Original subtitles

Mitchell Beasley presents The World

Atlas of Coffee. From beans to brewing,

coffees explored, explained, and

enjoyed. Written and read by James

Hoffman.

Introduction.

Coffee has never been better than it is

today. Producers know more than ever

before about growing coffee and have

access to more varieties and specialist

growing techniques.

Coffee roasters have never been so

likely to appreciate the importance of

using freshly harvested coffee beans and

their understanding of the roasting

process continues to improve. There are

now more and more cafes selling really

good coffee using the best equipment and

training their staff more effectively.

I wrote these words in the introduction

to the first edition of this book and

they're still true today. The world of

great coffee has now gone truly

mainstream. Every major city in the

world has a plethora of cafes and coffee

businesses, all run by passionate people

working hard to share something exciting

and delightful about coffee. The coffee

industry is enormous and has spread

around the world. Today, 125 million

people depend on coffee production for

their livelihood and coffee is consumed

in every part of the globe. Coffee is

entwined with both the economic and

cultural histories of so many countries.

Yet very few coffee drinkers have in the

past scratched the surface to see what

is underneath.

Yet while many people may not have

explored the world of coffee, a large

portion of coffee drinkers are seeking

out coffee that has been carefully

sourced, sold traceably, and brewed with

skill and care. The coffee industry can

be separated into two distinct areas,

commodity and specialty. In this book,

we will primarily be dealing with

specialty coffees. These are coffees

that are defined by their quality and by

how good they taste. Their origin is

important as this will often determine

the flavor. Commodity coffee is the term

used to describe coffees that are not

traded on their quality, but are simply

considered to be coffee. Where they are

grown doesn't matter much, nor when they

were harvested or how they were

processed. Commodity coffee has defined

the way that much of the world thinks

about coffee. a generic product from

somewhere tropical, an efficient, if

bitter way to get caffeine into the

bloodstream and to clear the mind in the

morning.

The idea that one might drink coffee for

pleasure to delight in its complexity of

flavor still has relatively little

penetration into the global culture.

There are many differences between the

production and international trade of

specialty coffees and commodity coffees

as they are quite different products.

While this new world of coffee has

boomed, it can still be a little

intimidating. The language of coffee is

foreign to most people, and many cafes

are eager to share the story of the

coffee they brew, its variety, its posth

harvest processing, or the people behind

it. This can be overwhelming or

frustrating. This book is written to

make sense of that language, to give

context to the stories of the cups of

coffee you drink, to highlight what

makes each far more cooperative

different and interesting. At first, the

sheer diversity of coffees and the huge

volume of information can be

off-putting. However, once you start to

understand a little about coffee, the

diversity and information are the very

things that make it so compelling. I

hope this book serves you well and

brings you a little more pleasure to

every cup of coffee you drink.

Part one, introduction to coffee.

Arabica and Robusta.

When talking about coffee, people are

usually referring to the fruit from one

particular species of the tree, cafe

arabica. Arabica makes up most of the

coffee produced each year, and it's

grown in dozens of countries between the

Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of

Cancer. It isn't the only species of

coffee, however. In fact, over 120

different species of coffee have been

identified to date, but only one other

is grown in any quantity. And this is

cafea, a plant we commonly refer to as

robusta.

Robusta is actually something of a brand

name given to the species chosen to

highlight its attributes. It was

discovered in the Belgian Congo, what is

now the Democratic Republic of the

Congo, in the late 19th century, and its

commercial potential was clear. It was

able to grow and fruit at lower

altitudes than existing Arabica plants

in higher temperatures and was more

resistant to disease. These attributes

are still what drive much of the

production of Robusta today. And because

of the way it is grown, it is

substantially cheaper to produce. There

is an inevitable downside, however. It

doesn't taste very good. Some people

will make a rather specious argument

that a really well-produced Robusta

coffee can taste better than a poor

Arabica coffee. And this may be true,

but it does nothing to convince us that

Robusta actually tastes good. It is

generally difficult to ascribe

particular tastes to coffees, but I

think it would be fair to say that

Robusta has a woody burnt rubber quality

in the cup. It usually has very little

acidity, but will have a heavy body and

mouth feel. There are, of course, grades

of quality within Robusta, and it is

possible to produce higher quality

Robusters. It has been a staple of

Italian espresso culture for many years.

But currently, most of the robusta

produced around the world ends up in

large manufacturing plants destined to

become the pariah of our industry.

Instant soluble coffee. For the soluble

coffee industry, price is far more

important than flavor. And the global

reliance on coffee as a fast food

product means that Robusta makes up

around 40% of the world's coffee

produced each year. This percentage is

somewhat variable, driven by the

fluctuations in price and demand. For

example, an increase in the global price

of coffee may result in more robust

production as large multinational coffee

companies may need to find cheaper

alternatives to Arabica.

Interestingly, in the past when roasters

have substituted Robusta coffees for

Arabica in big commercial blends, there

has been a downward trend in coffee

consumption. This might be related to

flavor or to the fact that Robusta has

about twice the caffeine content of

Arabica. Either way, when big brands cut

corners, consumers notice or at least

change their coffee drinking habits.

The genetics of coffee.

The coffee industry treated Robusta like

an ugly sister to Arabica until a rather

interesting genetic discovery was made.

Once scientists began sequencing the

genes, it became clear that the two

species are not cousins or siblings.

Instead, it appears that Robusta is in

fact a parent of Arabica. Most likely

somewhere in southern Sudan, Rabusta

crossed with another species called

cafair eugenoidas and produced arabica.

This new species spread and really began

to flourish in Ethiopia, long considered

to be the birthplace of coffee.

Currently, 129 species of cfair have

been identified, mostly through the work

of Q Gardens in London, though most look

very different to the plants and beans

we are familiar with. Many of these

species are indigenous to Madagascar,

though others grow in parts of southern

Asia and as far south as Australia.

None of these species has any commercial

attention at the moment, but scientists

are beginning to show more interest in

them because of a concern facing the

coffee industry, the lack of genetic

diversity of the plants currently in

cultivation.

The way that coffee has spread around

the world means that we have a global

crop with a common ancestry. There is

very little variation in the genetic

makeup of coffee plants and this exposes

global coffee production to massive

risk. A disease that can attack one

plant can likely attack them all.

Something the wine industry suffered

with the locker, an aphid that

devastated huge swavthes of grape vines

across Europe in the 1860s and 1870s.

The coffee tree.

This section deals only with the most

interesting of the coffee species, Cafe

Arabica. At first glance, all Arabica

trees look similar, a thin trunk with

numerous branches coming off it,

supporting foliage and fruit. However,

if you look closer, there are many

differences between trees determined by

the variety of Arabica being grown.

Different varieties yield different

amounts of fruit in different colors,

and some carry the fruit in clusters,

while others have fruit evenly spaced

down the branch.

There are also big differences between

the leaves of plants of different

varieties, but more importantly between

the cup characteristics when the seeds

of these varieties are harvested and

brewed. Different varieties have

different qualities of flavor and may

also have different mouth feels. It is

always important to remember that for

the bulk of coffee producers, flavor is

not the main reason they have selected a

certain variety to grow. The yield of

the tree and its resistance to disease

are usually of great value to those who

depend on coffee growing for their

livelihood. That is not to say that all

producers choose their varieties this

way, but one should bear in mind the

impact of these choices on the

profitability and income of the

producer.

From seed to tree,

most established coffee farms have a

nursery in which to raise seedlings

before planting them out on the farm for

production.

The coffee beans are first planted in

rich soil and will soon germinate. The

bean itself is lifted out of the ground

by the developing chute and at this

stage they are often called soldiers.

They look strangely like a roasted

coffee bean has been attached to the top

of a thin green stem. Not long after

this, the bean bursts open to reveal the

first leaves. Coffee plants grow quickly

and after 6 to 12 months, they can be

moved from the nursery into production.

Coffee growing requires the investment

of not only money but also time. A

coffee farmer will usually have to wait

3 years for a newly planted tree to

fruit properly.

Making the decision to begin growing

coffee is a serious one. And this also

means that if a producer abandons

coffee, it will be difficult to

encourage them to return to the crop in

the future.

Blossom and fruit. Most coffee trees

have one main harvest per year, though

the trees in some countries have a

second harvest, which is usually smaller

and of a slightly lower quality. The

cycle is first triggered by a prolonged

period of rainfall. This causes the

trees to bloom, producing lots of white

blossom flowers with a strong scent that

is reminiscent of jasmine.

Insects such as bees pollinate the

flowers. Although Arabica is able to

self-pollinate, meaning that unless they

are knocked off the tree by adverse

weather, the flowers will always yield

fruit. It takes up to 9 months until the

fruits are ready to harvest.

Unfortunately, coffee cherries do not

ripen uniformly. The coffee producer has

a difficult choice between harvesting

all the fruit from each tree at the same

time and having a certain quantity of

unripe or overripe coffee cherries in

the harvest or paying pickers to do

multiple passes of the same trees so

each cherry is harvested when it is

perfectly ripe.

Pests and diseases.

The coffee tree is susceptible to a

variety of pests and diseases. Two of

the most common are coffee leaf rust and

the coffee berry bora.

Coffee leaf rust known as roya in many

countries. This is a fungus hea vasatrix

that causes orange lesions on the

leaves. It impairs photosynthesis and

causes the leaves to drop and eventually

can kill the tree. It was first

documented in East Africa in 1861,

although it was not studied until it

began to affect plants in Sri Lanka in

1869 where it pretty much destroyed the

coffee plantations over the following 10

years.

It spread to Brazil in 1970, perhaps

brought over from Africa with a shipment

of cacao seeds, and quickly spread into

Central America. It is now found in

every coffee producing country in the

world, and the higher temperatures

brought about through climate change are

exacerbating the situation. In 2013,

several Central American countries

declared a state of emergency due to the

damage caused by rust. Coffee berry bora

also known widely as brocca. This is a

small beetle hipponamus hampe that lays

its eggs inside coffee cherries. The

hatching young eat the cherries thereby

reducing the quantity and quality of the

crop. The beetle is native to Africa

although it is now the most harmful pest

to coffee crops around the world.

Research is being done into different

methods of control including chemical

pesticides, traps and biological

controls.

The coffee fruit.

Coffee is a part of our everyday lives.

Yet, how many of us outside the coffee

producing countries have ever seen or

would even recognize a coffee cherry?

The size of the fruit varies between the

varieties of coffee. But on the whole,

they are the size of a small grape.

Unlike grapes, most of the volume of the

fruit is provided by the central seeds,

although there is a thin layer of fruit

flesh under the skin. All cherries start

out green and develop deeper colors as

the fruit matures. The skin is usually a

deep red when ripe, though some trees

have yellow fruit, and occasionally a

cross between a yellow fruiting tree and

a red fruiting tree will yield orange

fruit. While fruit color isn't thought

to influence yield, yellow fruiting

trees have often been avoided as it's

harder to determine when the fruit is

ripe. Red fruit starts green, goes

through a yellow stage, and then turns

red. This makes ripeness much easier to

identify when the coffee is being picked

by hand.

Ripeness is tied to the quantity of

sugar in the fruit, which is vitally

important when trying to grow delicious

coffee. Generally speaking, the more

sugar in the fruit, the better. However,

different producers harvest their

cherries at different stages of

ripeness. Some believe that a mixture of

cherries at different stages of ripeness

can add complexity to a coffee, though

all cherries should be properly ripe and

none of them overripe as they eventually

develop an unpleasant flavor.

Sweet fruits. The flesh of the coffee

fruit is surprisingly delicious when

ripe. A pleasing honeydew melon

sweetness with a little refreshing

acidity. The fruits are sometimes

squeezed to make a drink, but even when

ripe, they are not particularly juicy,

and you have to work to separate the

flesh from the seeds. The seed. The seed

or coffee bean is made up of several

layers, most of which will be removed

during processing, leaving behind the

bean we grind and brew. The seed has a

protective outer layer called the

parchment, then a thinner layer wrapped

around it called the silver skin.

Most coffee cherries contain two seeds

which face each other inside the berry,

becoming flattened along one side as

they develop. Occasionally, only one

seed inside a berry will germinate and

grow, and these are known as peberries.

Instead of having a flattened surface on

one side, these seeds are rounded and

make up about 5% of the crop. These

peberries are usually separated from the

rest of the crop. And some people

believe that they have particularly

desirable qualities or that they roast

in different ways to the flattened

beans.

Coffee varieties.

The first coffee trees to be cultivated

originated in Ethiopia and this same

variety typica is still widely grown

today. Many other varieties now exist,

some natural mutations and others the

result of crossbreeding.

Some varieties have explicit taste

characteristics of their own, while

others take their characteristics from

the terois in which they are grown, the

way they are cultivated, and the way

they are processed after harvest.

Few coffee consumers are aware that

there are different varieties of the

Arabica coffee tree. Mainly because much

of the world's coffee always has been

and still is traded by origin. A

particular lot may come from many farms

and by the time of export no one knows

which varieties the contributing

producers had grown only which part of

the world it was grown in. This is

starting to change but we still know

relatively little about how much impact

the variety of the tree can have on the

taste of the cup of coffee. Please note

that the descriptions of the most common

varieties will not include any specific

notes on taste unless there is something

definite and distinct. So many factors

influence cup quality and coupled with

the lack of organized research on the

way that this can be influenced by

variety. It would be misleading to make

any bold claims.

Varieties and varietals.

There is often some confusion over the

term variety and varietal.

Varieties are genetically distinct

variations of a single species in this

case cafe arabica that may show

different characteristics in the tree

structure, leaves or fruit. Cultivar is

another acceptable term to use here as

this is just a truncation of cultivated

variety.

Varietal should be used when referring

to a specific instance of a variety.

When referring to the production of one

farm, for example, it would be correct

to say that it was 100% borbon varietal.

Typica.

This is considered the original variety

from which all other varieties have

mutated or been genetically selected.

The Dutch were the first to spread

coffee around the world for commercial

production and this was the variety they

took with them. The fruit is usually red

and typica is capable of producing

excellent cup quality though with

relatively small yield compared to other

varieties. It is still grown extensively

in many different parts of the world and

as a result is known by several

different names including creolo,

sumatra and arabigo. Borbon.

This was a natural mutation of typica

which occurred on the island of Reunion

at the time called Bourbon. The yield is

higher than that of typica and many in

the specialty industry believe that it

has a distinctive sweetness making it

prized and desirable. There are various

variations in the color of the fruit,

red, yellow, and occasionally orange.

This variety was grown very widely in

the past, but in many producing

countries, it was replaced by higher

yielding varieties. This was at a time

when the market had not yet matured

sufficiently to reward a high enough

price to compensate for the lower yields

it produces compared to newer varieties.

Mundovo,

a natural hybrid of typica and bubon.

This variety was named after the place

in Brazil where it was discovered in the

1940s. It is grown for its relatively

high yield, strength, and disease

resistance, and also for its success at

altitudes of around 1,00 to,200 m, 3,300

to 3,900 ft, which are common in Brazil.

Coutura.

This is a mutation of bulbon discovered

in Brazil in 1937. Its yields are

relatively high, though it has the

capacity for overbearing, where the tree

produces more fruit than it can sustain

and succumbs to dieback. However, good

farm management can avoid this

situation. This variety has been

especially popular in Colombia and

Central America, though it is still

fairly common in Brazil. Cup quality is

considered good, and while quality

increases with altitude, yield

decreases. There are both red and yellow

variations, and it is a low growing

variety, often referred to as dwarf or

semi-dwarf. Popular because they are

easier to pick by hand. Katuayi.

This is a hybrid between coutura and

mundanovo created by the institut

agronomico de campinus in Brazil in the

1950s and60s.

It was selected as it combined the dwarf

characteristics of coutura with the

yield and strength of mundanovo. Like

coutura there are red and yellow

varieties.

Marago one of the most easily recognized

varieties. Marago is a mutation of

typica first discovered in Brazil. It is

notable and often considered desirable

due to the unusually large size of its

beans. The tree also has exceptionally

large leaves but a relatively low yield.

This coffee is often referred to as

elephant or elephant bean coffee due to

its size. The fruits usually ripen red.

SL28,

a now prized variety, SL28 was created

in Kenya by Scott Laboratories in the

1930s. Selected from a droughtresistant

variety from Tanzania.

The fruits are red when ripe and the

beans are notably larger than average.

This variety is considered to be capable

of producing a cup with distinct fruit

flavor often described as black currant.

It is quite susceptible to coffee leaf

rust and performs better at higher

altitudes.

SL34.

This variety was selected from French

mission borbon, a variety brought back

to Africa from Bourbon Reunion and first

appearing in Tanzania and then in Kenya.

It is also capable of distinct fruit

flavors, but is generally considered to

be inferior to SL28 in cup quality. It

is also susceptible to coffee leaf rust

and the fruits ripen red. Geisha or

geisha. There is some debate over the

correct name for this variety though

geisha is more commonly used. Geisha is

a tan in western Ethiopia and while the

variety was brought to Panama from Costa

Rica, it is believed to be Ethiopian in

origin. The variety is considered to

produce exceptionally aromatic floral

cups and the demand for it has driven up

prices in recent years. It has gained

prominence and popularity dramatically

since 2004 when one Panameanian farm

Hassienda laalda entered a competition

with a geisha lot. The coffee proved so

unusual and distinct that it attracted

an unusually high bid of $21 per pound

at auction. This record bid was beaten

in 2006 and 2007, reaching $130 per

pound, nearly 100 times more than a

commodity grade coffee. This has since

encouraged many producers in Central and

South America to plant this variety.

Pacus.

Pacas is a natural mutation of Bourbon

discovered in El Salvador in 1949 by the

Pacus family. It has red fruits and its

low growing habit makes picking easy.

Its cup quality is considered similar to

bourbon and is therefore desirable.

Vsachi

named after the town in Costa Rica where

it was discovered. This is another

natural mutation of bourbon that like

pacus exhibits dwarfism. It is currently

being bred to produce very high yields

and is capable of excellent cup quality.

The fruits ripen red. Pakamara.

This is a cross between the pacus and

maraggoipe varieties created in El

Salvador in 1958.

Like Marago, it has extremely large

leaves, fruit, and coffee beans. It also

has distinct cup characteristics that

can be positively described. It can

taste like chocolate and fruit, but it

also has the capacity for unpleasantly

herbal onion-like cups. The fruits ripen

red. Kent, named after a planter who

worked on a selection program in India

in the 1920s. This variety was developed

for its resistance to coffee leaf rust

though it can be destroyed by new

strains of the disease.

S795

also developed in India. This is a cross

between Kent and S288 an older selection

resistant to coffee leaf rust. It is now

widely planted in India and Indonesia.

Although it is now considered to have

lost much of its resistance.

Wild Arabica varieties.

Most of the above varieties are

genetically extremely similar as they

all stem from one variety, typica.

Many of the coffee trees grown in

Ethiopia, however, are not selected

cultivars, but are indigenous heirloom

varieties that probably result from

crossbreeding between different species

as well as different varieties. Little

work has been done so far to catalog or

explore the genetic diversity and cup

quality of these wild varieties.

Harvesting coffee.

Careful harvesting of coffee cherries is

fundamentally important to the quality

of the resulting cup of coffee.

Unsurprisingly, coffee beans harvested

from fruit at peak ripeness generally

taste the best. Many experts see the

harvest as the point at which the

quality of the coffee peaks, and every

stage thereafter is about preserving

quality rather than improving it.

The greatest challenge in harvesting

high-quality coffee is perhaps the

topography of the land on which the

coffee is growing. Great coffee requires

altitude, and many coffee farms are

located on steep slopes in mountainous

areas. Simply navigating between the

trees can be difficult, if not downright

dangerous. This isn't true of every

coffee farm, however.

Machine harvesting.

Brazil has large areas of flat land at

high altitude where coffee proliferates.

The estates in these areas drive large

machines down the neat rows of coffee

trees to harvest the cherries. These

machines essentially shake the tree

until the fruit comes loose. There are

numerous downsides to machine

harvesting. The biggest being the issue

of collecting fruit before it is

necessarily ripe. The cherries on the

branch of a coffee tree ripen at

different rates. So each branch has both

ripe and unripe cherries together. The

machines do not differentiate and pick

all the cherries at once. This means

they must be sorted after harvest to

separate the ripe from the unripe and to

discard the twigs and leaves that also

get shaken off the tree. The cost of the

coffeey's production will be lower than

any other harvesting method, but at the

expense of the quality of the harvest as

a whole. Strip picking. A great deal of

coffee is still harvested by hand as

machines simply cannot operate in hilly

areas. One of the faster methods of

handpicking is to strip all the cherries

off a branch together with one deaf

movement.

Like machine harvesting, this is a quick

but imprecise way to pick the cherries.

It doesn't require expensive equipment

or flat land, but still results in a

mixed bag of ripe and unripe cherries

that must be sorted later. Hand picking.

For highquality coffee, hand picking

remains the most effective way of

harvesting. Pickers select only the

cherries that are ready for harvest,

leaving the unripe fruit on the tree to

be picked later. This is hard labor and

producers face the challenge of

incentivizing their pickers to only

harvest the ripe fruit. Pickers are paid

by the weight of the fruit they pick

which encourages them to pick unripe

fruit to make up additional weight.

Qualityconscious producers have to work

carefully with their picking teams to

make sure they are also paid for uniform

ripeness.

The problems of labor. The cost of

handpicking coffee is proving a growing

challenge and contributes a large part

of the production costs.

This is one of the primary reasons that

coffees produced in developing economies

such as Kona coffees produced in Hawaii

are so expensive.

In rapidly developing countries, people

simply don't want to pick coffee for a

living. Coffee farms in Central America

often employ itinerant pickers who

travel from country to country as

different regions harvest at slightly

different times. Currently, many of

these workers are from Nicaragua as it

is the weakest economy in the region.

Finding people to harvest coffee is

likely to continue to be a challenge.

And in fact, at one stage, Puerto Rico

was using its prisoners to harvest

coffee.

Sorting the beans. After picking, the

cherries are often sorted using a

variety of different methods to prevent

unripe or overripe coffee from joining

the bulk of the lot. In parts of the

world with relatively low labor costs

and little money available for

investment in equipment, this is done by

hand. In more developed countries, the

cherries are often sorted using a

flotation tank. The cherries are poured

into a large tank of water where the

ripe fruit sinks to the bottom. They are

pumped from there into the main

processing section. Unripe fruit floats

the top and is skimmed off to be

processed separately.

Fallen fruit. Coffee growers collect any

fruit that naturally falls off the

trees, ripe or not. This is usually

collected separately and will become

part of the lower quality lots that even

the best farms in the world inevitably

produce. Leaving fallen fruit on the

ground under the trees can cause

problems as they tend to attract pests

such as coffee berry bora

processing.

How a coffee is processed after harvest

can have a dramatic effect on the

resulting cup. So, it has become an

increasingly important part of how it is

described and sold. It would be a

mistake to believe that coffee producers

have flavor in mind when they are

choosing their processing methods. A

very small percentage do, but for most

producers, the goal is to ensure the

processing causes the least possible

incidences of defect and can cause no

drop in the quality and thus the

monetary value of the coffee. After

harvest, the coffee cherries are taken

to a wet mill to separate the beans from

the flesh and dry the beans. so they are

safe for storage. Coffee beans start

with a moisture content of around 60%

and should be dried to around 11 to 12%

to ensure that they do not rot while

waiting to be sold and shipped. A wet

mill can be anything from a small

collection of equipment on an individual

farm to a very large industrialized

facility for processing enormous amounts

of coffee.

The wet mill processes the coffee from

the cherry stage to the parchment stage

when the bean is dry but still covered

with its layer of parchment or

pergamino.

Most believe that the coffee is pretty

well protected by this outer layer and

that it does not really begin to degrade

until the coffee is holed to remove the

parchment at the last possible moment

before the coffee ships. The term wet

milling is slightly misleading as some

producers use very little if any water

in the processing methods they use. It

does however make the distinction

between this initial processing and the

later stage when the hulling and grading

takes place known as dry milling. There

is no doubt that processing can have a

massive impact on the cup quality of the

coffee and there is a growing trend for

skilled producers to manipulate the

process in order to yield specific

qualities in the cup. However, these

producers are very rare on the global

production scale. The goal of processing

for most is to make the coffee as

profitable as possible and this is taken

into account when a producer chooses

which processing method to use. Some

processes require more time, investment

or natural resources than others and so

it is an important decision for any

coffee producer.

Defining defect.

The term defect is used quite

specifically in coffee. It is used to

describe individual beans that have

developed problems that result in bad

flavors. Some defects can be spotted by

taking a look at the raw coffee. Others

only come to light when the coffee is

tasted. A mild defect might be a bean

that has been damaged by insects and

this is easy to spot. A more serious

problem is a phenolic coffee where the

coffee has a very harsh metallic paint

stripper flavor mixed with notes of

sulfur. It's as bad as it sounds. The

cause of this defect isn't well

understood yet. Bad processing can also

cause defects, including giving the

coffee a fermented flavor or an

unpleasantly dirty, almost boozy

quality. It can also add a taste

reminiscent of barnyards and rotten

fruit.

The natural process,

also known as the dry process. This is

the oldest method of processing coffee.

After harvest, the coffee cherries are

spread out in a thin layer to dry in the

sun. Some producers spread them out on

brick patios. Others use special raised

drying beds, which allow better air flow

around the cherry, resulting in more

even drying. The cherries must be turned

regularly to avoid mold, fermentation,

or rotting taking place. Once the coffee

is properly dry, the outer husk of skin

and dried fruit are removed mechanically

and the raw coffee is then stored before

export. The natural process itself adds

certain flavors to the coffee. Sometimes

positive but often quite unpleasant.

However, if there is no access to water,

this may be the only process open to the

producer and is therefore common in

places like Ethiopia and also parts of

Brazil. Worldwide, the dry method is

generally deemed only suitable for very

lowquality or unripe coffee. And the

bulk of coffee produced this way is

processed as cheaply as possible as it

usually ends up in the domestic market

and has very little value. It seems

counterintuitive that a producer would

invest in the drawing tables necessary

for the little return on offer. However,

there are those who choose this method

to process highquality coffee and they

often find the process to be more

expensive due to the additional labor

involved in the attentive careful drying

of the cherries.

