Storing roasted coffee
I get asked a lot about how to store coffees once roasted. Freezing, vac sealing, canning, you name it, I have heard it. So here is a bit of advice for those using fresh coffee:

Oxygen is your enemy. Do not use anything with head space for storage. Canning jars with the nifty valves do not work. Even small amounts of Oxygen expedite the coffee's volatiles toward flavor degradation. For oily darker roasts, it can even speed up the development of rancid flavors so think about keeping the air out.

Moisture is very bad. Freezing can be fine but if you don't protect the coffee from condensation adequately, moisture will contaminate it. Much like green coffee, humidity is always a contamination problem but it is the day to day variance in humidity that presents the biggest problem. Reseal if you can but think about a storage space with the idea of keeping moisture out.

Heat is not a good thing. I shouldn't even need to explain this one. Store your coffee in a cool dark place at a very controlled and consistent temperature, not your counter top by the kitchen window...

So there, it's really simple. If you are one of those low consumption coffee drinkers who needs time to work through a bag, get a vacuum sealer like a food saver canister or one of the hand pump vacuum canisters that's so popular right now. Either put your coffee in the fridge or a cool pantry/wine cellar and pay attention. It's not milk but treat it as such and you can be assured if it wasn't good on day 5, it wasn't something you did in storage.

Labels: aging the roast, article

  ¶ Jaime van Schyndel 1:05 PM 0 Comments

  Mis-understood drip
To many, drip coffee is the ugly blemish that they want to forget. I mean, no self-respecting "waver" will ever allow that dreadful Fetco compared side by side with Clover at their shops. The truth is, drip coffee accounts for quite a bit of business and is probably the most common method that home users (the normal kind, not your "geek" type that make up very small percentage of the market) utilize to prepare their daily coffee.

I have to admit that we too had our own bias against drip a while back. From our earlier experiences, the drip cup profile just did not have the intensity and flavor that a Syphon or Espresso profile possessed. It was not until we started to dabble in manual pour technique and have a better understanding of the roasting process that we finally understood the potential and power in drip coffee.

Just like ANY other coffee brewing techniques, when tuned with proper dose, temperature, time and roast, a cup of drip coffee can be just as flavorful, intense and satisfying as a vacpot cup. In fact, at a recent home gathering, a coffee drinking friend told me the cup of drip I prepared for him is nearly as intense and flavorful as a shot of espresso.

The following is my drip brewing technique. This method is based on the one presented in Simon Hsieh's book with my tweaks to tune for my machine/coffee/roasts.

The gears:
- Presto Scandinavian with modified shower head
- Mazzer Kony
- Melitta #4 filter - white (note 1)

Parameters:
- Use 10~14g per 6oz of water. Adjust if the cup is too intense for you...
- A fine grind (10~15 small notches from espresso on Mazzer SJ, 18~21 notches from true zero on Rocky).

Steps:
1. Fill the machine with approximately 8oz of water. Start the machine without coffee/filter in it. This preheats the machine.
2. Grind coffee while the machine pre-heats.
3. As soon as the machine is done pre-heating, place coffee in the basket, level the grinds (note 2), and start brewing immediately (before the machine cools down).
4. Turn the machine OFF after about 20 seconds. For me, this is about 3 "gurgles". The purpose of this is to pre-infuse the coffee and allow all the grinds to be saturated(bloom) before starting the remaining extraction. You will have to experiment with the timing of this cut-off - just pull the basket out to see if all the grinds are properly wet at various time.


That is it. With a little bit of care, this simple method can produce just as good of a cup as with most other brew methods!

Labels: coffee, drip methods, gear, how to

  ¶ Ben Chen 8:48 AM 2 Comments

  Why is fresh coffee so confusing?
This is one problem this industry really needs to get in gear on. We have this muddled idea of fresh ending at fresh roasted. Even the most transparent and progressive roasters are a bit vague on how far coffees are from harvest and that presents a crossroads for our industry.

When I think of fresh, there are four parameters: harvest, roast, grind, brew.

