Similarities between rice and coffee storage

Rice is about as commodity as it gets. Well, I like to think that but then I have been noticing that even with something like rice, care given to packaging is moving well ahead of what we deal with in green coffee.

A trip to the local mega asian grocer (Kan Man in Quincy) led me to make note of a few interesting things with one strong observation, the packaging is getting serious.

At our local Korean grocer in Union Sq. Somerville, there is an assortment of rice available in many grades. What's interesting about it was how they noted crop year and an emphasis on packing as each bag had it's own 'patent pending' method of storage. Most of which seemed to be nitrogen flushed or tightly vacuum sealed which I must say does seem to make a difference.

In wandering around Kan Man viewing the stacks of vacuum sealed rice varieties stacked on the shelf, that I had a good chuckle. So much obsession over rice, a product I have been used to seeing in bags akin to dog food packaging. Then it hit me how young our coffee industry is and how absurdly ironic it was.

The fact that preservation packaging is still such a novel and absurd idea really instills a sense of how far coffee still has to go and just how far behind it is. The truth is that there is so much information out there to digest and yet not nearly enough quality data therein. Like most things coffee, too many opinions and not enough data or research being done.

Without vacuum packaging, our business would not be enjoying it's first year in celebration. Putting it in perspective, packaging for preservation makes a difference and we have the experiences under our belt to prove it. If other people don't agree with us, that's fine because everyone needs to learn their own lessons but we know what works and will keep working with it.

As the weather turns, let's keep an eye on the temperature and think about the effort that goes at every stage into one taste of coffee down the line. There are so many things that can destroy a coffee from the time is is picked through processing, transport, the roast, and then with brewing at the barista level. It does not begin and end solely in the hands of a barista, it's a process that started months ago and continues even while sitting in a warehouse.

5 things consumers should think about when adding value to coffee drink service

In reading up on blogs and forums the other day, I realize that as there are great leaps being made locally, there is still a lot of confusion about coffee. How people value coffee and particularly espresso is a bit funny. While a straight shot comes to personal preference, milk drinks in the Boston metro are out of control. Perceptions of value get skewed to focus on aspects that may or may not add any tangible value.

Proper cappuccino being talked about as 'light' weight and lattes rated by 'strength' leave me feeling it's time to voice some concern about quality perceptions. It seems to me the ingredients and labeling should be as important as anything in the process so let me put out a short list of things I look for when I go into a cafe.

1. Local: This one is silly obvious but think about it. I know that a big part of our rabid aficionado community has been built on hip national 'but still independent' roasters. The natural evolution though is that the better cafes and serious fanatics will take the next step and open small roasteries in different regional/local settings. Coffee that is roasted locally will not in fact be very good by that measure alone but I believe that shipping roasted coffee across time zones is not a sustainable business/environmental model long term. Competent local and small regional roasters will move in to fill the void. Too many local cafes right now are getting into dangerous territory marketing 'zero waste' and 'buy local' for everything but their coffee. Why not the roasted coffee? The carbon footprint of buying hundreds of pounds a week from a roaster in another time zone is wasteful and silly if there are comparable or reasonable alternatives locally.

2. Roast dates: Not best buy dates, not sell by dates, clear and direct 'roasted on' dates. Fresh roast is the basic bare minimum tenet of quality in coffee. You can easily add fresh brewed as the second item there but let's focus more on roast dates as fresh brewed is something even convenience stores talk about. Fresh roast is inherent to quality. To pretend otherwise as a roaster myself would be a compromise made to justify accounts in less than ideal situations, a compromise I feel uncomfortable with making. Bags of coffee without any roast date information treat coffee as a commodity not unlike the grocery grade coffee you find in supermarkets. If the roaster treats their product in this manner, we should view it that way also.

3. Good milk: This is tough because good local grass fed milk is not always available and is often quite expensive. The question though is in rating a good cappuccino, the quality of the milk and not simply just texture or portion is key. My local favorites are Oak Hurst and High Lawn right now but the high cost puts these largely out of reach for the volume shops that have Starbucks sizes. For the quality oriented shops, one balance is to limit sizes to smaller drinks to account for the pricey milk so it should be perceived that drink sizes can be relative to quality.