This process remains quite traditional

in places and there is certainly demand

for the cup qualities that a carefully

processed lot can have. The process will

often add fruit flavors to the coffee

regardless of variety and terois.

These are usually described as hints of

blueberry, strawberry, or tropical

fruit, but sometimes with negative terms

like barnyard, wild, ferment, and

manure. Highquality naturals polarize

those who work in coffee. Many see value

in coffees that taste spectacularly

fruity and believe they are extremely

useful for showcasing the possibilities

of flavor that coffee has to offer.

Others find the wild flavors unpleasant

or have concerns about buyers

encouraging producers to process more of

their coffee through the natural

process. With such an unpredictable

process, a highquality lot could be

damaged irreparably and significantly

reduce the producers's income.

Drying speed and storage potential.

While at an early stage, research seems

to suggest that drying coffee very

slowly and very evenly can have benefits

not only to quality in the short term,

but also to how long a coffee will

retain its good flavor when it's stored

in its raw state. Coffees dried too

quickly can lose their attractive

qualities shortly after being delivered

to the roster. In some cases, within a

few months or even weeks, which is bad

news for both the roster and the end

consumer.

The washed process

The goal of the wash process is to

remove all of the sticky flesh from the

coffee seed before it is dried. This

greatly reduces the chance of something

going wrong during drying, so the coffee

is likely to be worth more. However,

this particular process is much more

expensive than the others. After

picking, the coffee cherry has its outer

skin and most of the fruit flesh

stripped off using a machine called a

depulpa. The coffee is then moved to a

clean tank or trough of water where the

remainder of the flesh is removed by

fermentation.

The fruit flesh contains a lot of pectin

and is firmly attached to the seed, but

the fermentation breaks down the

remaining flesh enough for it to be

washed away. Different producers use

different amounts of water during the

fermentation stage and there are some

environmental concerns about this method

partly due to the eventual fate of the

waste water which can be toxic. The

amount of time that fermentation takes

depends on several factors, including

the altitude and ambient temperature.

The hotter it is, the faster this

process will occur. If the coffee is

left too long to ferment, then negative

flavors can creep in. There are many

different methods for checking whether

the process is finished. Some producers

rub the coffee as it will squeak if the

fruit flesh has been broken down,

leaving the seed completely smooth.

Others put a stick into the tank and if

it stands up supported by the slightly

gelatinous water full of pectin, then

the process is done. After fermentation,

the coffee is washed to remove the

leftover debris, then it is ready to be

dried. This is usually done in the sun

by spreading out the coffee on brick

patios or raised drying tables. In the

same way as the natural method I've

described, the coffee must be turned

regularly with large rakes to ensure

slow and even drying. Where there is a

lack of sunshine or excess humidity,

some producers use mechanical dryers to

dry the beans down to a moisture content

of around 11 to 12%. In terms of cup

quality, mechanical drying is often

considered inferior to sun drying, and

it seems that even drying in the sun on

a patio may be too fast to achieve the

best possible quality. While many

producers of high-quality coffee choose

the wet process in an effort to reduce

defect, it can also have an impact on

the cup quality. Compared to other

processes, wet processed coffees tend to

present a higher level of acidity,

increased complexity, and what is

described as a cleaner cup. Cleanliness

is an important term used in coffee to

indicate the absence of any negative

flavors such as off tastes or unusual

harshness and arringency.

Hybrid processes.

The pulp natural process mainly used in

Brazil. This process is the result of

experiments run by a coffee processing

equipment manufacturer called Pinelli.

The idea was to produce coffees with

high cup quality using less water than

that used in the wash process. After

picking, the coffee is mechanically

depuled, stripping all the skin and much

of the fruit flesh from the beans. From

here, it goes straight out to dry on

patios or drying beds. With less flesh

surrounding the beans, there is a

decreased risk of defect. Yet there is

still enough sugar in the surrounding

fruit to see a noticeable increase in

sweetness and body in the coffee. This

process still requires careful drying

after depuling.

The honey or male process.

This process is very similar to the pulp

natural process but used in a number of

Central American countries including

Costa Rica and El Salvador. The coffee

is mechanically deulped but the method

uses even less water than the pulp

natural process. The deulping machines

can usually be controlled to leave a

specific percentage of flesh on the

beans. The resulting coffee is then

referred to as 100% honey or 20% honey,

for example. The name mielle is the

Spanish term for the fruit mucelage

meaning honey. With larger quantities of

flesh being left on the beans, there is

a higher risk of fermentation and defect

when the coffee is dried.

The semi-washed or wet hold process.

This process is common in Indonesia

where it is known as gilling basa. After

picking, the coffee is deeppulped and

then briefly dried. Instead of drying

the coffee to a moisture content of 11

to 12% as the other processes do, in the

semi-wash process, the coffee is only

dried to 30 to 35%. It is then hullled,

stripping off the parchment and exposing

the green coffee beans underneath. The

naked beans are then dried again until

they are dry enough to be stored without

the risk of rotting. This second drying

gives the beans a distinctive deep swamp

green color. The semi-wash process is

the one exception to the practice of

keeping the parchment on the beans until

just before shipping. It is considered

by many to result in a form of defect,

but the market has come to associate the

flavors with coffees from Indonesia and

therefore does not demand an end to the

practice.

Semi-washed coffees have lower acidity

and more body than other coffees. And

the process also creates a number of

different flavors such as wood, earthy,

mustustininess, spice, tobacco, and

leather. There is strong disagreement

within the industry over whether or not

this is desirable. Many feel that these

flavors dominate the flavor of the

coffee in the same way the natural

process does, and we rarely get to find

out how coffees from Indonesia really

taste. However, there are some

Indonesian coffees that are processed by

the wet method and they are worth

looking out for. It should be clear on

the packaging as they should be

described as washed or fully washed.

Hulling and shipping. When they leave

the wet mill, the beans are still

enclosed in their layer of parchment

unless they have been processed by the

semi-washed method. Now, the moisture

content is low enough for the coffee to

be stored without the risk of rotting.

Traditionally, coffee is intentionally

stored at this stage in reposo at rest

for 30 to 60 days. The practice of

holding the coffee in repos has not been

fully researched, although anecdotal

evidence suggests that if this step is

missed, then the coffee can taste green

and unpleasant until it has aged

further.

There is also evidence that this stage

influences how well the coffee will age

once shipped, probably linked to the

moisture content within the coffee. At

the end of this period, the coffee is

sold and then hulled to remove the

parchment. Up until this point, the

parchment has provided a protective

layer, but also adds weight and bulk to

the coffee. So, it is removed to make

the shipping less expensive. The hulling

is done mechanically in a dry mill as

opposed to a wet mill where the coffee

was processed to remove the flesh and

dry the beans. Dry Mills also have

equipment to grade and sort the coffee.

Once hauled, the green beans can be

passed through a machine that examines

the color and rejects any coffee with

obvious defects.

The coffee can be sorted by bean size

using large shaking saves with varying

hole sizes and it is finally graded by

hand. This timeconuming process is

performed at a large table with a

central conveyor or sometimes on large

patios, usually by women rather than

men. They pick through their allocation

of coffee and remove all the defects

they can. sometimes within a given time

frame controlled by an automated

conveyor.

This is a slow process adding

significant cost to the coffee but also

massively increasing its quality. It is

undeniably a difficult monotonous job

and it is right that highquality coffees

cost more so that people who do this

difficult work can be better paid.

Bagging.

The coffee is now ready for bagging

either into 60 kilo 132 lb or 69 kilo

152 lb juke bags depending on the

country of origin. In some cases the

bags are lined with a protective

material such as a multi-layer

polyethylene to make them resistant to

moisture or the coffee can be vacuum

packed and shipped in cardboard boxes.

Jude has long remained the material of

choice because it is cheap, accessible

and has little environmental impact.

However, as the specialty coffee

industry is increasingly concerned with

the condition of coffee during shipping

and in ongoing storage, new materials

are being explored. Shipping. Coffee is

generally transported from its country

of origin in shipping containers. These

hold up to 300 bags of coffee, although

lowquality coffees are sometimes just

tipped into a giant lining covering the

walls of the container, as the waiting

roster will process the entire container

on the day it arrives. The containers

are emptied out like dump trucks into a

receiving station at the roasting

facility. Transporting coffee in

container ships has a relatively low

impact on the environment, certainly

compared to other aspects of the coffee

industry, and is also relatively cheap.

The downside is that coffee can be

exposed to both heat and moisture that

may damage its quality. Shipping is also

a complicated process with bureaucracy

in many countries causing roasters huge

amounts of stress as containers of

coffee sit for weeks or even months in

hot humid ports waiting for their

paperwork.

As air freight remains both an

environmentally unfriendly and

financially unsustainable alternative.

Many in the specialty coffee industry

remain frustrated by this aspect of the

business.

Sizing and grading. Coffee has in many

countries been graded by size longer

than it has been graded by quality. In

fact, the two things are still

considered related, although technically

they are not. Different countries will

use different terminology around their

grading. Grading is generally done with

civs numbered to indicate the size of

the perforations.

Traditionally the even numbers such as

14 16 18 were used for Arabica while odd

numbers were used for a buster. Once the

coffee is holed it is mechanically

shaken through layers of saves to

separate out the different grades. Peab

PB is a grade based on the smallest

whole beans not the broken pieces

though. Peabberries occur when a coffee

berry has just one seed inside rather

than two. They are considered to have a

greater intensity of flavor. Although

this may not be universally true, it is

always an interesting experience to

compare the flavor of the pebber

selection of a coffee against that of

the larger beans. While larger beans

aren't necessarily better, the advantage

of having a relatively small size range

is that roasting the coffee is easier

and the resultant roast is likely to be

more uniform. This is because coffee

beans of different sizes also have

different densities. During roasting,

the smaller coffee beans or the less

dense ones will roast much faster than

the larger denser beans. This will mean

that at least a portion of the coffee in

a mixed batch will not have reached the

ideal roast level. Common size grades.

These are the most common sizing grades

used in the following coffee producing

areas. Colombia, Supreo, and Excelso are

very common grades. Excelso is a screen

size of 14 to 16 and is smaller than the

Supreo which is sizes 16 to 18 or above.

Colombia pioneered how it sold its

coffee and uses grays like this to

emphasize its quality.

Central America here the larger sizes

are traditionally referred to as

superior again emphasizing quality

through size. Peabies are known as

keracol. Africa. The largest screen size

is generally considered AA then AB and

then A. Coffee producing countries such

as Kenya have a strong focus on quality

relating to size grading and AA lots

tend to sell for higher prices in their

internal auction system. The look of raw

coffee. Peberries the result of only one

seed forming inside the coffee fruit. AB

grade considered good quality based on

size but of less value than AA grade. Aa

grade the largest and most valuable

beans from a particular lot of coffee.

Pulped natural process. A little fruit

flesh is still stuck to the beans giving

a slight orange color. Fully washed.

These fully washed beans appear cleaner

than the other two processes. Natural or

dry process. Typically a very orange

brown color compared to the other green

coffee due to the processing. Pakamara

maraggoipe unusually large in size and

often considered desirable as a result.

How coffee is traded.

It is often quoted that coffee is the

second most traded commodity in the

world. It's not. And whether based on

frequency or monetary value, it's not

even in the top five. Nonetheless, how

coffee is traded has become a focus for

ethical trade organizations. The

relationship between the buyer and the

producer is often seen as the first

world exploiting the third world.

However, while there are undoubtedly

those who wish to exploit the system,

they are in the minority. The price paid

for coffee is generally quoted in US

dollars per pound in weight. There is

something of a global price for coffee,

often referred to as the C price. This

is the price for commodity coffee being

traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Coffee production is often discussed in

bags. A bag usually weighs 60 kilos,

£132 if it comes from Africa, Indonesia,

or Brazil, or 69 kilos, 152 lb if it

comes from Central America. While bags

may be the units of purchase, on the

macro scale, coffee is usually traded by

the shipping container, which contains

around 300 bags. Contrary to popular

belief, a rather small percentage of

coffee is actually traded on the New

York Stock Exchange. But the C price

does provide a sort of global minimum

price for coffee, the minimum a producer

would be willing to accept for his

coffee. Prices for particular lots of

coffee often have a differential added

to the C price, a kind of premium.

Certain countries have historically been

able to get higher differentials for

their coffee, including Costa Rica and

Colombia. Although this type of trading

is still mostly focused on commodity

grade rather than specialty grade, the

problem with basing everything on the

sea price is that this price is somewhat

fluid. Usually prices are determined by

supply and demand. And to some extent,

that's true of the sea price. As global

demand increased at the end of the

2000s, the market saw an increase in

price and coffee supply began to look

scarce. This produced one of the highest

spikes in the price of coffee, reaching

above $3 per pound in 2010.

This price wasn't simply about supply

and demand, however. It was also

influenced by other factors, not least

the influx of cash into the industry

from traders and hedge funds who saw an

opportunity to make money. This produced

a volatile market, the like of which had

never really been seen before. From that

spike, prices steadily declined again to

levels that can be considered

unsustainable for profit. The sea price

of coffee does not reflect the cost of

production and as such producers may end

up in a position where they lose money

growing coffee. There have been a number

of reactions to this problem and the

most successful has been the fair trade

movement. Although there are many other

sustainable coffee certification

schemes, including those of the organic

trade association and the rainforest

alliance. Fair trade. There remains some

confusion about how exactly fair trade

works, although it has undoubtedly

become a successful tool to help those

who wish to purchase coffee with a clear

conscience. Many people presume that the

promises of fair trade are far wider

reaching than they actually are and that

any coffee could in theory be certified

as fair trade. This is not the case. And

to make matters worse, it is easy for

detractors to allege that the farmer is

not getting the premium because of the

complex nature of financial transactions

within the coffee industry. Fair trade

guarantees to pay a base price that it

considers sustainable or a 5-cent per

pound premium above the seed price if

the market rises above fair trade's base

price. Fair trade's model is designed

only to work with cooperatives of coffee

growers and as such cannot certify

single estates that produce coffee.

Critics complain about the lack of

traceability or true guarantee that the

money definitely goes to the producers

and isn't diverted through corruption.

Others criticize the model for providing

no incentive to farmers to increase the

quality of their coffee. This has

encouraged many in the specialty coffee

industry to change the way they source

their coffee, moving away from the

commodity model, where coffee is bought

at a price determined by global supply

and demand and little regard is given to

its provenence or quality.

The specialty coffee industry. A number

of different terms are used to describe

the various ways in which specialty

roasters are buying their coffee and

their relationships with the growers.

Relationship coffee is used to describe

an ongoing relationship between a

producer and roaster. There is usually a

dialogue and collaboration to work

towards better quality coffee and more

sustainable pricing. For this

arrangement to have the desired positive

impact, the roster would have to be

buying the coffee in sufficient

quantity.

Direct trade is a term that has arisen

more recently where roasters wish to

communicate that they bought the coffee

directly from the producer rather than

from an importer, an exporter or another

third party. The problem with this

message is that it plays down the

important role of importers and

exporters in the coffee industry,

potentially unfairly portraying them as

middlemen simply taking a slice of the

producers's earnings. To be viable, this

model also requires the roster to buy

enough coffee to make an impact.

Fairly traded may refer to a purchase

where there has been good transparency

and traceability and high prices have

been paid. There is no certification to

validate the ethics of the purchase, but

those involved are generally trying to

do good with their trading. Third

parties may be involved but are

considered to have added value. This

isn't a very commonly used term except

in situations where a customer asks if a

particular coffee is fair trade.

The idea behind all these buying models

is for roasters to buy more traceably,

to remove unnecessary middlemen from the

supply chain, and to pay prices that

incentivize the production of higher

quality coffee. However, these terms and

ideas are not without their critics.

Without third party certification, it

can be difficult to ascertain whether or

not a roaster is actually buying the way

they say they are. Some roasters may buy

coffees that have been kept traceable by

importers and brokers and claim this as

a direct trade or relationship coffee.

There are no guarantees of a long-term

relationship for the producers either

with some coffee buyers simply chasing

the best lots of coffee they can each

year. However, at least they are paying

handsomely for it. This type of approach

makes long-term investment in quality

difficult. And it should be noted that

some middlemen provide a valuable

service, especially those who are

working on a smaller scale.

The logistics of moving coffee around

the world require a level of

specialization and skill many small

roasters simply do not have.

Advice to consumers

when buying coffee. It's difficult for

consumers to ascertain how ethically

sourced a particular coffee really is.

Some specialty roasters have now

developed buying programs certified by

third parties, but most have not. It is

fairly safe to presume that if a coffee

has been kept traceable, has the

producers's name on it, or at least the

name of the farm, cooperative, or

factory, then a better price has been

paid. The level of transparency you

should expect will vary country by

country and is covered in more detail in

each of the sections on producing

countries. If you find a roaster whose

coffee you like, you should be able to

ask them for more information about how

they source it. Most are more than happy

to share this information and are often

extremely proud of the work they do.

Auction coffees. There has been a slow

and steady increase in coffees that are

sold through an internet auction. The

typical format for this involves holding

a competition in a producing country

wherein farmers can submit small lots of

their best coffee. These are graded and

ranked by juries of coffee tasters.

Usually a local jury for the first round

and then an international cadre of

coffee buyers will fly in for the final

round of tasting. The very best coffees

are sold at auction and generally

achieve very high prices, especially the

winning lot. Most auctions display the

price paid for the coffee online,

allowing full traceability behind the

whole process. This idea has been

embraced by a small number of coffee

producing estates that have managed to

build up a brand based on the quality of

their coffee. Once they have sufficient

interest from international buyers, they

can make an auction work. This idea was

pioneered by a farm in Panama called

Hassienda laoralda. A farm that had

previously set records for the huge

prices paid for its competition coffees.

A short history of coffee drinking.

This book discusses the history of

coffee cultivation in producing

countries around the world. But it's

also important to consider the growth in

demand that went alongside it. Coffee is

a truly global beverage, and it is

common to hear the claim that it's the

second most popular drink in the world

after water. While there's no evidence

to support this, the ubiquity of coffee

in one form or another makes it

plausible.

The origins of coffee drinking are

similarly vague with very little

evidence to support it. While there is

some evidence of the fruit of the coffee

plant being eaten in Ethiopia early on,

bowled up with animal fat as an

invigorating trail snack, we are missing

a key piece of the puzzle. We have no

idea who decided to take the seed of the

fruit, roast it, grind it into a powder,

steep that powder in hot water, and then

drink the resulting concoction. It's an

astonishing leap and a mystery that will

probably never be solved.

There is evidence of coffee drinking in

the late 15th century, but little to

back up the anecdote that the first

coffee house was Kahan, opened in 1475

in Constantinople.

If it's true, the coffee would have been

grown in Yemen. We know that consumption

did spread into the region. Coffee

quickly became entwined with political

and religious thought, and coffee houses

were banned in Mecca in 1511 and in

Cairo in 1532. In both cases, popular

demand won and these bans were soon

lifted. Coffee reaches Europe and

beyond. Coffee drinking wouldn't spread

to Europe until the 1600s, and coffee

consumption, for medical purposes rather

than for pleasure, predates coffee

houses in Europe. Coffee would have been

traded through Venice in the early

1600s, but a coffee house didn't open

there until 1645.

The first coffee house in London opened

in 1652 and began a 100red-year love

affair between the drink and the city.

Coffee unquestionably inspired culture,

art, trade, and politics and left a

lasting impact on the city itself.

In France, it was the influence of

fashion that spread coffee drinking.

Coffee had been gifted to the court of

Louis 14th, and its growing popularity

there spread the habit of coffee

drinking into Paris. Vienna was another

city that would develop a rich cafe

culture in the late 1600s. The story of

the first cafe in Vienna, the Blue

Bottle, using coffee beans left behind

by the Ottomans fleeing after the failed

siege of Vienna in 1683 is charming, but

probably not true. Recent evidence

suggests the first cafe there opened in

1685.

One key moment in the spread of coffee

drinking and coffee culture actually

revolved around tea. The Boston Tea

Party in 1773, where American colonists

protested against the British oppression

by attacking merchant ships in Boston

Harbor and throwing chests of tea

overboard, was not just an important

rejection of the British Empire, but

also marked the moment that coffee

became a patriotic drink in the United

States. A rapidly growing population

meant a rapidly growing market and made

the US increasingly influential in the

coffee industry in the years to come.

Change through innovation.

The US was also where key innovations

came from that allowed coffee to be an

affordable staple in every home around

the world. In 1900, a company called

Hill Brothers began packing coffee into

vacuum-sealed cans. Extending the shelf

life this way meant fewer households

would have to roast their own coffee,

but made business more difficult for

small local roasting companies. A year

later, a Japanese chemist named Sattorii

Kato patented his process for producing

instant or soluble coffee. Until very

recently, he was thought to have been

the first to produce it. But recent

discoveries now credit the invention to

David Strang in New Zealand in 1890.

The process elevated convenience above

quality, but it made coffee drinking

easier for many, if not necessarily

cheaper. Today, instant coffee is still

incredibly popular around the world. In

Europe, key innovations focused more on

the cafe than coffee at home. There are

various claimments to the first espresso

machine, but the patents using these

principles began to be filed from 1884

onwards. Luigi Betera would patent his

machine in 1901, and he is often

credited as having invented the espresso

machine.

These machines allowed cafe operators to

make lots of cups of coffee of a similar

size and strength to filter coffee very

quickly. The great leap forward in

espresso technology would come with the

use of a large spring to produce very

high pressures. The claim to this

innovation belongs to Achily Gadger in

1945. Though how he acquired the patent

remains a little murky. This high

pressure brewing produced espresso as we

know it today. a small concentrated cup

of coffee topped with a deep brown foam

called crema. The espresso bar boom that

happened in many cities in the 1950s

and60s was as much cultural as it was

about the consumption of coffee.

However, from a technical perspective,

espresso brewing was perfect for cafes

because one machine could now rapidly

produce a whole range of drinks.

coffee today. It would be impossible to

talk about modern coffee drinking

without discussing Starbucks. The

company's roots were in roasting and

selling coffee beans from a shop in

Seattle, but it was transformed by

Howard Schultz into the global

phenomenon that we know today. Schultz

claimed to be inspired by his travels to

Italy, though the modern Starbucks

experience would be unrecognizable to a

native Italian. Starbucks and businesses

like it undoubtedly paved the way for

the growth in specialty coffee that we

see around the world today. Starbucks

made coffee an even more popular out

ofome drink and raised expectations for

what a cup of coffee could cost. The

company remains hugely influential and

is pioneering coffee drinking in new

markets like China. What defines modern

specialty coffee is the focus on where

the coffee comes from and how that

impacts the taste. This focus has

influenced how cafes brew, sell, and

serve cups of coffee. Coffee drinking

has evolved from a simple morning

stimulation into an expression of self,

an expression of values, or of conscious

consumption. Coffee drinking is now

woven into a myriad of different

cultures around the world.

Part two, from bean to cup, coffee

roasting.

Roasting is one of the most fascinating

aspects of the coffee industry. It takes

the green coffee seed, which has almost

no flavor beyond a unpleasant vegetital

taste, and transforms it into an

incredibly aromatic, astonishingly

complex coffee bean. The smell of

freshly roasted coffee is evocative,

intoxicating, and all round delicious.

This section deals with roasting on a

commercial scale. I'll come to home

roasting later in the book. A huge

amount of research has gone into

commercial roasting of relatively

lowquality coffee. Most of it to do with

the efficiency of the process and the

methods used in producing instant

soluble coffee. As these coffees aren't

particularly interesting or flavorsome,

very little work has been done on the

development of sweetness or the

retention of flavors unique to a

particular coffeey's teroir or variety.

Specialty roasters around the world are

by and large self-trained and many have

learned their trade through careful

trial and error. Each roasting company

has its own style and aesthetic or roast

philosophy. They may well understand how

to replicate what they enjoy drinking,

but they do not sufficiently understand

the whole process to manipulate it to

produce a variety of different roast

styles. That is not to say that

delicious and well-roed coffee is rare.

It can be found in almost every country

in the world. If anything, it suggests

that the future is bright for quality

coffee roasting as there is still a lot

to explore and develop that can only

lead to better roasting techniques, fast

or slow, light or dark. To simplify

matters, it can be said that the roast

of a coffee is a product of the final

color of the coffee bean, light or dark,

and the time it took to get to that

color, fast or slow. To simply describe

a coffee as a light roast is not enough

as the roast could have been relatively

fast or it could have been quite slow.

The flavor will be quite different

between the fast and the slow even

though the bean may look the same. A

whole host of different chemical

reactions occur during roasting and

several of them reduce the weight of the

coffee not least of course the

evaporation of moisture. Slow roasting,

say 14 to 20 minutes, will result in a

greater loss of weight, around 16 to

18%, than faster roasting, which can be

achieved in as little as 90 seconds.

Slow roasting will achieve a better, if

more expensive, cup of coffee. The

roasting process can be controlled to

determine three key aspects of how a

coffee will taste. Acidity, sweetness,

and bitterness. It is generally agreed

that the longer a coffee is roasted, the

less acidity it will have in the end.

Conversely, bitterness will slowly

increase the longer a coffee is roasted

and will definitely increase the darker

a coffee is roasted. Sweetness is

presented as a bell curve, peaking in

between the highs of acidity and

bitterness. A good roaster can

manipulate where a coffee may be the

sweetest in relation to its roast

degree, producing either a very sweet

yet quite acidic coffee or a very sweet

but more muted cup by using a different

roast profile. However, adjusting a

roast profile can never improve a poor

quality coffee.

The stages of roasting. There are a

number of key stages during roasting and

the speed at which a particular coffee

passes through each of these stages is

described as its roast profile. Many

coffee roasters track their roast

profiles carefully so they can replicate

them within very tight boundaries of

temperature and time.

