CoffeeMakersEtc

The Specialty Coffee Association of America has announced their Board of Directors for the 2008-2009 year. The new president is Mark Inman, president of Taylor Maid Farms LLC in Sebastopol, CA. Other members are as follows:

1st Vice President: Mike Ebert of Coffee Masters, Inc.
2nd Vice President: Peter Giuliano of Counter Culture Coffee
Secretary/Treasurer: Tracy Allen, Brewed Behavior
Al Liu of Atlas Coffee
Ellie Hudson-Matuszak of Coffee Solutions
Jeff Taylor of PT’s Coffee Company
Marty Curtis of RoZark Hills Roasterie
Max Quirin of ANACAFE
Nicholas Cho of murky coffee
Paul Thornton of Coffee Bean International
Price Peterson of Hacienda La Esmeralda

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At their annual convention, The Specialty Coffee Association experts will determine the Coffee of the Year at the 2008 Roasters Guild Coffee of the Year Competition. The event, in Minneapolis, MN, beginning May 3, will attract coffee from over 120 producers from throughout the world.

Fetco is an equipment sponser for this year’s SCAA convention.

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This list of America’s Best Boutique Coffees comes from Forbes and features independent shops across the country.

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In Fetco’s first foray into “Brewing Sessions” podcast, they explain the 6 basic elements that can affect coffee taste: brewing temperature, formula of water-to-coffee, contact time, grind particle size, turbulence and freshness after brewing.

Temperature: Matt Greg, a regional sales manager with Fetco, explains that coffee should be brewed at 195-200F - generally toward the low end for high altitudes, toward 200F for more moderate altitudes. If you brew at too high of a temperature, the water elements from the coffee that will cause a tinny, metallic taste. At too low a temperature, not enough flavors will be extracted from the coffee to achieve a good coffee taste.

Formula of Water-to-Coffee: The next most important step after finding the correct brewing temperature is deciding the right amount of your coffee to use when brewing.  As a general rule, you want to use 3.25-4.25 oz. of coffee per 64 oz. of water. The key is to find a good balance for the particular coffee you are brewing - too little coffee and you will emphasize the low, smoky, bitter elements of the bean; too much coffee and you will highlight mostly citrus and acidic tones. The perfect formula will balance the flavors and give you a rich, balanced cup.

Contact Time: The contact time begins with the spray-over time and ends when the coffee exits the brew basket. An optimal contact time extracts a balance of flavors from the coffee, and it depends on size of batch and kind of coffee you are brewing.

Grind Particle Size: A larger particle takes longer to break down than a smaller particle, plus the water will pass through larger grinds faster without extracting as many flavors. With too small a grind, the water will pass through the entire ground too easily, and can pick up too many undesirable flavors. The larger the batch size you are brewing, the larger the grind size you want, otherwise, the water will extract too many flavors from the bean

Turbulence: The churning motion that occurs in the brew basket. The more churning, the more flavors absorbed by the water.

Freshness after Brewing: After about 20 minutes, coffee sitting on a burner will start to break down and affect flavor - the oils become more rancid and bitter. Thermal servers can alleviate this problem, but coffee can even continue to cook in a thermal server. If is best to keep coffee in a thermal server and use it within a couple of hours.

A great podcast - hopefully the first of many.

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We get asked this questions occasionally, and I always remember the time I was watching a guy make espresso. He ground the coffee, and then had a slight problem with his espresso machine. The machine was fixed and ready to go within a couple of minutes, but he nonetheless declared his freshly-ground coffee “old,” discarded it and ground more coffee for his espresso shot.

Was that going overboard and an act of coffee snobbery, or was he correct?

Tough questions are tough to answer. The simple answer is that green (raw) beans last at least 2 years, whole roasted beans last 2 to 4 weeks if properly stored, and ground beans immediately start losing flavor once they are ground.

If you can buy green coffee beans and roast them yourself, you can ensure that you will always have fresh coffee. Most beans you buy, though, have no roast date on them, and expiration date are only so helpful, since they are made at the whimsy of the roaster.

The best you can do to ensure fresh coffee taste, short of roasting your own beans, is to buy whole bean coffee - preferably direct from a local roaster - and use it within a couple of weeks. If you buy ground coffee, consider getting a grinder, or just get used to the fact that your coffee will be lacking flavor.

Aside from all of that, though, I think the correct answer is that you can consider your beans no longer fresh when you can no longer deal with the taste - or lack thereof - of the coffee that they make. If you don’t mind drinking coffee that you bought ground 2 months ago, then consider yourself the better for your easy-going nature. If you think coffee you ground 2 minutes ago is now old and unusable, then go ahead and grind some more.