Harvest fresh being within 3-4 months off milling from parchment state or progressively packed in 'non-jute' to preserve that fresh flavor profile. From 4-7 months off harvest, coffees will be fine but aromas will already begin to diminish. 6 months and on, you are pushing how well the coffee can hold up and the acidity will diminish or turn rancid. Forget the soft coffees from places like Brasil or Colombia, they will be long gone by then. Wood, paper, lacking aroma... Do I really need to explain this again?

Roast freshness is the boutique industry(the online cognoscenti and niche roaters) standard. This seems to be the only way most 'Specialty' roasters distinguish themselves from the major chains. While most aggregate to the 2 week mark, a handful put best by dates going as far as six months out. You can almost guarantee these roasters have a market at a Whole Foods type grocer where turnover is hard to control. No roast date though, no idea of freshness.

Grind is a shop to shop issue. While more and more shops are grinding fresh or on demand, a lot of shops are still using the auto feature and filling hoppers or pre grinding drip brew. Whether the blades are serviced or sharp is another issue. As a home user, unless you absolutely cannot afford a grinder, there is no excuse for pre grinding coffee. Think of it this way: The bean is the final package and once it's open, all the flavors can escape.

Brewing fresh is a classic pitch that goes way back. Everyone has experienced the poor flavor of a pot that sat too long.

How important are all of these factors really? Do the customers care?

In the common market place, probably not. When you are asked to justify paying a bit extra for a shot or you are requested to splurge a bit at a cafe, yes. Not every shop in every market place can make these points matter but if one boutique roaster jumps in the deep end on all these points, it's likely many others will follow. Think about what that would mean for the purists among us wishing to really treat certain coffees like high end teas or begin to glimpse the wine model of labeling and marketing. A few bits and pieces to chew on while you think about what goes in your cup.

Labels: age, fresh coffee, green coffee, stale coffee

  ¶ Jaime van Schyndel 12:06 PM 3 Comments

  Dairy don't
I'm sure somebody would love us to make some scathing commentary about the WBC and why US baristi have failed to claim the top spot or make the finals. Maybe a scintillating discussion on the problems in the SCAA and BGA. No, not today... or anytime soon because thanks to Doug's pointing it out, we have a more vile and horrible thing out there.

Dairy.

I know, I know, how elite can you get? No milk in your coffee. Don't take my mocking seriously. It has it's place, really, it does. I'm not lactose intolerant but I also am not an addicted coffee drinker. When I am not working in coffee, I am not an everyday drinker. If I was, I might be a whole lot more tolerant of what was in the cup.

I live in Inman Sq. and let me tell you, going to the neighborhood shop and getting french roast off the heated pots, having sat who knows how long, extra cream and sugar won't hurt. Nobody should cast aspersions on the cream and sugar kind because it's always relative. It has a place in the hearts of habitual drinkers used to strong (dark and bitter) coffee or bland sour coffee(think D&D iced).

On the other side of the argument, a cup of Panama Esmeralda or a berried Kenya light roast might not be so hot in that milk. At steep per cup price tags, why would you be drinking it unless you wanted to experience the coffee straight? It's a case of a good match and getting elitist about it would imply we have come farther than we really are in the industry. Being insulted as a barista that someone added cream or sugar to your drink is really a bit immature and snotty.

I once had a goal to reduce the sugar usage and reduce drinks sizes. I achieved it not by lectures and attitude but by calculated changes in the product itself and specifically marketing towards the segment of drinkers already in the know. Now I realize, just approach the coffee as the best expression you can create and don't worry about being a soup nazi to how it is imbibed. In truth, your coffee may not be as good as you think, in which case a little cream or sugar might help.

Labels: dairy, milk, musings

  ¶ Jaime van Schyndel 9:14 PM 0 Comments

  About a machine

I love having a good lab machine. Ours is a GB5 and it is really giving me a go around. Being able to dial in different temps and work different extractions with nominal turnaround time between roats is a blessing.

