Five Senses Coffee Blog

Good coffee

I’ve been into coffee now for a quarter of my life – I know there are a lot of you that read this blog that have been working with coffee for a whole lot longer.

Had I crystal ball gazed 10 years ago I might have predicted that at about this moment in time I would have been totally bored with anything and everything to do with coffee and would have moved on to the next thing. I am a bit of a “phaseologist” (yep – i did invent that word) meaning that it normally doesn’t take me long to lose interest in something before I move on to something new, a new phase. My shed is the best record keeper my of discarded interests – it is littered with fishing gear, golf clubs, snorkling gear and a bunch of other things I’ve forgotten about over the years.

My interest in coffee however – contrary to my own personal expectations – has not waned. Infact my interest if anything, has grown and my appetite to learn more about coffee is greater than ever before. The coffee industry all to often overstates it’s expertise in different area’s of coffee which has had the effect of giving the exagerated impression that a massive body of knowledge about coffee, easily accessible to everyone, exists – out there – somewhere. I’m absolutely certain that there is a massive amount of IP relating to different aspects of coffee but finding out exactly what you need is sometimes like looking for a needle in a haystack and then, once you do find it you often end up having to make judgement calls on the credibilty of the information and whether or not the gleanings can be applied directly to something you are trying to get your head around. Ironically, I think that it’s this constant frustration that keeps my interest in coffee alive.

That’s why I loved the 2010 SCAA. I think that this conference – more so than the previous ones I’ve been to, heralded the dawn of a new era of a new way of thinking about coffee – an era where manufacturers are putting emphasis on providing tools to aid our learning about coffee rather than making equipment that makes the presumption that they (the manufacturers) know everything. Green bean suppliers are also on board and are promoting transparency and traceability back to the grower. It’s like a broad base acknowledgement that the barista and roaster need to be able to explore and that they have the desire to share and contribute to the body of knowledge.

Equipment like the Uber Boiler, the new generation Synesso and the Extract MoJo all put control back into the hands of the people most interested in exploring coffee and green bean hunters/suppliers (like Atlas coffee) are trying to bridge the gap between growers, roasters and baristas. I don’t think that I’ve been as excited about the future of coffee for a long time.

That’s my rant.

Cupping at Atlas - Seattle

Ben ready to cup at Atlas - Seattle

Jeremy pulling first shots of Nekisse on next generation Synesso

Better view of the next generation Synesso

Jeremy from Synesso still looking composed after pulling shots all day.

It has been a very good year.

I’ve been reflecting on some of the happenings this year and feel like it’s worth jotting down some of the positive experiences I had over the last 12 months. These experiences are not in any particular order.

The Brewed Coffee revolution

I know that the word “revolution” might sound a tad melodramatic but this year, after a few years of a bit of a spluttering start, (think 1970′s engine) coffee brewed in ways other than through an espresso machine has really taken hold amongst those in the specialty coffee community. The most notable thing here is that attitudes to brewed coffee have changed to a point where there is a greater respect for the brewed product and where many people choose to brew their extra special coffee’s through brewing systems that give them the chance to experience nuances in the coffee which would not be evident to them through espresso. This newly found enthusiasm by the industry in general has resulted in a few good things happening. Firstly, manufacturers are getting serious about making and supplying gear that gives us better brewing results. Marco in Ireland have now got serious and have produced a machine (Uber boiler) that dispenses water to exacting temperatures. Syphon brewers, Chemex, Clever Coffee Drippers and filters are readily available and most importantly there are tons of people experimenting and publishing their thoughts on how to get good results. This is an excellent thing and bodes very well for those interested in the success of specialty coffee. My favourite brewed experience. Ethiopian Beloya through a Clever Coffee Dripper, 30g to 330ml, 3 minute steep time, Blueberry smack in the face!

Coffee from Kintamani in Bali

We’ve been visiting Bali for about 3 years now and this year is the first year that I’ve felt that our investment in the area has started to have a real impact on the people who are doing the farming and on the coffee in the cup. I won’t go into the finer details but because of the choice of a large exporter choosing to pull the pin on their support for a few farmers we were working with it meant that they (the farmers) would also loose their wet mill. We were able to buy the wet mill from the exporter and leave it in situ for the farmers to continue to use. This year the growers really improved their post harvesting techniques in an effort to increase the quality of the beans sent to us. The beans arrived last week. The quality is much better. It feels good to be involved in something where there are wins all round.

