Things I Don't Understand

I feel like there are a lot of people in the coffee world these days who are under the mistaken impression that they are demi-gods whose knowledge of coffee is so astonishing and complete that they should be worshipped and forgiven any and all bad behavior.

With this in mind... here are some of the many things I don't understand:

• Flavours of Coffee - How do coffees develop their flavours and why does each coffee taste different? There seem to be so many variables and so many attributes that contribute to the flavour of coffee and each and every one seems to interact with all the others... it's all a bit overwhelming. Varietal, growing conditions, harvest, processing, storage, transport, roasting, resting... It's nuts! I get the feeling that I'm just beginning to see the whole picture and it's intimidating. I've cupped hundreds if not thousands of coffees, I've read up about the chemistry and the varietals and the physics and all this has done is made me realize that I don't really even have a chance of understanding this. If I dedicated my entire life to understanding the flavours of coffee I think I would die ignorant. And it's the single most important part of the profession. Sigh...
• Varietals of Coffee - There are 2000 varietals in Kenya alone? Seriously? I think I could name less than two dozen varietals off the top of my head that I've cupped. From the entire world. Insane.
• Green Bean Analysis - I was never under the illusion that I was an expert in this area, but spending some time with Duane made me realize just how ignorant I really am. I honestly would consider myself to have no skill or experience at all in this area. It's embarassing.
• Roasting - it's funny to hear some "experts" talk about roasting and realize that I know as much as they do. And yet I know nothing about roasting. I mean, I understand the How of it all but as for the Why and the What... beyond the basics of caramelization, Maillard Reactions and the like I know nothing (or less than nothing) about what's going on. I remember spending time learning about roast profiles and temperature changes and the results... and then watched the roasters at Stumptown prove all my assumptions and all my conclusions and all I'd learned and read out the window. And their coffee was better.
• Taste - Sure, I have a vague and superficial grasp of the theories behind how we taste things and how we experience flavour. But it's just that... vague, superficial and theoretical. I've been thinking about how we go about developing our palate and this has made me realize that there are enormous holes in my understand - or more accurately, that my understanding is a thin, tiny and frail mesh-like spider web over one big giant hole. How do we develop our palates? What percentage is learned versus innate? How much is simply language and how much is palate? How much is physical and how much is psychological? What's going on here? I feel like a blind man with a blindfold on and enormous oven mitts on my hands trying to assemble a nuclear reactor from the memory of an instruction manual written in a language I don't understand.
• Many of the variables of espresso - I've been thinking a lot about aspects of temperature for example, and have a lot of doubts. For example... if you flash freeze espresso immediately upon extraction, what happens to the flavour? What happens if you put 7grams of a coffee in a double basket, ground fine and then tamp really hard and extract a single shot? How much of the assumptions about temperature and pressure and the relations between them are the result of limitations of the original equipment? What happens if we throw these assumptions away now that we can de-couple them? What would happen if we didn't tamp in the normal sense but instead had a portafilter that held twice the volume of the dosed coffee and had a valve at the bottom where you would fill the portafilter with unpressurized water (pre-infuse) and then pressurize the whole thing with a hydraulic press?
• Milk - listening to Morten's lecture in Iceland made me realize I know nothing about milk at a chemical or physical level.
• Water - I re-read Jim Schulmann's Water FAQ again. Mystifying to me.

And yet someone told me the other day that I am "an expert." But I know nothing. How can I be called an expert? Sure, I know more than some people, but I know less than many others and I know nothing as compared to what I should know.

And this is just some of the things I don't understand. An entire list would not only take years, but would be inherently incomplete as there is so much that I don't even yet know I don't understand.

I theorize that the only reason people think I'm an expert is because I'm actually trying to understand things - because I pay attention to stuff. To be fair, the only reason I try is because I'm honest with myself and about myself and thus am aware of just how little I know.

There are a whole lot of people in or tangential to this industry who need a little bit of self-awareness and honesty in my (not so) humble opinion.

Death to the 'to-go' Cup!

Seriously.

I think we can blame a lot of the problems in the US coffee market on the damn 'to-go' cup. People are not tasting their drinks, they're in a rush, they order those horrid 'extra-hot' drinks... the list goes on and on.

Bronwen makes a great point. Coffee bars are social centers in so many other parts of the world. And, in many cases, they were started to fulfill this same function in the US. But now we have people talking on their cell phone while grabbing a drink to take with them in the car.

There are so many things wrong with the picture, and regardless of whether or not 'to-go' cups are the cause - I have little doubt that killing them off would fix a whole bunch of the problems. And even if they only fixed a little bit - they are such a potent sign of what is wrong here that making them go away would send such a clear message it would be well worth it.

Death to the 'To-Go' Cup Now!

Who is our Alice Waters?

I remember back when I was first starting out as a cook hearing people dismiss the idea of a restaurant that did not have a fixed menu. "That will never work, people want to know what they're going to get," all the experts said. Restaurants like Du Marche in New York were scoffed at. The idea of a limited menu that changed every day that was based purely upon what was best and freshest of the local products on that one day... they all said it would never fly. Tasting menus... the pundits all claimed people required choice - the required control. "Customers want comfort in their food - they want to order the Chicken Diane with the side of spinach every Thursday night."

But some brave souls ignored the experts. And as a result, food as cuisine (as opposed to food as sustenance) took root in the US.

