Stage Fright

Disclaimer: If you work in a coffee business that predominantly targets customers who are experiential, niche or already speciality coffee fans, rather than the general public, that's great but this post isn't for you. It is written with consideration for those who want to see good quality, speciality coffee reach its full market potential and be the norm with the general public and in coffeeshops across the UK.

Around 18 months ago I wrote a short blog post entitled Can We Make It Easier For Customers?  At the time I was a still relative newcomer to speciality coffee, and wanted to learn more. But it struck me that people within this niche industry were prone to using coffee descriptors that alienated customers like me.  I found it tough to relate to the use of ornate language, and was frustrated.  I also found it intimidating to order at some coffeeshops because (a) I wasn't sure what or how to order these types of coffee, and (b) the guy/girl behind the counter gave off seriously intense vibes that he/she wasn't interested in helping out people who didn't understand. Their expressions actually frightened me off.

But hey... what did I know?  I was a newbie, right?

As the months passed I became, as we all do, a coffee obsessive. As part of my learning process I worked on improving sensory skills. Early on I wrote How To Taste Coffee, which rather than being a tutorial (I was not qualified to write such a thing), was my (slightly embarrassing) attempt to work my coffee tasting and descriptive abilities into some semblence of a process that I could consistently repeat. I discovered the Wine Aroma Wheel and with it sought to expand my coffee vocabulary further. I took part in a competition, requiring me to (amongst other things) furnish the judges with a clear description of my drinks, using typical barista vernacular. I eventually learned the true nature of Ted Lingle's Coffee Flavour Wheel when I read the SCAA Cuppers Handbook, which provides masses of detail regarding coffee aromas, flavours and descriptors. I began adopting a formal cupping procedure to help develop my palate.  I became a home-roaster, delving deeper into the factors that influence the cup. I no longer felt like a newcomer. I had leapt over the bar and now stood behind it, beside my fellow baristas, talking the descriptive talk. In my quest for coffee knowledge I deliberately unlearned what it is like to be a relative newcomer to speciality coffee.

That's worth repeating. I deliberately unlearned what it is like to be a relative newcomer to speciality coffee. In other words, what it is like to be an average customer.

Shameful.

For anyone who (like me) has been on a coffee journey, investing time, effort and money in their passion, it is difficult to admit to having lost one's wider perspective. After all, we are speciality coffee evangelists, and we have conditioned ourselves to promote, with unwavering zeal, the path of righteousness. (Or could that be self-righteousness?)  In a bid to encourage dialogue between customers and coffeeshop staff regarding coffee quality, I set up a Facebook page to encourage sending back bad coffee - in the politest possible way.  I was so sure it would help the cause.  It didn't. No matter how tactful I was when returning the bad coffee, the dialogue was always awkward and feedback was always rejected. The gulf between my vision of coffee and their vision of coffee was so great that we could not even begin to find common ground.  Eventually I deleted the Facebook page as it was at risk of making things worse. Of making the gulf even larger.  Perhaps of making coffee afficionados like me look like cocks. In a completely unrelated incident, a sign appeared in an independent cafe window in Brick Lane. It read "No Coffee Wankers!"  It made me wonder...

But my self-assurance in preaching the speciality coffee gospel soon returned. "We know best, we self-proclaimed coffee geeks.  Yes... we know best. If only we could convince the general public. Those poor ignorant souls drinking bad coffee. " So we're back to dialogue. To communication. To good signage. To setting the stage. Surely these things will help convince the general public... the relative newcomer to speciality coffee, won't they?

As I write this I begin to see the similarities with Jehovah's Witnesses who knock on your door in pairs, like an odd version of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in Men In Black. There we are, we enlightened coffee folk, certain of our message, trying to find someone who will listen, who will be readily converted to the Church Of The Third Wave.  Normal people point at us and snigger.

I actually do passionately believe that effective dialogue and communication is so important to our industry's aims. Improved dialogue between the speciality coffee world and the relative newcomer/average joe customer. If done well then newcomers will flood to speciality coffee on a mass scale, rather than the dribbling niche movement that it remains to this day.  Effective dialogue and communication. This is something I think many in the industry agree upon, and the need for it has been documented exceedingly well by the 2012 UK Barista Champion in his blog.