Stage one, drying. Raw coffee contains 7

to 11% water by weight spread evenly

through the dense structure of the bean.

Coffee won't turn brown in the presence

of water. And in fact, this is true of

browning reactions when cooking

anything. After the coffee is loaded

into the roaster, it takes some time for

the beans to absorb sufficient heat to

start evaporating the water, and the

drying process therefore requires a

large amount of heat and energy. The

coffee barely changes in look or smell

for the first few minutes of roasting.

Stage two, yellowing.

Once the water has been driven out of

the bean, the first browning reactions

can begin. At this stage, the coffee

beans are still very dense and have an

aroma of basmati rice and a little

breiness. Soon, the beans begin to

expand and their thin, papery skins, the

chaff, flakes off. The chaff is

separated from the roasting beans by the

air flowing through the roster and is

collected and safely removed to prevent

the risk of fire. These first two

roasting stages are very important. If

the coffee is not properly dried, then

it will not roast evenly during the next

stages. While the outside of each bean

is well roasted, the inside will

essentially be undercooked. This coffee

will taste unpleasant. A combination of

bitterness from the outside and a sour

grassy flavor coming from the

underdeveloped inside.

Slowing the roasting process after this

will not fix the problem as different

parts of the coffee will always be

progressing at different rates.

Stage three, first crack.

Once the browning reactions begin to

gather speed, there is a buildup of

gases, mostly carbon dioxide and water

vapor inside the bean. Once the pressure

gets too great, the bean will eventually

break open, making a popping noise and

nearly doubling in volume. From this

point onwards, the familiar coffee

flavors develop, and the roaster can

choose to end the roast at any point. A

roster will see a decrease in the rate

at which coffee is increasing in

temperature. At this point, despite the

fact that they may be adding a similar

amount of heat, failure to add enough

heat can stall the roast and bake the

coffee, resulting in poor cup quality.

Stage four, roast development. After the

first crack stage, the beans will be

much smoother on the surface, but not

entirely. So, this stage of the roast

determines the end color of the beans

and the roast degree. Here the roaster

can determine the balance of acidity and

bitterness in the end product as the

acids in the bean are rapidly degrading

while the level of bitterness is

increasing as the roast continues.

Stage five, second crack. At this point,

the beans begin to crack again, but with

a quiet, snappier sound. Once you reach

second crack, the oils will be driven to

the surface of the coffee bean. much of

the acidity will have been lost and a

new kind of flavor is developing, often

referred to as the generic roast flavor.

This flavor doesn't depend on the kind

of coffee used as it is a result of

essentially charring or burning the

coffee rather than working with its

intrinsic flavors. Progressing a roast

past the second crack usually results in

the beans catching fire, which is

extremely dangerous, especially with

large commercial roasting machines.

There are terms used in coffee roasting

such as French roast or Italian roast.

Both of these terms are used to indicate

very dark roasts, typically high in body

and bitterness, but with many of the

characteristics of the raw coffees lost.

While many enjoy coffees roasted in this

manner, these kind of roasts are not

suitable for exploring the flavors and

characteristics of highquality coffees

from different origins.

Sugars in coffee. Many people talk about

sweetness when describing a coffee, and

it's important to understand what

happens to the naturally occurring

sugars during roasting. Green coffee can

contain reasonable quantities of simple

sugars. Not all sugars are necessarily

sweet to the taste, though simple sugars

usually are. Sugars are quite reactive

at roasting temperatures, and once the

water has been evaporated out of the

bean, the sugars can begin to react to

the heat in different ways. Some go

through caramelization reactions,

creating the caramel notes found in

certain coffees. Should be noted,

however, that the sugars that react this

way become less sweet and will

eventually start to add bitterness.

Other sugars will react with the

proteins in the coffee in what are known

as mayard reactions. This is an umbrella

term covering the browning reaction seen

in roasting a piece of meat in the oven,

for example, but also when roasting

cocoa or coffee. By the time coffee has

finished the first crack stage, there

are few or no simple sugars left. They

will all have been involved in various

reactions resulting in a huge number of

aromatic compounds.

Acids in coffee.

Green coffee contains many different

types of acids, some of which are

pleasant to taste and some that are not.

Of particular importance to the roster

are the chlorogenic acid, CGAs. One of

the key goals of roasting is to try and

react these unpleasant acids away

without creating negative flavors or

driving off the desirable aromatic

components of the coffee. Some other

acids are stable throughout the whole

roasting process such as quinic acid

which can add a pleasing clean finish to

a coffee.

Aromatic compounds in coffee. Most of

the aromatics in a good cup of coffee

are created during the roasting process

through one of three groups of

processes. May reactions,

caramelizations, and striker

degradation, another type of chemical

reaction involving amino acids. These

are all brought about by the heat during

roasting and can result in the creation

of over 800 different volatile aromatic

compounds that flavor the cup of coffee.

Although more aromatic compounds have

been recorded in coffee than in wine, an

individual coffee will only have a

selection of these different volatiles.

That said, the smell of freshly roasted

coffee is so complex that all attempts

to manufacture a realistic synthetic

version of this smell have failed.

Quenching.

After roasting, the coffee must be

cooled quickly to prevent overroasting

or the development of negative or baked

flavors. In small batch roasting, this

is often achieved using a cooling tray,

which rapidly draws air through the

coffee to cool it down. With large

batches of coffee, air alone is not

effective enough. A mist of water is

sprayed onto the coffee and as it

evaporates and turns to steam, it draws

heat out of the beans. Done correctly,

this has no negative effect on cup

quality, but the coffee will age a

little quicker. Unfortunately, however,

many companies add more water than

necessary to increase the weight of the

beans and add monetary value to the

batch. This is both unethical and bad

for cup quality.

Types of coffee roasters. Coffee tends

to be roasted close to where it will be

consumed as green coffee is more stable

than roasted beans. Coffee is at its

best when used within a month of

roasting. Roasting methods vary, but the

two most commonly used types of machines

are drum roasters and hot air or fluid

bed roasters.

Drum roasters. Invented around the

beginning of the 20th century, drum

roasters are popular with craft roasters

as they're able to roast at a slower

speed. A metal drum rotates above a

flame, moving the coffee beans

constantly during the process to aid

even roasting. The roaster can control

the gas flame and therefore the heat

being applied to the drum and can also

control the flow of air through the drum

which dictates how quickly the heat is

transferred to the coffee.

Drum roasters come in a range of

different sizes. The largest being able

to roast up to around 500 kilos or 1,100

lb per batch.

Fluid bed roasters invented by Michael

Civitz in the 1970s. Fluid bed roasters

tumble and heat the beans by pumping

jets of hot air through the machine.

Roast times are significantly shorter

than in a drum roaster, so the beans

tend to swell a little more as a result.

The higher volume of air conducts heat

more quickly into the coffee, which

means that this roasting process is

faster than drum roasting. Tangential

roasters built by a company called

Probat. Tangential roasters are similar

to large drum roasters, but have

internal shovels to mix the coffee

evenly during heating, which allows a

bigger batch to be roasted effectively.

The capacity isn't much larger than a

very large drum roaster, but this type

is able to achieve faster roasting

speeds.

Centrifugal roasters. Centrifugal

roasters allow very large quantities of

coffee to be roasted incredibly quickly.

The coffee is placed inside a large

inverted cone which spins to draw the

coffee beans up the walls as they are

heated. The beans are then flung back

down into the middle of the cone to

repeat their journey. Roast times can be

as low as 90 seconds using a machine

like this. Roasting at very high speeds

minimizes weight loss and increases the

amount of coffee that can be extracted

from the beans, which is important when

making instant soluble coffee. Roasting

at these speeds is not designed to

produce the best possible cup.

Buying and storing coffee.

There is no foolproof way to ensure you

get great coffee every time you buy a

bag. However, there are a few points to

remember. Starting from when you are

choosing where to shop to how to store

the coffee you've bought, which will

increase your chances of ending up with

a very good cup of coffee. Most people

buy their coffee in a supermarket, but

there are many reasons to avoid this

practice, not least because of the

freshness of the coffee on offer.

However, perhaps the best reason to

avoid buying coffee from the supermarket

is because of the sheer pleasure to be

found in buying it from a specialist

shop. Small shops offer the opportunity

to build a relationship with someone

passionate and knowledgeable about

coffee. It helps when choosing if you

can get some advice and even try a

coffee before you buy. Dealing with

someone directly means you have a better

chance of buying a coffee you'll really

enjoy, especially if you let them know

what you enjoyed previously.

Strength guides.

You'll often see a strength guide on the

side of a bag of coffee, especially

those on offer in supermarkets. These

have nothing to do with strength, which

is really more about how much coffee you

use to brew a cup, but more to do with

the level of bitterness you can expect

to find in that particular coffee. This

is usually determined by the roast level

of the coffee. Light roasted coffees

usually have lower strength ratings and

dark roasted coffees have higher

strength ratings. I would avoid coffees

that come with a strength rating because

more often than not, and there are

exceptions, the quality and flavor of

the coffee has not been the primary

concern of the producer. Traceability.

There are thousands of different coffee

roasters and hundreds of thousands of

different roasts of coffee from

different farms. Not all of them can be

good, and variations in price and the

way they are marketed can make buying

coffee fairly confusing. This book aims

to explain where coffee comes from and

how and why its origin can affect its

flavor. The best advice I can give is to

buy as traceable a coffee as possible.

In many cases, it is possible to find a

coffee from one specific farm or one

cooperative. However, that level of

traceability is not possible in every

coffee producing country in the world.

Each of the sections on the different

countries offers an idea of how

traceable the coffees from that country

can be.

Much of Latin America is able to produce

coffees that are traceable down to a

particular small farm because most of

the coffee there is grown on small

private estates. In other countries,

small-cale land ownership by farmers is

unusual or the trade regulations of a

country may interfere with the export

process, making traceability difficult.

To keep a batch of coffee traceable

throughout the entire supply chain adds

cost, and this investment can only be

returned if the coffee is sold for a

higher price. This means it's only worth

keeping highquality coffees traceable as

doing so with lowquality lots would make

them uncompetitive in the marketplace.

In an industry plagued by ethical

concerns and dogged by an image of

exploitation of the third world, knowing

exactly where a coffee comes from is a

powerful piece of information. As

communication technology, especially

around social media, spreads and

develops, we're likely to see an

increased interaction between those who

produce the coffee and those who

ultimately drink it.

Golden rules for fresh coffee. Everyone

agrees fresh roasted coffee is better.

So I would make the following

recommendations.

One, buy coffee that has a clear roast

date on the packaging. Two, try to buy

within 2 weeks of roasting. Three, buy

only enough coffee for a couple of weeks

at a time. Four, buy whole beans and

grind them yourself at home.

Storing coffee at home. Once the

stailing process begins, there is very

little that can be done to prevent it

continuing. As long as you're buying

fresh coffee and using it relatively

quickly, the impact on your cup of

coffee should be minor. However, there

are ways to store coffee at home that

will keep it in the best possible

condition. One, keep the coffee

airtight. If the bag can be resealed,

then make sure it is kept that way. If

the bag can't be completely resealed,

transfer the coffee to an airtight

container such as a plastic tub with a

lid or one designed specifically for

storing coffee.

Two, keep the coffee in a dark place.

Light rapidly accelerates the stailing

of coffee, especially sunlight. If you

keep your coffee in a clear container,

place it inside a cardboard box. Three,

don't put it in the refrigerator. This

is a common practice, but it does not

extend the life of coffee and you can

get crosscontamination of aromomas if

you have something particularly fragrant

in the refrigerator with the coffee.

Four, keep it dry. If you can't keep it

in an airtight container, then at least

avoid placing it in a humid environment.

If you need to store some coffee for a

long period of time, place it in the

freezer to slow down the stailing

process. It is important to package it

in an airtight container first. When you

want to use the coffee, defrost it

thoroughly first, but be sure to only

defrost the amount you're planning on

using straight away.

Freshness.

Over the years, most people have been

conditioned not to think of coffee as

being a fresh food product. For some,

it's because instant coffee is what they

associate with coffee, and that doesn't

really ever go stale. Coffee sold in

supermarkets will often have a best

before date that is 12 to 24 months

after the date it was roasted. This is

because coffee is considered shelf

stable and is safe to consume 2 years

after roasting, but it will taste pretty

terrible at that point. It is more

convenient for all involved if coffee

isn't treated like a fresh product with

the exception of the ultimate consumer.

The specialty coffee industry has failed

to make a real impact because there is

no strong agreement on how quickly

coffee goes stale and at what point it

will have passed its best before date. I

would recommend buying coffee that

clearly shows the date of roasting on

the label. Many coffee roasters now

suggest that the coffee is used within a

month of roasting and I would follow

this advice. The coffee is at its most

vibrant during the first few weeks and

after this an increasingly unpleasant

stale flavor begins to develop. Many

specialist shops stock bags of coffee

that were recently roasted and

delivered. And buying online direct from

the roster usually ensures your coffee

is delivered to your home within a few

days of roasting.

Stailing. When coffee goes stale, there

are two main changes occurring. The

first is the slow but steady loss of

aromatic compounds. The compounds that

give coffee its flavor and smell. As

they are volatile, these compounds

slowly leech from the coffee. So the

older it is, the less interesting it

will taste. The second change is the

staling caused by oxygen and moisture.

This type of staling creates new

flavors, often relatively unpleasant

ones. As the coffee changes, it will

develop a generic stale taste, and much

of its original character will be lost.

Stale coffees tend to taste flat, woody,

and vaguely of cardboard. The darker a

coffee has been roasted, the faster it

will go stale. This is because the

roasting process makes the coffee bean

more porous, so it's easier for oxygen

and moisture to penetrate and start the

stailing reactions.

Resting coffee. To further confuse the

issue, it is quite common to see

recommendations for resting the coffee

before brewing it. When coffee is

roasted, the chemical reactions that

cause the beans to brown produce large

volumes of carbon dioxide. Much of this

gas remains trapped inside the beans and

slowly leeches out over time. The coffee

will degass quite quickly in the first

few days and then the rate will slow.

Adding hot water to coffee will cause

the gas to be released very quickly,

which is why bubbles often form when

coffee is brewing. Espresso is a method

that takes place under a great deal of

pressure. And when there is a lot of

carbon dioxide in the coffee, it makes

the brewing process a little more

difficult and can prevent proper

extraction of flavor. Many coffee shops

let the coffee degass for anything from

5 to 20 days before using it to help

increase their consistency when brewing.

At home, I would recommend leaving a gap

of at least 3 to 4 days between roasting

and brewing. But waiting too long may

mean that the coffee starts to stale by

the time you finish the bag. With filter

coffee brewing, this is not as

important, but I do think coffee tastes

better after 2 to 3 days than

immediately after roasting.

Packaging coffee. Coffee roasters have

three main choices for packaging their

coffee. They will make this decision

based not only on the preservation of

the coffee but also on the environmental

impact, cost and look of the packaging.

Unsealed craft packaging. The coffee is

packed into craft paper bags with a

simple greaseroof lining to prevent any

leeching of the oil from the coffee.

While the bag may be rolled up at the

point of sale, the coffee is still

exposed to oxygen and will stale

quickly. Many roasters who use this kind

of packaging will emphasize the

importance of freshness, often

suggesting the coffee should be used

within 7 to 10 days. When they retail

the coffee, they must be sure that the

coffee on the shelves is as fresh as

possible, though this can lead to some

undesirable wastage. This type of

packaging is sometimes recyclable and is

generally considered to have the least

impact on the environment. Sealed foil

packaging. Triple ply foil bags are

sealed as soon as the coffee is packed

to prevent fresh air getting in, but

have a valve to allow the carbon dioxide

to escape. Coffee will become stale

slower inside the bags, but once opened,

the rate of stailing will increase.

While packaging like this is not

currently recyclable, many specialty

roasters choose this option as they

consider it the best compromise in terms

of cost, environmental impact, and

freshness.

Gas flushed sealed foil packaging. This

is the same as the previous with one

crucial difference. During the sealing

process, a machine flushes the bag with

an inert gas such as nitrogen to expel

any oxygen from the bag as oxygen causes

stailing to occur. This type of

packaging slows stailing down the most.

Although once the bag is opened, the

stailing process will start. Despite

this being the most effective way to

package coffee, it is not widely used

due to the additional cost of equipment,

process time, and the inert gas.

Tasting and describing coffee.

Coffee drinking is often tied into a

ritual, a specific part of the day. We

might drink a cup of coffee first thing

in the morning or as a break from work.

Our attention is usually focused on the

people we are with or the newspaper we

are reading over breakfast. Few people

really concentrate on tasting the coffee

they drink, but when they start to

notice it, their appreciation increases

rapidly. The process of tasting happens

in two different places, in our mouths

and in our noses. And it's helpful to

think about these two parts of the

process separately. We're learning to

taste and talk about a coffee. The first

part of the process occurs on the

tongue. And it is here we detect the

relatively basic tastes of acidity,

sweetness, bitterness, saltiness, and

savoriness.

When reading the description of a

coffee, we might be attracted to the

flavors described, such as chocolate,

berries, or caramel. These flavors are

actually detected the same way as

smells, not in the mouth, but by the

alactory bulb in the nasal cavity. For

most people, these two separate

experiences are completely intertwined.

And the separation of taste and smell is

extremely difficult. It gets easier if

you try to focus on one particular

aspect at a time rather than taking the

extremely complex taste experience all

in one go.

Professional tasters

before it reaches the final consumer. A

coffee will have been tasted a number of

different times along its journey

through the coffee industry. Each time

it is tasted, the taster might be

looking for something different. It

might be first tasted early on to detect

any presence of a defect. It will then

be tasted by a roaster as part of the

purchasing process or by a jury ranking

coffees for an auction of the best lots

from a particular place. It will be

tasted by the roster again as part of

their quality control to make sure that

the roasting process was done correctly

and then it may be tasted by a cafe

owner selecting the range they wish to

stock. Finally, it will be tasted and

hopefully enjoyed by the consumer. The

coffee industry uses a pretty

standardized practice called cupping to

taste the coffee. The idea behind

cupping is to avoid any impact on flavor

from the brewing process and to treat

all coffees being tasted as equally as

possible. For that reason, a very simple

brewing process is used as bad brewing

can easily change the flavor of a coffee

quite dramatically. A fixed amount of

coffee is weighed for each bowl. It is

ground at a fixed setting and then a

specific amount of water just off the

boil is added. For example, 12 g or half

an ounce of coffee, 200 ml or 7 fl

ounces of water might be added. The

coffee is then left to steep for 4

minutes. To end the brewing process, the

layer of floating grounds on the top of

the bowl called the crust is stirred.

This causes almost all of the coffee

grounds to fall to the bottom of the

bowl where they stop extracting. Any

grounds and foam that remain on top can

be skimmed off and the coffee is ready

to taste. Once the coffee has cooled to

a safe temperature, tasting begins.

Coffee tasters use a spoon to get a

small sample of coffee, which they then

aggressively slurp from the spoon. The

slurping process airates the coffee and

sprays it across the pallet. It's not

essential to tasting, but it does make

tasting a little easier. As coffee

tasters work, they may record their

notes on a score sheet. Different

processes require different score

sheets, but in almost all cases, the

following attributes are being assessed.

Sweetness. How much sweetness does the

coffee have? This is a very desirable

trait in coffee and generally the more

the better. Acidity. How acidic is the

coffee? And how pleasant is this

acidity? If there is a lot of unpleasant

acidity, the coffee will be described as

sour. A lot of pleasing acidity,

however, gives the coffee a crispness or

juiciness. For many people learning to

taste coffee, acidity is a difficult

attribute. They may not have expected

coffee to have much acidity and

certainly would not have considered this

as a positive quality in the past.

Apples can be a great example of

positive acidity. In an apple, high

acidity can be wonderful, adding a

refreshing quality.

Coffee professionals tend to develop a

preference for higher acidity in

coffees, much as beer afficionados may

develop a preference for very hoppy

beers. This can result in a difference

of opinion between the industry and

consumer. In the case of coffee, unusual

flavors such as fruit notes are

determined by the density of the coffee.

Generally, denser coffees are also more

acidic. So, coffee tasters learn to

associate high acidity with quality and

interesting flavors.

Mouth feel. Does the coffee have a

light, delicate, teaike mouth feel, or

is it more of a rich, creamy, heavy cup?

Again, more is not necessarily better.

Low quality coffees often have quite a

heavy mouth feel coupled with low

acidity, but are not always pleasant to

drink. Balance. This is one of the most

difficult aspects of a coffee to assess.

A myriad of tastes and flavors occur in

a mouthful of great coffee. But are they

harmonious? Is it like a well-mixed

piece of music, or is one element too

loud? Does one aspect dominate the cup?

Flavor.

This is not just about describing the

different flavors and aromomas of a

particular coffee, but also about how

pleasant the taster finds them. Many new

tasters find this the most frustrating

aspect of coffee tasting. Each of the

coffees they taste are clearly

different, but the language to describe

them remains elusive.

How to taste at home. How does a

professional coffee taster develop his

skills so rapidly compared to a

consumer? It isn't through the use of

cupping bowls or spoons. Neither is it

by using score sheets or having large

amounts of data about where the coffee

is from. It is through regular

opportunities for comparative tasting.

Where the coffee taster gains a quiet

advantage is by going through a process

of focused conscious tasting. And this

can also be done at home very easily.

One, buy two very different coffees. It

is a good idea to ask your local coffee

roaster or specialty shop for guidance.

The comparative part of tasting is

vitally important. If you taste just one

coffee at a time, you have nothing to

compare it with, and you are basing your

judgments on your memories of previous

coffees, which are likely to be patchy,

flawed, and inaccurate.

Two, buy two small French presses, as

small as you can get, and brew two small

cups of coffee. You could obviously do

this with bigger presses and bigger

cups, but this way will prevent excess

waste or drinking too much coffee.

Three, let the coffee cool down a little

bit. It is much easier to discern

flavors in warm rather than hot coffee.

Four, start to taste them alternately.

Take a couple of sips of one coffee

before moving on to the other. Start to

think about how the coffees taste

compared to each other. Without a point

of reference, this is incredibly

difficult. Five, focus on textures

first. Thinking about the mouth feel of

the two coffees. Does one feel heavier

than the other? Is one sweeter than the

other? Does one have cleaner acidity

than the other? Don't read the labels as

you taste. Instead, note down some words

about each coffee. Six. Don't worry

about flavors. Flavors are the most

intimidating part of tasting, as well as

the most frustrating. Roasters use

flavors not only to describe particular

notes such as nutty or floral, but also

to convey a wide range of sensations.

For example, describing a coffee as

having ripe apple notes also

communicates expectations of sweetness

and acidity. If you do identify

individual flavors, note them down. If

not, then don't worry. Any words or

phrases that describe what you are

tasting qualify as being useful, whether

they are random words or specific

flavors. Seven. When you're finished,

compare what you have written down with

the roaster's description on the packet.

Can you see now what they are trying to

communicate about the coffee? Often on

reading the label, your frustration will

be relieved as you find the word to

describe what you tasted. It can

suddenly seem so obvious, and this is

part of building a coffee specific

vocabulary of flavors. Describing coffee

gets easier and easier, though this is

something that even industry veterans

still work on.

Grinding coffee.

The smell of fresh ground coffee is

evocative, heady, and indescribable. And

in some ways, it's worth paying for a

coffee grinder for this alone. However,

grinding your own beans at home will

make an enormous difference to the

quality of your cup compared to buying

pregground coffee.

The aim of grinding the beans before

brewing is to expose enough of the

surface area to extract enough of the

flavor locked inside the beans to make a

good cup of coffee. If you brewed whole

beans, you'd end up with a very weak

brew. The finer the beans are ground,

the more surface area is exposed, and in

theory, the faster the coffee could be

brewed because the water has more access

to it. This is important when

considering how finely the coffee should

be ground for different brew methods.

The fact that the size of the coffee

grounds changes the speed at which the

coffee brews also makes it very

important that we try and make all the

pieces the same size when grinding

coffee. Finally, grinding the coffee

exposes more of it to the air, which

means the coffee will go stale more

quickly. So, it should ideally only be

ground just before brewing. There are

two main types of coffee grinder

available for domestic use. The whirly

blade grinder. These are common and

inexpensive electric grinders. They have

a metal blade attached to a motor that

spins and smashes the coffee to pieces.

The biggest problem is that this

smashing action produces some very fine

powder and some very large pieces. When

you brew coffee ground like this, the

tiny pieces will quickly add a bitter

flavor to the brew, while the larger

pieces will add an unpleasant sourness.

This uneven brew won't be very

enjoyable.

The burr grinder. These are increasingly

common and available as electric or

manual models. They have two cutting

discs called burrs facing each other,

and you can adjust the distance between

them to change the size of the grounds

of coffee produced. Because the coffee

grounds can't escape until they've been

cut down to the size of the gap between

the burrs, the resulting grounds are

very even in size. Burr grinders produce

even pieces and an adjustable range of

sizes, so they are ideal for brewing

great coffee. Burr grinders are more

expensive than blade grinders, but the

manual models are relatively cheap and

easy to use. If you enjoy coffee, it

will prove to be an invaluable

investment, especially if you're brewing

espresso. However, because grind size is

so important in espresso, variations of

a few hundreds of a millimeter make a

difference, it's important to buy a burr

grinder designed for espresso with a

good motor capable of grinding the beans

very fine. Some grinders can grind for

both filter coffee and espresso, but

most do one or the other.

Different manufacturers use different

materials to make the burrs, such as

steel or ceramic. Over time, the cutting

teeth on the burrs will start to dull,

and the machine will start to mill the

coffee rather than cut it cleanly,

producing lots of tiny pieces that make

the coffee taste flat and bitter. Follow

the manufacturer's recommendations for

how often to change the burs. New burs

are a small but worthwhile investment in

your coffee brewing setup. Many people

who enjoy coffee as a hobby like to

upgrade their equipment from time to

time. I would strongly recommend

investing in a better grinder first.

