Hey all. I've been wanting to write this up for awhile now, and figured with most of the crew now trying out coffee, what better time was there. Ideally this post will convince people to give more specialty coffee types a try, and to educate people about just how deep the coffee rabbit hole goes. I'm hoping to keep this guide somewhat basic, because I realize for many people specialty coffee/coffee in general can be a bit intimidating.
A little bit of background information. I moved to Seattle about 10 years ago, and have spent the last 7-8 years working in the coffee industry. I've worked for some of the best coffee shops in the city ( Slate, Ladro, Fonte, Voxx ), have competed in several national competitions, and have placed in many regional competitions such as the #TNTNW ( come check it out if you live in the Northwest! ). While in the past I've worked as a master taster/manager, I've taken a bit of a break from professional coffee to assist the company my girlfriend works for, as they transition into a more third wave coffee model.
In short I really love coffee.
A disclaimer before I begin. I'm not writing this guide out of an attempt to slam coffee knowledge down people's throats, I'm doing it to hopefully get more people interested in coffee. Because of this, I'll be generalizing many things, skipping many things, and breaking things down to the essentials. I'm also operating from the viewpoint of someone who has grown into coffee entirely through the Seattle Third Wave movement, which means I understand/word things from that perspective. I've picked up some of the East Coast phrases due to competitions, but I'm not exactly fluent. Because of these two things, this guide may be a bit basic/worded a bit differently for those of you who work professional coffee in other states. That's just kind of how these things go unfortunately, but please post if I mess anything up/you do things differently, as I'm always down for trying new things.
Coffee!
Coffee comes from the seed of a fruiting bush grown in abundance all over the world, with the vast majority of it coming from the "Coffee Belt". While coffee has almost a hundred different species, the two used to make coffee in large scale are known as Arabica and Robusta.
Arabica beans are slightly smaller, contain less caffeine, and are significantly more expensive. However, they are also the best tasting, and contain the largest amounts of notes/flavors. Arabica is what you will be given if you get coffee at a coffee shop.
Robusta beans are larger, contain more caffeine, and are extremely easy to mass produce. They fruit easily and grow in large quantities, which keeps them cheap overall. Robusta generally gets a bad rap due to it's lack of flavors/notes, and it's higher bitterness. Robusta is what you will get if you buy store brand coffee ( Folgers and the like. )
Mixing the two is also seen as a good way to cut costs, and many coffee companies will blend Arabica/Robusta to keep costs down. Stores that do this are traditionally corporate ( Dilettante, Starbucks, Tully's ), although many smaller coffee companies have started doing this as well with the economic downturn. This is also why you will occasionally see "100% Arabica" mentioned by smaller stores as a point of pride.
While Arabica and Robusta are important to determine how a coffee will end up, the origin of a coffee is also pretty important. Coffee from different regions will generally offer different tastes, and you can generally have a pretty good idea of what you are getting ahead of time if you know each region's specialty.
Latin American/Caribbean coffees are what most people view as "traditional" coffee. The flavors and aromas from these coffees are immediate and recognizable for most people as what coffee "is". They are usually quite balanced, and make for a good starting point for most people getting in to coffee.
African coffees are bright, rich, and flavorful. When made correctly they should be almost reddish in color, and many people compare them to wine or tea. African coffees have the largest difference in flavor profile between regions, with Kenyan's usually being almost a tart/citrus flavor, and Ethiopians being more of a fruity/berry flavor.
Asian-Pacific coffees are much more earthy coffees in general. While they were ignored for quite some time, they've recently seen an upswing in the craft scene thanks to how well they take to dark roasts.
Once coffee is picked, it has to be processed. Processing is the method of getting the seed/bean out of the fruit/cherry. There is actually a considerable amount of debate going on right now as to the proper way to process a cherry, with pro's and con's for each method.
Wet ( Machine washed, washed ) process is the traditional way of processing for most of the world. The cherries are submerged in water, where the unripe fruit will float to the top. Remaining cherries are hulled through a screen, then fermented in their own enzymes/sprayed down to remove any mucilage ( that crispy paper thin filament on some beans ). Afterwards they are left to sundry. Wet process is generally liked for the consistency of the beans, and how easy it is to roast them, however some have argued that removing all of the cherry also takes away some of the flavor.