But how can we do it well? How can we make the dialogue effective?  These are, to my mind, the big questions.  Despite some compelling arguments made by credible industry members, there is room for further debate. My view is we are still failing to get through to the public at large, still failing to make it easier for customers.  The messages are still not clear.
- We still use lengthy descriptors and flavour notes, and because we love them, and coffee-educated customers love them, we wrongly assume relative newcomers to speciality coffee will love them too. We bang on to the unsuspecting public about temperature, grind size, the altitude the beans were grown at, and how complex the brewing process is.
- We then demonstate this by pulling our a syphon with a halogen beam heater, temperature probes and squiggly stirring techniques. This makes us hope the customer will realise how skilled we are, and will suddenly realise the error of their ways & become a speciality coffee convert.
- We keep moving the goalposts. For example, last year we said that latte art a difficult thing to achieve and was a sign that your barista has devoted time to developing his skill. This year the cool kids are saying that latte art is easy to teach and should be avoided by any self-respecting barista. How are customers supposed to know which is good and which is bad?

Another reason we are failing in our communication is our over-aversion and over-reaction to the branded chains.  We all know the saying... "You can't hope to compete with Starbucks, so don't try. Focus on your strengths instead." So we focus on making good coffee, which we do exceptionally well. And we do a rotten job of various other factors that the branded chains do well, and which customers enjoy. For example,
- We spend as little as possible on environment.  We offer uncomfortable seating on makeshift or shabby second hand furniture, because we're distancing ourselves from the Central Perk comfy chair thing with its 16oz latte connotations. Little or no heating in the customer area. No background music and tweets about how annoying background music is (honestly - when did music of your own choice and played at your own volume become annoying?)
- We offer a tiny food menu, if any, thus making it all about the coffee. Admirable, but ultimately many speciality coffeeshop owners eventually either close down or increase their food focus as they realise (a) many customers like to eat something when they drink something, and (b) you have to sell a helluvalot of cups of coffee to cover your rent.

So we assume all of the above are the right things to do. And this false assumption is reinforced because we see other baristas and coffeeshops doing it too, and we tell ourselves that it must be right if that is what they're doing at that amazing artisan coffeeshop everyone's talking about. It must be right if our favourite roaster is doing it. It must be right - because if it turned out to be wrong then our egos would be crushed by how misguided we were. This highights another quirk of the specality coffee industry. We have our industry luminaries... often people who have achieved success in a coffee competition somewhere around the world. And because they have succeeded in that we listen to them. And often we trust their opinions more than they necessarily deserve or want. In a recent discussion someone said to me:

When a coffee pro, a respected one with great accolades, stands up and announces something… we should listen, then digest it, and THEN come up with a response that takes time to craft. MORE time than the professional spent on their original statement. Why more time? Because they have more experience in the field.

I agree with this statement... insofar as it refers to coffee and the preparation thereof.  But coffee industry accolades do not equate to business management success. Just because a World Barista Champ says something, that doesn't mean it is correct. Particularly if it is about marketing, or pricing, or interior design, or customer opinions across the entire nation.  It just means they have an opinion.

Like I say, we have these views regarding the right things to communicate what we do. And I admit it,   they are right - for some coffee businesses. Some customers like it. Some customers are immediately won over by what they see and experience. And some are attracted to the niche nature of artisan coffeeshops. And some are influenced by their friends and acquaintances who are already speciality coffee lovers. And some, like I was, are intrigued and interested enough to press beyond their initial confusion with this new and different way of presenting a cup of coffee.
But we in the industy are deluding ourselves if we truly believe we've found the best approach to dialogue and communication - one that will work nationwide, with the general public in its many shapes and sizes.

Saying anything unflattering about the speciality coffee industry feels weird, like I'm some sort of traitor.  But it is the opposite. I care about this enough to risk the wrath of my coffee colleagues. And I'm not alone in recognising this situation. As I type, the online coffee news magazine Sprudge have just published a piece on this subject, contrasting two US writers' views. In Time Magazine, Josh Ozersky's article The Perils Of Coffee Snobbery opening paragraph includes the statement - "The cult of coffee, at least in its most puritanical form, is deeply alienating, even to me". He goes on to say that "So-called third wave coffees...are the best coffees that can be had in America", but goes on to use terms such as "insufferably pretentious", "self-congratulatory" and "sanctimonious", and alludes to contempt for consumers.   Erin Meister's article All Get Along also recognises the jarring reaction that can happen when hipster baristas and ordinary customers meet.  Meister reminds baristas that customers are "not the enemy, and they are not 'beneath' you".

Initial responses to Ozersky's article from those in the speciality coffee industry are very defensive and somewhat savage, as expected.  Rather than take it as useful feedback, they see it as an insult and respond with more insults.

The US has a stronger coffee-drinking culture than the UK, and arguably experiences a lot of coffee-related scenarios a few years before the UK market does (for example, Intelli had customers queueing out of the doors for V60s long before pourovers were readily available in UK independents). So we in the UK have an opportunity to listen and learn from the experience of the US speciality coffee industry, and try to avoid history repeating itself - to curtail that disconnect betweeen baristas and customers before the phrase 'coffee wanker' becomes commonplace amongst the UK customer base, and Costa start using it in their adverts.