More expensive grinders have better

motors and better burrs capable of a

more uniform grind size. You'll make a

better cup of coffee with a high-end

grinder and a small domestic espresso

machine than with a cheap grinder and a

top-of- the- range commercial espresso

machine. Density and grind size.

Unfortunately, not all coffee should be

treated equally in the grinder. Darker

roasts are more brittle in the grinder

and you may need to grind a little

coarser. Equally, if the coffee is from

a much higher altitude than you

typically drink, for example, you've

been drinking a delicious coffee from

Brazil and then you switch to a coffee

from Kenya, you may need to go finer in

your grinder for the high grown coffee.

Once you've made the switch a few times,

you can make a well educated guess when

changing coffees and prevent too many

bad brews. Communicating grind size is

not easy. Terms such as coarse, medium,

and fine aren't particularly helpful

because they are relative. There is no

common setting among grinder

manufacturers either. So setting one

grinder to a numerical setting of five,

for example, won't replicate the grind

of another grinder set to the same

setting, even if it's the same model.

Water for brewing.

The role of water in the brewing process

is absolutely crucial in creating a

great cup of coffee. The following

recommendations may seem somewhat

excessive, but making a little effort

with water will bring enormous returns.

If you live in a hard water area, try

buying a small bottle of mineral water

to brew a single cup of coffee. Brew

another coffee straight afterwards in

exactly the same way, but using regular

tap water instead. From seasoned coffee

taster to interested novice, every

person who has ever compared the two has

been shocked at the difference in

quality. The role of water. Water is a

vital ingredient in a cup of coffee, as

it makes up around 90% by volume of an

espresso and about 98.5% of a cup of

filter coffee. If the water doesn't

taste good to start with, neither will

the cup of coffee in the end. And if you

can taste the chlorine, the resulting

cup of coffee, will be terrible. In many

cases, a simple water filter jug that

contains active carbon, such as a Brit

filter, will do a good job of removing

negative tastes, but it still might not

produce the perfect water for brewing

coffee. Water acts as a solvent doing

the work of extracting the flavors in

the coffee during the brewing process.

This is where the quality of the water

plays a major role as the hardness and

the mineral content can significantly

affect how the coffee brews.

Hardness.

Water hardness is a measure of how much

lime scale calcium carbonate is

dissolved in the water and this is

determined by the bedrock in the local

area. Heating water causes the lime

scale to come out of solution and

accumulate over time as a chalky white

buildup. Those who live in hard water

areas struggle with the frustrations of

lime scale affecting kettles, showers,

and washing machines. The hardness

strongly influences the way the hot

water and the ground coffee interact.

Harder water seems to change the rate at

which the solubles in the coffee go into

solution. Essentially changing the way

the coffee brews at a chemical level. to

make a broad statement. It seems a small

amount of hardness is desirable, but

anything from moderate to hard water

does a poor job of brewing coffee,

producing a cup lacking in nuance,

sweetness, and complexity. Also, on a

practical level, having soft water is

very important if you're using any sort

of coffee machine that heats water, such

as an espresso machine or a filter

coffee machine. Lime scale buildup will

quickly cause a machine to malfunction

and many manufacturers will consider the

use of hard water to have invalidated

the warranty.

Mineral content.

Aside from a good flavor and just a

little hardness, there isn't too much

else we really want in the water, but a

relatively low mineral content is

desirable. Manufacturers of mineral

water are required to list the mineral

content on the bottle and it is usually

described as the total dissolved solids

TDS or the dry residue at 180°

365° F.

The perfect water. The Specialty Coffee

Association publishes suggested

guidelines for the perfect water for

coffee brewing. If you want to

understand the quality of your domestic

water supply, contact your water supply

company or look on its website, as most

are obliged to publish data on the

content of their water. If you can't

find this information, buy a water

testing kit from a pet shop sold to test

the water in fish tanks, and it will

give you accurate readings of the key

elements.

Choosing a water. All of this

information may seem a little

overwhelming and complex, but it can be

summarized as follows. If you live in a

soft to moderately hard water area, use

tap water, but filter it first to

improve the taste. If you live in a

moderate to very hard water area,

bottled water is currently the best

option for brewing coffee. Choose a

bottled water close to the targets. Own

brand supermarket waters tend to be

lower in mineral content compared to the

big brand waters. While it's not ideal

to recommend bottled water, if you

really wish to get the best out of your

coffee, you must use a suitable water

for brewing. Guidelines for the perfect

water for coffee brewing. It should be

clean, fresh, and odor-free. The color

should be clear. The total chlorine

should be 0 mg per liter. The total

dissolved solids, TDS, at 180 C, 365 F,

should ideally be 150 mg, but 75 to 250

mg per liter is acceptable. The calcium

hardness should ideally be 4 grains or

68 mg per liter, but 1 to 5 grains or 17

to 85 mg per liter is acceptable. The

total alkalinity should be 40 mg per

liter, but at or near 40 millig per

liter is acceptable. The pH should be

7.0, but anything between 6.5 and 7.5 is

acceptable. The sodium content should

ideally be 10 milligs per liter, but at

or near this amount is acceptable.

Brewing basics.

A key moment in the journey from cup to

cup is the process of brewing. All the

hard work up until this point, all the

potential and deliciousness locked

within the coffee can be lost by bad

brewing. It is upsetting how easy it is

to brew coffee badly. But understanding

the basic principles can lead to better

results and make the process more

enjoyable.

A coffee bean is composed mostly of

cellulose. It's very similar to wood.

Cellulose cannot be dissolved in water.

So, this is what makes up most of the

spent grounds that we throw away after

brewing a cup of coffee. Broadly

speaking, everything else that makes up

the coffee bean can be dissolved in

water and can end up in the cup. But not

everything that we can get from coffee

tastes good. From the 1960s, there has

been ongoing research into measuring how

much of the coffee we actually want to

extract for the resulting cup to taste

good. If you don't take enough from the

ground, then the cup of coffee will not

only be weak, but it will also be sour

and astringent. This is called under

extraction. And if we take too much from

the ground, then the cup of coffee will

taste bitter, harsh, and ashy. This is

what we call overextraction.

It is possible to calculate whether we

have extracted as much as we want from

the coffee. In the past, this was done

relatively simply. The grounds were

weighed before brewing. Then after

brewing, the spent grounds were placed

in a low oven until they were completely

dry. When they were weighed again, the

difference in weight would indicate how

much of the coffee had been extracted

during the brewing process. Now, a

combination of a specialized refratoter

and smartphone software allows us to

quickly calculate how much has been

extracted from the grounds. Generally,

it's agreed that a good cup of coffee

contains 18 to 22% by weight of the

ground coffee used to brew it. The exact

numbers are not important to most people

at home, but understanding how to adjust

different parameters to improve the cup

is useful.

Strength.

This is an important term when talking

about a cup of coffee, but one that has

been quite widely misused. The term is

commonly used on bags of coffee sold in

the supermarket and in this instance is

completely inappropriate. What they're

trying to communicate here is how dark

the roast of the coffee is and how

intense the bitterness will be. The word

strength when used to describe a cup of

coffee should be used in the same way

it's used to describe alcoholic drinks.

A beer that is 4% strength means that 4%

of what you drink is alcohol. In the

same way, a strong cup of coffee has a

higher percentage of dissolved ground

coffee in the hot water than a weak cup.

When it comes to strength, there is no

right and wrong. There is only

individual preference. There are two

ways to control strength and the first

and most common way is by varying the

ratio of coffee to water. The more

coffee used to brew a cup, the stronger

the resulting cup is likely to be. When

talking about brewing, we tend to

describe the strength by the number of

grams of coffee per liter of water. For

example, 60 g per liter. To brew a cup

of coffee of this strength, you would

first decide how much coffee you want to

brew. For example, 500 ml. You would

then use the ratio to calculate how much

coffee to use, in this case 30 g. The

preferred ratio of coffee to water

varies around the world from around 40 g

per liter up to nearly 100 g per liter

in Brazil and Scandinavia.

Generally, people find a ratio that they

enjoy and they stick to it for most

brewing methods. I would recommend 60

grams per liter as a starting point.

Changing the coffee to water ratio is

how most people at home change the

strength of their brews. But it is not

always the best way. The other way to

change strength is to change the level

of extraction. As we steep coffee in a

French press, the water is slowly taking

more and more out of the coffee and the

resulting drink is getting stronger and

stronger as it brews. The challenge is

to control the level of extraction so we

take enough from the grounds that it

tastes good before we start to extract

bitter and unpleasant flavors. Many

people don't think about changing the

level of extraction when they get a poor

cup of coffee, but an error of

extraction can certainly lead to a

disappointing cup.

Exact measurements.

Small changes in how coffee is brewed

can have a big impact on taste. One of

the biggest variables is how much water

you use and being consistent is one of

the most important aspects of brewing.

It is a good idea to put the coffee

brewer on scales so you can measure how

much boiling water you are adding.

Remember that 1 milll of water weighs 1

g. This will give you a lot more control

and massively improve the quality and

consistency of your brews. A set of

simple digital scales is not expensive

and many people already have one in the

kitchen. While it seems a little

obsessive at first, once you start

brewing this way, you'll never want to

go back. Milk, cream, and sugar. Most

people who are interested in coffee are

aware that milk and sugar are considered

somewhat taboo by those who work in the

industry. Many people consider this a

form of snobbery, and it's something of

a contentious point between coffee

professionals and consumers. What is

often forgotten by the professionals is

that most coffee served in the world

requires something to help make it more

drinkable. Cheap commodity coffee that

has been poorly roasted or badly brewed

is often incredibly bitter and lacks any

sweetness. Milk and even more so cream

does a great job of blocking some of the

bitterness and sugar makes it more

palatable. Many people get accustomed to

the taste of milk and sugar in coffee

and will then add them to an interesting

cup of coffee brewed with care. This may

cause frustration for the barista,

professional roaster, or a person simply

passionate about great coffee. Excellent

coffee should have its own sweetness.

And instead of suppressing bitterness,

the milk will obscure the flavor

characteristics of the coffee, hiding

the work of the producer and the

expression of teroir that the coffee

has. I would always recommend trying a

coffee before adding anything to it. If

it's not sufficiently palatable as black

coffee, then add milk or sugar so you

enjoy the cup. However, exploring this

wonderful world is extremely difficult.

Drinking anything other than black

coffee, and the investment of time and

effort learning to appreciate it this

way will be extremely rewarding.

The French press. The French press, also

known as a cafeteria or coffee plunger,

is probably the most underrated method

of brewing coffee. It's cheap, easy,

repeatable, and just about everyone has

one at home. Considering its name, it

seems somewhat surprising to discover

that the most familiar version of the

French press was invented and patented

by an Italian called Atilio Calamani in

1929.

However, a very similar brewer had been

patented first by two Frenchmen, Mayor

and Delforge, in 1852.

A French press is an infusion brewer.

With most methods of brewing coffee, the

water passes through the grounds. Here,

the water and coffee steep together,

which helps produce a more uniform

extraction. The other relatively unique

aspect of the French press is the way

that it filters the grounds from the

brewing liquid by using a metal mesh.

Due to the relatively large holes in the

mesh, more of the non-soluble material

from the coffee gets into the cup. The

advantage of this is that you get a

little of the coffee oil and some tiny

suspended pieces of coffee in the cup,

which gives the resulting brew a bigger,

richer body and texture. The

disadvantage is what puts many people

off the French press, the sludge. At the

bottom of the cup, you will often find a

reasonable quantity of silty particles

of coffee that, if accidentally drunk,

are quite unpleasant and sandy in the

mouth. The brewing method I'm about to

describe is designed to achieve a great

brew with the minimum of sludge. It

requires a little bit more work and

patience, but you will be rewarded with

a great cup of coffee that will give you

easy access to all the unique flavors

and characteristics of the bean.

The French press method

ratio 75 g per liter. I recommend a

slightly higher ratio of coffee to water

when using an infusion brewer if you

want to produce a brew with a similar

strength to a pore of a brewer. Grind

medium caster or super fine sugar. Many

people grind their beans very coarsely

when brewing in a French press, but I

don't think this is necessary unless

your grinder produces a lot of very fine

pieces and your brews quickly turn

bitter. One, grind the coffee just

before you start brewing. Be sure to

weigh the coffee first. Two, boil a

kettle of fresh water with a low mineral

content suitable for brewing coffee.

Three, put the ground coffee in the

French press and place it on the scales.

Four, pour in the correct amount of

water, weighing as you pour so you

achieve the ratio of 75 g per liter.

Pour relatively quickly and try to get

all the coffee wet. Five, leave the

coffee to steep for 4 minutes. During

this time, the coffee will float to the

top to form a crust-like layer.

Six. After 4 minutes, take a large spoon

and stir the crust at the top. This will

cause most of the coffee to fall to the

bottom of the brewer.

Seven, a little foam and some floating

grounds will remain on the top. Use the

spoon to scoop them off and discard

them. Eight, wait another 5 minutes. The

coffee would be too hot to drink anyway,

and leaving it in the brewer allows more

and more of the coffee and fine

particles to sink to the bottom.

Nine, place the mesh plunger in the top

of the beaker, but do not plunge.

Plunging will create turbulence, which

will stir up all the silty coffee at the

bottom of the pot. 10. Pour the coffee

slowly through the mesh into the cups

until you get close to the bottom. This

liquid will have very little silt in it.

If you can resist pouring out the very

last bit, you will end up with a

delicious, flavorful brew of coffee that

has very little silt. 11. Allow the

coffee to cool in the cup a little. Then

enjoy.

Many people recommend pouring out the

entire pot once the brew is done to

prevent the grounds continuing to steep

and start to over extract. If you follow

the instructions, the coffee should not

continue to brew or add negative

flavors. So, this is not necessary.

Pourover or filter brewers.

The term pourover is used to describe a

host of different brew methods. The

common factor is that they brew by

percolation, which means the water

passes through a bed of coffee,

extracting flavor along the way.

Usually, there is some sort of material

to filter the grounds from the resulting

drink, and it can be anything from paper

to cloth to a fine metal mesh. Simple

cup top filter brewers have probably

been used since coffee brewing began,

but the innovations on them came

relatively late. Only cloth filters were

used originally. The invention of the

paper filter is credited to a German

entrepreneur Mita Bence in 1908. Now

controlled by her grandchildren, the

Mita Group still sells filter papers,

coffee, and coffee machines today. The

invention of paper filters encouraged

the move away from the electric

percolator, a terrible brewer which

recirculated hot water through the

grounds, brewing an incredibly bitter

cup. The final death nail for the

percolator was the next major innovation

in drip coffee brewing, the electric

coffee machine. The invention can be

credited to another German company

called Veomat. Variations on the

electric filter coffee machine are still

incredibly popular today, though not all

produce good coffee.

Currently, there is a huge range of

different brewers, brands, and devices

on offer, all designed to do this same

job, and each with its own advantages

and idiosyncrasies. The good news is the

principle behind this method of brewing

is universal and the technique is easily

adapted to different brewers.

The key principles

when coffee is brewed this way, three

variables affect the resulting cup of

coffee. Unfortunately, they are not

independent of each other, which is why

precise measurement of both coffee and

water is so useful, especially if you

are blurry eyed when making the coffee

first thing in the morning. One, the

grinder the coffee. The finer the

coffee, the more is extracted from it as

the water passes through. This is

because there is a greater surface area

and because water flows through finer

coffee more slowly. So there will be

more contact time. Two, the contact

time. This is not only how quickly the

water flows through the coffee, but also

how long it takes us to add the water.

We can extend the brew time by adding

the water very slowly to increase the

extraction of the coffee. Three, the

amount of coffee. The more coffee there

is, the longer the water will take to

flow through and the longer the contact

time. To replicate a good brew, these

three variables must be kept as

consistent as possible. If, for example,

someone reduces the amount of coffee by

accident, they might assume that the

reason the coffee did not brew long

enough was due to the grind being wrong.

If we do not pay attention, it's very

easy to get confused and start to make

bad coffee.

The bloom.

This is the common practice of adding

just a little water to the coffee at the

start of the brew. Usually just enough

to get all the coffee wet. When you add

the hot water, the ground start to

release the trapped carbon dioxide and

the bed of coffee will swell like dough

rising. It is typical to wait 30 seconds

before starting to add the rest of the

brew water. Despite the widespread

nature of this practice, there isn't a

lot of science to justify it. It might

be that releasing some of the carbon

dioxide helps make the coffee easier to

extract and some studies seem to support

this. I think it adds a pleasant moment

in the morning coffee ritual as watching

the grounds bloom is a little

mesmerizing.

Pouring kettles. When using the pourover

method to brew coffee, the rate at which

you add water plays a role in the

brewing process. Pouring slowly and

carefully from a standard kettle is

difficult to do. And recently there's

been a dramatic rise in coffee bars

using special pouring kettles. These are

usually placed on the stove, but

electric models are available. The

common factor is that the spout is very

narrow, so they issue a very slow,

steady stream of water onto the coffee.

Despite their popularity in the

industry, I am not convinced they are

truly a worthwhile expense for the home

brewer. They do make pouring easier, but

if not used properly, the water can drop

in temperature and prevent the coffee

from brewing as well as it could. They

could also be viewed as an overly

serious and complicated gadget when in

truth we just want to pour the water

slowly over the coffee. However, if we

pour at different rates on different

days, something that is very easy to do,

then we will get different tasting

coffee from one day to the next, which

is not a good scenario.

Pourover or filter brewers. Ratio 60

grams per liter. I recommend this as a

starting point for all pourover and

filter coffee methods, but be sure to

experiment to find your preference.

Grind medium like caster or superfine

sugar. This would be suitable for

brewing around 30 g of coffee to 500 g

of water. You will need to grind the

beans more finely if you are brewing a

single cup and more coarsely if you want

to brew more.

One, grind the coffee just before you

start brewing. Be sure to weigh the

coffee first. Two, boil a kettle of

fresh water with a low mineral content

suitable for coffee brewing. Three,

while the kettle is boiling, place the

paper filter into the brewer and rinse

briefly under the hot tap. This helps to

reduce any taste the paper might impart

to the coffee and also warms up the

brewing device. Four, add the coffee to

the brewer. Place the brewer on top of a

cup or jug and place it all on the

scales. Five, wait 10 seconds once the

kettle is boiled if you're pouring

straight from it. If you're using a

pouring kettle, decant the water into it

immediately.

Six, using the scales as a guide, pour a

little water onto the coffee, about

twice as much as the coffee by weight.

Don't worry about being too accurate.

Just make sure you add enough to wet the

coffee. I like to pick the cone up and

give it a little swirl to make sure all

the coffee is wet. Careful stirring with

a spoon is another option. Wait 30

seconds before starting to pour the rest

of the water. Seven. Slowly pour the

remainder of the water onto the coffee,

weighing as you go to get an accurate

amount and taking into account the water

already added. Try to pour directly on

the coffee and not on the walls of the

brewer as the water may pass through

without really extracting the coffee.

Eight. Once you've added all the

necessary water and the surface of the

liquid is about 2 to 3 cm, about an inch

below the top of the cone, gently swirl

again. This stops any coffee from

sticking to the walls of the brewer.

Nine, let it drip through until the bed

of coffee looks dry. It should be

relatively flat at the base of the

brewer. 10. Discard the coffee and

paper. Remove the brewer from the cup

and enjoy the coffee.

If you're not happy with the resulting

cup of coffee, think about what you want

to change. I would recommend using the

grind to change the flavor of the

coffee. If the coffee is bitter, it may

be overextracted, so you should try your

next brew using a slightly coarser

grind. If it is weak, sour, or

astringent, try grinding more finely for

the next brew. Very quickly, you will

know the best grind settings for the

coffees you enjoy.

Different kinds of filters.

There are three main types of filters

used in pourover and filter coffee

brewing. Each affect the resulting brew

by straining out different things. Metal

filters. Like the French press, metal

filters only remove the larger pieces of

ground coffee. The resulting brew will

have some silty sediment in it and will

look a little cloudy. It will have the

added body from both the suspended

grounds and the oils from the coffee.

And many people enjoy a cup like this.

Metal filters can be used for years as

long as the filters are kept clean and

washed regularly as failure to do so

will allow oils to build up and become

rancid. Cloth. Cloth has been used to

filter coffee for a very long time. Like

paper, it strains out the suspended

pieces of coffee, but it allows some of

the oil to come through. The resulting

cup is very clean with a richer, fuller

mouth feel. After use, immediately rinse

a cloth filter as well as possible. then

dry it quickly. If you leave the cloth

to dry slowly, it will develop

unpleasant flavors similar to the smell

of laundry that has been left in the

machine too long. If you use the cloth

regularly, keep it stored wet in a glass

of water in the refrigerator. If you

plan to store the cloth for a long time,

put it wet into a ziploc bag and freeze

it. Repeatedly freezing and thoring it

will cause the cloth to degrade a little

quicker. However, the cloth shouldn't be

allowed to get too stained. For

cleaning, I would recommend a product

called Kafisa made by Ernax. While this

is marketed as an espresso machine

cleaner, the original formula was

developed to clean the cloths used in

very large filter brewers. Dissolve a

small amount in hot water and soak the

cloth in it, then rinse thoroughly and

store.

Paper. Paper filters are the most common

type of filter, and they produce the

cleanest cup of coffee. They strain out

all of the suspended material as well as

any oils that may have ended up in the

brew. The resulting cup is a fairly

clear liquid, often with a reddish hue.

I always recommend bleached white papers

as the unbleached brown papers tend to

impart an unpleasant papery taste to the

coffee.

The electric filter machine method.

An electric coffee machine takes away a

lot of the guesswork and adds plenty of

repeatability. We still have to be

consistent in how much coffee we use and

how much cold water we put into the

machine, but aside from that, we can

trust the brewer to do its job. However,

most domestic filter coffee machines

tend to make pretty bad coffee. This is

primarily because they are not capable

of heating the water up to the correct

temperature. If you are shopping for a

new one, make sure it has been certified

to reach suitable temperatures. I would

recommend buying a machine endorsed by

an organization such as the Specialty

Coffee Association or the European

Coffee Brewing Center. I would also

avoid buying a machine with any sort of

hot plate. Keeping a jug of coffee on a

hot plate very quickly cooks the coffee,

producing some unpleasant flavors.

Choose instead a machine with a thermal

carff. Most electric machines perform

best when brewing larger volumes. With

most machines, I would recommend brewing

at least 500 ml of coffee at a time,

which will last around 30 minutes in a

thermal carff.

The electric filter machine method ratio

60 g per liter. I recommend this as a

starting point for all pourover and

filter coffee methods, but be sure to

experiment to find your preference.

Grind medium like caster or superfine

sugar. If making between 500 mls and a

liter of coffee, you will need to grind

beans more costly if brewing larger

volumes as many machines can brew up to

one liter at a time, if not more. One,

grind the coffee just before you start

brewing. Be sure to weigh the coffee

first. Two, put the filter paper in the

brewing basket, then rinse under the hot

tap. Three, place the brew basket in the

machine, then add fresh water with a low

mineral content suitable for coffee

brewing. Four, switch on the machine and

as the brew starts, keep an eye on it.

If some of the coffee is not getting

wet, give it a quick stir with a spoon.

Five, allow the brew to finish. Six,

discard the paper and grounds. Seven,

enjoy your coffee. As in the pour over

cone method, adjusting the ground size

is a better way to change the flavor

than adjusting the amount of coffee you

add if you are not happy with your cup.

The arrow press. The AeroPress is a

rather unusual coffee maker, but I've

yet to meet someone who has one and does

not love using it. It was invented in

2005 by Alan Adler, the inventor of the

Arab throwing ring, hence its name. It's

a cheap, durable, and very portable

brewer that many coffee professionals

take with them when they travel around

the world. In addition, this brewer is

very easy to clean. The interesting

thing about the AeroPress is that it

combines two different brewing methods.

Initially, the water and coffee steep

together as they would in a French

press. However, to complete the brew, a

piston is used to push the water through

the grounds and then through a paper

filter. A little like an espresso

machine and a little like a filter

coffee maker. Compared with other

brewers, the number of different recipes

and techniques that can be used the air

press is enormous. There is even a

competition each year for the best

technique which started in Norway but

has ended up growing into an

international event dubbed the World

Aeropress Championships. Each year the

organizers publish the top three methods

from the competition on their website

which should give you an idea of how

variable these machines can be. I would

however argue against any claims that

the AeroPress can be used to produce

espresso or anything like it. It can

make small, strong cups of coffee, but a

person pushing down on a plunger simply

cannot replicate the very high pressures

used in an espresso machine. I'll

describe the two main methods of using

this brewer shortly. Ratio and grind

size. The relationship between grind

size, brew time, and the amount of

brewing water used is incredibly

important here. For best results with an

AeroPress, you should decide first what

kind of cup of coffee you want to drink.

If you want to brew something short and

strong, I would suggest starting with a

ratio of 100 g per liter. If you want to

brew a little quicker, then you will

need to grind relatively fine. You can

use a coarser grind if you choose, but

you will need to extend the brewing time

for best results. If you want something

closer to a regular cup of coffee, I

would suggest using a ratio of 75 g per

liter. This is the same ratio as that

recommended for the French press because

this is also an immersion brewing

method. Again, you can match your

brewing time to your grind size.

Traditional error press method.

This method will allow you to brew

slightly more coffee than the inverted

method described next. It is also a

little less fussy and there is less

potential for mess in the kitchen.

Because there are so many factors at

play, it is tempting to adjust many

variables at once. Pushing harder will

speed up the brew, but will also extract

a little more from the coffee. Extending

the steep time will also extract more as

will grinding the coffee on a finer

setting. However, it is always best to

change only one thing at a time and more

experimentation simply means more

opportunities to drink interesting cups

of coffee. One, grind the coffee just

before you start brewing. Be sure to

weigh the coffee first. Two, put a

filter paper into the filter holder and

lock it into the body of the brewer.

Three, run some hot water through to

heat the brewer and rinse the paper.