4. A traditional cappuccino: I look for a traditional cappuccino when I go into any new shop. A good 5 oz cappuccino with definition on top. I care less about proportions and more about quality texturing. I have to say these 'airy' or foamy cappuccino are simply not as pleasurable as a richly textured and micro-foamed cappuccino. The dry foam lacks sweetness and we'd be better off with a dollop of whipped cream as opposed to wasting a lot of milk to get a large portion of stiff dry foam. When I walk into a shop and see stiff dry foam served as a standard, I avoid the milk and espresso drinks entirely because I know it will need some sugar to taste decent. The key behind quality of foam, not quantity, is that a cappuccino is a small drink. Good milk is often also high in fat content as well as higher in price so there are other reasons to limit the sizes beyond purist arguments. It's quite unpleasant sounding to think about drinking a pint glass full of steamed high fat grass fed cow's milk. A small rich and sweet cappuccino where the coffee balances out complexly and isn't drowned out in the milk sounds so much better. Large drinks require very strong and often bitter espresso to cut through a large volume of milk so it is not unreasonable to assume that the espresso and milk quality are not as good when the cup sizes are excessively large.

5. Transparency: This bundles some of the earlier ideas together like putting the roast date on the bag and goes a few steps farther. Walking into a cafe and trying to determine what coffee is being served is the clearest concept of defining quality. If the barista doesn't know what's in the bag or being brewed, that's a clear vote against good expectations. Granted, it could be the one individual but if there is no information available, you have to wonder. In this day and age of coffee, there is no excuse for roasters to continue hiding blends or describing coffees by country and region solely without denoting specific farms/coops/etc. The specific examples are the famous blends that 'must be gold' but nobody tells you what's actually in it. Would giving that recipe up then devalue the blend and make clear that it's components may be less than stellar inputs? In roasting, there are no real secrets to recipes, only ability to roast and identify good coffees to purchase. Skill in blending is a direct result of the previous so there is zero value in hiding blend components unless the individual components are not as attractive as the branding leads you to believe.

There are other ways to rate a cafe: ambiance, free wifi, service and all manner of pastry bits. When rating purely the coffee and espresso drinks though, those 5 items are something to think about next time you go for a coffee or cappuccino.

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.

Fresh bread and fresh coffee

Assume you, like a lot of us, grew up on wonder bread. Thin sliced and completely devoid of unique character. Now take it a step further and say you were eating wonder bread your whole life having only a limited selection of other breads which were also mass produced factory baked loaves. White, wheat, and 'hamburger buns' were your entire selection in the local grocer. You would become quite accustomed to toasting those limp lifeless slices and slathering them with all kinds of toppings so it won't be so 'dry.'


One day you come across a little artisan bakery. The flour is milled locally, the ingredients are farm fresh, and you go in to order some bread on a whim. The selection is overwhelming. Olive breads, focaccia, names and descriptions you don't begin to understand. It's just bread right, you think to yourself, why is it so complicated? You settle on a nice looking loaf of olive bread, ahh but it's not sliced like your wonder bread, what to do? You think to yourself, how do you toast this thing, because you are supposed to toast breads, right? Now what do you do for that BLT with extra mayo you had planned to go on a dry piece of toast?


What would be a normal reaction to this new experience? Rejection? Curiosity? Confusion?


This is an analogy for what happens in coffee. People walk into one of the few higher end or simply good coffee shops selling fresh roasted higher grade coffees and possibly single origin coffees and may be overwhelmed. These people tend to initially push for what's familiar to them and reject the rest so having options that don't involve whip cream and syrups while being offered something different may not appeal... at first. Coffee is coffee to them and the real estate for their laptop is possibly their biggest priority at the moment but that could change if they take the time to pay attention to what's in their cup. It's difficult for anyone who is newly introduced to a different view of coffee. Coffee has a pyramid of quality that is forming and not all coffee is on the same level. It's not the branding and marketing alone that define the offerings like in the chain stores, it may be the coffee itself that is the difference. Sure, you may go into Dunkin Donuts and get a 'regular coffee' which ironically comes doused in cream and sugar. Though, if you ask for a regular in a high end shop, they will ask you what origin and won't put condiments in it for you. They may even get offended if you do! You could go into Starbucks and get your well toasted coffees which are well past being fresh. Much like fresh bread though, coffee doesn't need to be so toasty if it's good quality and still fresh.


From a barista's perspective, the irony is there will always be that customer who comes in and knows you care about coffee who says, 'I love coffee' but in the next breath says 'I can't have it without cream or sugar.' In some cases, that's like telling the bakery you love bread but you intend to cover that olive bread in mayo for a BLT. It doesn't make sense because the fact is there are coffees that are fit for cream and there are some that simply are not. It would be ludicrous to drink bitter or lower grade coffees without cream and sugar but it would also be just as ludicrous to drink an expensive high grade one with those condiments.


I would offer that most customers who frequent the large chains have neither had a fresh roasted coffee nor had an ideally roasted coffee before. Like wonder bread, it will always be the same, but maybe that's not a good thing for everyone.