I don't have the answers, of course. Mainly because there is no single correct answer. The answer, if there is one, is that each of us ask ourselves the right questions... and come up with our own right answers rather than using someone elses.  So I can tell some of you MY answers, the ones we will adopt in my own cafe.

1. We will serve good coffee. I am happy with that descriptor. The best coffee, I hope. We will buy our coffees from a roaster who we believe is the one of the world's finest, for all the right reasons.
2. We will train our staff, and train, and train, ad infinitum, and they will self-train too. Not just in coffee, but in Hospitality... the industry in which we operate.
3. Our equipment ... I believe there is far too much emphasis on which machine a coffeeshop uses. The machines coming out these days are amazing, and make it easier for a barista do his/her job consistently well, but the machine must be fit for purpose and not just a badge to prove that you're in the Serious Barista Club. Excellent espresso does not require a multi-boiler with endless steam and a reflective plate on the drip tray for eagerly watching the naked portafilter drip at a rate so slow that the espresso tastes acrid. We are able to devote time to building love for our HX machine. Our grinders are possibly our most important fixed asset, followed by our building's water supply and treatment.
 4. We will not overwhelm customers with this information unless they ask us to. We will give them what we think is amazing coffee and let them decide. Often it will be free, as a sample taster.  I believe they will be able to taste the difference, and that will be one of the catalysts for their permanent transition to speciality coffee.
5. As I mentioned the syphon earlier, yes we will use that brew method. But judiciously, and only when it suits the beans and helps produce that amazing coffee.
6. We will use descriptors, and in truth we will not be afraid of simplifying our narrative. I would not call it dumbing down though. Dumbing down, whether in news articles, Saturday night TV, or indeed coffee, generally results in a lower quality product. Our product will retain its quality, despite being described in an accessible manner.
7. We will offer a mix of comfortable seating and reclaimed dining chairs to go with our handmade farmhouse tables.
8. We will use Extract Mojo for quality control and to help us dial in brewed coffees, but behind the counter, both literally and figuratively.
9. A significantly larger part of our net profit will come from food than from coffee. Shock horror. I said it. So does that mean our coffee will be any worse? Many will assume so before trying it, because it is usually difficult to find good coffee in a restaurant, so they will do the 2+2+5 thing. I hope I can change that.
10. There are different ways to apply it, and we will never compromise on quality, but we will consistently adopt a time-honoured principle that many coffee professionals have found difficult to reconcile with their own view of the world.  The Customer Is Always Right.  As a means of improving communication and dialogue, it's a good start I think.

A Short Break

My beverage learning process will hopefully never stop. It began with coffee. It is expanding into tea. I have always had a penchant for wines but the sensory education that coffee has provided translates very well to sommelier training, so that is another area to be explored. Who knows what after that?

But I need to place things on a temporary hold. The past few years have been building up to something, namely the opening and stabilisation of a cafe/restaurant. The opening part is now about to happen. Right now all my daytimes are spent at the premises and all my evenings/nights are spent at the computer on plans, equipment websites, writing web content, etc etc. Actually, the learning process hasn't stopped, it has just been redeployed. Today my wife stared at me quite dumbstruck at the various new language I've learned. "Low pressure gas meter running at 21 millibar"... "a dot-and-dab is no good, it needs framing and a kingspan board"... "we need a rodding point up by that alkathene pipe".  When you open a cafe/restaurant there's a lot more to it than food, drinks, service and management. You become (to an extremely unskilled degree) a jack of all trades.

So for a short time I probably won't be able to post anything on this blog, since I won't have time for dedicated academic learning on the beverage front. My learning will be hands-on, in the cafe.

See you on the other side of the opening phase.

Milk Chemistry In Espresso Drinks

Recently I switched the type of (cow's) milk I use in espresso-based drinks, from Arla's Cravendale (which is marketed as, and rumoured to be the barista's favourite in the UK) to milk from my local dairy. The milk has approximately the same fat content of just under 2% (semi-skimmed), but it is visibly much more of a solid white rather than having that slightly translucent appearance that Cravendale semi-skimmed has. It also tastes more like whole milk... more flavoursome ... more wholesome.  In a traditional 6oz cappuccino it makes fewer bubbles, smoother microfoam, and results in a more delicious coffee drink. As a barista I just find it to be a better ingredient.

So if we assume a 1oz shot (I'm using volume rather than mass just to make it easier to communicate) and 3.5oz of milk (pre-stretch), that cappuccino consists of (very approximately):

• 2.2% coffee solids
• 20% water
• 77.8% milk

I think that as a breed, we barista are learning more about the smallest part of this cup, the coffee... about the fruit and the beans themselves. Great. Some of us are also learning about the next largest part, brew water... how water TDS is just the tip of the iceberg and different waters dramatically affect the covalent bonds that are broken, and compounds that are created & extracted during the brewing process.  Even better.  So to me a logical progression is to understand more about the ingredient that comprises the largest part of what is in many customers' cups - the milk.

