Nerding Out: Coffee
Author: Barmacral Tigana, January 2018
Before we get started here, what is Nerding Out? In this column, I will pick a topic that I am excited about and focus on it in a bit of depth. Topics will be random and unrelated to each other, but in my mind at least, totally cool. Not every topic is for everyone and nobody should ever feel bad if any topic doesn’t interest them, but if you find something interesting please do comment! I also encourage people commenting and correcting my mistakes, adding more information, asking questions, sharing general excitement.
- Coffee: What is it?
Coffee is ubiquitous in western society. Everyone knows Starbucks, most people know Dunkin Donuts or Tim Hortons and almost every town has a local cafe somewhere. A lot of people have a coffee maker in their house and most of those buy pre ground coffee from the grocery store. Most people who drink coffee do it for help waking up in the morning.
But there is so much more. Many of you have heard about the coffee in Southeast Asia that cats eat and poop out before you drink it. Supposed to be the best in the world, though it is also associated unfortunately with animal abuse. However there is a whole world of coffee that doesn’t involve animal abuse.
Most modern coffee in the world originates from a single plant in France, owned by Louis XIV, but the drink can trace its roots back to Ethiopia where many different types of coffee still grow in the wild. If ever you wish to take a coffee pilgrimage anywhere, that is the place to go. But even though that single plant is the parent to most coffee you drink today, there are still massive varieties of coffee from that plant that vary based on the region they were planted, through selective breeding amongst other factors.
- How deep does the rabbit hole go?
I’ve just given you a slight teaser on the history and the range of coffee beans there is, but there is so much also involved in the process of getting that perfect cup of coffee in your mug. Here I’ll outline a few things.
1. Picking the bean – For this I recommend finding out if you have a local coffee shop. Anything mass produced is inevitably old and stale long before it ever ends up in your cart. If you can find a local shop (or a place online that can ship fresh coffee) this is the route to go. Once you’ve found a source you’ll need to look at the different beans. Check the country the coffee comes from and the type of coffee you’re selecting, these are how you’ll figure out what flavour profile you are picking (which hopefully is on the package already, but if not the Internet can help). Then check the roast date. The fresher the better and ideally you’ll want to drink the coffee within the first month, but the best roasters will always include a date to drink the coffee by as well.
Note – You can also look into buying a roaster and roasting your own coffee beans, this is a far cheaper option in the long run (though a roaster will be pricy) and will let you roast everything to your preference. This is something I hope to do within a few years, but I am not there yet.
2. Grinding the coffee – Many coffee shops will offer to grind the coffee for you. If you can drink all of the coffee within a week this is a viable option, but if not then I encourage picking up a coffee grinder. But what kind? You can spend hours just looking at grinder options. First up: Never get a grinder with blades. Critical to any coffee grinding is consistent size and a blade grinder will never give you that. The more consistent the size of the grind the better the coffee will taste. And I’ve been told that even if you know this in theory, you’ll still be surprised by the impact when you do it for yourself. The type of grinder you should get is a burr grinder. But what kind? Here you have a couple choices, electric or hand grinder. Anything electric will inevitably cost more, but you can easily get a high quality hand grinder as well. My recommendations are Made by Knock and Lido.
3. Brewing the coffee – Here the options are nearly unlimited. You can use a french press, a coffee machine, get an Aeropress, make espresso, latte, cappuchino, cold brew, nitro, pour over, etc. The basic method baristas around the world use to test out new beans, though, is one called cupping. First they’ll put the ground up beans in a cup then add the hot water. Once steeped for the appropriate amount of time, they’ll use spoons to scoop out the coffee grounds, at which point they can taste and smell the coffee and find out what flavours are in it. If you ever want to test a coffee like a pro, this is how to do it. Don’t just follow my instructions though, google the proper method before you do it.
- How can you too get into this?
The best thing is to find the nearest roaster to you and talk to them. But naturally there will be other sources to check out too. In the USA, Prima coffee is the main online store for coffee nerds. Canada doesn’t seem to have its own coffee central like that and Europe has different sources in different countries. I don’t know about the rest of the world. There are a lot of resources easily accessible from a quick google search and there is a subreddit /r/coffee that is all about geeking out in different ways. I haven’t picked up any books on the topic to date, but if you have recommendations for those I’d love to hear them.