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Everyone craves the perfect cup of coffee. How to make it? Start with a Chemex brewer, then follow the advice of Arno at Blue Bottle Coffee in San Francisco in this video from Chow.com.

Tags: Chemex, Coffee, Home Coffee Maker by admin
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• 1-500 AD - According to local legend, coffee is discovered near present-day village of Choche in Ethiopia by a goat-herder who notices his animals “dance” with an unusual amount of energy after eating wild, bright-red Arabica coffee berries. Locals began consuming the coffee “cherries” (coffee beans with husk) as a stimulant, either eating the beans mixed with animal fat, or by making a weak brew with the cherries and coffee leaves. There are other theories that coffee was first discovered by a similar goat-herder in Yemen on the Arabian peninsula.

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• 500-600 AD - The first coffee houses are introduced in Cairo and Mecca. A vessel called the Ibrik is used to brew a weak coffee using unroasted coffee cherries.

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• 1400’s - The first extensive planting of coffee trees takes place in the Yemen region of Arabia. Arabians become the first to roast and grind coffee before brewing it. The use of coffee beans spreads throughout the Arabian peninsula and later via the Ottoman Empire to Turkey, where the first coffee shop, Kiva Han, allegedly opened in Constantinople in 1475.

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• 1500’s - Coffee drinking continues to spread in Egypt, Syria, Persia and Turkey. Cafes flourished in cities like Baghdad, Constantinople and Cairo.

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• 1600’s - Coffee brought to Europe by Venetian traders. Coffee houses open in Europe - in 1608 the first one opens in Vienna, Austria; the first one allegedly opens in England in 1652. Many women in England band together to try to ban coffee drinking because their husbands are spending too much time in coffee houses. It becomes common to roast and grind beans before brewing. Coffee comes to America in 1607 with Captain John Smith. In 1690, the Dutch become the first to transport and cultivate coffee in Ceylon and the East Indies.

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• 1700’s - Before the time when filters were used, coffee is prepared by boiling coffee grounds with water. Many coffee pots are designed, all with the purpose of trying to trap the coffee grounds before the coffee is poured. Typical designs feature a pot with a flat expanded bottom to catch sinking grounds and a sharp pour spout that traps the floating grinds. Other designs feature a wide bulge in the middle of the pot to catch grounds when coffee is poured. In France, in about 1710, the Infusion brewing process is introduced, which involves submersing the ground coffee, usually enclosed in a linen bag, in hot water and letting it steep or “infuse” until the desired strength brew is achieved.

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• 1723 - Gabriel Mathieu do Clieu, French naval officer, transplants a stolen coffee seedling on the island of Martinique - the first planting in the western hemisphere.

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• 1773 - The Stamp Act of 1776 places a tax on tea, which was then the U.S.’s national drink, thus making tea more expensive and nudging people over to drinking coffee. Continental Congress declares that coffee is the new national beverage.

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• 1780’s - The first coffee brewers to feature a place for a filter, called Mr. Biggin coffee pots, began to surface and become very popular. Coffee is made by placing a cloth sock across the mouth of the brewer, putting coffee grounds into the sock, and then pouring hot water over the grounds. Coffee was then dispensed from a spout on the side of the pot. The quality of the brewed coffee depends on the size of the grounds - too course and the coffee is weak; too fine and the water doesn’t go through the filter. A major problem with this brewer was that the taste of the cloth filter - whether cotton, burlap or an old sock - transfers to the taste of the coffee.

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• 1790-1810 - There are lots of innovations from France. With help from Jean Baptiste de Belloy, the Archbishop of Paris, the idea that coffee should not be boiled gains acceptance. The French Drip Pot is developed. In this method of brewing coffee, two chambers are stacked one upon the other, with a cloth filter placed in between. Finely ground coffee is packed into the upper chamber and boiling water is poured over it. The coffee slowly drips into the lower chamber, from which it is served. The process is slow and the resulting coffee not very hot. Count Rumford, an eccentric American scientist residing in Paris, develops a French Drip Pot with an insulating water jacket to keep the coffee hot. The first metal filter is developed and patented by French inventor.

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• 1818 - Americans make Cowboy coffee by pouring ground beans into a pot with water, then heating the water until it boils. The coffee is then strained before it is consumed. Some people place the grounds in an old sock before placing them into the water.

A Parisian metal smith named Laurens invents the first coffee percolator.

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• 1820-1850 - Louis Bernard Babaut creates the first known espresso machine. The machine works by using steam pressure to push steam through a chamber containing coffee grounds in a special filter. In 1843, the machine is commercialized by Edward Loysel de Santais and then exhibited at the Paris Exposition in 1855, where it is able to produce 1000 cups of coffee per hour. Although a great advancement, the machine is subject to blowing up and also produces a bitter coffee when it overheats or is not operated correctly.