Four, place a mug on your digital

scales, put the main part of the brewer

on top, and then add the coffee. Five,

boil a kettle of fresh water with a low

mineral content suitable for brewing

coffee. Six, wait 10 to 20 seconds after

the kettle is boiled, turn on the

scales, and add the desired amount of

water to the air press. For example, for

15 gram of coffee, I would add 200 ml,

200 g of water. Start a timer. Seven.

Give the coffee a quick stir. Then put

the piston part of the air press in

place. Make sure it seals, but don't

push down yet. This creates a vacuum

above the coffee, preventing the liquid

from dripping out of the bottom of the

brewer before you want it to. Eight.

After a period of brewing, I recommend

starting with one minute, take the mug

in the brewer off the scales and slowly

push down the plunger until all the

liquid has been expelled.

Nine. Pull the piston back a few

centimeters, an inch, to stop the brewer

from dripping when you discard the spent

coffee. Remove the filter holder and

holding the brewer over the waist bin,

push the plunger out to get rid of the

grounds. Tap out any loose bits. Then

immediately rinse and clean the bottom

of the piston and the brewer. 10. Enjoy

your coffee.

Inverted error press method.

I want to describe this method because

it is so popular, but also because it

often goes wrong. I recommend starting

with and generally using the traditional

method, but if you want to experiment,

here is how to do it safely. The idea

behind this alternative method is to

invert the device so that it is

impossible for the brewing liquid to

escape during the infusion phase. You

will have to flip over the brewer full

of coffee onto a cup before you push the

plunger. And this is where things go

wrong. Vessels full of hot liquid should

be flipped with caution. It's also

important to note that this method will

not allow you to brew as much coffee.

The maximum brew is probably 200 mls of

water.

One, grind the coffee just before you

start brewing. Be sure to weigh the

coffee first. Two, insert the piston

about 2 cm, 3/4 of an inch, into the

brewer, turn upside down, and place it

on the digital scales. Add the coffee.

Three, boil a kettle of fresh water with

low mineral content suitable for brewing

coffee. Four, wait 10 to 20 seconds

after the kettle is boiled. Turn on the

scales, then add the desired amount of

hot water to the air press. Five, start

a timer and give the coffee a quick

stir. Steep for 1 minute. Six, while the

coffee is steeping, remove the brewer

from the scales. Put the filter holder

containing the paper onto the brewer. If

you have rinsed the paper, it should

stick when turned upside down.

Seven, slowly pull the top part of the

brewer down onto the piston until the

liquid is nearly touching the filter.

This will make the piston much more

stable and less likely to pop off during

the flip. Eight. At the end of the

steep, place a mug upside down on top of

the brewer and with one hand on each,

carefully flip them over. Nine, slowly

push down the plunger until all the

liquid has been expelled into the mug.

10. Empty and rinse the brewer. 11.

Enjoy your coffee.

Stovetop mocka pot.

Most homes have a mocka pot in use or at

least buried in the cupboard. In many

ways, I struggle to explain its

popularity as it's not the most

userfriendly device in the world and

it's not easy to produce delicious

coffee with one. It tends to produce

very strong, very bitter coffee, but is

sufficiently palatable to espresso

drinkers that just about every household

in Italy uses one religiously. The

patent for the mocker belongs to Alonso

Bleti, who invented it in 1933. The

Bleti company continues to produce very

popular brewers today. Mocha pots are

often still made from aluminium, about

which there was a false scare story some

years ago, although it's possible and

more desirable to buy a stainless steel

model. The method I'm about to explain

is a little different to the way that

most people use their mocka pot, but the

advice may help even those who are

already happy with the coffee they

produce from it. My biggest issue with

this type of coffee maker is that the

brewing water reaches temperatures so

high that you start to extract very

bitter compounds from the coffee. Some

people treasure the bitterness of a

mocka pot brew. Others utterly hate the

device because of it. The following

technique has helped people find a new

respect for their long-forgotten brewer

and enjoy their coffee in a different

way. However, because of the high coffee

to water ratio and because the brew time

is quite fast, it's still difficult to

make light roasted dense or particularly

acidic and juicy coffee taste good using

this brewing method. I would recommend

using a light roast espresso or perhaps

a coffee that is grown at lower

altitudes. I would steer away from dark

roasts because of the propensity of this

method to produce a bitter cup.

Stovetop mocka method ratio 200 g per

liter. In most cases, you do not have

much control over the ratio. You simply

fill up the ground coffee holder and

then fill the unit with water until it

reaches just below the over pressure

valve. So there is little room for

maneuver.

grind quite fine like salt. I do not

recommend using an espresso or very fine

grind. A somewhat controversial stance.

I prefer a slightly coarser grind than

most people would choose because I

prefer to minimize the bitterness in the

resulting cup. One, grind the coffee

just before you start brewing and fill

the basket so it's even and level. Do

not compress the coffee. Two, boil a

kettle of fresh water with low mineral

content suitable for brewing coffee. The

advantage of starting with hot water is

that the pot is on the heat for less

time and the ground coffee doesn't get

as hot, which helps reduce the

bitterness. Three, fill the bottom

section of the brewer with hot water to

just below the small valve. Do not cover

it with water. It's a safety valve that

prevents too much pressure from building

up. Four, place the coffee basket in

place. Make sure the circular rubber

gasket is completely clean. Then,

carefully assemble the brewer. If this

does not seal properly, the brewer will

not work properly. Five, put the pot on

a low to medium heat, leaving the lid

up. When the water starts to boil in the

lower chamber, the pressure created by

the steam pushes the water through a

tube that feeds it to the coffee. The

faster and harder you boil the water,

the more pressure you will create and

the faster the brew process will be. You

don't want to go too quickly. Six,

coffee should slowly start to appear in

the top chamber. Listen carefully. When

you hear a gurgling sound, it's time to

turn off the heat and stop brewing. This

sound indicates that most of the water

has been pushed up already and that

steam is now starting to come through

the coffee, which will make the brew

more bitter. Seven, to stop the brew,

run the base of the brewer under cold

running water. This drop in temperature

will cause steam to condense and the

pressure to disappear. Eight, enjoy your

coffee. Make sure the brewer has cooled

down to a safe temperature before taking

it apart for cleaning. It must be

completely dry before you put it away.

Avoid storing it locked fully into

position as this will cause the rubber

seal to age more quickly.

The vacuum pot.

The vacuum pot, also known as the siphon

brewer, is a very old and exceedingly

entertaining way to make coffee. It is

however also extremely annoying in many

respects and sufficiently frustrating

that many people relegate their brewer

to a cupboard or a shelf as a display

piece. Vacuum coffee pots first appeared

in Germany in the 1830s. A patent was

issued for one in 1838 to a French

woman, Jean Rishar. The design has not

really changed a great deal since its

conception. The brewer has two chambers,

the lower of which is filled with water

and heated to boiling point. The upper

chamber, which contains the coffee

grounds, is then placed on top, creating

a seal and allowing steam to build in

the lower chamber. This trapped steam

pushes the water from the bottom chamber

up through a tube and a filter into the

upper chamber. The water is at this

point just below boiling point and

suitable for making coffee. The brew is

left to steep for the desired amount of

time. It's important to keep heating the

lower chamber while the coffee steeps.

To finish the brew, the vacuum pot is

removed from the heat source. As the

steam cools, it condenses back into

water and creates a vacuum which sucks

the coffee from the upper chamber back

through the filter into the bottom

chamber. The grounds remain trapped and

separate in the upper section and the

coffee can be poured from the bottom

carff. The whole process is a pleasing

application of physics and often likened

to a classroom experiment.

Unfortunately, it's sufficiently

difficult to get right that most people

try a couple of times and then give up,

which is a shame.

Additional tools

An independent heat source is required

for this brewing method. Some vacuum

coffee pots are designed to sit directly

on a kitchen stove. Others come with

their own alcohol burning candle. These

candles are best replaced with a very

small butane camping stove. In Japan and

some specialist coffee shops, the

preferred heat source is a H hallogen

lamp placed under the brewer. This is

not the most efficient source of heat,

but it does look fantastic.

Some people use small bamboo paddles to

stir the coffee, but these do nothing

special, and a spoon works equally well.

While I cannot deny there is a pleasure

in acquiring and using a special set of

tools for a ritual, I won't claim they

make any difference to the coffee.

The filter.

Most traditional vacuum pots use a cloth

filter, which is wrapped around a metal

disc. It's important to keep this cloth

clean. After every use, clean the cloth

as thoroughly as possible under a hot

tap. If it is not going to be used for a

few days, clean it with a suitable

detergent. There are alternatives to

cloth such as paper or metal, but these

often need special adapters.

The vacuum pot method. Ratio 75 g per

liter. Some people prefer to use a

little more coffee than this for siphon

brewing, especially in Japan where this

method is commonly used. grind medium

like castor sugar. Because this is an

immersion method, you can match your

brew time to the grind size. I would

caution against going too fine as it can

stall the draw down process at the end

of brewing. A very coarse grind will

mean a very long brew time at higher

temperatures which can make the brew

rather bitter. One, grind the coffee

just before you start brewing. Be sure

to weigh the coffee first. Two, boil a

kettle of fresh water with low mineral

content suitable for brewing coffee.

Three, fit the filter into the upper

chamber, making sure it is completely

flush. Four, place the bottom chamber on

your digital scales and pour in your

calculated amount of hot water following

your desired ratio. Five, transfer the

lower chamber to your heat source, a

small butane burner, an alcohol burner,

or a hallogen lamp using the handle to

move it. Six, place the upper chamber on

top, but do not seal it yet. If you put

the seal in too soon, the expanding

gases will push the water up into the

top chamber before it is the right

temperature, making your coffee taste

bad. Seven, when the water starts to

boil, seal the top chamber on top of the

lower chamber. If you're using a

controllable heat source, reduce the

heat to low at this point. The boiling

water will now start pushing up into the

top chamber. Look directly down onto the

filter to make sure it's centered. If it

isn't, you will see lots of bubbles

flowing from one side. Use your paddle

or spoon to push the filter carefully

into place so it is correctly

positioned.

Eight. Initially, the bubbling in the

top chamber will be quite aggressive

with large bubbles. Once the bubbles

have become smaller, you're ready to

brew. Add the coffee to the water and

stir until it is all completely wet and

then start a timer. Nine. A crust will

form on top. After 30 seconds, give it a

gentle stir to knock the floating coffee

back into the brew. 10. After another 30

seconds, turn off the heat source. Once

the coffee begins to be drawn down into

the lower chamber, stir it gently once

clockwise and then once anticlockwise to

prevent it sticking to the walls of the

brewer. But if you stir too much, you

will get a large dome of coffee at the

end of the brew, which suggests uneven

extraction. 11. Allow the coffee to be

drawn down completely. A slightly domed

bed of grounds will be left in the top

chamber. Pour the coffee into a coffee

pot as the retained heat from the carff

can give the coffee a cooked taste. 12.

Let the coffee cool. This brewing method

produces an incredibly hot cup of

coffee.

Espresso.

Over the last 50 years, espresso has

come to be considered by many to be the

best way to drink coffee. This is not

true since no brew method can be

inherently better than any others. But

espresso is now the most popular coffee

drink consumed out of the home and many

cafes charge more for an espresso than

for a filter coffee.

Undeniably, espresso has been the driver

of coffee retail. Whether it's part of

the Italianstyle coffee culture now

widely popular or the Americanized fast

food version we see in chain coffee

shops across the globe, making espresso

is both incredibly frustrating and also

very rewarding. I must offer a word of

caution here. Don't invest in an

espresso machine at home unless you want

a new hobby. The fantasy of whipping up

a couple of delicious cappuccinos to

drink on a lazy Sunday morning while

reading the paper is a very long way

away from the work involved in preparing

the drinks and cleaning up afterwards.

If you just want the drinks and not the

work, then do what I do and pop out to a

local cafe where someone else can deal

with it all. However, I accept that for

many of us, great coffee is not

available locally, and this is a good

reason to master the art of brewing

espresso at home.

The invention of espresso.

As we've already seen, when you brew

coffee, the grind size is very

important. The finer you grind the

beans, the easier it will be to extract

the coffee and the less water you

require to do so. This means you can

produce a stronger cup of coffee.

The problem starts when you try to grind

the bean so fine that gravity alone

cannot push the water through the bed of

coffee. This puts a limit on how strong

a cup of coffee you can produce. This

problem has been recognized for a very

long time and the first solution used

the pressure of trap steam to push water

through the coffee. Initially, this very

early espresso machine was simply used

by cafes to make regular strength coffee

much quicker, hence the name. However,

the pressure you can generate from steam

alone without endangering lives is

relatively low. So, various other

methods such as air pressure or main's

water pressure were tried. The big

breakthrough came with Achily Gadger's

invention. This used a large lever

pulled by the operator to compress a

spring. When the spring was released,

the pressure forced a very hot water

through the coffee. The sudden jump in

pressure was dramatic and allowed the

use of a much finer grind of coffee to

produce a much smaller, stronger, but

well extracted cup.

Crema. For most coffee drinkers, one of

the key features of espresso is not just

the strength of the cup, but also the

layer of dense foam that tops the drink.

Crema is simply Italian for cream, and

it's the natural head of foam that forms

on top of the coffee, much like a head

that appears on a pint of beer. The

reason this happens is that when water

is under very high pressure, it's able

to dissolve more carbon dioxide, the gas

present in coffee that was produced

during the roasting process. When the

brewed liquid gets back to normal

atmospheric pressure on its way to the

cup, the liquid can no longer hold on to

all the gas, so it comes out of solution

as innumerable tiny bubbles. These

bubbles become trapped in the coffee

liquid and appear as a stable foam. For

a long time, crema was considered

important, but in fact can only tell you

two things. Firstly, whether the coffee

is relatively fresh. The longer ago it

was roasted, the less carbon dioxide it

will contain, so the less foam it will

produce. And secondly, whether the cup

of espresso is strong or weak. The

darker in color the foam, the stronger

the liquid will be. This is because

crema is just a foam of the liquid.

Lighter in color because of the way

bubbles refract light. So the color of

the coffee determines the color of the

crema. For this reason, a coffee that

has been roasted darker will also

produce a darker crema. The cremer

cannot tell you if the raw coffee is

good or has been well roasted or if the

equipment used to make the espresso is

clean. All key factors in a delicious

cup of coffee.

The basic technique to brew espresso.

The ground coffee is placed in a small

metal basket held in a handle. The

basket has tiny holes that allow the

liquid to pass through but prevent any

of the pieces of ground coffee with

exception of the tiniest particles from

making it into the cup. The coffee in

the basket is compressed or tamped so

it's flat. The handle containing the

coffee is locked into the espresso

machine and then the pump activated. The

machine pumps near boiling water from

the reservoir in the machine through the

coffee. The liquid then drips into the

waiting cup below. With some machines,

the operator decides when to switch off

the pump to finish brewing, either

gauging the end of the brew by eye or by

weighing the coffee as it comes out to

make sure the desired amount of water

has been used. Other machines dispense a

specific amount of water and then stop

automatically.

Great espresso is about recipe, and good

coffee roasters will supply you with

plenty of information about how to brew

their coffee to get great results. A

good recipe is about accurate

measurements and should include the

following. The weight of the ground

coffee to use in grams, the amount of

liquid you should produce from that

coffee, ideally expressed in grams or at

least expressed in volume as

milliliters,

how long the brewing process should take

and how hot the water should be for

brewing. Rather than give just a basic

guide, I want to offer some information

that will help you produce genuinely

excellent espresso at home. techniques

that I have taught to baristas around

the world for years and I believe are

key to brewing espresso as well as is

currently possible

pressure and resistance.

The aim when brewing an espresso is to

have a machine produce a desired amount

of liquid in a certain time frame. For

example, the recipe might state that we

want to brew 18 g of ground coffee and

produce around 36 g of liquid in 27 to

29 seconds. In order to achieve this,

what we need to control is how quickly

the water flows through the ground

coffee. The speed at which water flows

through the coffee determines how much

flavor is extracted. If the water passes

through too slowly, we take too much out

of the coffee and it will be over

extracted with a bitter, ashy, and very

harsh taste. If the water flows through

too quickly, we don't extract enough

from the coffee and it will taste very

sour, astringent, and weak. The way that

we control the flow of water through

coffee is by changing how easy it is for

the water to pass through. This can be

achieved by varying two factors. The

amount of coffee that we use, the more

you put in the basket, the longer it

takes for the water to pass through, and

the size of the coffee particles. The

finer we grind the coffee, the better

the pieces fit together, and the more

difficult it is for the water to pass

between them. If you took two jars and

filled one with sand and one with the

same weight of pebbles, water would flow

through the pebbles much faster than

through the sand. In the same way, the

coarser we grind coffee, the faster a

machine can push the water through it.

The problem many people experience and

one that brings frustration to thousands

of baristas around the world every day

is that when the flow rate is wrong and

the coffee doesn't taste good, it's not

immediately obvious if the grind was

incorrect or the coffee dose was wrong.

For this reason, in the home

environment, I recommend measuring the

coffee whenever possible. It will reduce

mistakes, frustration, and waste. If you

have used the correct weight of coffee,

you will know that it is the grind size

that needs to be changed.

Espresso is probably the most intolerant

method of preparation of any food or

drink in the world. This is not an

understatement. A few seconds outside of

the target brew time, a gram of ground

coffee too little in the basket, a few

grams too little liquid in the cup. All

of these will have a dramatic effect on

the taste of the coffee and maybe the

difference between a delightful cup and

pouring the results of your hard work

down the sink. My recommendation is to

keep as many things as possible constant

and only alter one variable at a time.

If you get a disappointing cup of

coffee, try altering the grind size

first because if this is wrong, trying

to fix something else won't deliver the

results you want either.

Tamping. Tamping is the term used for

the compression of the ground coffee

before brewing. We do this because

ground coffee is fluffy and if we put

uncompressed coffee into the machine,

the high pressure water would find the

air pockets between the coffee grounds

and pass through quickly, skipping much

of the coffee. When water does not pass

evenly through the coffee, we call it

channeling. When this happens, the

resulting espresso will taste very sour

and unpleasant because the water has not

evenly extracted the ground coffee.

Many people place a great deal of

importance on tamping, but I do not

believe it's as important as people

think. The goal is simply to push the

air out of the coffee bed and to make

sure the coffee bed is level and even

before brewing. How hard you compress

the coffee doesn't make an enormous

difference to how quickly the water

passes through it. Once you push all the

air out, there is little to no reward

for pushing any harder. The espresso

machine pushes the water onto the coffee

at 9 bars or 130 PSI of pounds of force

per square in. And this is much more

aggressively than a human can push down.

The goal is simply to produce an even

coffee bed and do no more. If they

notice a little coffee stuck to the

walls of the basket, some people will

use the tamper to tap the handle to

loosen them so they can be tamped down

into the coffee bed. Don't tap. If you

tap the handle, you may knock the puck

of coffee loose from the walls of the

basket, allowing the shot to channel.

Secondly, you may damage your tamper,

and the nice ones are beautiful objects

in their own right. My final piece of

advice is to hold the tamper properly.

It should be held like a flashlight with

your thumb pointing straight down. When

you apply pressure to the coffee, your

elbow should be directly above it and

your wrist should be straight. If you

imagine a screwdriver in your hand and a

screw sticking directly up from the

workbench, you should put your arm in

the same position as you push down in

order to protect your wrist. Repeatedly

performing this action incorrectly has

given a huge number of professional

baristas trouble with their wrists.

Espresso method. In this process, we're

going to make two cups of espresso.

These could go into two separate cups or

go into one cup as a double espresso.

One, fill the reservoir of the espresso

machine with water with a low mineral

content suitable for brewing coffee.

Then switch on the machine to heat the

water. Two, grind the coffee just before

you start brewing. Be sure to weigh the

coffee first. Three, make sure the

basket is clean. Wipe it with a small

dry cloth and make sure it is dry and to

remove any leftover grounds once you've

tapped out the puck of coffee from the

last brew. The cloth will help remove

any oily residue from the last brew as

well. Four, if you can, place the entire

brew handle, also called the porter

filter, on the scales to weigh out the

coffee. If this is not possible, remove

the basket from the handle and place it

on the scales. Five, if your scales are

accurate enough, weigh the ground coffee

to within 0.1 of a gram of your recipe.

Whether it is your own recipe carefully

honed over time or the recipe given to

you by the roster. This level of

accuracy may seem like overkill, but

digital scales are now relatively cheap.

And I promise that using a set of scales

will help you make more delicious coffee

more often. Six, remove the handle from

the scales and tamp the coffee flat in

the basket, keeping your wrists straight

to make sure the coffee bed is even.

Leaving the tamper on top of the coffee,

observing the angle of the handle will

show you whether or not it is

sufficiently flat. Seven, weigh the cup

or cups in which you are going to brew

the coffee. Eight, turn on the machine

to flush some water through the group

head. This will help to stabilize the

temperature of the brew water as well as

rinse off any coffee grounds remaining

from the previous brew. Nine, carefully

lock the handle into the machine and

arrange the cups in place to receive the

coffee. 10, get your timing device

ready. If the machine doesn't have a

time display showing you how long the

shot has been brewing, use a simple

stopwatch on your mobile phone or a

kitchen timer. 11. As soon as possible,

start brewing the coffee. When you start

to brew, start the watch. Brew the

coffee for the length of time

recommended by the roaster. If you don't

have a recommendation, try somewhere

between 27 and 29 seconds. 12. When the

desired brew time is up, stop the

machine. When the handle has finished

dripping, after a few seconds, return

the cups to the weighing scales to check

how much coffee you have made.

Judging the results. Ideally, the weight

should be within a few grams of the

roaster's recommendations. If it's not,

we can make a simple change to try next

time. If there is too much liquid, the

flow was too fast. We need to slow the

water down by grinding the coffee finer.

If there's not enough liquid, the flow

is too slow. We should increase the flow

rate by grinding the coffee more

coarsely. For many people, this kind of

precision seems a little extreme, and

some prefer to use volume in the cup,

gauged by eye, instead of weight. This

same protocol will work, but it is not

as accurate. Once a grinder is set for a

particular batch of coffee, there will

be limited need to adjust it, unless

your home is subject to dramatic swings

in temperature during the day.

Changing the grind. With espresso, you

really need to be grinding the coffee

yourself with a burr grinder that allows

you to adjust the grind size easily.

When you start brewing a new bag of

coffee, you will need to set the grinder

for it. The term we use for setting a

grinder in the industry is dialing in.

Just about every grinder has some ground

coffee left inside it after grinding.

This means that if you change the grind

setting, the first coffee it will push

out will actually be the old grind size.

A common practice is to purge the

grinder by grinding a few extra grams of

beans at the new ground size to push out

the old grounds and then throw this

coffee away. If you change the grind

size but don't see a change in the

brewing process, it's likely you did not

purge enough coffee from the grinder. I

would always recommend making small

changes when adjusting the grinder. When

you get a new grinder, it's a good idea

to buy some cheap, though ideally fresh

coffee to play around with to make sure

you understand how big an effect a small

change in the grind setting has on the

brewing process. Most grinders have

numbers on the settings. The actual

value of these numbers is meaningless,

but if you want to grind finer, turn the

dial to a smaller number and vice versa.

Many grinders have marked steps that you

can select, sometimes whole numbers and

sometimes divisions of numbers. Start by

changing the setting by a single step

when the grind is wrong.

Brew ratio. There are many different

styles of espresso and people have

different preferences for how long or

strong they like their espresso to be.

Commercially, we tend to talk about the

brew ratio. How much liquid should you

be brewing from a fixed weight of ground

coffee. My own personal preference and

recommended starting point is to brew

two parts of liquid out of one part of

ground coffee. For example, if I start

with 18 gram of ground coffee, I would

want my espresso to weigh 36 g. 2 * 18.

The Italians generally prefer a smaller

coffee. So, if I were making a double

espresso, I might use 14 g of ground

coffee to produce 28 g 2 * 14 of liquid.

The ratio of coffee to water is fixed to

maintain my strength preference. If I

want a stronger espresso, I can change

my ratio. Instead of using 1 to two, I

might use 1 to 1.5, which would mean

that my 18 g of ground coffee produces

only 27 g, 1.5 * 18 of liquid. This

shorter espresso will be very strong and

I would have to adjust the grind finer.

So, the brewing process takes a similar

amount of time. If I just let a smaller

amount of water come through at the same

flow rate as before, the brew will be

over faster and I will have failed to

extract all of the good flavors that I

want.

Brew temperature. The coffee industry is

only now recovering from an obsession

with the stability of brew temperature

in espresso brewing. Changing the brew

temperature does have an effect on the

extraction and on the taste of the

coffee, but I don't believe it's as

important as many make it out to be. The

hotter the brew water, the more

effective it will be at extracting

flavor. So for lighter roasts I would

recommend a higher brew temperature than

for darker roasts which give up their

flavors more easily. There are claims

that a change in temperature of.1° C.18°

F will change the taste of the coffee. I

believe that to be nonsense. I think 1°

C 1.8 F creates the smallest change that

most of us could detect and that a

slightly incorrect brew temperature is

so rarely the reason I am served a poor

espresso.

If you can control the temperature on

your espresso machine, I would recommend

a water temperature of between 90° C,

194 Fahrenheit, and 94° C, 201 F. If the

espresso does not taste right, try

adjusting other aspects of the recipe

first. However, if there is a persistent

negative taste, such as a constant

sourness, try increasing the

temperature. If there is a persistent

bitterness, try decreasing the

temperature after you've checked your

equipment is properly clean.

Brew pressure. The first espresso

machines created pressure using a

compressed spring to push the water

through coffee. As the spring expanded,

the pressure it produced would decline

so that it started with a very high

pressure and ended up relatively low.

When electric pumps became common, they

needed to be set at a constant pressure.