These same experts are now claiming the same things about coffee. "Consistency is the most important attribute in coffee," they say. "People want comfort in their coffee." These are ideas borrowed from the worlds of traditional retail and from fast food -- from commodity based markets. They are conservative worlds and conservative models - where quality is less important than product brand, where volume is the goal and the workforce is one step up from slave-labor (and in some cases may well be slave labor).

For the Starbucks of the world - this advice is both valid and valuable. Starbucks, after all, is fast food. But for the true specialty coffee companies and more so for the artisan coffee companies this advice is not only incorrect - it is destructive and damaging. It is fundamentally the wrong model. Those companies are not in the commodity business, they are not in the fast food business and they are not in the traditional retail business. They are in the culinary business.

The minute some brave souls take the risk, ignore the advice of all these experts, we will see our first American Place, our first Du Marche, our first Chez Panisse. And some of those brave souls will reap the rewards.

It takes a huge amount of passion, courage and vision to take a risk like this. But I truly believe that someone is going to do it. I truly believe that we will see businesses like this emerge - where coffee takes center stage - in all its idiosyncratic and ever-changing glory - and where it is celebrated as it deserves. I truly believe that this is where we will, finally, see the mighty $5 cappuccino.

And when it happens, you will see me there - standing at the bar drinking a $3 shot of the espresso of the day with a big huge smile on my face.

So... who has balls big enough? Is it you?

If there is one thing to fight in coffee, if there is one wrong to right, it is the concept that coffee (in all forms) is just a commodity. Many of the problems in the "specialty" coffee world spring from this one issue.

"Espresso should taste the same, always" -- the whole "consistency" thing in espresso blends continues to reinforce the impression that coffee is just coffee, espresso just espresso... it's all the same. Until people take a stand and start not only accepting that espresso blends will (and have to) change over time - but in fact start celebrating and marketing this fact... well... until that point we're still at the point where customers won't be able to get their heads around why an espresso at Stumptown should cost more than an espresso at Starbucks. I dream of a world where there is a blackboard menu for espresso, and each day there are 2 or 3 single origin options and another 1 or 2 "blends of the day". These blends can be numbered or nicknamed or dated - what they should be is described. "Espresso Blend #10095 - This blend is based on a Cup of Excellence Pulped Natural Cerrado from Brazil, with accent coffees from El Salvador and Rwanda. Expect tons of caramel and honey sweetness and a cocoa butter medium body with winey fruit high notes and belgian chocolate in the finish." Regular customers could have conversations about that blend two months ago and how it compares to this one.

"I don't like African coffee." -- in almost all countries and regions the range of coffee available represents a huge subset of coffee itself. Until roasters stop labeling coffees "Guatemala" or the like and instead start going to the point of celebrating and marketing the different sub-regions, estates, farmers and harvests customers are never going to understand why they should pay more for a coffee like the Guatemala Finca San Vincente than they should for a "Guatemala" from Trader Joes. I think roasters need to label their coffees not only with origin and roast date, but also harvest, estate... the whole deal. At this point, roasters will actually be able to mark up their expensive coffees by the same percentage as their cheap coffees, expensive coffees will no longer be "loss leaders" and perhaps we can say farewell at last to the glut of defective, horrible, generic and well-marketed aggregated coffees from places like Columbia, Peru, etc.

Great coffee is not a drug.
Great coffee is not tasteless or bland.
Great coffee is not a habit.
Great coffee is a passion, it is an experience, it is exciting and wonderful and weird and different and most of all it is memorable.

Reject the generic.
Celebrate the difference.

a turning point?

so the question is - does consistency matter when it comes to espresso blends?
or, more accurately, how important is consistency in espresso blends?

i have to say that i feel like the perceived requirement for consistency has led to a vast array of vaguely similar lowest-common-denominator espresso blends that range from okay to boring.

i don't want "okay" and i don't want "familiar".
i want great.

as an analogy - i'll use the food thing again... there are people who eat at McDonalds when they travel because no matter where they go a Big Mac is a Big Mac. me... that sounds horrible. eating the exact same thing every day? experiencing the same taste time and time again? experiencing nothing new, nothing wonderful? i'd rather die. for me - i love going to new and random places when i travel. sure - sometimes i get food worse than what i'd get at McDonalds but sometimes i get to experience new, wonderful and/or strange things.

i wonder if it's all about fear. fear of the unknown, fear of change. i wonder if people are just willing to sacrifice the chance of greatness to avoid something bad.

maybe i'm weird - but i want newness and growth. i want to learn.

i want my espresso to be different - all the time.

and the thing is --- the reality of coffee is that it will be different, all the time. coffees change, become unavailable. they change month to month and lot to lot and crop to crop. trying to pretend otherwise is just silly.

to me, the goal of an espresso blend should be to taste good. if one month it tastes good in a rich and chocolatey way - that's great. and if the next month it's all berry and caramel - that's good too.

just say no to boring coffee.

Barista Magazine

So I got my copies of the new issue - and it is really amazing.
It has some great articles - and even an article I wrote (grin).

Actually, I'm really happy about this issue, and the magazine in general. It's really good to see the magazine improving. It's cool that baristas have their own magazine finally - and it's even cooler that it's the best of the coffee industry publications.

Anyway - check it out, subscribe, it's very cool.

Oh... my article is the one on the physiology of taste.

win cool shit

check out the contest over on Home-Barista.com...

first prize is a Mazzer Mini grinder. seriously. other prizes include an i-Roast home roaster, a set of Illy cups, etc etc

whatcha got to lose?