Many inventions are introduced in Europe for various steam-powered coffee makers, plus grinders and roasters. Madame Vassieux of Lyons develops the first vacuum pot, where water is heated and the steam rises to an upper compartment where it saturates the coffee grounds. When the heat source is removed, and the steam condenses in the lower compartment and creates a vacuum which draws the coffee back through the filter into the lower compartment. Many of the early vacuum pots are made of glass, which sometimes blows up from the pressure.

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• 1859 - The Raparlier vacuum coffee pot is invented, which can simultaneously heat water and brew coffee. It has a glass upper bowl with graduated lines, which display how many cups of coffee have been brewed. The Raparlier pot features a hemp filter, which fits between the two compartments and is disposed of after each use. The filters are cheap and do not impart any unpleasant tastes in the coffee.

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• 1889 - Illinois farmer named Hanson Goodrich patents an American percolator coffee pot. (Other sources claim American James Mason patented the first coffee percolator in 1865.) Similar in principle to the vacuum pot, the percolator works by heating the water near the bottom of the portion of the percolator and forcing it through a tube into the top potion of the percolator. The water then percolators down through the coffee grounds back into the bottom portion. The percolator is removed from the heat source when the desired strength is reached. The significant difference between a vacuum pot and a percolator is that the desired temperature is maintained in a vacuum pot, whereas the coffee in a percolator is brewed with boiling water, which makes the coffee bitter.

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• 1890’s - The plunger filter, now known as the French Press coffee brewer, is invented. It works by having the coffee grounds in a filter compartment that is lowered into the hot water and then pulled up with a rod when brewing is complete. The idea behind the plunger filter is that the grounds could be removed before the coffee becomes bitter. French press brewers are still very popular today. Other sources claim an Italian named Calimani invents the French Press brewer in 1933.

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• 1903 - Decaffeinated coffee is invented. The brand name is Sanka, from the French phrase “Sans Caffeine”.

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• 1905 - An Italian, Desiderio Pavoni, buys a patent from Luigi Bezzera and forms the first company (La Pavoni) to market a commercial espresso machine. Pavoni incorporates the talents of famous designers in the design of his machines.

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• 1909 - After being invented by Japanese American chemist Satori Kato of Chicago, an English chemist named George Constant Washington introduces the first mass produced instant coffee. The coffee, known by the name “George”, becomes popular with the American soldiers during World War 1.

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• 1912 - Germans housewife Melitta Benz invents the Melitta coffee filter paper using blotting paper borrowed from her son’s school supplies. The filters eliminate the need for linen or cloth filters and create an efficient disposal method for coffee.

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• 1926 - A Trademark is registered for “Maxwell House Good to the last drop”.

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• 1935 - Italian Francesco Illy invents a machine called the Illetta, which makes espresso by using compressed air for pushing the steam through coffee grounds. His machine was a vast improvement on earlier machines, which only used steam for creating the pressure and frequently blew up.

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• 1938 - Freeze-dried coffee invented and marketed under the name Nescafe.

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• 1947 - Achille Gaggia designs the first espresso machine to use a spring-loaded lever to force water through the coffee grounds. By using a lever, the pressure applied to the coffee by a spring was independent of the pressure in the boiler. At the same time, the water temperature used became independent of the temperature in the boiler so that a stronger, quicker and controllable filtration was possible. Gaggia machines were the first to produce crema on top of the espresso -’Caffe crema di caffe naturale’ - coffee cream from natural coffee.

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• 1950 - Ernest Valente develops the first espresso machine that uses a rotating pump driven by an electric motor to create the pressure needed to produce espresso. The pump provides steady water pressure and allows for a more continuous delivery of water. The first espresso machine with a pump is marketed under the brand name Faema.

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• 1962 - The International Coffee Agreement regulates coffee export quotas on a worldwide basis. When the cartel collapses in the 1980\’s, prices become volatile, creating uncertainty for coffee traders and diminished prices for coffee farmers.

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• 1963 - The Bunn Corporation introduces the automatic drip coffeemaker. Designed for use in restaurants, coffee maker heats water, brews the water with the coffee, and keeps the coffee warm on a heated plate.

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• 1971 - Starbucks opens its first location in Seattle’s Pike Place Market.

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• 1972 - Vincent Marotta invents the Mr. Coffee - the first automatic drip coffee maker for home use.