Some say the setting of nine bars, 130

PSI, was chosen because it was the

approximate average of the varying

pressure created by the springs on older

machines. Luckily, this also appears to

be the pressure at which we get the best

flow rate. At pressures below 9 bars,

the coffee bed provides so much

resistance that the flow rate drops. At

pressures above 9 bars, the coffee bed

becomes so compacted that the flow rate

drops again. As long as your machine

produces roughly the right pressure, you

should have no trouble. If the pressure

is too low, your espresso may lack body

and the desired creaminess. At very high

pressures, there can be a strange woody

bitterness to the espresso that is not

enjoyable. There is now equipment

available that allows baristas to adjust

the pressure of their brew water, but

there is not yet enough data to make a

viable case for introducing this

technology to home machines,

cleaning, and maintenance. I would

estimate that 95% of the commercial

coffee machines in business throughout

the world are not cleaned properly. And

this is one of the reasons that people

are served disappointing, bitter, and

unpleasant coffee every day. There is no

such thing as too clean. And although it

requires a little bit of work each time

you finish making coffee, a clean

machine will make your coffee taste

consistently sweet and clean. When you

finish making coffee, remove the basket

from the handle and clean underneath it

with soapy water on a scour. If you

don't do this, an unpleasant patina of

dried coffee will accumulate there and

it will smell and taste awful. Espresso

machines dispense water through a mesh

screen. If this is easily removable on

your machine, take it out and clean it.

And also clean the water dispersion

block it sits against. While the

dispersion screen is out, clean the

rubber gasket. If coffee builds up here,

the basket won't make a seal against the

machine and water will leak out during

brewing, often dripping down the sides

of the brew handle into the cup. Remove

the brew basket from the handle and

replace it with the cleaning basket.

This is the basket with no holes in it

that you will have been supplied with

your machine. I recommend using a

commercial espresso machine cleaner at

the end of every session of coffee

making. This will clean out any liquid

coffee left inside the machine, which

will turn increasingly rancid and

unpleasant over time. Follow the

manufacturer's instructions for how to

use cleaning powder on your machine.

Make sure the steam wand is clean if

you've used it. Some people claim that a

machine can taste too clean, that you

need to brew an espresso or two to

season it after cleaning to take away

the metallic taste. I have never found

this to be the case. And as long as your

machine is properly warmed up, add at

least 10 to 15 minutes on top of

manufacturers's recommendations. It

should make great coffee straight away.

I recommend keeping the machine switched

off when not in use. Use a timer to make

sure it's ready to make coffee when you

want it, but turn it off when you have

finished. Espresso machines use quite a

lot of power and it is a waste to leave

them on if they're not being used. To

keep your machine in good working order,

make sure the water you use is suitable.

If you use hard water, lime scale will

build up quickly in the machine and

cause it to malfunction. Many

manufacturers offer advice for descaling

as some lime scale will form even in

soft water areas. It'll just take a lot

longer. on the side of caution because

if you let your machine scale up

completely may be difficult to descale

it without help from a professional and

a bill to go with it. Over time, the

rubber gasket in the group head may need

changing. When you lock in your brew

handle, it should stick out at 90° from

the machine. If it starts to twist much

further across, the rubber may be

wearing and should be replaced.

Coffees roasted for espresso.

Espresso is quite different from other

brewing methods and because of the small

amounts of water being used, it is often

a challenge to fully extract the coffee.

Additionally, because the concentration

is so high, the coffee being so strong,

balance is very important. A coffee that

may taste delicious and balanced as a

weaker brew can become dominated by

overpowering acidity when it's consumed

as a stronger cup. For that reason, many

roasters change how they roast their

coffee when they know it's going to be

used for espresso. Though this practice

is not universal, I would recommend a

slightly slower and slightly darker

roast for espresso than I would

recommend for a coffee being brewed with

a filter. However, roasters around the

world disagree strongly about what the

right level of roast is for espresso.

And there is a wide spectrum on offer

from relatively light through to much

darker roasts. Personally, I prefer

lighter roasts because they allow the

particular characteristics of the raw

coffee to be appreciated. Darker roasts

often carry a more generic roasted

coffee flavor and have a higher level of

bitterness, which I don't enjoy. What I

prefer is only really important to me,

however, and everyone has their own

preferences.

The darker the roast of the coffee, the

easier it is to extract. This is because

the coffee bean becomes increasingly

porous and brittle as it's roasted. This

means that less water is required in the

brewing process to properly extract the

coffee.

If body and mouth feel are important to

you, then you might prefer slightly

darker roasts brewed at a 1 to 1.5 brew

ratio. If sweetness and clarity of

flavor are important, then I would

recommend a lighter espresso roast

brewed at a ratio of 1 to two.

Steaming milk.

Well steamed milk combined with well

brewed espresso is a wonderful sensory

experience. Great milk foam is like

liquid marshmallow. Soft, mousy, and

undeniably enjoyable to drink. The goal

is to create bubbles so small that they

are almost invisible, often called

microfoam.

Foam like this is elastic and porable

and adds a wonderful lift to the texture

of drinks like cappuccino, cafe latte.

It's important to use fresh milk for

steaming. As it reaches its use by date,

milk tastes fine and is still safe to

drink, but starts to lose its ability to

create a stable foam. It will foam as

normal when you steam it, but the

bubbles will soon start to break down.

If you lift the jug of foam milk to your

ear, you'll hear it fizzing like a

freshly poured soda as the air escapes.

When we steam milk, we have two separate

tasks to accomplish. We must whip in air

to create the bubbles, and we must heat

the milk. With most steam wands, it's

best to tackle one task at a time. So,

the first thing to focus on is creating

the bubbles. Then, when we've added

enough air to the milk and it is the

desired volume, we can focus solely on

heating it to the desired temperature.

The right temperature. The ideal

temperature for milk when combined with

coffee is a subject of some contention

between many coffee shops and their

customers. milk begins to irreversibly

degrade in flavor and texture above 68°

C or 154 f.

This is because the heat alters and

denatures the proteins, creating new

flavors, though not always good ones.

The smell of cooked milk reminds me of

eggs at best and baby sick at worst. A

very hot cappuccino will lack the

texture, flavor, and sweetness of a

drink made with milk that has only been

heated to 60° C, 140 Fahrenheit. It is

impossible to produce good microfoam

when the milk has been heated to boiling

point. Unfortunately, this is the nature

of milk. We can either have a very hot

or a very delicious drink. This is not

to say that all drinks should be served

lukewarm. Instead, they should be

enjoyed as soon as they are made. whole

milk or skimmed. It's the protein in

milk that supports the bubbles. So, milk

will foam well regardless of whether it

is skimmed or whole. However, fat

content does play a role. It adds a

wonderful texture to the drink, but it

also changes the way flavor is released.

A cappuccino made with skimmed milk has

an immediate intense coffee flavor which

does not linger. If the cappuccino is

made with whole milk, the flavors will

be less intense but will last longer. I

always recommend using whole milk, but I

also prefer relatively small milk

drinks. I think a small, rich cappuccino

is a delight.

Steaming milk method. This technique is

suitable for traditional steam wands. If

your machine has a range of attachments

or automatic frothing functions, follow

the manufacturer's instructions. One,

start by pointing the steam wand over

the drip tray or into a cloth and

briefly opening the valve. This will get

rid of any condensation inside the wand.

This is known as purging. Two, pour

fresh cold milk into a clean stainless

steel steaming pitcher. It should not be

more than 60% full. Three, dip the steam

wand into the milk so just the tip is

submerged. Four, open the valve to full

flow and gently lower the pitcher until

the wand is almost out of the milk.

Listen carefully. You want to hear the

slurping sound of the steam wand start

to whip air into the milk. As the milk

expands, lower the pitcher a little bit

more to bring it back to the surface. If

you wish to add more air

five, when you have your desired amount

of foam, which should ideally happen

before the milk feels warm to the touch,

then submerge the steam tip again to

start heating the foam. You want it to

be just below the surface. Position it

slightly to one side and you will see

the milk start to spin and churn. The

process should now be relatively quiet.

Six. To test whether the milk is warm

enough, place your free hand on the

bottom of the jug. Continue to heat the

milk until the jug becomes uncomfortable

to touch. At this point, the milk will

be around 55 C, 131 Fahrenheit. Remove

your hand from the bottom of the jug and

continue to steam for 3 to 5 seconds,

depending on how hot you like your milk.

Seven, close the steam valve fully and

put the milk pitcher down. Wipe the

steam wand with a clean damp cloth and

purge the wand into the cloth to remove

any leftover milk from inside the wand.

Eight. Don't worry if your foam contains

a few large ugly bubbles. If you let it

sit for a few seconds, the milk will

drain off the surface of the larger

bubbles, making them very brittle.

Couple of gentle taps of the steaming

pitcher on the counter will usually pop

them. Nine. If you want to pour a

combination of milk and foam into your

drink, which I strongly recommend, you

must make sure they are fully combined.

After tapping, swirl the milk and foam

together. Much like you might swirl wine

in a glass before smelling it. You can

be quite aggressive as you want to make

sure that the liquid milk is fully

combined with the wonderful microfoam.

Swirl until the milk foam has a glossy

finish. Then pour it into your drink.

Espresso equipment.

There are espresso machines to suit

almost any budget. From cheap units with

which you can make a start to smarter

machines that can cost as much as a

small car. All of them are designed to

do the same thing. Heat water then push

it forwards at high pressure. The more

money you pay, the more machines improve

in build quality, control, and

consistency. Most of this consistency

concerns how the machine heats water and

how it creates pressure. And different

types of espresso machine achieve this

in different ways.

Thermob block machines. The cheapest

domestic espresso machines use this

technology to produce espresso. There is

a single unit inside the machine with an

element to heat the water. Most of these

machines have two settings, one to heat

the water up to a suitable temperature

for brewing coffee and the other to boil

the water to generate steam. This means

that the machine can only perform one

function at a time and I would recommend

brewing coffee first and then heating up

the machine to steam milk. Broadly

speaking, thermoblock machines do not

produce a very consistent water

temperature and the lack of ability to

perform both brewing and steaming at

once limits how many drinks the machine

can practically make, which can be

frustrating for the user. However, when

paired with a good grinder, they can

certainly produce good espresso. Thermal

block machines usually use a vibration

pump to generate pressure. These have

two disadvantages. They are quite noisy

and they are rarely accurately set. The

desired pressure for espresso is around

9 bars, 130 PSI. These pumps are usually

set much higher and manufacturers will

often proudly boast that their machine

can produce 15 bars, 220 psi of

pressure, as if more is somehow better.

The machines have an over pressure valve

that opens above 9 bars to alleviate

excess pressure. These valves are not

usually very well calibrated and may

need adjustment over time. However, I do

not recommend opening up your machine as

you will probably invalidate your

warranty. Thermal block machines are

undoubtedly the most popular and

widespread of espresso machines, but

many people who enjoy making espresso

soon begin to feel constrained and start

to think about an upgrade.

heat exchange machines.

Although it is still common in

commercial espresso machines, this

technology is available in home

machines, too. The machine has a single

element, but it heats a small boiler of

water to around 120° C, 240 F. This

generates plenty of steam, which is

always available for foaming milk.

However, the water in this boiler is too

hot to brew coffee. So, the machine

pumps fresh cold water through what is

called a heat exchange. This is usually

some sort of tube that passes through

the steam boiler. While the coffee

brewing water is kept separate from the

boiler water, heat from the boiler is

quickly passed to the brewing water to

bring it up to the desired temperature.

These kind of machines are often

referred to as proumer as they straddle

the divide between consumer prices and

professional performance. The

disadvantage of heat exchange machines,

certainly domestic ones, is that changes

in boiler temperature will affect the

temperature of the brew water. If you

want more steam, you would have to

increase the boiler temperature, which

will also increase the brew temperature.

If you want to noticeably reduce the

brew temperature, your steaming

performance may suffer. Many of these

machines use mechanical thermostats to

control the boiler temperature, and

these can result in some variation.

Better machines will have more reliable

control over the steam boiler

temperature. Heat exchange machines can

be fitted with either a vibration pump

or a rotary pump. Rotary pumps are used

on commercial espresso equipment and are

quieter and easier to adjust, but there

is not a lot of difference in

performance between the different types

of pump if they are set to the same

pressure.

Dual boiler machines.

The idea here is to separate the coffee

brew water entirely from the water used

to generate steam. And as the name

suggests, the machine does this by

having one boiler and element for the

brewing water and then a separate small

steam boiler that heats its water up to

a higher temperature for producing steam

and boiling water for tea or americanos,

for example. The temperature in the

coffee boiler is usually very finely

tuned with digital controls allowing

easy adjustment of temperature and

greater levels of stability. These

machines can undeniably produce coffee

as good as any commercial machine, but

they often come with price tags to

match. Espresso grinders. A grinder

suitable for use with an espresso

machine will need to do two key things.

It must be able to grind the coffee

finely enough to make good espresso, and

it must be easily adjustable to make

very small changes in the grind size.

More expensive grinders tend to have

better control over the grind setting

and a more powerful motor inside, which

will be quieter. At the top end are the

burr grinders with cutting discs inside

which will produce fewer very tiny

pieces of coffee that can add bitterness

to the cup. Many people who are

passionate about espresso end up with a

small basic commercial grinder rather

than a top-end domestic model. However,

there are good domestic machines out

there. Ideally, try and find a grinder

described as grind to order, which means

that it does not have a chamber to store

large quantities of ground coffee, but

is instead designed to dispense the

grounds straight into the basket in the

brew handle. A word of advice, a great

espresso machine can be a beautiful

object, a satisfying tool, and a

technical marvel, but it will be a waste

of money if you're pairing it with

anything other than an excellent coffee

grinder. I would always recommend

upgrading your coffee grinder first

rather than your espresso machine. A

good grinder and a thermoblock machine

will make better coffee than a cheap

grinder and a top-of-the-line dual

boiler espresso machine. Spending money

on a grinder gives a greater return on

investment when it comes to how good

your coffee will taste at home.

Espresso-based drinks,

whether they are long, short, milky, or

dark, there is a wide variety of coffee

drinks that start with an espresso as

their base. Espresso. There are many

definitions for what makes an espresso

an espresso. Some extremely precise and

some more general. I would define

espresso as a small, strong drink made

using finely ground coffee under high

water pressure. I would also add that an

espresso should have crema. More

precisely, I would say that the ratio of

the weight of grab coffee to the weight

of the finished beverage is around 1 to

two. I would rather have an open

definition and treat espresso as a broad

church than be overly prescriptive about

what is right or wrong.

Restretto.

This translates from the Italian as

restricted. And the idea is to produce

an even smaller and stronger cup of

coffee than an espresso. This is done by

using less brewing water for the same

amount of ground coffee. The grind of

the coffee should be finer so the brew

time remains long enough to extract all

the desirable aromatics from the coffee.

Lungo. The lungo or long coffee was

until recently considered deeply

unfashionable in the specialty coffee

world. It was usually brewed using an

espresso machine but with two or three

times the amount of water to the same

weight of coffee to make a much longer

drink. The resulting cup was much

weaker. And while a longerlasting

experience for the consumer, it was

considered inferior due to the lack of

body and mouth feel. In fairness, most

coffee brewed this way is terrible and

tastes very bitter and ashy. However,

recently there has been a movement

within the specialty coffee industry to

brew lighter roasted coffees this way,

resulting in a complex and balanced brew

that I think can be delicious. If you're

ever struggling to balance the acidity

in an espresso blend, try making it into

a longer drink by adding more water to

the same amount of coffee. The grind

will need to be a little coarser to

allow a faster flow and prevent over

extraction.

Macchiato.

This drink takes its name from the idea

of marking or staining an espresso with

some milk foam. In Italy, it's not

unusual to see a busy barista line up

several cups of espresso on the bar for

customers. If one of the customers likes

just a drop of milk in their drink, it's

important to add a small dollop of milk

foam as well to mark which cup it is. If

you just pour a little milk into

freshlymade espresso, it will disappear

under the cremer and you won't be able

to spot it. In the last decade or so,

many quality focused coffee shops have

done something quite different with the

drink. They've turned the macchiato into

an espresso topped up with foamed milk.

This is often done at the request of a

customer who wants a longer, weaker, and

sweeter drink. Sometimes, however, it's

done because the barrista likes to show

off and pour latte out in very small

cups. To further confuse matters,

Starbucks have a drink called a caramel

macchiato. This is an entirely different

drink, much closer to a cafe latte that

has been marked or stained by caramel

syrup. This has created some customer

confusion, especially in North America.

So, it's now common to see coffee shops

refer to what they offer as a

traditional macchiato

cappuccino.

There remains a great many myths about

the cappuccino. One to get out of the

way quickly is that the name has nothing

to do with the hoods of monk's robes,

nor the bald spot on their head. The

original name for the drink was a

caputina, and it was a vianese drink in

the 19th century. It was a small brewed

coffee mixed with milk or cream until it

attained the same shade of brown as the

cappuccin monk's robes. Essentially, the

name implies the strength of the drink.

Another recent myth surrounding the

cappuccino is the rule of thirds. The

rule of thirds is passed around to this

day and describes a traditional

cappuccino as being 1/3 espresso, 1/3

milk, and 1/3 foam. I was taught this

very early on in my coffee career, but

this recipe has no root in tradition.

I've read quite a few books about coffee

and the first reference to the

cappuccino rule of thirds I can find was

written in the 1950s. It describes

cappuccino as an espresso mixed with an

equal amount of milk and foam. This

sentence appears almost verbatim a

number of times in the book. The phrase

is a little ambiguous as it could be

saying that only the milk and foam are

in equal quantities or that all three

ingredients are. So instead of the

recipe being one part espresso, one part

milk, and one part foam, the author

could easily have meant it was one part

espresso, two parts milk, and two parts

foam. The 150 to 175 mil cappuccino made

with a single shot of espresso in the

ratio of 1 to 2:2 does have a long

tradition and is still served widely in

much of Italy and the parts of Europe

that haven't yet succumbed to the more

generous portions of coffee as fast food

retail. This drink is also, when made

well, absolutely delicious. I think a

great cappuccino is the pinnacle of

milk-based espresso drinks. A rich layer

of dense, creamy foam combined with

sweet, warming milk and the flavors of a

well brewed espresso are an absolute

delight. The closer to lukewarm you can

enjoy a cappuccino, the sweeter it will

be. And I confess that the best ones

I've drunk disappear in a few greedy

mouthfuls. Impossible if the drink is

too warm.

One cappuccino a day. There is a

tradition in Italy of having just one

cappuccino in the morning, then drinking

only espresso for the rest of the day. I

believe this is a fascinating example of

culture reflecting diet. Like most

southern Europeans, many Italians are

lactose intolerant. However, a lactose

tolerant person can consume a small

amount of milk without a problem, hence

the daily cappuccino. A second or third

cappuccino, however, even a small

Italian one, could result in some

gastric distress. So, Italian culture

prevents the excessive consumption of

milk by making it a small cultural taboo

to keep drinking cappuccino throughout

the day. Cafe latte. This drink did not

originate in Italy. When espresso first

spread around the world, it was a

bitter, intense, and extraordinary

coffee experience for most. For some

people, the bitterness was a problem, so

they added hot milk to make the drink

sweeter and less bitter. The cafe latte

was created to satisfy the customers who

wanted the coffee experience with less

intensity.

Typically, there is more liquid milk in

the cafe latte than in a cappuccino,

making the coffee flavor less intense.

It is also traditional to have less foam

in the milk. I'm always careful to

describe the drink as cafe latte rather

than latte because many people travel to

Italy and if they order a latte there,

they will suffer the humiliation of

simply being given a glass of milk.

Flat white. Different coffee cultures

around the world have contributed

different drinks. And while the argument

continues over whether the flat white

was invented in Australia or New

Zealand, it is undeniably from

Australasia and has been spread by those

who have traveled to Europe and North

America to open businesses there. In the

UK, the name first became synonymous

with the offerings of quality focused

cafes to the point that it was adopted

by the major chains and put on their

menus. The drink probably had lowlier

origins, however. By the 1990s, it was

common almost everywhere outside of

Italy for a cappuccino to come with an

enormous head of dry mering-like foam.

Sometimes this would rise up from the

top of the cup like a mountain carefully

dusted with chocolate powder. Many

consumers were frustrated to be sold a

cup of coffee that seemed to be mostly

air and began asking for a flat white

coffee, no foam, just coffee and milk.

These became sufficiently part of the

culture there that when people started

focusing on quality more and more and on

better milk texture and latte art, the

flat white was remade as something

delicious. The best description I can

offer is that a flat white is a small

strong cafe latte. It should have a

strong coffee flavor and is usually made

with a double restretto or double

espresso topped up with hot milk to make

it 150 to 175 mil drink. The milk has a

little foam added to it but not very

much. This makes it relatively easy to

pour intricate patterns known as latte

art into the drink.

Americano.

The story goes that American soldiers

stationed in Italy after World War II

found the espresso too strong. They

often asked for their espresso to be

served with some hot water or diluted

down to the point that it resembled the

coffee they were used to at home. This

style of drink picked up the name Cafe

Americano. Although it resembles a cup

of filter coffee, I think the Americano

is somewhat inferior. However, it

remains popular with cafe owners because

it allows them to serve filter strength

brews without having to buy additional

equipment.

My recommendations for making an

Americano are simple. Pour some fresh,

clean hot water into a cup and then brew

a double espresso on top. If your

espresso machine has a steam boiler, it

should be able to deliver the hot water.

Although, if you have not taken water

from the machine for a while, it may

taste unpleasant. Some people claim that

you should never add very hot water to

an espresso and you should always brew

the espresso on top of the hot water. I

don't think it makes a great deal of

difference. I just find the resulting

coffee is cleaner and looks better. The

one disadvantage of diluting espresso is

that you increase the perceived

bitterness slightly. For that reason, as

soon as you finish brewing the

Americano, I would recommend scooping

the crema off the top of the drink and

discarding it. Crema is delightful to

look at, but there are many tiny pieces

of ground coffee trapped in the foam, so

the crema contributes additional

bitterness to the drink. Removing the

crema before stirring and drinking

definitely improves the flavor of an

Americano. I would also recommend

tasting an espresso after you remove the

cremer, the difference in flavor is

dramatic. While I actually prefer the

taste of an espresso without crema, I

don't want the extra work and I'm happy

enough to enjoy it as it is. with an

Americana. However, I really do think

the extra work is worthwhile.

Cortado.

This is one of the few coffee-based

drinks that does not have Italian

origins. In fact, it comes from Spain,

most likely Madrid, where it's commonly

served. Traditionally, the Spanish brew

their espresso for slightly longer,

often a little weaker than the Italians.

To make a cortado, about 30 mil of

espresso is combined with an equal

quantity of steamed milk. This is

traditionally served in a glass. This

drink seems to have spread and has been

reinterpreted in a few different ways,

but this is the basic idea behind it.

Home roasting.

In the past, it was not uncommon for a

household to buy raw coffee and roast it

at home. Since the midentth century,

however, the trend has undeniably

favored convenience. Roasting coffee at

home is fun and relatively inexpensive,

although it is a considerable challenge

to achieve the same quality of roasted

coffee as the very best commercial

roasters. Home roasting allows you to

roast smaller batches of raw coffees

than you might be able to buy roasted,

so you can explore a greater number of

green coffees and learn as you go. Like

any hobby, there will probably be

terrible failures and surprise successes

along the way. It is important to

consider roasting coffee as a new hobby,

not as a way to save money on buying

roasted coffee beans. The time invested

as well as the equipment means that you

should be enjoying the time spent

roasting and learning rather than seeing

it as a chore.

An increasing number of companies are

selling green coffee online. While raw

coffee does have a longer shelf life

than roasted coffee, I would caution

against buying in bulk. Raw coffee does

fade over time, and you'd certainly want

to use the beans you buy within 3 to 6

months. When it comes to selecting raw

coffees, I'd recommend making sure what

you're buying is genuinely traceable.

I'd also recommend occasionally buying

green coffee from a company that sells

the same coffee roasted. This will allow

you to benchmark your own roasting by

comparing your roasted beans with the

commercially roasted beans to see how

you're progressing.

Home roasting machines. It is possible

to roast coffee in almost anything that

generates enough heat. You can put raw

coffee on a baking sheet and bake it in

an oven until brown, but the results

will be pretty terrible. The coffee will

be unevenly roasted, and the part of the

coffee in contact with the tray may be

scorched. Roasting this way highlights

the need for movement and agitation of

coffee beans during the roasting process

to get an even result. Roasting coffee

in a walk is possible, but the amount of

stirring required quickly makes the

process tiresome and frustrating.

Many people start out with something a

bit more sophisticated, like using a

heat gun and agitating the coffee beans

regularly as they roast, or using a

modified electric popcorn machine.

Secondhand popcorn machines can be

acquired cheaply and do a reasonable job

of roasting coffee. They will usually

roast a small batch of coffee quite

quickly in around four or 5 minutes, but

they don't do a great job of producing

even results at lighter roasts. People

who prefer darker, more developed roasts

seem to have more success with them.

Bear in mind that this is not the use

the machines were designed for, and some

models may not have enough power to

roast coffee properly. If you really

want to roast coffee at home

successfully, you will need a machine

specifically designed for the purpose.

Start small and decide if you enjoy the

ritual, the regularity of it, and the

overall process. Starting this way is

easy and fun, and there is no regret if

you decide you would rather leave this

part of the process to the

professionals. There are two main types

of machines available to the home

roster. Hot air roasters and drum

roasters.

Hot air roasters.

Hot air roasters mimic on a much smaller

scale commercial fluid bed roasters.

They work rather like powerful popcorn

poppers. The hot air agitates and moves

the beans around in the roasting chamber

to produce an even roast as well as

providing the necessary heat to turn

them brown. You have some level of

control over the amount of heat and the

fan speed so you can speed up or slow

down the process as necessary. Cheaper

than drum roasters, these machines are a

great starting point for someone looking

to dip a toe into the home roasting

process. Some machines do a better job

of dealing with smoke and the smells

produced during roasting, but I would

still recommend roasting in a well

ventilated area. However, if you roast

outside and it's very cold, roasting

times may be slower than you'd want.