I have so many questions. For example:

1. Obviously, what is it that makes one milk taste better than another? Cow diet, no doubt, but which dietary components lead to which milk flavours? Shouldn't we be speaking more closely with milk suppliers regarding this? 
2. Why does my new milk have less bubbles when steamed? (This one has been discussed on forums and it has been suggested that it relates to the use of supplements in cow feed during winter. I'd like to find other possible reasons.) 
3. What chemical reactions are happening during the steaming process, and how do each of these affect flavour? 
4. The whole "don't stretch the milk after 100F" thing is such an established part of barista training, but what is it all about (what IS denaturing of proteins)?

There is a lot to uncover, it is going to get technical, and I am by no means a natural when it comes to chemistry! So in the meantime maybe it's a good idea to get some 'quick wins'... snippets of info that might open this up a bit.

87% of milk is... water! So even in the average milky cappuccino, around 88% of the cup is actually H2O!!

Lactose is a sugar found only in milk. It is often said that milk sweetness in a cappuccino or flat white comes from the lactose.  However, lactose is about 30 times less sweet than standard cane sugar.

On arrival at a dairy, up to 10% of the content of milk is gas... including CO2 and nitrogen. A source of bubbles, perhaps?

 UPDATE: It seems Morten Münchow is the man when it comes to milk chemistry relating to coffee. Let's see how I get on...

Changes in store for WBC Judges and Competitors

During the recent World Barista Championships we saw Stephen Morrissey (2008 WBC Champion) discussing WBC judges' scoring with the comperes, Nicholas Cho, James Hoffmann and Stephen Leighton. For me his insights were fascinating. For example, he said (and I'm paraphrasing, so forgive me if this isn't exactly correct) that the ideal scoresheet as completed by a judge is one that should need no further verbal feedback... that for every score on the sheet, the judge should write a comment explaining that score well enough for the competitor to understand why that score was given. Upon hearing that I couldn't help feeling that, however, that Stephen's is perhaps an idealistic view of the transparency within WBC scoring. My own experience was extremely rewarding but it left me with many unanswered questions and not enough clarity of what I need to do differently in future competitions. (“Buy a watch” was the advice jokingly given by one judge, after I overran by 37 seconds.)

Stephen is on the Board of World Coffee Events (WCE), the organisation that runs and regulates the World Barista Championships - including coordinating judging activities. I wanted to understand more from Stephen's perspective, so I wrote to him. I'm sure he's a busy man and can't reply to every email from random baristas around the world. Nonetheless, I stuck my neck out because if you don't try then you will never know. Surprisingly, he did read my email and contacted two of his colleagues at WCE – Ellie Matuszak and Carl Sara, who are the Co-Chairs of the committee that oversees all of the competitions. The three of them decided to respond!

Thanks so much for agreeing to this. For the benefit of readers could you please explain who you are?

We're chiming in on behalf of the WCE Competition Operations Committee (COC). The COC is responsible for the work around this topic.

Great! So... judging & scoresheets seem to be a sensitive subject for competitors. What are your views on how well the current system works?

At present judges are evaluated based upon the Judge Competencies framework. However, no secrets... the current status of WCE is a bit unusual. The assessment tool, the Judges Calibration Workshop, was built before standardized training toward it was created.

So there is a gap in how judges are trained to attain the competencies required to judge?

That is why we are working on that training now. In fact, WCE is currently developing a standardized judge training program to be in use at the National Body level. We formed a specific subcommittee to develop these modules, the Instructional Design Subcommittee or IDSC.

Ah yes. I recall Instructional Design from the SCAA Instructor Development Programme. In short, it's a model for building training courses.

You will recall that proper Analysis, Design and Development can make all the difference in creating a successful training program or not (this is called the “ADDIE” model of instructional design). No point in doing any Implementation and Evaluation unless and until the AD&D are fulfilled. This training program is huge. It is going to be about 10 separate modules, and based entirely on training toward the Judge Competencies.

Sounds good, but what does this actually mean? What will be different?

The changes you should expect to see range from the obvious to the less-so. First, judges will be trained better, meaning they will be explicitly trained toward successfully meeting the Judge Competencies (= better judging: more fair, more transparent, more accurate)

That's a lot of training. So to clarify, would this new training only be given to judges at the World Championships, and not at a National level such as the UKBC?

