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.

Coffee and Milk, originally uploaded by Ls³.

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.

About a machine

Yellow, originally uploaded by jaminsky.

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.

Herbs and veggies...

Good For Pictures..., originally uploaded by jaminsky.

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.