Dry ( unwashed, natural ) process is a bit more simplistic. The cherries are manually sorted and cleaned, then left to sundry, with workers turning them often to prevent mildew/uneven drying. While wet leaves beans dried in a reasonable amount of time, it can take over a month for dry processed beans to fully dry out. Once dried out, the cherries are hulled to get the seeds out. Dry is a bit pickier overall, which has led to it being used less. While it is more flavorful, uneven drying/mildew growth are impossible to see, which means you won't know you have a bad batch until you try it.
Semidry ( pulped natural, semiwashed, wethulled ) process is a new process that's just now starting to pick up. The cherries are hulled immediately after harvest, and the mucilage is allowed to ferment. After it ferments, the seed is quickly washed and dried. Semidry is liked because the beans maintain the consistency of Wet, while also having the flavor of Dry.
Roasting!
Once we receive the beans, we set out to roast them. Roasting is probably the most pivotal part of the entire process, as it can change the entire flavor of the coffee. Roasting is an incredibly complex process that I don't plan to get into here, but I will however talk about the different kinds of roasts, and what they offer.
A quick note on this. High grade coffee is separated by notes. These are the flavors you see on bags of coffee, and represent what you should be tasting when you drink it. The "bitter coffee" flavor most people associate with coffee isn't in fact the taste of coffee, it's the taste of the roasting process. "Good" coffee should have readily identifiable notes that you can taste past the taste of the roast itself. With that said, and you'll see in the next few paragraphs, that taste comes up for a reason. The more you roast a coffee, the more "body" it gets, which gives it an overall profile.
Light ( Half City, New England ) roasts are generally regarded as the wines or mixed drinks of the coffee world, maintaining all the flavor, with very little inherent bitterness, and almost no taste of the roast itself. Light roasts are a bit of an anomaly, while they are viewed as being extremely high quality, they are almost entirely unheard of outside of the Northwest/New England. Light Roasts are traditionally berry flavored, although they can branch out into other fruits/vegetables. To give an example of how fruity they can be, I've made up some of my Light Roasts for relatives who don't like coffee over the holidays, and they thought I was giving them juice.
Medium ( Regular, American, City, New England ) roasts are your traditional middle of the road option. They maintain their flavor profile even into the roasting process, while gaining a bit of the "body" that longer roasting provides. They are generally regarded as the stronger liquor of the coffee world with both variety, but also a bit more of that "bitter" taste. Medium Roasts are traditionally nuttier flavor profiles, with milk chocolate, hazelnut, almond, and caramel all being normal notes for Mediums.
Medium Dark ( Full City, Continental, Viennese ) roasts are the old timers of the coffee world. They give up a little of the lighter flavors in favor of a richer body and fuller coffee taste. I could write a paragraph here, but really Medium Darks are pretty simple, filling in that odd slot between Mediums and Darks, and I mainly wanted to list how the sidenames so when people see Full City on their bag of coffee they know what it really means. Medium Darks are usually similar profiles as Mediums, with a focus on chocolates/nutty flavors, however they have more of the "body" you associate with Darker roasts.
Dark ( French, Italian, Continental, Spanish, New Orleans ) roasts are the "standard" coffee you'll find in most cities across the country, and what you'll generally end up getting if you buy bagged coffee. All flavors have been eclipsed by the flavor of the roasting process, so you'll usually notice a bitter, burnt, or smoky aftertaste alongside the coffee flavor. However as harsh as that all sounds it still has positives. Dark Roasts have the best "body" when it comes to coffee, and strong flavors like Dark Chocolate or Molasses will carry through. Dark Coffee is also the least finicky to brew, which makes it great for beginners or stores with huge volumes of coffee sales. Dark Roasts are the beers of the coffee world, readily available/not great at first, but once you find the ones you like they work pretty well for you.
