The Coffee industry's big end of town has, over the years, managed to create the impression that every cup of coffee you drink has to taste the same.
Their efforts in reproducing the same flavour in every cup of coffee-chain or take-out coffee, in every jar of instant granules, must be phenomenal.
There are countless things which can influence the flavour components of coffee beans, from the
soil the bushes grow in, to the amount of water they get, whether it was hot or cold that year, to the way the beans are roasted.
So, the big coffee manufacturers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on laboratory work to make sure the flavour of the next batch of bulk-roasted or granulated freeze-dried coffee tastes the same as the previous one, by tweaking every part of the manufacturing process from blending, to roasting, to packing.
Well, they succeed.
You will never buy a jar of instant coffee which is markedly different from the jar of the same brand which you bought last week, or last year.
And your regular take-out coffee will taste the same, day in, day out.
If you drink mass-produced coffee, you will never have the pleasure of discovering the difference a wet season made on the depth of flavour of a coffee bean, nor whether roasting it at a 5 degrees higher temperature changes the sweetness from a "caramel" to more of a "dark rum"-like note.
And, you would never have to wonder whether brewing a particular bean in a drip-olator machine enhances the coffee's subtle fruity notes, or if making an espresso with it brings out the cocoa and spice flavours.
Agreed, you would never be disappointed, because you would never expect a change.
But, you would also never experience the pleasure of tasting coffee from a top-level bean, superbly roasted, and brewed to perfection, for instance in a French Press.
That excitement, when you break the crust in the French Press's beaker with your spoon, to allow all that subtle fragrance to escape, the aroma of a truly great cup of coffee: it is hard to beat.
Using a French Press when making coffee allows the whole range of fragrances and flavours to develop, which is why it is my favourite piece of coffee making equipment.
Combined with a good grinder you can make a fantastic coffee.
It allows you to go on discovery tours across whole coffee-continents, finding out how one particular hill can produce a totally different coffee than its neighbours.
By the way, use a small French Press, never a big one; 2 -3 cups is ideal, 4 cups is maximum.
Better to make several brews if you need more than 4 cups.
The small Bodum French Press on the left is my favourite; right size, great plunger, good handle, and a great price!
People ask me if coffee is the only hot drink I enjoy...
and the answer is an honest: "No".
Coffee is ofcourse a daily regular, but I drink also chai, tea, hot chocolate and sometimes a very traditional European drink: hot anise milk.
In Europe you can buy little packets with sugar cubes, flavoured with aniseed oil; you simply put one or two of these sugar cubes in a mug of hot milk and stir... traditionally this milk is drunk in The Netherlands on cold nights, during ice-skating events.
My wife introduced me to it some years ago, and it is indeed a great drink for cold evenings.
Chai is one of these drinks which can slowly win you over, as you experiment with ways to drink it: hot, cold, with honey, with sugar, with a little milk, or as a latte, with luscious silky micro-foam.
We have a chai which is really spicy, with a good amount of black pepper; I find that one really needs some extra sugar to balance the flavours.
The other chai we have in stock has a mild, sweet, ginger/cinnamon/clove balance and when made as a latte it is almost sweet enough by itself.
Both these chais come as a "tea-bag", and we infuse them like we would a tea, in hot water directly in the cup.
The milk, sugar or honey gets added later.
Making chai the traditional way, by boiling the spices in milk with sugar is something we do not often do anymore, because the 'tea-bags" are so handy.
However, when we do have the time we still slow-cook our chai and thoroughly enjoy the beautiful aromas slowly filling the room.
Yes, a good chai (or a good chocolate, for that matter!) can make a great change from our regular coffee... but coffee still remains the firm favourite!
When you pour your coffee, you expect it to be dark and luscious, full of promise of flavour and character.... not blond and bitter, watery and lacklustre.
How is it that one day you can make a good cup of coffee and the next day, from the same ingredients, the coffee is destined for the sink?
Coffee is the same, machine is the same, grinder is the same, set to the same setting.... why the difference?
Chances are it is thehumidityin the house which is causing you problems.