No, actually the opposite. We still will not be training judges at the World Level- all training will take place at the National Body Level. Judges can qualify to judge in the World competitions by passing the Judge Certification Workshop. This means that judging from nation to nation will be more consistent. Judging from the National Body level to World Barista Championship level will be more similar. No more surprises as in "my Head Judge trained me to do it a different way" etc.

And hopefully it will go all the way through to Regional judging too (i.e. during National Heats), where there have been some high profile critics of the standard of judging. How do you hope to get this training delivered across so many judges in different places?

Long term, we hope to continue to leverage the parent companies to grow and distribute the training, but we are still working out the details of what that means exactly. (Full disclosure, I am employed by one of the parent companies.)

So we should have better trained judges in future, who will all have a better understanding of the rules and how to apply them. Great! But what about competitors? We need a clear definition of what the judges expectations are. No secrets! I have previously suggested a Competitors Calibration Workshop. What is happening to address that?

One of the forthcoming changes is that anyone who wishes to can sit the National Body level judge training. Active barista competitors may not judge in competitions, but can sit the training. Other interested parties who want to learn about WBC (coaches, volunteers, newbies) can participate in the training and learn something without committing to judge (though we hope they do if they want to).

So attending the judges training will help to prepare competitors for their performance on competition day?

In fact, some modules will be specifically designed for use in the months prior to a competition, rather than at it.

Thanks, Ellie. It sounds like a big improvement to me.

Thank you for your candor and enthusiasm for the process of improving WCE activity as an educational tool.

--------

As a first time competitor in 2012 I saw many good things and some not-so-good things. There is currently, I believe, an unnecessary communication-gulf between competitors and judges. Some judges seem to recognise this but are unsure how to make things better. When I have previously asked for more clarity from judges, I have been told “we are not allowed to coach competitors”. This problem presents a great opportunity for improvement! Both parties could and should work together more collaboratively. It seems to me that the guys at WCE have become aware of that, and are being very proactive in addressing it in a professional manner. I think the changes mentioned above are nothing short of a giant leap for barista-kind, and I look forward to seeing how this is rolled out globally. There will be challenges involved in implementing the new training program, I suspect, but if it is implemented well then the outcome will be a larger number of highly skilled baristas throughout the world due to the competition being an even better learning tool than it currently is. In my view the WBC remains one of the best possible avenues for learning and fulfilling our potential as baristas, and the future of the competition just got brighter.

To learn more about the voluntary members of the WCE Advisory Board go to http://www.worldcoffeeevents.org/about-us/advisory-board/

Obligatory Coffee Books Post

I've blogged numerous times about how stupidly difficult it is to become an educated barista via any sort of good formal training in the UK - particularly outside the London area. I'm self-educating, out of necessity. Today someone else from outside London contacted me for advice regarding coffee books, as he is experiencing the same problem I am with the poor education framework and how slowly things seem to improve, if at all.  Taking matters into your own hands seems to be the only way at the moment.

So here's my list of books. Some of them are rubbish, and some are literally amazing in the depth of knowledge they summarize and pass on. I wasn't going to do a 'coffee books' post, but it seems a logical way to reference some of the methods I've used to learn more.

Starting a coffeeshop type books

The first coffee book I bought. I think it's very good, if a little ... well, very... dated now.  So many people want to open a coffeeshop and this book gives a decent account of the process it entails, by two people who made the leap in a very organised and professional way. They did their research, and the book helped me clarify what I would need to do, and how to do it. It's a daunting process, but this book provides inspiration, confidence and practical advice.  It doesn't have all the answers of course, but it gets you started.

My next two books.  I had a splurge on books at this point! Both good ones. Not much about coffee but tons of practical and well structured advice about planning the business, preparing to open, post-opening activities etc.

 

The Coffee Boys are well known coffeeshop consultants, always running workshops at cafe events etc. Their books are fantastic as the boys (well... middle aged men!) share their knowledge of management theory alongside their own practical skills in running several businesses. It is very effective and it's easy to get quite swept along by how easy they make it all seem. Definitely good reference manuals for shop owners if you can avoid being hooked into their upsales techniques (well, they are consultants!). Not specifically at the speciality coffee market, and that is probably a good thing.

Barista books
So you get into coffee and eventually realise you need to read something a bit more detailed concerning how to make your coffee.  There are three obvious buys. No need for details... they are all bibles.

Crap books
I bought these three books because the SCAE-UK advise on their website that they may be useful in coming up with signature drinks for the World or UK Barista Championships. Nothing could be further from the truth, and if you base any of your sig drinks on the ones in these books you will be openly sneered at by UKBC judges (they seem to sneer at everyone, but these books will guarantee a full on filthy look!). Total waste of money, the lot of them.