The opening of a couple of new places (Proud Mary and Seven Seeds)

These two venues have a unique place in the industry in Australia – for how far they have lifted the bar and how they have become what they are. Each of these venues reflects the passionate coffee journey of the people behind them – Both these venues have people that work within them that started from very modest coffee beginnings. Mark, Bridget and Nolan and Sharee rely on the bean telling the story and work their hardest at providing hard working Australians with one of the world’s best total coffee experiences. Mecca (Paul) in Sydney and a couple of other also fit into this catagory but were opened prior to this year.

The arrival of our baby gade and backroom program:

This heading is really me trying to summerise a whole mix of events and moments that all contributed to something that made us like coffee just so much more. The return of Jenny Murray from her sabatical in Canada, the final pimping/modification of the Renegade sampler, and the arrival of our first mixed shipment of microlot coffees from brokers in the US all culminated in us being able to really explore roasting profiles and brewing results of unique and excellent coffees like we’d never done before. I’m not sure I’ve every heard so many “wows” in one year by the guys here around the roastery.

Our success at the comps:

Normally our participation in competitions is done simply for us to be able know how we are going in the industry against the rest of Australia and the rest of the world. We here in Perth often feel that our isolation prevents us from keeping up with what’s hot and what’s not so we are constantly watching the industry as closely as we can and striving to get better. Our success in the comps this year has played a role validating the efforts we’ve made to hover at cutting edge of the specialty coffee industry. It’s a small measure but we’ll take it.

The birthing of the “mod” department:

We probably never really understood what we would be getting when we signed up for a service department. After much hard work we’ve not only got ourselves a slick equipment fixing machine we’ve also got ourselves a couple of equipment geeks (I hope they will forgive me for calling them this – they know who they are) who have been able to demonstrate with skill and imagination anything is possible. Out of our workshop this year we’ve seen a tuned Renegade sample roaster, a preinfusion mod on a Synesso, a funky timer and hopper mod on a normal Robur and more recently a mashup of a Synesso and Isomac to create an incredibly heat stable multiboiler machine suitable for the domestic market. In recent days the geek (Rich) has also been able to convert a 3 group Sabre into a Hydra/Sable Hybrid. It’s just incredible to be associated with a company with a service department that can do a whole lot more than just change seals and filters. I think that best is yet to come and ultimately, the specialty coffee industry will be the winner.

The noise in the production room is starting to lift as I finish this post. The guys are playing hacky sack, the BBQ is on and the drinks are on ice.

Yep, it’s been a very good year.

Fine tuning the drip brewer

There is nothing more frustrating than having everything at your fingertips…nearly. This is kind of how I felt this morning when I embarked on my mission to explore what results I get using different types of filters. Essentially, when it comes to coffee drippers there are seven main variables that impact on result in the cup. There are other variables which I think have a small effect but pale into relative insignificance if you can’t get control over the big ones.

For the purpose of testing the effect of using different filters in the drippers, the variables that needed to be consistent were:

• The origin used. Today it was Guatemala La Perla.
• The particle size of the grind through the lab grinder.
• The amount of coffee used. (40 grams)
• The steep time.
• The volume of water. (330ml)
• The water temperature grrrrrr the water temperature. Get my frustration!! Uber Boiler – wherefore art thou!! I can’t say that using a kettle gives us the best chance of controlling this variable excellently but by using a thermometer probe we were able (with quite a bit of effort) to get relative temperature repeatability in each of the drippers.

We used 3 test filters:

• An unbleached flat bottomed Melitta paper filter
• An non-chlorine oxygen whitened flat bottomed Melitta filter
• A swissgold gold filter.

Melitta claim that there is no difference other than visual between their unbleached (natural brown filter) and their oxygen whitened filter. We thought that this was worth putting to the test.

We ran the tests both yesterday and this morning. In both instances the tests were done blind to prevent prejudice being a factor in our evaluation and eventually our preferences. The differences were absolutely evident and the results that we achieved replicated in both tests. In our taste evaluations we also concealed the coffee so that we couldn’t be influenced by what we could see.

The result:
Visually: The two paper filters produced coffee with no suspended particulates. The coffee resulting from the gold filter was very muddy in appearance.
Taste: The flavour and character was evident in all of the cups but varied in intensity and clarity. The white filter produced a coffee that we felt had the greatest amount of clarity while the gold filter produced a coffee with an almost overt intensity – almost masking some of the subtleties we enjoyed in the coffee made with paper filters.
Mouthfeel: The gold filter resulted in a brew with much heavier palate weight than the two brews made with the paper filter. This isn’t surprising. It has been known for some time that paper filter prevents the movements of lipids (which include unsaturated long-chain fatty acids) into the cup.
Usabilty: The paper wins every time. I think that the effort to wash the gold filter properly after every brew would probably be disincentive enough for me not to bother with making myself a brew. The paper filter is 100% biodegradable so with a quick flick of the wrist the filter, complete with spent coffee, is in the compost bin. The swissgold filter costs close to $50 while $2 – $3 buys you about 40 paper filters. It probably means that paper filters might cost you more money in the long run but I think that once you throw cleaning time, detergents and water into the equation you might re-evaluate the real cost of choosing one type of filter over the other.

