What’s in a bean? (or more accurately What’s in a coffee cherry?)

Ethiopian Green Beans

Coffee with the biggest caffeine hit is likely to have come from the robusta bean type. These coffees may be more likely to have a bitter taste and perhaps heavier earthier tones. Instant coffee is more likely to have been made from robusta beans to capture more caffeine in the granules. There are also several coffee shops that favour the robusta bean.

Robusta coffee beans count for around 25 to 30% of worldwide coffee production and the tree is more hardy and grown at lower altitudes (below 1000 meters) in higher temperatures (upto 30 degrees celsius). The robusta bean may be more likely to be circular shaped and with a straight line split down the middle. It tends to be cheaper, with a less pronounced aroma but more full bodied. Robusta can vary in quality due to growing conditions and processes, and there has been a movement to upgrade the reputation of the bean with more care and attention in the growing, processing and roasting techniques. Largely though robusta beans would be more inferior coffees – but if caffeine levels are the priority then with often double the caffeine of arabica beans there are some benefits!

The higher altitude grown (often 1500 to 2000 meters asl) arabica beans are usually sweeter, more flavoursome (fruity, floral, delicate, smooth) with a more pleasing aroma. They can be oilier and darker and have a more oval elongated shape with a probable split which is more S shaped. Most likely grown at temperatures of  high teens to low twenties celsius, and with more shade (in the company of a wider biodiversity of other plants).

There are many sub-species of coffea and there is a possibility that in future increasing the genetic variation may become important to protect coffee from vulnerability to disease and climate changes.

Coffee fruits are called coffee cherries and most move through a colour cycle from green, then yellowing, to red when ripe. The seed, inside the coffee cherry is what is used to roast and create our coffee drinks. In order to ready a coffee bean for roasting it has to go through processing to remove the skin and flesh of the coffee cherry (the pulp, the parchment and the silverskin).

In fact, inside the cherry – there are normally two parts of the coffee seeds which grow with a flat face facing each other – these are the faces that feature the characteristic split in the coffee beans we see.

A coffee seed (bean) before roasting is normally a yellowish green colour and known as a green bean: once roasted they gain their brown colour.

Supercharge your AeroPress with the Fellow Prismo

The Fellow Prismo AeroPress attachment

The AeroPress is a well renowned coffee maker which makes reliable good coffee very quickly. As we say it’s #QuickButNotInstant reflecting the fact that it’s far ahead of instant coffee yet doesn’t take much longer to make.

AeroPress
AeroPress coffee maker

The AeroPress is described as making espresso like coffee – recognising that it’s really good but not a pure espresso.

This new attachment device from Fellow products though can supercharge your exisiting or new AeroPress delivering more specific espresso shots.

The Fellow Prismo – attaches to the bottom of the AeroPress instead of the mesh cap. It features a pressure actuated valve which is the main bit of magic! It stays sealed until you press down – this helps facilitate the espresso shot, but also gives you other options for making cold brew or brewing with the immersion method without inverting.

The Fellow Prismo comes with a reusable fine metal filter and has a no drip seal too – giving you more control over generating an espresso shot (or the immersion method).

Press down and the coffee is forced under pressure through the central valve.

We stock genuine Fellow Prismo but do watch out for cheap imitations available by some online retail options – if you don’t see the Fellow logo (the O and bow tie mark underneath) on the product photos, it’s probably not genuine. Also the central valve and surrounding mouldings look a little different.

The genuine Fellow Prismo is available at Artistry Coffee in Duck Farm Court, Aylesbury or online.

The AeroPress :: One of our favourites for great coffee!!

AeroPress Series 5

One of our favourite products is the AeroPress that helped start our journey into handbrew coffee equipment and techniques.

It’s a straightforward easy to use product that creates great tasting coffee.

The AeroPress is possibly the simplest, most consistent, easy, and cost-effective way to make espresso-based drinks at home… without crazily expensive equipment!

The AeroPress is an amazing coffee maker – if you’re used to instant coffee the AeroPress will be an eye opener, as it barely takes more time than making instant coffee, yet tastes many, many, many times better!

The AeroPress is essentially two plastic tubes that fit together – one that you put the coffee and water into, and one that you use to push the water under pressure through the coffee. So the AeroPress creates the ability to get close to an espresso coffee with a simple, easy to use, portable, coffee-maker which is almost self-cleaning too.

(Of course espresso is used as the base for most coffee-shop coffees – so the AeroPress can also be a gateway to americanos – by adding more hot water, lattes or cappuccinos -by adding frothed milk (see our Cappuccino Kit including an AeroPress and a milk frother), and more…. )

The AeroPress is a great coffee maker and can fit with a very outdoors based life, as it’s so portable. It can be used on holiday, at the beach, on picnics, at work, as well as in the kitchen or at home.