Home Roasting

I reached a point in my coffee brewing where I realised there was a limit to how well I could make coffee without knowing more about what happened to that coffee before it reached me. The way it is roasted affects how it extracts. This is an excellent book to read even if you don't plan to home roast. It includes some fascinating history of coffee (often coffee history is written in a very boring manner, but this is very readable stuff), processing methods used at origin and how it affects the green beans, a little about different regions, and of course heaps of good stuff about the hows, whys and whats of the roasting process.


Wider reading and Coffee Origins

Then there are what might easily be thought of as 'coffee table' books if you go by the title and cover, but they contain some very useful information about coffees around the world. Brilliant for gradually building up an understanding of the characteristics of coffees from different regions. The world is such a big place, and it takes time to properly understand the differences, and WHY they are different... along with the key growing areas in each country.

Now I need to be careful here. The version I have was published in 1981, so it is very obviously out of date. Farms and growing regions have changed enormously, as have processing technologies, and also the varieties grown. So my version book cannot be relied upon. But if you can find an updated version (eg the one shown is the 1996 version - still old but more useful) then there are still things to learn from it.

I love this book. It touches on history, tasting, roasting, grinding, brewing, and most of all has a Global Coffee Directory, that is up to date and gives a really nice overview of many different growing countries, along with a small map of key producing areas and typical ratings for Body, Acidity and Balance from the country's speciality coffees (if a national generalisation can be made).



Advanced Books
Well... advanced is a bit of a misnomer. Really these are beginners books, but they are for serious beginners - those who have been into coffee for a while, learned a fair bit, but now feel ready to gain a much deeper understanding of coffee.  After reading (and re-reading!) these books, I think it's fair to say that the reader will be well on the way to becoming very knowledgeable about coffee.  In the US these are required reading for SCAA qualifications. Sadly here in the UK baristas seem to be disinterested in this level of detail. I'm not sure why, but perhaps because these books may seem like less 'fun' because of their detailed content. But I think they are worth knuckling down to... worth the extra concentration it takes to fully comprehend and then make use of the learning they provide.  I hope for two things: (a) that more people in the UK buy and read these books. (b) that the SCAE-UK will start to stock them for sale. I had to import mine from the US.

By the way, don't assume that the cuppers book is just for cuppers. As well as cupping, it is all about sensory skills. If you ever wanted to make that vital connection between your mouth, nose and brain, this is the book for you.

AeroPress, Hario Mini Mill Grinder, and Gold Cup Extraction

At the time of writing this, the most-read post on here is one I wrote quite early in this self-education process. It covered my early attempts to find the best grind setting with my Hario Mini Mill when brewing with the AeroPress.  I think it's a really important combination of brewing equipment, since the AeroPress is touted as such a simple way to get a clean cup without an expensive pouring kettle... and also because low cost hand grinders are possibly the best way to get more people drinking fresh coffee in their own home.
When I wrote my previous post confounding factors got in the way, such as:

1. my inexperience with the AeroPress
2. being new to the grinder
3. having only a basic understanding of brewing (chemistry etc)
4. and the biggest problem - having no frame of reference other than repetition, trial and error to guide my tasting towards an end result that seemed perhaps acceptable.

So I'm now a little older, and (perhaps) a little wiser in the ways of coffee, and for some time I've had a nagging desire to go back to the AeroPress/hand grinder combo and try again.  Then the other day someone asked my to give them some advice regarding using the AeroPress and a Porlex, which seemed like too good an opportunity to ignore.  I'm also planning to have the AeroPress as a brewing method in my forthcoming cafe, and to help customers learn how to use their own brewer to make tasty coffees back in their own home, with a hand grinder.  So an updated blog post is probably warranted.

VST LAB refractometer

The great thing is that I have a refractometer now, which is a massive help with overcoming problem #4 from above.  I can experiment until I find the grind setting, temperature, steep time, degree of agitation etc etc that gets me into the Gold Cup zone, and from there start refining based on taste.

My starting technique was:
Inverted
14g coffee
Mini Mill setting of 5 clicks back from the 'fully closed' position
230g water at 80 degrees C
Fill, agitate gently at 30, 60 and 90 secs, then plunge slowly.

Failures
My first three attempts... changing grind setting from 5 to 6 and back to 5 again, agitating more, raising water temperature a little... were all under-extracted, coming in at a concentration strength (TDS) of 1.03%, 0.97% and 1.10% (I'm aiming for 1.30% TDS, giving an extraction yield of 19%). This was really surprising as the grind setting is really as fine as you would ever want it for the AeroPress and any finer would just clog the filter.

Perhaps the grind quality from the Hario Mini Mill isn't helping the extraction process take place effectively.

So anyway, I needed to raise the TDS without changing the brewing ratio.