Drum roasters. Home drum roasters are

similar in design to commercial drum

roasters, but they are not built with

the same quality and weight of

materials. The coffee is tumbled around

in a heated drum, which is designed to

keep the beans moving to allow even

browning. Some drum machines offer more

programming functions, allowing you to

create your own roast profiles. The

intensity of the heat can be varied

throughout the roast, and the machine

can automate the process to allow easy

replication of your favorite roasts.

The perfect roast.

Ideally, a roast in a hot air roaster

should last for 8 to 12 minutes. Drum

roasts tend to be a little slower, more

like 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the

size of the batch of coffee. If the

resulting coffee tastes very bitter, you

may have roasted too dark. If it lacks

flavors and sweetness, you may have

roasted too slowly. If it tastes very

sour, astringent, and grassy, you may

have roasted the coffee too quickly. A

combination of lots of tasting and a

little trial and error is a healthy part

of the process and will allow you to

understand your own preferences more and

more.

Part three.

Coffee origins.

Africa.

While Ethiopia is commonly recognized as

the birthplace of coffee, significant

coffee crops are also grown in central

and eastern Africa. There are

established export markets for beans

from Kenya, Bundi, Malawi, Rwanda,

Tanzania, and Zambia. Each country has

its own particular techniques and

varieties, creating a diverse selection

for buyers.

Bundi.

Coffee came to Burundi in the 1920s

under Belgian colonial rule and from

1933, every peasant farmer had to

cultivate at least 50 coffee trees. When

Burundi gained independence in 1962,

coffee production went private. This

changed in 1972 along with the political

climate. But since 1991, coffee has

slowly been returning to the private

sector.

Coffee growing had been steadily

increasing, but the civil war in 1993

caused a precipitous drop in production.

Since then, efforts have been made to

increase both production and the value

of coffee in Burundi. Investment in the

industry is seen as crucial as Bundi's

economy has been shattered by conflict.

In 2011, Bundi had one of the lowest per

capita incomes in the world with 90% of

the population relying on subsistence

agriculture. Coffee and tea exports

combined make up approximately 90% of

total foreign exchange earnings. Coffee

production is recovering but has not yet

reached the levels of the early 1980s.

However, there is hope for coffee in

Bundi. With 650,000 families dependent

on the crop, movements towards higher

prices through improvement of quality

can only be a good thing. However, the

constant fear of political instability

returning looms large. Bundi's geography

is well suited to coffee. Much of it is

mountainous, providing the necessary

altitudes and climates. There are no

coffee estates in Burundi. Instead,

coffee is produced by large numbers of

small holder farmers. Recently, these

producers have become more organized,

usually centering around one of the60

washing stations in the country. Around

2/3 of these washing stations are under

state ownership, and others are

privately owned. Anything from several

hundred to 2,000 producers feed their

coffee into each washing station. Within

each region, these stations are grouped

together into soest styles so desping

stations. Development of quality in

recent years has been directed through

these organizations mainly through the

provision of better infrastructure in

their regions. The best coffees from

Bundi are fully washed and usually made

up of the Bhorn variety, though other

varieties are grown. In many ways, there

are similarities between Bundi and its

neighbor Rwanda. The countries have

similar altitudes and coffee varieties,

and both face the challenges of being

landlocked, which can hinder the rapid

export necessary for the raw coffee to

arrive in the consuming countries in

good condition. As in Rwanda, coffees in

Burundi are susceptible to the potato

defect.

Traceability.

Until recently, the coffees from all the

washing stations within each sa stall

were blended together. This meant that

coffees exported from Burundi were only

traceable back to their sajesty, which

effectively is their region of origin.

In 2008, Bundi began to embrace the

specialty coffee sector, allowing more

direct and traceable purchasing. In

2011, there was a coffee quality

competition in Bundi called the Prestige

Cup, a precursor to the more established

cup of excellence. The lots from

individual washing stations were kept

separate and ranked on quality. Then

they were sold at auction with their

traceability intact. This means that we

are likely to see more unique and

interesting coffees coming out of

Burundi in the future and there is great

potential for quality

taste profile.

Great coffees from Bundi can have

complex berry fruit flavors and a great

juicy quality.

Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Coffee was introduced to the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, DRC, in 1881 from

Liberia. But it wasn't until Belgian

colonists discovered a new variety

growing there in 1898 that agricultural

production began. Despite its tumultuous

history, the DRC is now considered an

upand cominging producer of specialty

coffees. Many have high hopes for its

potential in the future, but significant

challenges have yet to be faced. The

plant discovered in Belgian Congo in

1898 was a variety of cafera, which the

colonists named Robusta to promote its

hardy nature. Coffee production started

to gain momentum on plantations under

the brutal rule of Belgian colonists.

The vast majority of coffee was produced

on these estates rather than by small

holders until independence in 1960.

Until this point, agriculture, including

coffee production, was well funded and

supported with 26 research stations in

the country and 300 professionals

working inside the institute national

politude agronomic dongo belst institute

for agricultural studies in the Belgian

Congo. After independence in 1960,

government funding was reduced and in

the 1970s, the plantations began to

decline in part due to the

marginalization of non-nationals and in

part due to a lack of infrastructure. By

1987, only 14% of the coffee produced in

DRC came from the states and by 1996

only 2%.

However, coffee production had boomed in

the 1970s and 80s as a result of the

free market, and the government had

tried to sustain the industry in the

late 1980s by reducing tariffs on

exports. The 1990s was a brutal decade

for the country and the coffee sector.

The first and second Congo wars spanning

the period from 1996 to 2003 triggered a

decline in production which was further

exacerbated by the spread of coffee wilt

disease.

The high production levels of the late

1980s and early 1990s dropped to less

than half. Coffee wilt primarily

affected only robuster production, but

this made up the vast majority of coffee

produced in the DRC.

Infrastructure in the country still

poses a huge challenge. There are hopes

that coffee can be part of an economic

revival for the DRC as it struggles to

move past the recent violence. Both the

government and the outside NOS's

non-governmental organizations have

invested heavily in the sector and there

is increasing interest in the country's

potential for excellent coffee. The

soil, altitude and climate of parts of

the DRC lend themselves to the

production of truly exceptional coffees

and they are worth seeking out and

supporting.

Traceability.

Almost all coffee in the DRC is produced

by groups of small holders or

cooperatives. It is extremely unlikely

you will find a single estate and less

likely still that they will produce

excellent coffee. Taste profile. The

very best coffees from the DRC have a

delightful fruiness, are sweet, and can

be pleasingly fullbodied.

Ethiopia.

Of all the coffee producing countries,

Ethiopia is perhaps the most compelling.

Its fascination stems not only from the

unusual, astonishing coffee it produces,

but from the mystery that shrouds so

much of it. The explosively floral and

fruity coffees from Ethiopia have opened

many a coffee professional's eyes to the

diversity of flavor that coffee can

have. Ethiopia is referred to as the

birthplace of coffee, although this

should come with some caveats. It is

likely Cafair Arabica first appeared in

southern Sudan, but it only flourished

once it spread into Ethiopia. It was

here it was first consumed by humans,

initially as a fruit rather than a

beverage. Yemen was the first country to

grow coffee as a crop, but it had been

harvested from the wild in Ethiopia long

before.

Coffee was probably first exported from

Ethiopia in the 1600s. Interest from

European traders was often rebuffed and

it then waned as coffee plantations

began to appear in Yemen, Java, and

ultimately the Americas. Coffee

production in Ethiopia at the time was

essentially the harvest of wild coffee

trees that grew in the districts of Kafa

and Buno rather than from plantations.

Interest returned to Ethiopian coffee in

the early 1800s where there is a record

of the export of 100 kintels of coffee

from Aneria, an area of modernday

Ethiopia. In the 19th century, there

were two common grades of Ethiopian

coffee. Harrari cultivated around the

town of Har and Abbyia grown in the wild

in the rest of the country. For this

reason, Harra has a long-standing

reputation for being desirable and of

high quality, which it does not always

earn. The 1950s were a time of increased

structure in the Ethiopian coffee

industry, and a new grading system was

introduced. In 1957, the National Coffee

Board of Ethiopia was formed. The

overthrow of Emperor Haley Salassie

brought change in the 1970s. However,

this wasn't a peasant uprising, more a

coup from the elite class, tired of

famine and conflict. The vacuum of power

was filled by the military which was

strongly influenced by socialist ideals.

Until that point, the country had been

close in some ways to a feudal system of

government. Among the new ideals was the

redistribution of land, and the

government quickly began to nationalize

it. Some argue that this move was hugely

beneficial to the population, increasing

the earnings of the rural poor by up to

50%. Strict Marxist rules prevented land

ownership or hired labor, and this had a

huge impact on the coffee industry.

Large-scale farming was abandoned and

Ethiopia went back to harvesting its

coffee from the wild. The 1980s was a

decade of famine, affecting 8 million

people and killing 1 million of them.

The move towards democracy.

In 1991, the Ethiopian people's

revolutionary democratic front overthrew

the military juna. This began a process

of liberalization and moved the country

towards democracy. International markets

opened up for Ethiopia, but with them

came the effects of fluctuating market

prices. Coffee farmers in Ethiopia in

particular have had to cope with large

uncontrollable price swings. This has

given rise to the formation of

cooperatives offering support to their

members such as funding, market

information, and transport.

Ethiopia's production systems.

Ethiopia's coffee can be divided into

three main categories depending on their

method of production. Forest coffees.

These come from the wild coffee trees

grown mostly in the southwest of the

country. These trees usually have a mix

of natural shade plants around them and

themselves are a broad mix of different

varieties. The productivity and yield of

these trees is low compared to more

purposefully cultivated plants. Garden

coffees. These are coffees from trees

typically planted around a homestead or

dwelling. There is less natural shade

and more management of the shade trees

such as regular pruning to prevent too

much shading. Many producers use some

fertilizer on their plants and this type

of coffee makes up the bulk of

Ethiopia's production. Plantation

coffees. These coffees come from trees

grown intensively on large farms.

Standard agricultural practices are used

here, including pruning, mulching, use

of fertilizers, and the selection of

disease resistant varieties.

The Ethiopian commodity exchange. The

largest change to the trade of Ethiopian

coffee in recent years and one of great

concern to specialty coffee buyers was

the introduction of the Ethiopian Coffee

Exchange, the ECX, in 2008. The ECX was

created for various different

commodities in Ethiopia with the aim of

creating an efficient trading system

that protected both buyers and sellers

alike. However, the system frustrated

those who wish to buy a distinct

traceable product rather than a

commoditized one. coffees were delivered

to the ECX warehouse where they were

allocated a numerical denomination of a

regional origin for washed coffees from

1 to 10. All natural processed coffees

were marked 11. The coffees were then

graded for quality and assigned a number

from 1 to 9 or labeled UG for ungraded.

This process stripped the coffee of its

exact traceability before auction. But

on the positive side, farmers did

receive payment for their coffee sooner

than they had before. The system also

restricted which coffees could be

offered on the international market and

raised the financial transparency in

contracts. Today, there are increasing

opportunities to work outside the

constraints of the ECX model and more

and more high-quality and traceable

coffees are reaching consumers abroad.

Traceability. It is possible to find

Ethiopian coffees from a single estate,

though they are relatively rare.

Traceability is more likely to lead back

to a specific cooperative. However, a

coffee roaster may simply have bought a

coffee that had come through the ECX and

it could still be astonishing despite

its lack of transparency. These coffees

have so much to offer. So, I would

recommend finding a roster whose coffees

you already enjoy and asking them for

guidance on what is excellent. Taste

profile. The flavors of Ethiopian

coffees are notably diverse, from

citrus, often bergamont, and florals

through to candied fruit and even

tropical fruit flavors. The best wash

coffees can be incredibly elegant,

complex, and delicious. And the best

naturally processed ones can be wildly

fruity and enchantingly unusual.

Kenya.

Despite the fact that neighboring

Ethiopia is considered the home of

coffee, Kenya did not start production

until relatively late. The earliest

documented import of coffee dates to

1893 when French missionaries brought

coffee trees from Reunion. Most agree

that the variety of coffee they brought

was boron. It yielded its first crop in

1896.

Initially coffee was produced on larger

estates under British colonial rule and

the resulting crop was sold in London.

In 1933 the coffee act was passed

establishing a Kenyan coffee board and

moving the sale of coffee back to Kenya.

In 1934, the auction system was

established and is still in use today. A

year later, protocols were created for

the grading of coffee to help improve

quality.

Not long after the Mao uprising in the

early 1950s, an agricultural act was

passed to create family holdings that

combined subsistance farming with the

production of cash crops for additional

income. This act was known as the

Swinton Plan, named after an official in

the Department of Agriculture. This

marked the start of the transfer of

coffee production from the British to

the Kenyans. The effect on the

production of small holdings was

significant with total income rising

from 5.2 million in 1955 to 14 million

in 1964.

Notably, coffee production accounted for

55% of this increase. Kenya gained

independence in 1963 and now

consistently produces extremely

highquality coffees from a variety of

sources. The research and development in

Kenya is considered excellent and many

farmers are highly educated in coffee

production. The Kenyan auction system

should help to reward quality focused

producers with better prices. But while

buyers are paying high prices for the

excellent coffees, corruption within the

system may prevent those premiums

filtering back to the farmers.

Grading. Kenya uses a grading system for

all its exported coffee regardless of

whether the lot is traceable or not. As

in many other countries, the grading

system uses a combination of bean size

and quality. The definitions clearly

define size and to some extent they also

assume quality is linked to the size of

the bean. While this is often true, the

AA lots often being the superior

coffees, I have recently seen harvests

where the AB lots appeared to be more

complex and of a higher quality than

many of the AA lots.

E. These are the elephant beans, the

very largest size, so lots tend to be

relatively small. Aa, this is a more

common grade for the larger screen sizes

above screen size 18 or 7.22 mm.

Typically, these fetch the highest

prices. AB. This grade is a combination

of A, screen size 16 or 6.8 mm, and B,

screen size 15 or 6.2 mm. This grade

accounts for around 30% of Kenya's

annual production.

PB. This is the grade for peberries

where a single bean has grown inside the

coffee cherry instead of the more usual

two

C. This is the grading size below the AB

category. It is unusual to see this

grade in a high quality coffee. TT a

smaller grade again normally comprising

the smaller beans removed from AA, AB,

and E grades. In density sorting, the

lightest beans are usually TT grade. T

the smallest grade often made up of

chips and broken pieces.

MH/ML.

These initials stand for heavy and

light. Ouni is the name used for

naturally processed coffees. These are

considered lowquality, often containing

unripe or overripe beans, and they sell

for a very low price. They account for

around 7% of the annual production.

Traceability. Kenya's coffee is grown on

both large estates and by small holders

who feed their coffee into a local

washing station. This means it is

possible to get extremely traceable

coffee from the single estates. But in

recent years, the higher quality coffees

have increasingly come from the small

holders. Typically, what one might find

is a particular lot from a washing

station that will still carry a size

grading such as AA, though that lot may

have come from a group of several

hundred farmers. These washing stations

or factories as they're known play a

role in the quality of the final

product. So these coffees are definitely

worth seeking out. Kenyan varieties. Two

particular Kenyan varieties attract

great interest from the specialty coffee

industry. These are named SL28 and SR34

and are among the 40 experimental

varieties produced as part of the

research led by Guy Gibson at Scott

Laboratories. These make up the majority

of high-quality coffee from Kenya, but

they are susceptible to leaf rust. A lot

of work has been done to produce

rustresistant varieties in Kenya. Ruer

11 was the first to be considered a

success by the Kenyan coffee board,

although it was not warmly received by

specialty coffee buyers. More recently,

they've released a variety called Batan.

There remains some skepticism towards

its cup quality after the disappointment

of Riru. Although quality seems to be

improving and there is more positivity

around the potential of batian to have a

great cup quality in the future. Taste

profile. Kenyan coffees are renowned for

their bright complex berry fruit

qualities as well as their sweetness and

intense acidity.

Malawi.

It seems coffee was introduced to Malawi

in the late 1800s. One claim states that

a single tree taken from the Edinburgh

Botanical Gardens was brought to the

country in 1878 by Jean Bucknan, a

Scottish missionary. It first took root

in southern Malawi in the Blantire

region, and by 1900, annual coffee

production was at 1,000 metric tons.

Despite its auspicious start, coffee

production collapsed not long after due

to a combination of poorly maintained

soils, pests, and diseases, and the

competition from the increasingly

dominant production of Brazil. For the

most part of the 20th century, there was

little African ownership of the large

coffee farms as the country was under

British colonial rule. However, the

cooperative movement started in 1946 and

coffee production grew dramatically in

the 1950s. While they looked like they

might prove to be successful, all the

cooperatives were dissolved in 1971 due

to political interference. Coffee

production in Malawi peaked in the 1990s

at 7,000 metric tonses and has since

shrked back to around 1,500 metric

tonses a year. Despite the fact that it

is landlocked, Malawi has built a strong

agricultural export economy. In the case

of coffee, some attribute success to the

lack of government interference in

export, allowing direct relationships

between sellers and buyers. However, for

a long time, quality was not of

particular focus. Grading was a very

simple system of grade 1 and grade two.

Although in recent years there have been

movements towards the double A style

grading system used throughout Africa.

The coffee varieties grown in Malawi

certainly cover the extremes of the

spectrum. There has been quite a lot of

geisha variety planted. The same variety

that has generated so much interest in

Central America. However, there is also

quite a lot of catamore throughout the

country, a disease resistant variety

that is generally of much lower quality.

Traceability. Coffee in the south of

Malawi is generally produced on

large-scale commercial estates and in

the central and northern regions by

small holder farmers. Therefore, it is

possible to trace coffees back to a

single farm or to a large group of

producers. Generally, there should be

excellent coffees available from both.

Taste profile. The coffees can be quite

sweet and clean, though rarely as

explosively fruity and complex as other

coffees from East Africa.

Rwanda.

German missionaries first brought coffee

to Rwanda in 1904, but the country did

not produce enough to begin exports

until 1917.

After World War I, the League of Nations

mandate stripped Germany of its colonial

rule over Rwanda and handed it to the

Belgians. This is why historically most

of Rwanda's coffee has been exported to

Belgium. The first coffee trees were

planted in the Mibberizi region of the

Sienangu province and the place gives

its name to the first Rwanda coffee

variety, a natural mutation of Bourbon.

Gradually, coffee cultivation spread

into the Ku region and ultimately the

rest of Rwanda. In the 1930s, coffee

became a compulsory crop for many

producers around the country, mirroring

the Belgian colonial approach in

neighboring Burundi. The Belgians

strictly controlled export and enforced

high taxes on the growers. This pushed

Rwanda towards producing high volumes of

lowquality coffee which sold for low

prices. However, the fact that Rwanda

exported so little gave coffee an

oversized impact and sense of importance

for the farmers.

There was little infrastructure to allow

the production of quality coffee, not

even a single washing station. By the

1990s, coffee was Rwanda's most valuable

export. But the events of the decade

would decimate the coffee industry. By

1994, the widespread genocide in the

country claimed nearly 1 million lives

and had a massive impact on the coffee

industry. This was compounded by

worldwide coffee prices falling to a

very low level. Coffeey's role in

Rwanda's recovery.

Coffee was to become a symbol of

positivity as Rwanda got back on its

feet following the genocide. As foreign

aid and interest streamed into the

country, there was a strong focus on the

coffee sector. Washing stations were

built and there was a determined drive

towards producing higher quality coffee.

The government took a more open approach

to the coffee trade and specialty buyers

from around the world have shown a

strong interest in the country's

coffees. Rwanda is the only African

country to have hosted a cup of

excellence competition, a project to

find the very best lots and to bring

them to market through an online auction

system. The first washing station was

built in 2004 with the assistance from

the United States Agency for

International Development, USAD.

Many more followed and the number has

grown dramatically in recent years with

around 300 in operation today. The Pearl

project, partnership for enhancing

agriculture in Rwanda through linkages,

was successful in helping spread

knowledge and train young aronomists. It

has since become the spread project

sustaining partnerships to enhance rural

enterprise and agrous development and

both projects have focused their efforts

in the Bhutari region. Rwanda is known

as the land of a thousand hills and

certainly has the altitude and weather

to grow great coffee. However, there is

the problem of widespread soil depletion

and transport still poses a challenge

often adding great expense to production

costs. When worldwide coffee prices

increased around 2010, it was a

challenge in Rwanda and much of the rest

of the world to find suitable incentives

to keep the quality high. When the

market pays high prices, there is little

reason to spend money to increase

quality as even lowquality coffee is

sufficiently profitable. However,

recently the quality of Rwanda coffees

has been excellent. Rwanda does grow and

export a small amount of Robusta, but

most of its output is fully washed

Arabica.

The potato defect. This is a particular

and unusual defect found only in coffees

from Burundi and Rwanda. It's caused by

an unknown bacteria entering the cherry

skin and producing an unpleasant toxin.

It's not harmful to health, but when

afflicted beans are roasted and ground,

they release an unmistakable and pungent

aroma that is eerily similar to the

smell of peeling a raw potato. This

defect affects only specific beans. So,

finding it in your coffee does not mean

the whole bag is spoiled unless it's all

been ground. Eradication is tricky. It

is undetectable once posth harvest

processing is finished. So a coffee

roaster cannot do anything to detect it

before roasting. Even after roasting,

it's difficult to discover until a bean

with a defect is ground. It is possible

to do some work during processing to

identify the cherries that have had

their skins broken and are likely to be

tainted. Work is being done both on the

ground and at research level to

eradicate this particular defect.

Traceability

Coffees in Rwanda tend to be traceable

back to washing stations and the

numerous farmer groups and cooperatives

that supply them. Each producer has on

average just 183 trees. So it is not

possible to find a coffee traceable to a

single producer. Taste profile. Amazing

coffees from Rwanda often have a

fruiness and freshness reminiscent of

red apples or red grapes. Berry fruit

flavors and floral qualities are also

fairly common. Local varieties.

Mibberizi. This is the name of the

mission in Rwanda that received some

bourbon trees from Guatemala. Mibberi is

a natural variant of bourbon which

appeared at the mission. It was

initially grown in Rwanda and later

spread to Bundi in the 1930s.

Jackson. This is another Bon variant

that was initially grown in Rwanda and

has since spread to Bundi.

Tanzania.

Oral histories tell of coffee coming to

Tanzania from Ethiopia in the 16th

century. Brought by the higher people

and known as higher coffee or amwani.

This is probably a robust variety and

has since become strongly entwined in

Tanzanian culture. The ripe cherries

would be boiled and then smoked for

several days and chewed rather than

brewed into a drink. Coffee first became

a cash crop for Tanzania, previously

Tangana under German colonial rule. In

1911, the colonists mandated the

planting of Arabica trees throughout the

Bukoba region. Their methods were very

different from the way the higher people

had traditionally dealt with coffee

growing, and the hire were reluctant to

replace their food crops with coffee.

However, the region did start to produce

more and more coffee. Other parts of the

country were less familiar with coffee

and so provided less resistance to

growing it. The Chagga tribe living

around Mount Kilimanjaro switched

completely to coffee production when

Germany put an end to the slave trade.

After World War I, control of the region

fell to the British. They launched a

campaign to plant over 10 million

seedlings in Bkoba, but they too fell

into conflict with the hire, which often

resulted in trees being uprooted. As a

result, there was not a strong growth in

production in the region compared to

that in the Chagger region. However, the

first cooperative was formed in 1925

called the Kilamanjaro Native Planters

Association, the KN&NA. This was the

first of several cooperatives and the

producers enjoyed their newfound ability

to sell more directly to London and to

achieve better prices. After

independence was granted in 1961, the

Tanzanian government turned its

attention to coffee, hoping to double

production by 1970, a goal they did not

achieve. After struggling with low

growth in the industry, high levels of

inflation, and a declining economy, the

government changed to a multi-party

democracy. During the early and mid

1990s, reforms were implemented in the

coffee industry to allow the more direct

sale of coffee from producers to buyers

instead of driving everything through

the state coffee marketing board. The

coffee industry suffered a serious

setback in the late 1990s when coffee

wilt disease spread through the country

and caused significant losses of coffee

trees in the north close to the border

with Uganda. Today, Tanzania's coffee

production is about 70% Arabica and 30%

Robusta.

Traceability

around 90% of coffee in Tanzania is

produced by its 450,000 small holder

farmers. The remaining 10% comes from

larger estates. It is possible to find

coffees traceable back to a cooperative

of growers and their washing stations or

back to a single farm if it is an estate

coffee. The better coffees I have tasted

in recent years have come from the

estates. I would recommend seeking them

out first. Grading. Tanzania uses what

is sometimes called the British

nomenclature of grading similar to that

in Kenya. These grades include A, A, B,

PB, C, E, F, AF, TT, UG, and TE X. Taste

profile. Complex with bright and lively

acidity, and often with berry and fruity

flavors, Tanzanian coffees can be juicy,

interesting, and delicious.

Uganda.

Uganda is one of the few countries in

the world with indigenous coffee with

Robusta growing wild around Lake

Victoria. Coffee is an enormous part of

the Ugandan export economy and the

country is one of the largest producers

of coffee in the world. However, as most

of that coffee is robuster, Uganda has

struggled to achieve a reputation for

quality. Although the indigenous Robusta

crops had been part of Ugandan culture

for hundreds of years, coffee wasn't

originally part of the country's

agricultural industry. In the early

1900s, Arabica was introduced, probably

from Malawi and Ethiopia. This crop

didn't do well and struggled against

disease. However, around the same time,

there was an increase in the farming of

Robusta, and the more disease resistant

variety seemed to flourish. In 1925,

coffee made up only 1% of the country's

exports, but was considered an important

crop and well suited to the increasing

numbers of smallh holder farmers. In

1929, the Coffee Industry Board was

established. Cooperative farming acted

as a catalyst for the industry's growth,

and in the 1940s, coffee became the

country's principal export. Following

independence, the government passed a

coffee act in 1969 that gave the coffee

industry board full control over

pricing. Coffee remained a strong

industry through EDM's regime, boyed for

a time by the global increase in prices

caused by the frost in Brazil in 1975.