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First, let’s start with a really quick history. Coffee was first decaffeinated by Ludwig Roselius, a German coffee merchant, in 1905 after he received a coffee shipment that had gotten soaked during a storm at sea. He experimented with the brine-soaked coffee, and found out that benzene could be used as solvent to bond with the caffeine. Since caffeine is water-soluble at temperatures above 175°, he could boil the solution to separate the caffeine from the coffee. With his process, the coffee was decaffeinated, but it had lost much of its flavor.

For the record, Ludwig improved on his process and went on to sell his discovery under the Sanka brand name. Benzene is no longer used, as it is not considered safe for human consumption.

Today there are 3 commonly used methods available for removing caffeine from coffee, with dozens of variations of those methods. Two common variations are Direct and Indirect Method.

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• European or Traditional Process - Direct Method:
The direct process involves softening the beans by steam first, then washing them for about 10 hours with either a methylene chloride or ethyl acetate solution to absorb the caffeine from the bean. The solution is discarded, the beans are re-steamed to remove any remaining solvent (methylene chloride boils away at 114°; ethyl acetate at 104°), then the beans are dried to their original moisture content.

• European or Traditional Process - Indirect Method:
Instead of being steamed, the coffee beans are soaked in very hot water, which extracts the caffeine along with many of the oils. This solution is then treated with either methylene chloride or ethyl acetate, which bonds with the caffeine. Then the solution is heated to the temperature at which the caffeine and either methylene chloride or ethyl acetate compounds evaporate. The oils are then reintroduced to the beans, and the beans are then dried.

About 80% of decaf coffees are processed by the Traditional, or European Process, and many serious coffee drinkers believe this method makes for the best-tasting coffee. Others worry about the chemicals involved. Methylene chloride is considered a superior solvent since it can evaporate at a lower temperature and leaves virtually no trace in the beans, but it is an environmental hazard to workers at decaffeination plants, and it is known to harm the ozone layer. Ethyl acetate can be extracted from various fruits and vegetables and so it is considered a “naturally-found” chemical, but most ethyl acetate used for decaffeinating is synthethically produced.

• The Water or Swiss Water Process:
Also known as the water process, this process uses no chemicals, but rather hot water, steam and osmosis to remove the caffeine from the coffee in two steps. In the first step, which is similar to the Traditional, Indirect Method, the beans are soaked in a hot water solution to remove the caffeine and the flavor oils. The beans used in this step are then discarded. The solution is run through activated charcoal filters to remove the caffeine, but leave the flavor oils. A new batch of beans is then soaked in the solution. According to the laws of osmosis, the caffeine leaves the beans to go to the uncaffeinated solution, but the flavor in both the solution and the beans is equal, so no flavor leaves the beans.

The beans are then dried and shipped to the roasters. The disadvantage is that the water processing removes more than just the caffeine. Some of the oils from the coffee bean are removed as well, making it less flavorful.

• The Hypercritical Carbon Dioxide Method:
In this method, which is not as popular as the other methods, the beans are soaked in a solution of liquid carbon dioxide to remove the caffeine. The get to a liquid state, the carbon dioxide must be highly pressurized (73 to 300 atmospheres), which makes the logistic cost of this method a bit higher than the other methods. After the caffeine is absorbed by the carbon dioxide, either the pressure is reduced and carbon dioxide is allowed to evaporate, or the solution is run through a carbon filter to remove the caffeine. Although more expensive, the advantage of the Carbon Dioxide Method is that since carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, the method is not harmful to health or the environment.

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• Other Methods:
Since there’s no consensus best-way to remove caffeine from coffee beans, there are still new methods being developed.
One new method is the Triglyceride Process. In this method, green coffee beans are soaked in a solution or hot water and coffee to draw the caffeine to the surface of the beans. Then, the beans are transferred to another container and immersed in coffee flavor oils that were obtained from spent coffee grounds. The flavor oils contain triglycerides are a naturally-occurring combination of fatty acids and glycerol, and , after several hours at high temperatures, they are able to remove the caffeine from the beans while not affecting the flavor.
Another new method, and possibly the future of decaffeinated coffee, is the cultivation of Naturally Caffeine-Free Coffee from trees that have recently discovered in that produce coffee with no caffeine. Depending on the variety of coffee, the caffeine content already varies significantly, from about 75 mg to 250 mg per 6 oz. cup. Arabica coffee varieties normally contain about half the caffeine of robusta varieties, and dark roast coffee usually has less caffeine than lighter roasts since the roasting process reduces caffeine content of the bean. An arabica bean containing a tenth as much caffeine as a normal bean has been found, so the possibility of developing or finding a bean with no caffeine is probably a matter of time.

Interested in buying some coffee? We have decaffeinated coffee available here.

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