A degree of success
I raised the water temperature to 90C (1 min 20 from boil with the kettle lid opened).
Half fill, swirl.
Fill to 230g.
At 30s sink crust. At 1 min stir left, right, left, right. 1m30s repeat. 2min lid on and plunge. 2m30s done.

The TDS of this brew came in at 1.25%, with an extraction yield of 18.26%. Statistically a good extraction, within the Gold Cup range.
It tasted ok... rounded, balanced, inoffensive and quite enjoyable. But very little in terms of aroma and flavour. I expect more from this fantastic coffee... Nicaragua Finca San Jose... so something is still not right and again I suspect that this grinder is part of the problem.

Perhaps if I grind coarser and increase steep time and agitation further...? But this isn't the direction I particularly want to take as I don't want to turn the AeroPress into primarily an immersion system, which is what would happen if the grinds are so course that there is very little resistance when plunging. Nonetheless, let's try it...

Interlude: Spot the 'deliberate' mistake...
At 7:30am today I tried to make a coffee. In my bleary, tired state this happened. I suspect it's something that most people have done at some point... at least I hope it isn't just me!!

Reaching the limit
Keeping the grind the same (5 on the Mini Mill) I increased temperature to around 95C, just a few moments off the boil.  I extended the steep time to 3:30 minutes, with a further 30 seconds for plunging (total brew time 4 mins).
Results:
Well the taste was better. More rounded, more complex, more acidity. Still a little lacking in depth of aroma though.  Damn! TDS = 1.26%, giving an extraction yield of 18.41%.  So close to my target, but I'm amazed that almost doubling the steep time only increased the concentration of the coffee by one hundredth of a percent!
Something else is at play here. It must be.  And when that happens then the first place I always look is Water. I'm using bottled water - Highland Spring. What could there be about this water that might inhibit the extraction process?

Having read the SCAA Water Quality Handbook I have no real issues with any of these figures except one: "Bicarbonate 150mg/L". This is a measure of Total Alkilinity. The SCAA Standards for this are 40mg/L (ideal), with an acceptable range of 10-100mg/L.

Why does this matter? Because the higher levels of alkilinity in the water does two things. First the alkilinity neutralizes the acidity inherent within the coffee, reducing flavours and making it taste 'flat'. Secondly (according to the Handbook) it makes the coffee particles expand more, which slows down the movement of water in the brewing process, increasing the steep time. (This second statement is open to interpretation though. Personally I take it to mean that more time is needed to achieve a target extraction, but I could be wrong.)


So I do believe the Highland Spring water, despite being better for coffee brewing than most bottled waters, is limiting how well I can brew with the AeroPress... or indeed with any brew method.
In a bid to check this I changed to my Mahlkoenig Guatemala grinder and made a brew with the AeroPress, attempting to use a similar size grind. I ended up using a slightly coarser grind, which will have reduced the TDS of the final brew, but the results seemed to confirm my thoughts regarding the water. Using the same method as above, with a total brew time of 4 mins.  TDS came in at 1.18%, giving an extraction yield of 17.23% ... outside the Gold Cup range. It actually tasted better than the Mini Mill brews that WERE in the Gold Cup range, but clearly there is something hindering extraction other than the grinder, grind size, water temperature, and other typical brew parameters... water.

**Update** a few days later I found a water source with an identical TDS and a calcium hardness level of 61mg/L - statistically very good from a hardness persepctive. It has a pH of around 8mg/L... a little too high... and a sodium content of around 11mg/L, almost double the Highland Spring, but close to the SCAA target.  I haven't yet established the alkilinity levels. Anyway, this different water, with the an almost identical TDS but differences in OTHER water characteristics, had a profoundly different effect upon the extraction process. The result was a BIG difference to both the extraction stats and the tastes and flavours.  TDS went up to 1.37%, and extraction yield to 20.04%.  The flavours were more pronounced, which is great, and it was ok to drink. Unfortunately it now tasted slightly over-extracted to me. There were hints of (perhaps) acids that didn't enhance the flavour.  I had now left it to brew for too long!

Summary
So I guess here's one way to get a fairly good Gold Cup extraction from the AeroPress using a Mini Mill. I'm sure there are others, and if you find a good approach please let me know :)

Extraction Yield	18.41 %
TDS	1.26 %
Dose Weight	14.0 g
Brew Water Weight	230 g

Coffee Details

Brew Water Start Temp	95°C
Brew Time	I think this is a critical factor defined by your water chemistry. See comments below.
Method
Roaster Name
Roast Style
Farm/Farmer
Grinder	Hario Mini Mill
Grind Setting	5 Clicks

Note
14g coffee
Minimill setting 5. Quite Fine.
230g Water 95C, just off boil.
Inverted AeroPress.
Insert grinds. Half fill with water. Stir well to ensure pre-infusion. Fill to 230g (to the rim).
Stir left, right, left, right at 30secs, 1min, 2min, 3min. Fit the filter. NB - Steep Time could range anywhere from 1 minute to up to 4 minutes.  I suggest a 2 minute brew time and then a 30 second plunge, and on subsequent brews either increase or decrease the time if it tastes too weak or too strong.  

