The Great Coffee Experiment

Coffee is enjoyed by most adults around the globe as part of a daily morning ritual. Given the ubiquitous consumption of this beverage, it has surprised me how few people have asked “how can I have better coffee?” At least, I found this to be quite true in my home country. Having messed around with coffee for a decade, I have had my fair share of bad and good coffees. And I know something that these habitual coffee drinkers don’t. Every time they hit that button on the Nespresso or order their Starbucks Special, they are drinking a three out of ten. The thing is, they have been drinking this so long that they have no idea how grand coffee can be. And for a small time investment, they could bump that three all the way up to a six or seven. So I set out to write this post. For people who are ready to leave the status quo coffee behind and explore the exquisite coffees of the world, I want to help you find your way towards this goal. Following this guide will get you there in no time.

Before we get to the guide, I want to get something out of the way. As a coffee snob, I don’t outright hate Starbucks. But I just want to point out the obvious. If you put a lot of sugar in something, then do a successful marketing campaign and convince people it is not sugar but coffee, it will be a huge success. People love consuming sugar but don’t want to acknowledge their sugar consumption. But good coffee shouldn’t need additional ingredients to improve it. Any additives that distract from the flavors of a good brew are really just detracting from the experience. So adding sugar to it should be a last resort of sorts. A declaration of failure to prepare a worthy brew. But read on and I will help you so you never have to do this again. And health benefits too.

Now for the good stuff. To embark on this great journey we will need three pieces of equipment. The first is the tool to brew your coffee. I considered the French press, pour over, mocha pot and other methods of brewing. But because we are going for simplicity (minimizing things that can go wrong) and consistency, I have chosen the Aeropress. This method is much more forgiving than other methods, so if you make some small mistakes you will still have something to enjoy.

The second tool we need is a scale. Really any kitchen scale will do, as long as it measures to the tenths place in grams. I recommend a Joe Frex coffee scale or this one, which is similar. They are cheap, reliable and many baristas are using them. Think of coffee as a recipe with two ingredients. If you took any of your grandma’s recipes and randomly doubled certain ingredients, it likely wouldn’t turn out in your favor. Measuring how many grams of coffee we put in takes only a few seconds and it will help us reproduce the results when the coffee tastes good.

The final piece of equipment we will need is a grinder. We cannot buy pre ground coffee and expect to make a good cup for a few reasons. The main one being that once coffee is ground, the insides are exposed to air. The air breaks down the flavors that we want in our coffee relatively quickly. So the best cup of coffee will be made from fresh grounds. The grinder will likely be the most expensive piece of equipment, but it is by far the most important tool for any barista. I would like to recommend the Royal Grinder by Flair. I am aware that this grinder is 160$, which is a lot for most people. So I would like to explain why it is so good. And if you choose to seek out a more affordable option, I hope I can help you find the features that are most important. To understand why the grinder is so important, we first have to dive into a little bit of science.

There will be thousands chemicals coming out of the coffee while we soak it in hot water. The heat is “shaking” these chemicals into the water which will eventually be what we drink. However, some of these chemicals have more affinity for water than others. So they will enter the water much earlier in the extraction. Because there are thousands of different chemicals we cannot control how much of each one ends up in the coffee. So we aim for a perfect ratio, not which we know, but which we taste. To get this perfect ratio, we need to control the size of the grind. All the coffee grinds must have the same size and surface area. This ensures the different chemicals from each ground are all seeping into the water at the same rate. This is why any grinder won’t cut it. For example, there are simple electric grinders that have a metal attachment that spin. When you press down, it starts chopping up the coffee beans. But the grounds will be all different sizes. So the extraction won’t be reproducible and we won’t be able to make it again if it is good (which it likely won’t be anyway.)

