 days. Perhaps I’ll pay more attention to rest days in future.

What’s the point in creating this blog? Well, as a place to record and trace some small parts of my journey in coffee.

I’ve been homeroasting for a little over two years now and in that time my willingness to drink instant and percolated coffee has diminished almost to zero.