Summery:
Quote of the day from Richo *pointing* “that one tastes like coffee” then pointing again at another “that one is more like a meal”. We enjoyed the result of each filtration method but I think that it is fair to say that our taste preference was for the coffee brewed with the oxygen treated paper. The gold filter would produce a cup that in isolation would be something that most people would quite enjoy. However, when tasted alongside a cup brewed through paper there was no doubting that our preference was for the oxygen processed paper filter.

Cool Cultivars

After 3 years of visiting and getting to know our farmers in Bali we finally have our first shipment on the water heading for Freo. For those who are new to this thread I’ll quickly summarise. We have been visiting the Kintamani region in Bali over the last 3 years in an attempt to influence quality amongst a few farmers that we thought had enough of an interest in working with us to make improvements to their green bean offerings. To make a long story short, we now have farmers that are amongst other things only picking cherries at their optimum level of ripeness, paying closer attention to removing defective cherries before milling, drying all parchment coffee off the ground and keeping all their cultivars separate.

In return, we have bought the farmers a wet mill and are paying them nearly double what they would have received for their parchment this crop.

Keeping the cultivars (USDA, S795 and B1) separate for this crop was done in an attempt to get a better understanding of how each of the cultivars perform in the cup. Gaining knowledge like this is important so that we can start to provide feedback to farmers about consumer preferences and give them the opportunity to make changes to what they grow, harvest and offer to specialty coffee buyers.

We’re pretty excited. We’ll announce when the coffee has arrived and the roasters have had a chance to play and cup. Watch this space.

West Australian Barista/Latte Art and Cupping Championship

This is probably going to the be the first of a few random posts thoughout the weekend that I hope will give you a feel for probably one of the most important events on the WA coffee calendar. Pictures tell a thousand words so I’m going to keep my written stuff really brief.

Competition Weekend

Yep, its that time of year again and no, I’m not talking about Christmas. It’s the annual Coffee industry competition weekend – which probably does feel a bit like Christmas for the die hard coffee geek. Over the years the competition has evolved to include 4 main events, the Barista Competition, the Latte Art Competition, the Cup Tasting Competition and on the national and world stage the “Coffee in Good Spirits” (a coffee cocktail type event)

Historically,  Five Senses people have done pretty well at these events and this year are training hard in the hope to carry this tradition on. The event is being held at the Mt Hawthorne Community Hall and kicks of with the first of 17 competitors (our very own Mark Chandler) this Saturday the 7th at 9am sharp. The schedule on Saturday runs through until the 11th competitor finishes at 3.30pm. Jenny Murray is the 10th competitor and her event starts at 2.15pm. Sunday morning kicks off with the performances of the remaining 6 competitors. Jeremy Hulsdunk is the first up at 9.00am. The plan is for the barista event to be all wrapped up by lunchtime and the Latte Art event to kick of at 1.00pm and to be finished in time for the Cup Tasting event to start at 3.00pm. We’ve got quite a few entrants in this event too.

I’m glad I’m not a competitor (Not sure I could handle the pressure! ) but I am looking forward to being a spectator.

It’s a Clever little dripper

They’ve taken a while to arrive but now they are here. The Clever Coffee Dripper is one of the most recent progressions in making brewed coffee an even more practical an offering to customers than ever before.

I’ve been watching the so called “Black Coffee revolution” with interest over the last couple of years.

Until the end of 2007 there was an intense focus on espresso coffee. This manifested itself in things like the progression of espresso machine technology relating to controlling brew temp etc and also the increasing popularity of the Barista and Latte Art Competitions worldwide. It seems that by the end of 2007 the consumer masses had also plugged in to espresso coffee and were buying domestic espresso machines in an effort to bring their espresso experiences into their homes.

While espresso coffee remains alive and well there has been a re-emergence in the market of enthusiasts who are now looking to embrace other brew techniques as just another way to enjoy and explore coffee. These methods include a coffee made though a syphon, french press (plunger) or a drip filter device. In the last 10 years, in Australia at least, these brew methods have pretty much been forgotten or dismissed in favour of espresso. Now it seems, they are making a comeback.

