How to understand more about Coffee Part 3

Brewing Suggestions

No matter which method or invention you use to brew your coffee, most authorities urge you to do the following:

• Grind the coffee as fine as you can make it without losing any through the holes in the filter of the coffee maker. Never grind it to a powder.
• Use plenty of coffee: unless your coffee maker instructs otherwise, at least 2 level tablespoons or 1 standard coffee measure per 6-ounce cup.
• Keep the coffee maker clean, and rinse it with hot water before you brew.
• Use fresh water, as free of impurities and alkalines as possible.
• Brew with hot water, as opposed to lukewarm or boiling water. Boiling damages coffee flavor because it vaporizes much of the coffee essence while it continues to extract other bitter chemicals. A temperature of 200 degrees F is ideal, which means bringing the water to a boil and then waiting a couple of minutes before brewing.
• In filter and drip systems, avoid brewing less than the brewer's full capacity. If the pot is made to brew six cups, the coffee will taste better if you brew the full six.
• If you live in an area with alkaline, or hard, water, periodically run a strong solution of vinegar through the works of your brewer to clear out lime deposits, and rinse thoroughly.
• Some don'ts: Don't boil coffee; it cooks off all the delicate flavoring essence and leaves the bitter chemicals. Don't percolate or reheat coffee; it has the same effect as boiling, only less so. Don't hold coffee for very long on the heat for the same reason. Don't mix old coffee with new; it's like using rotten wood to prop up a new building.

Ninety-nine percent of a cup of coffee is water. If the water isn't pleasant to drink, don't make coffee with it. Hard, or alkaline, water does not directly harm flavor and aroma, but does mute some of the natural acids in coffee and produces a blander cup without the acidity snap. Water that has been treated with softeners makes even worse coffee. Use bottled water or a filter system.

Tasting Coffee

Learning to Taste

  Anyone interested in becoming a coffee connoisseur must learn to taste. You may well want to compare samples of various coffees at the same sitting so you have an idea of what coffee terminology actually describes. (You'll find a complete list of coffee tasting terms in the Coffee Glossary.) Remember that dark roasting mutes or eliminates distinctions in flavor, so make certain you take this into account when comparing various roasts. It's best to buy all of your samples from the same supplier, so that your palate won't be confused by differences in style of roast. You can either make individual samples with a small pot or a one-cup filter cone, or brew the way professional tasters do. In either case, use the same amount of each coffee, ground the same and brewed identically.

Professional tasters assemble a clean cup or shallow glass for each coffee to be sampled; a soup spoon, preferably silver plated; a glass of water in which to rinse the spoon between samplings; and something to spit into.

• Put one standard measure (2 level tablespoons) of each coffee to be sampled, freshly and finely ground, in each cup...
• ...Pour 5 to 6 ounces of near-boiling water over each sample. Some of the grounds will sink to the bottom of the cup, and some will form a crust on the surface of the coffee. Wait a couple of minutes for the coffee to steep...
• ...Then test each coffee for aroma. Take the spoon and, leaning over the cup, break the crust. Virtually stick your nose in the coffee and sniff. The aroma will never be more distinct than at this moment. If you want to sample the aroma a second time, lift some of the grounds from the bottom of the cup to the surface, and sniff again.
• After you've broken the crust, most of the grounds should settle to the bottom of the cup. Use the spoon to scoop up whatever remains floating on the surface and dump it into the improvised spittoon. Top off the cup with fresh hot water...
• ...Now take a spoonful of each coffee, lift it to a point just below your lips, and suck it violently into your mouth. The purpose is to spray coffee all over your tongue in order to experience a single, comprehensive jolt of flavor. This inhaling of coffee spray should give you a notion of flavor...
• ...Now roll the mouthful of coffee around your tongue, bounce it, chew it even. This exercise should give you a sense of both the body and the acidity of the sample. Also note how the sensation of the coffee develops after the first impression; note whether it changes and deepens, or whether it becomes weaker or flatter. After all this, spit out the coffee, noting the aftertaste. It's a good idea to concentrate successively on each of the broad tasting categories; i.e. taste all three samples for acidity; then taste all three for body; then for flavor; and finally for finish, or aftertaste...

...Continue to taste as the coffee cools. Some characteristics reveal themselves most clearly in a cooler coffee. If your palate becomes jaded or confused, sip some cold water or eat a bit of bread.

Espresso

Espresso is several things at once. It is a unique method of brewing in which hot water is forced under pressure through tightly packed coffee, a cup at a time. It is a roast of coffee, darker brown than the normal American roast but not quite black. In a larger sense, it is an entire approach to coffee cuisine, involving not only roast and brewing method, but grind and grinder, a technique of heating milk, and a traditional menu of drinks. In the largest sense of all, it is an atmosphere or mystique: The espresso brewing machine is the spiritual heart and esthetic centerpiece of the European-style cafe.

A Remarkable Cup of Coffee

Good espresso is rich, heavy-bodied, and almost syrupy; furthermore, it has the characteristic bittersweet bite of dark-roast coffee. The sharp flavor and heavy body make it an ideal coffee to be drunk with milk and sugar, but hardly the sort of beverage to be consumed unsweetened or in large quantities. Most espresso drinkers outside Italy prefer cappuccino, a drink made of about one-third espresso and two-thirds hot milk and foam, or caffe latte, an even milkier drink. In either case, the milk dilutes and mellows the strong, sharp coffee

Espresso Brewing Fundamentals

Coffee and Roast. Café espresso is brewed using a coffee roasted dark brown, but not black. This roast is called Espresso, Italian, or French in stores.

There are two requirements for making good espresso. First, you need to grind the coffee just fine enough, and tamp it down in the filter basket just hard enough, so that the barrier of ground coffee resists the pressure of the hot water sufficiently to produce a slow dribble of dark, rich liquid. Second, you need to stop the dribble at just the right moment, before the oils in the coffee are exhausted.

Grind. The best grind for espresso is very fine and gritty, but not a dusty powder.

Filling and Tamping. Fill the filter basket with coffee to the point just below the brim, spread it evenly, then lightly tamp it down. Never use less than the minimum volume of ground coffee recommended for your machine, even if you are brewing a single cup.

Brewing. Timing is everything in espresso brewing. The richest and most flavorful coffee issues out right at the beginning; as brewing continues, the coffee becomes progressively thinner and more bitter. Consequently, collect only as much coffee as you will actually serve.

Frothed Milk. Espresso is a strong, concentrated coffee, and, in accordance with European tradition, many of the drinks in espresso cuisine combine it with large quantities of frothed milk.

Whole Bean vs. Ground Coffee

Fresh-ground coffee may smell wonderful, but it doesn't stay fresh for long. It loses its aroma and taste very quickly. That's why canned ground coffee never measures up to fresh-ground coffee. We recommend that we ship you only whole roasted coffee beans for maximum freshness.

Specialty vs. Commercial Coffees

The coffees I advise you to buy are known in the trade as specialty coffees. The opposite of specialty is commercial coffee. From the consumer's viewpoint, the most immediately noticeable difference between commercial and specialty coffees is packaging: Commercial coffee comes in little bottles of instant or is already ground and packed in a tin or a collapsed, plastic-encased brick. Specialty coffee comes as whole beans, either in one-pound bags or in bulk, and usually needs to be ground before it's brewed.

Commercial coffee is typically roasted and packed in large plants, under nationally advertised brand names. Specialty coffee is usually roasted in small stores or factories, using traditional methods and technology, and is often sold where it's roasted.

Specialty coffees offer considerably more choice than commercial coffees. You