Having started on an old Rancilio and some burnt out SM90s with some pretty questionable training if you could call it that (sorry Angry Andy), I appreciate this newer equipment. That was several years ago and I am not interested in going back or ever working with those who insist on keeping the dirty dull blades and uncontrolled HX machines in service. That shop now has an FB80 and some Majors, so it's safe to say things have changed.

Looking forward though, there is something we were aware of for some time. The equipment has caught up with our needs and no longer presents an issue or in the very least, the obstacle it once was.

That brings us to a new stage for a section of the community where there is some change happening. The move to manual methods. It can either be seen as a reaction to Clover now being unavailable or it could be a new focus for our endless tinkering and fidgety energy. The perpetual modding of our machines has come to the realization that the equipment exists in (nearly) finished form for the right price. A gicleur. a few new baskets, nice tamper, solid grinder, and go. That leaves us to spend some time practicing our pourover method and tweaking our syphon skills. A return to the simple art of manual method for a community so fascinated on technical mods and hacks.

I'm not really endorsing this movement but merely acknowleding it as a cranky forebearer. For long enough, the focus has been everything but the cup character with the misleading sermon on 'letting the coffee speak for itself.'

Self indulgence. Beautiful and incredibly fun, but indulgence still. Dog and pony shows where barista behave like ego driven rock stars and the coffees are accredited to the counter on which served and not the farm which bore them.

It is perhaps best expressed in the simple irony of how we obtained our site moniker back in the day when we had a more ideaoligical tint in coffee. Being criticized for being overly technical barista in a multi page diatribe by a famous figurehead of the coffee cognisceti where he offered this term up to put us down. It stuck and yet we are reinventing it as we go.

It is great having a wonderful beast of a machine that can jump through flaming hoops (figuratively) but the real beauty is that it helps take one more piece out of the equation towards better coffee. That just means more work on the coffee itself and less time alloted for excuses about the equipment.

Labels: article, gear

  ¶ Jaime van Schyndel 7:57 PM 0 Comments

  Herbs and veggies...

The vegetal taste in coffee seems to come from two main sources. Neither of which should be considered desirable.

One is the under ripe coffee cherry that adds a vegetal or herbacious note. You know your stuff when you can pick out the under ripes in a batch of unroasted coffee. The hemp descriptions of Sumatras and coffees like Chiapas come to me as more of a high under ripe percentage than true origin character. Under ripe are dulling so in a good roast, the sweetness is severely diminished by these buggers.

The other source is often a very common roast error known as roasting raw. This grassy astringency doesn't always become evident until the coffee is allowed to rest a few days and settle. Roasting raw is defined in the cup by a grassy smell identical to that of steamed green coffee and a punchy acidity that can turn weaker stomaches. It is often the hollow flavors and strong acidity that make this easy to identify as what we jokingly call 'green'.

Roasting raw is excessively common and can hide other problems in the cup while giving the fleeting impression of sweetness. The joke is that roasting raw can hide the age in a coffee and cover over a lack of character in some less stellar coffees where fixing the profile would make the coffees look decidedly poor. The cup will be initially sweet but eventually become hollow, have quickly fading flavors post roast, prove difficult in consistent brewing as a bag ages, and just unpleasant difficult to control acidity.

Labels: green coffee, roasting

  ¶ Jaime van Schyndel 2:31 PM 3 Comments

  Gimmicks and designs
Interesting bit if you can sit through it.


I wonder about the small shops who market themselves as the alternative to Starbucks and all it's corporate fury. Is their lone redeeming quality simply falling into a gimmick too? Being an indie shop is good, I guess, but if your product is no better than Starbucks... does it really matter? What if the McCafe on the corner has better lattes than both but with none of the emotional satisfaction purchased from either the branding at big green or the emotional comfort of rejecting the big bad corporation?

Labels: musings

  ¶ Jaime van Schyndel 5:53 PM 9 Comments

  Short updates

One Ben is in Taiwan, one Ben in Minneapolis, MN. That leaves me here just roasting and roasting... and cupping. Some great little breakthroughs as I begin walking the roasts lighter and working for more explosive origin character. It's not as simple as just go lighter, it takes some processes to get a balanced lighter roast. For me, I had to spend months getting past errors to a clean profile before I even got to this point of optimization.