** FURTHER UPDATE - AUGUST 2012 **

At the 2012 Nordic Barista Cup event Vince Fedele of VST Inc, who designed and manufacture the VST Coffee Refractometer, made in important announcement regarding coffee brewing using Gold Cup standards. The announcement directly affects brewing with the AeroPress. When you use infusion/immersion brewing methods (as I am using the AeroPress above) and then filter it, part of the coffee liquor is retained in the grinds. This skews how the resulting extraction yield is presented. So what we may have previously thought was an 18.5% extraction is actually over 20%! To compensate for this it is necessary to increase the dose of coffee used in the brewing process. So looking back at the figures in my summary, the theory goes that I should actually have used a dose of 16g rather than 14g if I wanted to achieve an extraction of around 18.5%. That 2g will have a huge impact upon flavour, and it might help explain why throughout all the above brews, none of them tasted any better than merely 'good'.

Coffee prices in the UK

I've read a few blogs, had a few conversations, and caught a few tweets lately that were unconnected but all seemed to stem from to one common concept... the notion of referring to "the UK coffee market" as a discrete, singular entity; something that can be generalised about.  Here's an example relating to a fairly common debate :

My own humble opinion is that the UK public, if I had to generalise, is not convinced that coffee prices are too low or that despite the ongoing economic problems an increase in their daily coffee spending would be an acceptable hit because man, that coffee is just so worth it.  Granted, if you break down the UK into regions then in some areas there is greater understanding of speciality coffee coupled with greater affluence, and the micro-market (of consumers) in those areas would quite probably accept higher coffee prices. I'm talking about areas of London primarily, which over the past 5 years or so has developed a thriving speciality coffee scene. But London is London and nothing more... it is not the entire UK and is certainly not representative of other regions. It is infact the minority.  The majority of the UK coffee market... the "public" if we are generalising... aren't there yet. Very often people who passionately devote their lives to working in speciality coffee lose the ability to see the world from a non-devotee's perspective. 

You cannot just increase price. Whether the price of something rises or falls is due to 'demand and supply'. People often use that phrase but have never had the most important part explained... the equilibrium price. We all know that as the number of people who want to buy a product increases (table 1), the price rises.  Conversely if lots of suppliers enter the high street selling the same thing, then the price will tend to fall (table 2).  If you put the demand curve and the supply curve together then there is a point at which the meet. At that point the demand for the thing being sold (eg speciality coffee) matches the amount available from shops/suppliers, and the result is basically a price at which everyone is happy.

Table 1

Table 3

Table 2

I agree that baristas deserve to be paid more. I also agree that as the quality of coffee increases, and farmers adopt better production methods, this should be reflected in the price they are paid. This in turn does need to be passed on to consumers. But simply increasing price will not work. Before a price increase will be tolerated, much more work is needed to increase public understanding of the distinction between commodity coffee and speciality coffee, and the value of that distinction.  Without this, an increase in price will result in a decrease in demand for speciality coffee. The market will stall, and good shops will not survive because customers will not perceive any reason to pay more what they think is 'just coffee'.

I haven't yet visited Colonna & Smalls in Bath, but it is clear from everything they do that communication is first and foremost. For a classic example see this post from their blog. Their communication is what enables them to distinguish their speciality coffee in the eyes of the public. In turn it will, I have no doubt, allow them to quite rightly charge more for what is a higher quality product. They do not simply increase price. 

The extent to which those in the speciality coffee industry need to invest time and money on effective communication depends upon how mature the market is in the region their business serves. In the part of Scotland where I live the phrases "single origin", "pourover" or "varietal" mean nothing to the coffee drinking public. The perception is that high street chains surely do it better than anyone (even though there isn't one within an hour's drive!), men of a certain age will demand a white coffee & refuse to order a latte because using fancy names makes them uncomfortable, and the average salary is around 40% lower than that of their London counterparts (1).  Things are changing, of course. Scotland is experiencing its own coffee revolution, fueled by entrepreneurial people in the main cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. But again, Edinburgh is Edinburgh and nothing more. It has its own demographic groups. There is no 'UK' speciality coffee market - just a collection of small and distinct markets that are not yet joined up.  It will take time. Let's not get ahead of ourselves please, and for God's sake let's stop referring to London as the UK.

Notes
1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/nov/24/wages-britain-ashe-mapped#_