I can understand why brewed coffee coffee has struggled. Let me explain. Most brewed coffee tastes its best when it is freshly roasted specifically for the brew method and then ground immediately before brewing. Back in the days when we experienced our first drip filter coffee or plunger it is highly likely that the coffee we used was some vacummed packed brick that was roasted for a generic purpose and was ground for a generic purpose. In other words – our chances of a sensational coffee experience was almost going to be zero from the outset even if the brewing technique was good.

We’ve got much cleverer now – and so have the manufacturers. There are companies that have evolved devices so that by design they are able to positively affect the potential outcome of a cup rather than destroy it (remember the jug of filter coffee that sat on the heating plate all day to stay warm).

Unfortunately many of these devices have not been that practical or have been too expensive for both the domestic consumer or the cafe operators. For example, syphon brewers are affordable for a cafe but gobble up a lot of barista time to brew a cup. They are also quite fragile therefore susceptable to breaking in a busy commercial environment. The famous Clover, another excellent brewer is too expensive for most, airpots no thermal or steeping control etc and the list goes on.

Enter the market – the Clever Coffee Dripper. This little thing ticks nearly all the boxes. It’s robust, cafes can offer customers individual/different coffees, steep time is fully controllable, it’s cheap and very easy to use and clean.

We are growing our understanding of brewed coffee through both science and sensory evaluations. We have access to the Extract Mojo, tons of good palates, exacting roasting equipment and soon the Uber Boiler to help us generate knowlege in this area of coffee. I’m sure you’ll see more posts on this subject over the next few months.

Sharing the knowledge

I know I’ve keep going on about it but one of the things that I’m increasingly convinced of is the need for a constant flow of communication between the grower and the roaster in an effort to increase the size of the shared body of knowledge about each crop of coffee and how it performs in the cup. I know that the average roaster knows as little about the direct effects of different methods of cultivation and post harvesting methods on the cup quality as a grower knows about roast profiling and extraction time through an espresso machine.

One day I would love to make a comment as definative as:

A coffee grown at (x) altitude on the sunny aspect of  mountain/region/plot during a high/low good rainfall season that is picked and subjected to a certain type of post harvest method will produce a green bean that if roasted against profile (y) and extracted under conditions (z) will produce a flavour of (insert description)

For me, being able to do this would infact be the Holy Grail of coffee.

As difficult as this may be to achieve I think that we can certainly get close if we focus our attention on specific regions, ensure that there is traceability in the coffee that we buy and we have all the stakeholders (I really hate that word) involved in contributing to the body of knowledge that lies beneath each coffee that passes though each of our hands that ends up in the mouths of the consumer.

We as roasters are trying our best to get our heads around all the factors at origin that influence the cup. We’ve been to Bali, PNG and Sumatra in recent months to spend time with growers but feel that we also have a role to play in making “our worlds” accessible to those at origin.

It is for this reason that we have had Nigel here. Nigel is Jerry Kapka’s son. (from Kongo Coffee). Nigel has spent the last 2 weeks doing Barista training, cupping training and roasting training. Our hope is that some of these knowledge and skills will be passed through to those at origin. Jerry is pretty serious about getting it right – we’ve shipped him a 2 group multi-boiler machine and grinder so that, in combination with the knowledge of how we roast and cup and extract, he will be able to monitor the quality of coffee he is producing though our eyes.

Hopefully this will provide a great platform on which to build more knowledge and get us just that little bit closer to finding the Holy Grail.

Practice. Practice. Practice

Pressure!

Cupping

Going through roasting profiles with Jay

Bean selection

We’ve just finished another cycle of bean selection. WOW! We cupped for five days solid with the sole purpose of making a choice of coffee from the most recent harvests from a variety of origins. Over the five days we cupped coffee from Kenya, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Colombia and Guatemala. Some of the coffee was outstanding – some was pretty ordinary.

The trick for us is to retain a level of continuity in the flavour profiles and intensity between harvest to harvest but also to choose coffees that, while being fairly representative of an origin, also have elements of its character that make it stand out from the crowd.

The ensuing discussions have been quite rigorous, resulting in what we believe are great outcomes. Keep your eyes on our offerings in the Single Origin section of our site over the next couple of months for descriptions of the new harvests and our comments on them.

What’s with the names!

This is going to be a very “uncoffee” post but I have to get this off my chest. We are a very small company with quite a small number of staff. Get this -  We have on staff: 2 x Ashley’s (boys), 3 x Caleb’s, 3 x Emma’s and 2 x Richard’s. What’s with that!!!