The espresso has been a particular challenge as you have to wait for results. You can't make snap judgments on day one.

On another note of local bits n pieces, I just saw a TV Diner show with local roaster Rao's featured. I really don't like the TV Diner show but it was interesting to see a coffee person on there actually talking about freshness(of roasted coffee). For those of you not familiar with Rao's in western MA, they are a discount dealer that does a good local business. They are on the darker end of the roast spectrum and you can find them in almost as many cafes locally as Terroir and it's black label offerings.

Labels: musings

  ¶ Jaime van Schyndel 7:33 PM 0 Comments

  Attitude at the counter

I hate running into the holier than thou attitude with people behind the counter. Snarky signs demanding or shamelessly begging for tips along with generally indifferent service don't have a place in a profit seeking business.

When I was working behind the bar, I found out one simple fact. The environment you create will determine the customer base.

Over time, I ran across less demanding customers, less impatient people, and less nonsense than when I first started working because of a simple fact. We tried to act like professionals. Not everyone, but there was a sense behind the counter of conviction and pride among what felt like a majority. It felt like people were more patient and you had fewer people trying to take advantage of you. People knew how the system worked, they knew you knew, and it was a comfortable place to work.

Sure, this is just an empirical observation that was reinforced over a painful but short stint in a cafe not too long ago where I realized, it really is a delicate mix of personalities. It may not hold truths for everyone but I believe quality service and professionalism attracts better customers.

The problem is that it takes that majority to establish a sense of what the shop is. One out of a dozen has no effect. Especially if the other eleven are the type that think they can do a better job than the owner just because they show up when scheduled.

I feel like there are fewer and fewer shops here in town where you can just go in and have a coffee and you don't get attitude. Attitude when you tear them away from their scintillating conversation. Attitude when you watch them make the drink or show any interest in it being made correctly. Attitude for simply being there at all.

On top of that, the sighs, the impatience or flat out pretending you don't exist, there is the lack of care. That's what tops it off for me. hearing stories of friends going into shops where they have good equipment and access to real training but they simply don't care.

There's no excuse for that but I don't know who to blame.

I don't go into many shops these days because it wouldn't make any sense but every conversation I have had lately seems to center around this issue. It's like coffee shops don't try to hire people who actually like coffee anymore! There is nothing worse than hearing someone complain about a shop you have no control over. Even if I did say something, it's not clear I would get enough respect to be taken seriously.

At this point, you are probably wondering why I am writing this so here's where I pass the responsibility to you, the reader.

If anything, I have learned that it is you, as the consumer, who should speak up. Things don't change if nobody speaks up. Pull a manager aside and mention a missed detail, a careless mistake, or downright belligerence. What have you got to lose?

Otherwise, you could just keep putting money in that tip jar and hope that some day the service gets better.

Labels: musings

  ¶ Jaime van Schyndel 6:44 AM 9 Comments

  Weekly Dig Photo

I dropped in to visit friends and someone pulls out the weekly dig and asks me, when did they take this photo?

Jeez, seriously?!? Since I haven't worked in a cafe in months, this must have been at the Hsieh espresso event. The photo I get doesn't include my name, the shop we are in, or anything about coffee. Just another day in Boston where the press talk all day about oversized couches and cupcakes making the coffee shops but nothing serious about or reviews of the coffee.

There is a lot of dirt in coffee to be dug, pardon the pun, but it takes a serious approach and probably more time invested than most generic student focused assignments. Believe me, I understand that there isn't much to write about in the local coffee scene, very little to romanticize really, so it's not like I can point to some great grievance of overlooked quality.

I'd love to be out there and doing some tastings, really rocking the game with brewing events, and creating a scene but my newest project right now is bogged down in an insane catch 22. If anyone knows higher ups or has some sway with Arlington local government or is a local and just wants to help, drop me an email. Aside from that, everything these days is in limbo for the moment.

Labels: musings

  ¶ Jaime van Schyndel 6:09 PM 4 Comments