There are increasingly opportunities to have your coffee shop coffee made with an AeroPress too. Many baristas do take this product really seriously – and World AeroPress Championships take place every year!

If you’d like to find out more about how the AeroPress was invented (by the guy who created the Frisbee!) then see here

There’s something in the water….

Water pour onto coffee

More and more I realize that the starting point for things really matters – so for coffee the water and the beans are the prime ingredients. So it’s obvious really that what you do with each of these is fairly key to what ends up in your cup. It’s perhaps one of the first things that you learn about coffee that it’s not good to use absolutely boiling water as you make the cup.

Even with instant coffee this can be pretty early learning. The fizz of the granules as the water boils them is interesting but not a prequel to a good cup of coffee. So the water and what you do with it in making the coffee is important.

The water temperature should probably be a good 5 to 10 degrees off boiling point, and for some coffee making even lower than this. I don’t know the full science behind this, but it does make some common sense that the water can be too hot and spoil the grounds (or the instant). So a little patience after the kettle boils can only be a good thing.

I do want to do some experiments with what happens to water after it has boiled: partly for fun, and partly jut to be inquisitive.

It’s also true (OK perhaps not strictly speaking, but certainly practically speaking) that water does not equal water does not equal water.

We all know the stories of washing your hair in hard and soft water areas – or the dishes, or clothes – and perhaps the fact that water can taste different on holiday or in different locations. So it’s got to be no surprise that there are characteristics to the water that we use, and these affect the taste of the water and therefore the effect that the water has on the coffee that is made.

There are even discussions amongst the most eloquent of the coffee aficionados about which spring water is the best one to use to make your coffee.

That may be a bit extreme for most people, but it highlights the point that the water does affect the end result. So water filters may not be a bad idea, or at least being aware that water matters and at least keeping an eye on not scalding the coffee by being too eager after the kettle has boiled.

How many types of coffee are there……?

coffee cup

As the coffee journey continued from that very naive early years experience of mainly instant coffee – when freeze dried Gold Blend was posh! – there came a realisation that coffee came in more than just 3 or 4 options.

I suppose that I ought to have known more – because my foreign relatives in my fathers homeland of Denmark used to have a very different kind of coffee than I’d ever experienced elsewhere. Looking back I now know that it was properly brewed filter coffee – but wayback then it was just strong and different.

Eventually progressing to ground coffee at weekends – maInly using a 1 cup cafetiere – there was now a bigger task of making sure we always had some available. And so comes the task of buying coffee more seriously (certainly trying a bit harder than just picking up the best value jar from whichever supermarket we happened to be in).

So where do you start when essentially youre considering a new product that you have very little experience of ? Start with the colours, or strength numbers, or the price, or the origin? [That’s an official coffee word now – just means what you think it should …. where does it come from?!]

I dont thinknthat there’s a right and a wrong on this. Even starting with the colours can be sensible – cause it’s more likely that you’ll remember what you had next time you’re buying! The important thing is maybe just that – remember what you try and remember what you like. Maybe take some notes about what you’ve tried and what you liked, and why.

If you do the remembering, you’ll journey on in coffee terms much more quickly and generate an appreciation for and knowledge of coffee perhaps far more speedily than being directed by someone else at what you should like and how you should like it.

Experiencing the journey of discovery of coffee is part of the joy. There’s no shame in being on a learning curve but plenty of interest and fun in  the exploration!

There are so many coffees out there, and so much to discover!

So the coffee discovery takes off…..

Learning to use ground coffee

At the start of what was the real coffee journey – somewhere between my brother moving from London to Seattle (10 years ago) and now – was the awareness of the difference in the taste and quality of filter coffee vs instant. It seems like such a basic discovery, but it’s a fairly key step!

Once you have some quite different reference points there will start to be comparisons in your head – an appreciation that some coffee is far better than others. It’s not just about a strong/weak scale depending on whether someone has put half a teaspoonful of granuals or a heaped one into a cup.

Having had the instant coffee starting point – I think there’s an even greater appreciation of the variation in coffee experiences that can be available.

For long enough my experience was to have the occasional treat of buying a packet of ground coffee at the supermarket to enjoy on Saturday or Sunday when there was more time to savour. I do wonder now though just how long the coffee takes to get to the supermarket shelves, how long it stays there, and just how old it is generally by the time it gets consumed.

However, making ‘real’ coffee from grounds is a good step to take in pushing along the rewarding journey of discovering coffee.