"Starbucks" roasts are a step above Dark. I use the term Starbucks endearingly, as this term applies to almost all the major Coffee Chains ( even most independent shops have a "Starbucks' roast, just because hotels/offices will buy it in bulk and you can use that money to fund passion projects. ). At this point the coffee has been roasted to the point it no longer has flavors outside of the roasting process, and you'll almost never catch a hint of it's origin. This is done for a reason, as by roasting it this far, you make it incredibly stable, and these companies have built up a business selling coffee nobody can really mess up ( because it's already roasted past any flavors you might actually mess up! ). Starbucks Roasts are the Bud or Coors of the coffee world. They get the job done, and are great in a hurry, but realistically you could be doing better.
Burnt roasts are bad. They have no flavor profile, have no roasting profile, are usually stale when you get them to make sure they don't change flavors to something worse on you mysteriously if you leave them in a cupboard for a few months, and are generally terrible. There isn't a single redeeming thing I can say about burnt roasts outside of they give you caffeine, in which case you could be just drinking tea. Burnt roasts are what you get when you buy stuff like Folgers. They are the 40's of the coffee world, technically they do the job, but why would you do that to yourself.
Blends?
The last thing I want to talk about is blends, or the absence of blends. And this is one of the most personal parts of any coffee shop, and comes entirely down to what the owners/roasters want to achieve with their roasts, so it's almost impossible to talk about this in any way that isn't vague. For that I apologize ahead of time.
Once you have the bean you want to roast, you can choose to blend it. By this I mean mixing it with other roasts to either strengthen certain things it does well, or cover up weaknesses you feel it may have. Outside of the ideas of flavor, you could also want to blend it to try and promote a brand, or maintain consistency across all your roasts.
Let me give an example to try and make sense of this. You have an African light roast that tastes HEAVILY of green apple. Now, in your mind it tastes so much like green apple it overpowers the drink, and you don't think it'll be enjoyed. So rather then throw it out, you can mix it with other roasts to "fix" the problem you've found. What pairs well with green apple in the real world? Well, people like caramel apples, so why not take a medium roast that tastes like caramel and throw some of that in there. And let's say you have a 60%/40% mix, and it's working, but you think the body just isn't good as it could be. So at this point you could throw in 10-20% of a dark roast to fully fill out the body. Or you could remove the medium, and instead add in a medium dark to give both body AND flavor. The potential combinations are pretty limitless and takes up quite a bit of time trying to "perfect" a coffee.
And that's just taking into account flavor. You also need to take into account brand recognition, or even just economics. Everyone recognizes Starbucks immediately due to the distinctive flavor their coffee has, this is because their blends all have the same amount of a specific dark roast mixed in. This taste makes sure no matter what Starbucks coffee you are drinking, it'll maintain the brand. Or from an economical side of things, you may have a roast that tastes INCREDIBLE, but costs 2-3x as much as most other coffees. To make it profitable you could split the roast with extremely light flavors it'll overpower, saving you in the long run.
It's quite complex, and in the interest of time/keeping this post pretty basic I don't want to get that deep into it, however there is one other way of blending I want to talk about, and that is the Single Origin.
Single Origin coffees are unique in that they are unblended, or if they are, it is only with other blends from the same area as the farm the original roast came from. This means that all the strengths and weaknesses of a particular farming region are in full force within that coffee, as nothing is done to balance it out. This imbalance is what gives Single Origins their strengths however, as you can find a Single Origin for practically every flavor of coffee. Single Origins are easily recognizable by how explosive the flavor profiles are, and how easy it is to identify various flavors within the coffee. Single Origins are best for the people who "hate" coffee, as they lack the inherent bitterness present in traditional coffee, instead veering between being almost a wine/juice.
Alright, I think that's enough writing for the night. Tomorrow I'll write up a primer guide on the various specialty coffee machines one can buy, and the pros and cons of each. If anyone has any questions or comments let me know, I'll be glad to answer any coffee questions, even mundane stuff. Hopefully I didn't go too crazy with this guide and make it unreadable for people interested in coffee, let me know if there is anything that wasn't well explained I suppose!
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