Why Is Replication So Difficult?

One thing I cannot stand with brewing coffee is how difficult it is to replicate a really good cup by controlling the several variables that go in to making brewed coffee. Even when I think I have them all under control, something unexpected comes along to throw it all out of whack. Case in point: yesterday afternoon, i brewed one of the best cups of coffee i've tasted in over a year. Here is the recipe:

14 grams of CoE Ethiopia Red Cherry (sun-dried)

200ml of distilled water (I didn't have any mineral water on hand)

85C water temp

2:30 brew time (includes 30 second pre-infusion)

The result was a cup of coffee that blasted me with an aroma of dried orange peels and zesty lemon, a taste of black currants and red cherries, and an aftertaste of orange juice.

When I tried to replicate this brew this morning, I ended up with a bitter, over-extracted brew that had the same aroma, but lacked any taste other than metal and fruity ash!

The following factors were different:

1) I used mineral water instead of distilled water (which is strange because mineral water almost always tastes better than distilled)

2) For some reason, the brew time was a full 3 minute brew. The only thing I could think of for why this happened is that yesterday's coffee beans were in my checked baggage during a 3 hour

long flight. I've noticed that anytime I put my beans in my checked luggage, they end up becoming vacuum sealed. It must be something with the air pressure that caused any of the oxygen that happened to be trapped in the bag of beans to be sucked out. Another factor that may have altered the beans'is the humidity here in Burma. After opening the bag of beans and exposing them to the damp, warm air, their chemical make-up must have been altered some.

3) I brewed this cup in the morning --- a time when I notice my tastebuds are not quite "awake" yet.

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OK, so I just brewed another cup this afternoon with the recipe that I used yesterday when making that deliciously citric brew. The aroma was of orange and lemon peels, but the taste was no longer of cherries and black currants. Rather, it had strong floral notes, specifically that of peonies.

I am convinced that the humidity is doing something to the beans causing them to taste "off." I'm also becoming more convinced that these tastes may be much more subjective than previously thought. Does today's brew taste really that much different than yesterdays, or is it all in my head?

Slight Modification to Hario Buono Kettle

When I first bought the Hario Buono Kettle, I was slightly annoyed that the small holes in the kettle top were too small to place a thermometer in. Here in Burma there are plenty of small mom-and-pop hardware shops that can accomplish just about any task thrown at them, so I headed over to one on my street and told them I wanted one of the holes to be made large enough to slide a digital thermometer into. I had no idea how they would go about doing it, but within 30 seconds of looking at it, they told me it was as simple as using a drill bit to make one of the holes larger.

Here is the result. I'm now able to keep track of the water temperature throughout the entire brew process. I'm happy to report that this Hario kettle does a fantastic job in retaining heat. Over the course of a 3 minute brew, for example, the water temperature decreases by only 1 degree Celsius.

How to Brew with a Hario v60 Pour-over Cone

A short video on brewing with a Hario v60. I used the following:

- 17grams of freshly ground coffee (in this case CoE Ethiopia Operation Red Cherry Kebado G3)

- 200ml of water

- The temperature of the water at which I used to brew was 83 degrees Celsius (181 degrees Fahrenheit)

I allowed for a pre-infusion bloom of about 30 seconds followed by a brew time of about 2 minutes and 15 seconds.

Towards the end of the brewing process, you should be hitting the 200ml mark at around the 2:15 - 2:20 mark. Remove the cone at this point to prevent over-extraction.

Water Temperature Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Just something I wanted to share, especially for those like me who are obsessed with water temperature. I've been living in various parts of Southeast and East Asia over the past couple of years, and I am surprised to see the low water temperature at which they brew coffee. Pour-over drip coffee is the method of choice for most people, and I've asked many coffee lovers, cafe owners, and coffee roasters at what temperature they brew their coffee at, and the answer is almost always 80-85 degrees celsius --- much lower than the 92-96 degrees we tend to brew in the States. There are countless books written in Chinese and Japanese on why they believe this temperature range to be better, complete with diagrams, graphs, and detailed pics of what different water temps do to the coffee when brewed (I will provide bibliographic information in a later post).

Here are some general guidelines that many people abide by in Hong Kong and Japan, for example:

For full city, it depends on roasting date.
after roasting 1-3 days - 80 degrees
after roasting 4-6 days - 82 degrees
after roasting 7-10 days - 85 degrees
over 11 days - forget about it.

the ratio of coffee / water, 15g / 150 ~ 180cc water, whole process takes 02:15 ~ 02:45 minutes.

I do know some Japanese coffee lovers who will go up to 90 degrees but not much higher, since they say that, like brewing tea, the hotter water will negatively affect extraction.

When I mentioned this in one of the more popular online coffee forums, a member said that perhaps Asians just prefer lousy coffee. This is rubbish, of course. All too often I hear coffee enthusiasts in America and Europe say such things like:

"oh, they don't know what they are doing. Let us true coffee lovers (read: those of us from Euro-America) teach them a thing or two." But such views assume that Asian coffee lovers are not up to speed on the latest brew trends, which is certainly not the case. They are avid readers of coffeegeek and coffeesnobs and are therefore pretty up to date on what's going on in the coffee world. The amount of time, energy and money that many Asians put into perfecting the perfect brew is pretty impressive. It's almost an obsession for some (as is many hobbies that people from Asia, especially the Japanese, engage in). While coffee shop culture still lags behind what one will find in the States or Australia, home brewers and roasters wouldn't be caught dead with a cheap $50 home brewer.

In the end, however, I guess what is important is taste. I've done countless experiments using all sorts of temperature variations, and I tend to lean towards the coffee that is brewed with lower temps. Feel free to experiment on your own and share your thoughts here. I'm very interested as to what others think.

Lucky Find

I did some experimenting this afternoon with some one month old Iskandar Sumatra from Gimme! Coffee. I forgot that I had this pound of beans in my suitcase and was excited to brew some coffee. The beans were a little past their due date, but I knew a cup brewed with these beans would be a thousand times better than the beans from the Dutch coffeeshop, Brandmeesters, that I was currently brewing with (more on these beans in a future post).

I undertook the following brewing experiments over the course of a hot and humid Friday afternoon:

Hario v60 – 13g of finely ground coffee, 5oz of bottled mineral water, brew temperature of 85°C – Dry aroma was like wet soil. The taste was of a paper bag at back sides of tongue, smoke flavor as if inhaled smoke from a smoke machine at a concert. The aftertaste was of wet soil. But drinking it created feelings coziness and warmth that transported me to the cold, autumn days back in the States. The after-aroma is of a wood stove or fireplace.

Hario v60 – 10g, 5oz, 90°C – Wet aroma of pumpkin pie. Body similar to that of French press: syrupy, oily, and can almost feel the coffee grains in the mouth.

Aeropress – 15g, 5oz, 85°C – Did this 2 times and each time, it produced a weak and watery brew similar to that of a Krups machine brew. No distinguishing characteristics whatsoever. I think what works best is to make an “espresso” (15g, 2oz, 85°C) and then dilute with water.