Humidity is present in most houses, and is caused by a number of things: steam from cooking, dish-washing,washing, showering, hanging washing to dry in the hallway, wet weather outside and even the breathing of the people and animals living in the house.
The coffee beans you buy quickly acclimatise to the level of humidity in your house and when you get around to grinding them, you will set your grinder to get the grind which produces the best coffee with the acclimatised beans.
Sometimes, however, the humidity can drop suddenly: sudden frosty weather, or a hot drying desert-wind; in the house you then notice "static electricity " when you vacuum the carpet or brush you hair.
As the air dries out, the coffee beans dry too, and when you then grind them on your regular setting for your regular cup of coffee, you will find that all of a sudden the coffee in your cup is bitter, watery and "blond"; if you make an espresso you will see the shot gush in an almost bleached stream of "coffee".
This happens because, now the beans are dryer, the grinder has less trouble grinding them and the grind is getting coarser, allowing the water to pass through the grinds too quickly.
So, keep an eye on the humidity levels in your house and change the grinder settings when the air is dry: a notch or two finer should be enough to bring the grind back into line.
By the way, the same thing happens with beans that are getting stale: they dryout as they get older and for beans more than 4 weeks past their roast-date you will need to set the grinder a few notches finer than for freshly roasted coffee beans.
Back again
Most people who invest in an espresso machine and grinder, intend to produce a coffee that is at least comparable with and average cafe-coffee.
They buy the knock-box, the espresso cups, the proper steaming jug and even some really fresh coffee.
Yet, about 6 months later the espresso equipment has disappeared from the kitchen bench; it is either spending the rest of its life in the back of the cupboard or has been marched off to the second-hand shop to be swapped for something more desirable or useful.
And another coffee dream bites the dust...
Why??
Well... good tasting coffee starts ofcourse with good equipment and fresh coffee, but there is an industry trick which will help you to make cafe-style coffee in your own kitchen.
Next time you go into your favourite cafe, check out which basket the barista is using in the porta-filter.
Chances are that it is NOT the single cup basket , but rather a straight sided double basket.
A single serve basket has a wide funnel shape with the perforations covering only about 30% of the total surface of the bottom of the basket.
When ground coffee gets tamped into the basket, the pressure on the coffee on the sides is not "even" and the water will channel through the less compacted coffee, down the side of the funnel into your cup.
The result will be bitter brown liquid without real flavour depth....
However, if you use a double basket, which normally has straight sides, you can tamp level pressure all the way to the bottom so
even if you use a single serve of ground coffee, the water will pass through ALL the coffee particles and extract every bit of flavour.
Another point to remember is that, if you use a single serve of ground coffee, cut your shot a little earlier than normal.
All the flavour will be in the first 10-15 milliliters, and you get a better tasting coffee if you cut the shot , then add a few drops of water.
Personally, I always use a double shot quantity of ground coffee for my single shot, then cut the shot at about 30ml.... that way I get all the golden-brown viscous goodness with all the sweet flavour nuances, none of the bitterness and the whole flavour palette cuts beautifully through milk.
As far as I am concerned, the single serve basket of my espresso machine does a great job... as sugar-scoop in our sugar tin!
Coffee needs something to "go with it", and for centuries coffee has been served with little eats: small cakes, biscuits, candied nuts, glazed fruit.
In Northern Europe the biscuits and cakes are generally spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.... my favourite one is a Dutch gingerbread!
In Southern Europe the flavours are more mellow, with vanilla, anise, lemon/orange-zest and pine nuts flavouring the small butterycakes and shortbreads... "having a coffee" in Greece or Southern Italy can be meal in itself!
Spain and North Africa seem to favour the lighter, yet more complex flavours of
candied nuts, glazed dried fruits (have you tried glazed kiwi-fruit??), and my absolute favourite: Turkish Delight.
Good Turkish Delight is indeed a treat: made with fragrant orange- or rose -water, or a gentle whisper of spices and some nuts.
I may be biased, but Turkish Delight seems to enhance coffee, tea, herb-tea, chai and even iced coffee and iced tea.
Having a packet of quality Turkish Delight in the cupboard means you can always offer your guests something special... if you manage to leave it alone, that is