Apart from just being fun to grind coffee manually, the Flair grinder is very precise. It is also mechanically simple and therefore robust. It costs a good bit less than an electric grinder of similar capabilities. It also has a locking mechanism with 36 discrete grind sizes to choose from. Some grinders have a sliding mechanism which allow you to adjust continually. This means more precision, but the setting may move if you bump it. This will also affect reproducibility if the coffee tastes good. So if you do not get the Flair Royal grinder, make sure that your grinder makes all the grounds the same size and can lock in place once you have found the ideal grind size.

Once you have all your equipment, you will have to choose your coffee beans. Unfortunately marketing psychology has progressed in recent years, so a nice looking and expensive bag of coffee beans does not necessarily equate to quality. So I want to provide you with a few heuristics for finding coffee beans that you will really be satisfied with. Coffee could be considered produce in a way. People would not eat a bunch of bananas that is 6 months old, so we should not prepare coffee beans that are 6 months old. The ideal time to brew coffee is between four and fourteen days after the roast date. Coffee accumulates gas in the roasting process and this tends to dissipate in about 3 days after roasting. After two weeks, the coffee beans will lose their peak freshness and some of their flavor. But they can still be brewed for a decent cup of coffee. To make sure you are getting fresh coffee, always check the roast date. Personally, I would not even consider buying any coffee that has no listed roast date.

The second rule for finding good coffee is less strict, more of a heuristic of sorts. When selecting beans, I would prefer single origin over blends. Blends of different coffee beans aren’t necessarily inferior to origins of single beans. It’s just that sometimes that lower quality beans are mixed in to improve profits. The single origin is a useful indicator of quality.

The third guideline for finding quality coffee has to do with the variety of bean. There are many different varieties of coffee beans. However, there are really only two that are widely grown, arabica and robusta. Robusta is named so because of it’s robustness. It is easy to grow in a variety of conditions, hence it is more widely available. In general robusta coffee is not as enjoyable as arabica coffee and doesn’t have the wide varieties of flavors found in arabica beans. Different countries have different soil conditions and this is reflected in their wide variety of flavors when brewing with arabica. They could taste like chocolate, fruits, nuts, lemongrass or even wilder flavors like bubblegum. Regardless of where robusta beans come from, the flavor always tends to be somewhat woody, nutty and bitter. It would be interesting to find the method that brings out all the best flavors from the Robusta beans, but this is not it. Arabica beans should be used with the Aeropress if your goal is to get a remarkable cup of coffee.

So if you have found some decent beans, now you are ready for the fun part. This is where you become a master barista. Instead of describing how to use the aeropress, I will refer to James’ Hoffman’s video. He is a barista world champion and coffee influencer who is also passionate about helping people experience amazing coffee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6VlT_jUVPc

I do everything exactly as James Hoffman describes except for two. He says not to wet the filter when you put it in the end of the Aeropress. Yes, it is true that it can stick when you put the hot water in. But many times I have not wet the filter before pouring in the hot water and find out its positioning is slightly off. I end up making a big mess and I have to start the whole process over. This can be quite an annoyance, especially early in the morning when I haven’t consumed any coffee yet. Wetting the filter when you initially put it in prevents this from happening and just takes a second more. I also recommend using the inverted method shown in the picture below. The Aeropress is positioned upside down while you are waiting for the two minutes of extraction. When you are ready to push the plunger down, you flip it over into the top of your coffee cup. This method is a bit more precise and prevents some spilling.

If you were able to secure some fairly decent beans and followed the few simple steps from this guide, then I am quite confident you have a yummy cup of coffee. If this is the first time making coffee without pressing a button, you may find yourself pleasantly surprised. Consider the comment on James Hoffman’s video from 8ulls3y3, “I just brewed my first cup, and the difference between this first attempt and the cheap coffee maker I've used for the last years was actually astounding. Mellower, sweeter, not even closely as bitter as before. I feel stupidly proud of myself and exhilarated over a simple cup of coffee. And I think it's amazing.” If this post enhances your life in anyway, please share it with friends who could benefit from tastier coffee.