In the 1980s, it was still the strongest

cash crop and production grew. However,

an increasing amount of coffee was

smuggled over borders into neighboring

countries to be sold at a higher price

than that mandated by the government. In

1988, the coffee industry board

increased the prices it paid to farmers.

But at the end of the year, it was

deeply in debt and had to be bailed out

by the government. The collapse of the

international coffee agreement in 1989

caused a dramatic drop in prices and the

government devalued the Ugandan shilling

in an effort to make coffee exports more

appealing globally. In 1990, production

dropped by 20% not only because of

prices but also because of drought and a

shift away from coffee towards other

subsistance crops. In the early '90s,

the industry became increasingly

liberalized with the government only

playing a supporting role in marketing

and development. From here, we can draw

a fairly straight line to today's coffee

industry. The Ugandan Coffee Development

Authority has continued to relax rules,

allowing better traceability and easier

access to Ugandan coffee. Producer

groups are increasingly building their

own brands and reputations. Robusta

remains the primary coffee export, and

Uganda is building a reputation for good

quality Robusta. Arabica production

remains relatively small, but quality is

increasing. In the coming years, Ugandan

coffees will probably play a bigger and

bigger role in the specialty world.

Traceability. The best coffees from

Uganda generally come from producer

groups or cooperatives. There are two

terms unique to Ugandan coffees. Wugar,

washed Ugandan Arabica, and Dugar, dried

Ugandan Arabica. The country produces

coffee nearly all year round, with most

areas having a main crop and a second

smaller crop known as a fly crop. Taste

profile. Exceptional coffee from Uganda

is still relatively rare, but the best

cups are sweet, full of dark fruits, and

have a clean finish.

Zambia.

Zambia has been for quite some time

overlooked by much of the specialty

coffee industry. One could argue that

it's a chicken and egg situation as

historically little interest from

specialty buyers has led to little

investment in quality and little

investment in quality has led to little

interest from specialty buyers. Coffee

was introduced to Zambia in the 1950s by

missionaries who brought bourbon seed

stock from Tanzania and Kenya. However,

the industry did not gear up production

until the late 1970s and early 1980s

with the assistance of funding from the

World Bank. Problems with pests and

diseases led growers to adopt the

catamore hybrid which is less delicious

than bourbon. This was in some ways a

temporary switch and the government went

back to recommending Bourbon but there

is still a fair amount of catamar in the

country. Zambia's coffee exports peaked

in 2005 2006 at around 6 half thousand

metric tonses but have dropped

dramatically since. Some attribute the

drop to low prices and a crucial lack of

long-term financing in the industry. In

addition to this, the country's largest

producer closed in 2008 after defaulting

on its loans. The Northern Coffee Corp

was onethird of the country's 6,000

metric tonses at the time of closure.

Total production dropped to just 300

tons in 2012, although now it seems to

be recovering. Most of Zambia's coffee

comes from larger estates, although

there has been some encouragement of

small holders too. The estates are

generally well-run, have good access to

modern equipment because coffee

production here started relatively late

and may be owned by multinationals.

Small holder farming has struggled to

take hold. Access to fertilizer and

equipment has been difficult and

generally the quality has not been high.

The lack of access to water and decent

post-h harvest processing has further

hindered the production of clean, sweet

coffees. Traceability.

The best coffees in Zambia tend to come

from single estates, although you may

have to look hard to find them. Not only

is overall production small in Zambia,

but high-quality coffees are not

commonplace. Frustratingly, the country

has the undeniable potential to produce

stellar coffees from its seedtock to its

geography.

Taste profile. The rare excellent

coffees are bright and floral with a

clean fruitlike complexity.

Asia

Myth and history have shaped the

inheritance of coffee cultivation in

Asia. From robusta beans smuggled into

India by a pilgrim from Yemen to the

lucrative export of Indonesian beans by

the Dutch East India Company during the

16th century, Asia now supplies a

significant percentage of commodity

grade coffee to the market. Yemen is

perhaps the notable exception. Its

comparatively small export quantities of

unique beans remain in strong demand

globally.

China.

In many ways, the eyes of the coffee

world are on China. As a consuming

country, it has the potential to

destabilize the global industry. But

China is also starting to produce

surprisingly large volumes of coffee.

Growers are beginning to turn their

attention to quality, pushing the

boundaries of what is possible with the

soil, climate, and varieties found

there. Coffee was introduced to the

Yunan province by a French missionary in

1892. The story is that he crossed the

border from Vietnam bringing with him

coffee seeds and then planted them near

his church in the village of Jukula. For

almost a hundred years, very little

happened in the way of coffee

production. Unsurprisingly, in a region

famous for the amount and quality of tea

it grows. In 1988, coffee production was

invigorated in Yunan as part of a joint

venture with the United Nations

Development Program and the World Bank.

Its success probably lies with the

interest and support of Nestle, which

encouraged growth in the region. Coffee

production stayed relatively small until

around 2009 when a significant jump

occurred. This was probably due to a

combination of lower tea prices and a

brief spike in the global price of

coffee. The coffee industry continues to

grow in Hunan, boyed in particular by

the growing market throughout China. Per

capita consumption of coffee in China is

still incredibly low, but its enormous

population means the Chinese market has

the potential to have an enormous impact

on the supply and demand of coffee

production worldwide. Right now, China

is beginning to get a taste for its own

coffee. The best Chinese coffee I have

tasted was only available in China.

Quality-based auctions are increasingly

popular, and prices being paid for

locally grown coffee are very high. This

makes China an unusual market and

certainly one to watch. China is now

exporting some excellent coffee which is

well worth seeking out. Many of the lots

are still varieties chosen for disease

resistance rather than taste and there

are still challenges to be overcome with

the cultivation of more delicate

varieties. However, I expect to see

better and better every year.

Traceability.

The best lots from China can come from a

single farm or from a group of

producers. They are absolutely worth

seeking out despite the fact that China

does not yet have the pedigree and

expectation of quality that other

producing countries have. Taste profile.

The better coffees coming from China

have a pleasant sweetness and fruiness,

though many still carry a little

woodiness or earthiness too. Relatively

low in acidity and often relatively

fullbodied.

India.

The origins of coffee production in

southern India are entwined with myth.

The story goes that a pilgrim named Baba

Budan passed through Yemen in 1670 while

returning from Mecca and smuggled out

seven coffee seeds the export of which

was strictly controlled because he took

seven a secank number in Islam. It was

considered a religious act. Baba Budan

planted these first seeds in what is now

known as the Chikmagalura district of

the Carnataka region and there they

thrived. The hills there now bear his

name Baba Budangiri and this is still an

important coffee growing area. It wasn't

until the middle of the 19th century

under British colonial rule that coffee

plantations in southern India began to

flourish. This was short-lived, however,

and coffeey's popularity began to wne

again. In the 1870s, the industry

suffered due to an increasing demand for

tea, combined with an increasing

incidence of leaf rust, which attacked

the coffee plants. Many plantations

switched to tea production. Ironically,

the same plantations that had been

successful exporting their coffee. Leaf

rust did not drive coffee out of India,

however, but instead encouraged research

into rust resistant varieties. This

research was relatively successful and

some new varieties were bred. Although

this was before the flavor of the coffee

was deemed to be very important. In

1942, the coffee board of India was

created by way of a government act that

began the regulation of the industry.

Some argue that by pooling coffees from

many producers, the government reduced

incentives for producers to improve the

quality of their coffee. However,

production grew and in the 1990s,

India's output increased by an

astonishing 30%.

During the 1990s, there was also a

decrease in regulation governing how and

where producers could sell their coffee.

The domestic coffee market in India also

grew rapidly. While India has a very low

per capita consumption of coffee, tea

being a far cheaper alternative, the

population is so large that the total

consumption is quite sizable. The annual

consumption per person is just 100 g 3

ounces. But this results in a total

consumption of 2 million bags of coffee

per year. India produces just over 5

million bags in total. Although the

majority of this is Robusta,

Robusta is in many ways better suited to

India than Arabica. The lower altitudes

and climate make Robusta yields high.

More care and attention is paid to the

production of Robusta in India than in

most other countries, so it occupies the

premium end of the market. Even the best

robusters still carry the distinctive

woody flavors of the species. But the

relative lack of unclean flavors in

Indian Robusta makes them popular with

roasters who still like Robusta in their

espresso blends.

Monsooning.

One of the better known coffees from

India is called monsoon malabar and it's

created by an unusual process called

monsooning. Monsooning is now a

controlled process but it began

completely by accident. During its

export from India to Europe at the time

of the British Raj, coffee was

transported in wooden boxes and was

therefore subjected to the wet weather

that came during the monsoon months. The

raw coffee absorbed a great deal of

moisture which had a strong effect on

the resulting cup. As export practices

improved, the demand for this unusual

coffee still remained. So the process

was recreated in factories along the

West Coast. Monsooning is only done with

naturally processed coffees. The raw

coffee looks very pale afterwards and is

somewhat brittle. Monsoon beans are

difficult to roast evenly and their

brittle nature means that a bag of

roasted coffee often contains a lot of

beans that have been damaged in the

packing process. This is nothing to

worry about, however, and it's not the

same thing as low-grade coffees that

contain broken pieces in them and should

be avoided. During the monsooning

process, coffee usually loses its

acidity, but gains pungent, wild flavors

that make it somewhat divisive in the

coffee industry. Some love the richness

and intensity of the cup while others

believe the flavors are the result of

defective processing and are very

unpleasant.

Traceability because 98% of India's

250,000 coffee producers are small

growers. It's often difficult to find

coffees traceable down to a single

estate. However, these are often worth

seeking out. Traceability may only be

possible back to the point of processing

or to a specific region. Grading. Indian

coffees are graded in two different

ways. The first is unique to India and

classifies all washed coffees as

plantation coffees, all naturally

processed coffees as cherry and all

washed robusta coffees as parchment

coffees. India also uses a size-based

grading system from AAA the largest down

to AA a and also PB for peeries. As in

many other countries that use a size

system, the larger bean sizes are

associated with higher quality, but this

is not necessarily true. Taste profile.

The best coffees from India tend to be

heavy, creamy, and low in acidity, but

rarely particularly complex.

Indonesia.

The first attempt to grow coffee on the

Indonesian archipelago was a failure. In

1696, the governor of Jakarta, then

Betavia, was sent a present of a few

coffee seedlings by the Dutch governor

of Malabi in India. These plants were

lost in a flood in Jakarta. So, a second

shipment was sent in 1699. These plants

flourished.

Exports of coffee began in 1711 and were

controlled by the Dutch East India

Company, usually referred to by its

Dutch initials, VOC.

Coffee arriving in Amsterdam sold for

high prices, 1 kilo,2 costing nearly 1%

of the average annual income. The price

slowly came down during the 18th

century, but coffee was undeniably very

profitable for the VOC. However, as Java

was under colonial rule at the time, it

was not at all profitable for the

farmers who grew it. In 1860, a Dutch

colonial official wrote a novel entitled

Max Havala or the coffee auctions of the

Dutch Trading Company which described

the abuses of the colonial system. This

book had a lasting impact on Dutch

society, changing public opinion about

the way coffee was traded and the

colonial system in general. The name Max

Havalar is now used for an ethical

certification within the coffee

industry. Initially, Indonesia produced

only Arabica, but coffee leaf rust wiped

out much of the crop in 1876.

There was some attempt to plant the

Liberica species instead, but that also

suffered at the hands of leaf rust, so

production switched to the disease

resistant Robusta. Today, Robusta still

makes up a significant portion of the

crop, gilling basa. One of the unique

aspects of coffee production in

Indonesia and the source of Indonesian

coffeey's deeply divisive taste is the

traditional post-h harvest process of

gilling basa. This hybrid process

combines elements of the washed and

natural processes and has a dramatic

effect on cup quality. It significantly

reduces the acidity of the coffee and

seems to increase its body too creating

a softer, rounder, heavier bodied cup of

coffee. However, it also introduces a

gamut of additional flavors. Sometimes

vegetital or herbal, sometimes woody or

musty, sometimes earthy. This is not to

say that all coffee processed this way

is uniform in quality and has gone

through some sort of flavor

standardization. There are huge

variations in the quality of these

coffees. The flavor of semi-washed

coffees is particularly divisive within

the coffee industry. If a coffee from

Africa or Central America displayed the

same flavors regardless of how well the

process was done, it would be considered

defective and rejected immediately by

any potential buyers. However, there are

many people who find the intensity and

heavy-bodied cups of coffee brewed from

Indonesian semi-washed lots delicious

and so the industry continues to buy

them. In recent years, specialty buyers

have encouraged producers throughout

Indonesia to experiment more with the

washed process to allow some

appreciation of the taste of the variety

and the land rather than the dominant

flavor of the process. We shall see if

demand for these coffees is strong

enough to encourage the widespread

production of cleaner coffees or if the

industry will see continued demand for

semi-washed lots and simply continue to

meet it. Traceability.

While it is possible to find coffees

from individual farms on the islands,

these are relatively rare. However,

those that have been kept traceable and

have been fully washed rather than

semi-washed are definitely worth trying.

Most coffee is produced by small holders

with just 1 to two hectares, 2.2 to 4.4

acres of land. So, usually a coffee is

only traceable down to a specific

washing station or only a region. There

is a very wide variation in the quality

of those regional coffees and they can

be something of a gamble.

Variety names.

Variety names in Sumatra can be a little

tricky. Most of the Arabica seed stock

initially brought to the islands would

have been derived from the strain of

typica that was taken from Yemen. In

Sumatra, this is often called gem

typica, but it should be noted that

gember also refers to a completely

different variety and a less superior

one found in Sului. It is common to see

varieties that have at some point been

crossbreed with Robusta. Best known

hybrid is called the Ibredo de Timor, a

parent of the common catamore variety.

In Sumatra, it's often called Tim.

Taste profile. Semi-washed coffees tend

to be very heavy-bodied, earthy, woody,

and spicy with very little acidity.

Copiluak in Indonesia, copy luwak refers

to coffees that are produced by

collecting the droppings of civet cats

that have eaten coffee cherries. The

semi-digested coffee is separated from

the fecal matter and then processed and

dried. In the last decade, it has come

to be seen as an amusing novelty with

unattributed claims of its excellent

flavors, and it sells for spectacularly

high prices. This has caused two main

problems. Firstly, the forgery of this

coffee is quite commonplace. Several

times more is sold than produced and

often low-grade robuster is being passed

off at high prices. Secondly, it has

encouraged unscrupulous operators on the

island to trap and cage civet cats,

force-feed them coffee cherries, and

keep them in terrible conditions. I find

copy work abhorrent on just about every

level. If you are interested in

delicious coffee, then it is a terrible

waste of money. One quarter of the money

you might spend on a bag could instead

buy you a stunning coffee from one of

the very best producers in the world. I

can only regard the practice as abusive

and unethical. And I believe people

should avoid all animal processed

coffees and not reward this despicable

behavior with their money.

Papu Guini.

Many people would associate Papu Nug

Guini's coffees with those from

Indonesia, but it would be unfair to do

so. Papua Nugini rightly stands apart

and the eastern half of New Guinea

shares relatively little with the

neighboring Papua when it comes to

coffee. The history of coffee production

on the island is not long. While coffee

was planted relatively early in the

1890s, it was not treated as a

commercial product at first. In 1926,

however, 18 estates were established

using seeds from Jamaica's Blue

Mountain. And by 1928, coffee production

had begun in earnest. The industry began

a more structured growth in the 1950s

with the creation of infrastructure to

help facilitate the movement of coffee

around the island. Further growth

followed in the 1970s, perhaps spurred

on by Brazil's drop back in production.

The government sponsored a series of

programs to encourage small farms to be

run by cooperatives. At that time, the

industry was more focused around managed

estates. But since the 1980s, the

industry has begun to change and

decentralize.

This is probably due to the drop in

coffee prices, which has left many

estates in financial trouble. Small

holders aren't at such risk from market

forces and so have been able to continue

to produce coffee. Today, 95% of

producers are small holders, often

subsistent farmers. They produce around

90% of the country's coffee, which is

almost entirely Arabica. This means a

very large proportion of the population

is involved in the production of coffee,

especially in the highland regions. This

has certainly presented challenges when

it comes to producing large quantities

of highquality coffee as many producers

lack access to proper posth harvest

facilities and a lack of traceability in

the product prevents clear rewards for

higher quality coffee. Traceability.

Several large estates still operate very

successfully. So it is possible to find

coffees from a single estate. There is

not a long history of traceability and

in the past some farms were acquiring

coffee from other producers to pass off

as their own. The idea of coffee being

sold by region is also relatively new.

However, the altitude and soils in the

country offer great potential for

quality. So there has been renewed

interest from the specialty market in

the last few years. Look out for coffees

traceable to a specific estate or a

group of producers.

Grading. Exports are graded by quality

in descending order. A A

X PSC and Y. The first three are awarded

to estate coffees while the last two are

grades for small holder coffees. PSC

standing for premium small holder

coffee. Taste profile.

Great coffees from Papu Nu Guini often

have a buttery quality, great sweetness,

and wonderful complexity.

The Philippines.

The history of coffee in the Philippines

is another tale of the product going

from being a bedrock of the economy to

almost disappearing completely. The most

common version of the story starts in

1740 when coffee was first planted by a

Spanish monk in Lipa in Betangas

province. It flourished under Spanish

colonial rule and spread around the

Philippines.

In 1828, as part of an effort to foster

cultivation, the Spanish offered a prize

to anyone who would plant and ripen

60,000 square ft of coffee, the

equivalent of 6,000 coffee trees. One

farmer transformed his property in Jala

Jala in the province of Rosal into a

fertile plantation and won the prize of

a,000 pesos. His success encouraged

others to follow suit and increased the

cultivation of coffee. By the 1860s, the

Philippines were doing a healthy trade

in coffee exports with a large market

being the United States through the

gateway of San Francisco. The completion

of the Sewish Canal in 1869 opened up

Europe as a potential market, too. By

the 1880s, the Philippines was the

fourth largest producer in the world.

But in 1889, it would finally succumb to

the leaf rust that had plagued so many

other countries. Combination of leaf

rust and insects took a particularly

heavy toll in the Patangas region, still

the dominant producing region, and 2

years later, production was less than

20% of what it had been. Some seedlings

were transplanted north to cavit where

they appeared to flourish. However, most

farmers moved away from coffee to other

crops, and for at least 50 years, the

industry was relatively dormant. In the

1950s, the government attempted to

resurrect the coffee industry with

assistance from the US. It brought in

disease resistant varieties and robuster

as part of a 5-year strategic plan. It

was reasonably successful and production

increased, but it wouldn't be until 1962

or 1963 that the level was considered

self-sufficient and coffee was no longer

imported for local consumption. Part of

the local demand came from the

production of instant coffee in

factories around the Philippines. Coffee

production has in many ways mirrored

world prices and there has been an urban

flow in production according to whether

there has been sufficient demand. The

frost in Brazil in 1975 briefly gave the

Philippines the chance to be an

exporting country again. Production is

currently up once more in comparison

with recent years. Programs remain in

place to encourage production. Though

domestic consumption remains strong

enough to mean that very little coffee

is exported from the Philippines. As so

little coffee is exported and so much of

what is produced is robuster, it's

unlikely that any excellent coffees will

be available in the immediate future.

However, the country does grow two other

species of coffee not commonly found

elsewhere. Cafe Liberica and Cafe

Excelssa. While neither is anything to

get excited about from a taste

perspective, they are undeniably

interesting to try should the

opportunity present itself.

Traceability.

Coffee comes from a mixture of

cooperatives, estates, and small holder

producers. The better coffees from the

Philippines are usually more traceable,

though very rare. Taste profile. Great

coffee from the Philippines is a rarity,

but better lots are quite fullbodied

with low acidity and light florals or

fruity qualities.

Thailand.

One of the most credible stories of

coffeey's introduction to Thailand dates

to 1904. A Muslim pilgrim returning home

from Mecca passed through Indonesia on

his way back to Thailand and brought

with him a rausta plant which he planted

in the south of the country. Another

story describes an Italian immigrant

bringing Arabica to the north of the

country in the 1950s. Whether either or

both of these stories are true, it

wouldn't be until the 1970s that any

economic importance was placed on coffee

as a crop. Between 1972 and 1979, the

Thai government ran a pilot project to

try and encourage farmers in the

northern region to grow coffee instead

of poppies destined for opium

production. Coffee was considered

sufficiently high value to be worth

switching from opium production and the

slash and burn style of agriculture that

a company did. While this project did

mark the beginning of a coffee industry

in Thailand, coffee did not become a

major crop until later. Production

peaked in the very early 1990s, but

global price fluctuations have deterred

producers. So, there have been

substantial swings in production over

the last two decades. As it's mostly

Arabica grown in the north of the

country and robusta in the south, a

large part of the fluctuation comes from

the northern highlands where the price

would have a bigger impact. Accurate

tracking of production in Thailand is

difficult as coffee is often smuggled

across the borders from Lao and Myanmar.

Today, Thailand is steadily building a

reputation as an underdog among

producers of great coffees. While most

coffee produced in the country isn't

particularly high quality, there are

some farms and cooperatives working hard

to produce an excellent product. The

increasing domestic consumption of

quality coffee is also helping growth in

the industry.

Traceability

coffees very very rarely come from

single estates. More common are producer

groups or cooperatives among the more

quality focused producers.

Taste profile. Better coffee from

Thailand is sweet, quite clean, but

relatively low in acidity. Some spice

and chocolate often accompany a

relatively full mouth feel.

Vietnam.

Vietnam could be considered an unusual

inclusion in a book that focuses on

highquality specialty coffee as it

produces predominantly robuster.

However, Vietnam is different because of

the impact it has had on every coffee

producing country in the world and

therefore merits inclusion to give some

understanding.

Coffee was brought to Vietnam by the

French in 1857 and was initially

cultivated under the plantation model.

However, this did not gain any momentum

as a commercial venture until around

1910.

Cultivation in the Bueno to region in

the central highland was interrupted by

the Vietnam War. After the war, the

coffee industry became increasingly

collectivized, reducing yields and

production. At this point, around 20,000

hectares of land produced around 5,000

to 7,000 metric tons of coffee. Over the

next 25 years, the amount of land under

coffee would increase by a factor of 25

and the country's overall production by

a factor of 100. Much of the industry's

growth was down to the Doymoy reforms of

1986, which permitted privatelyowned

enterprises in industries that produced

commoditized crops. In the 1990s, a huge

number of new companies were formed in

Vietnam, many focusing on the

large-scale production of coffee. At

this time, specifically between 1994 and

1998, prices for coffee were relatively

high, which provided strong incentives

to increase coffee production. Between

1996 and 2000, Vietnam's coffee

production doubled, and this would come

to have a devastating effect on the

global price of coffee. Vietnam's

massive increase in production, which

made it the second largest producer of

coffee in the world resulted in a state

of global overupp and this caused a

massive price crash. Despite the fact

that Vietnam was producing robusta

rather than Arabica, it still affected

the price of Arabica because many of the

largest purchasers needed a commodity

product rather than a quality one. Thus,

the over supply of lowquality coffee

worked in their favor. From the high

point of 900,000 metric tons of coffee

in 2000, production declined sharply.

However, as coffee prices recovered, so

did Vietnam's production. The 2012 2013

crop was around 1.3 million metric

tonses and it continues to have a large

effect on the global industry. In recent

years, there has been a shift towards

more Arabica. Although the lack of

altitude presents a challenge to

achieving a highquality product

traceability. There are several larger

states in Vietnam, often controlled by

multinational companies. So, it is

possible to see good levels of

traceability. However, finding

high-quality lots will prove extremely

challenging.

Taste profile. Very little high-quality

coffee is available in Vietnam, and so

most tastes flat, woody, and lack

sweetness or much character.

Yemen.

Yemen has been producing coffee on a

commercial basis for longer than any

other country, and its coffee is

distinctive, perhaps challenging, and

certainly unusual. Despite a strong

demand for Yemeni coffee over the

centuries, its trade has never

commoditized. Yemen is unique. From its

coffee varieties and its terrace farming

to its processing and its trade. Coffee

came to Yemen from Ethiopia, either

through trade or those making

pilgrimages from Ethiopia to Mecca and

was well established in the country in

the 15th and 16th centuries. Exports of

its coffee introduced the world to the

port of Mocha. And I think it's fair to

say that mocka is probably the most

confusing word in all of coffeey's

lexicon. Only 3% of land in Yemen is

suitable for farming. Water being a

major limiting factor. Coffee is grown

on terrace land at high altitudes and

additional irrigation is required to

keep the coffee trees healthy. Many

farmers depend on non-renewable sources

of deep underground water and there is

some concern over depleting stocks.

Fertilization of the soil is not

particularly common. So there is an

additional problem of depleting soil

nutrients. All these factors coupled

with the sheer remoteness of the coffee

growing regions go some way to

explaining the huge number and variation

of heirloom varieties of Arabica found

in the country. Most of them peculiar to

their growing regions. Yemen's coffee is

picked by hand with pickers visiting a

tree several times in a season. Despite

this, selective picking is not

particularly commonplace with underripe

and overripe cherries often being

harvested. Whole cherries are usually

dried in the sun after harvesting, often

on the roofs of farmers homes. Rarely do

these roofs provide enough space, so the

cherries are often piled too deep to dry

correctly, resulting in defects such as

uneven drying, fermentation, and mold.

Each producer may only grow a very small

amount of coffee. Data from the 2000

census shows that around 99,000

households produced coffee and based on

estimates of production, the average

household produced just 113 kilos, 249

lb of raw coffee that year. There

remains a strong global demand for

Yemeni coffee. About half of exports go

to Saudi Arabia. Coupled with limited

production and relatively high

production costs, this makes it sell for

high prices. Demand has not increased

the traceability of the coffee and it

can travel through a network of

middlemen from the farmer through to the

exporter. Coffees can also sit for quite

some time, often years at the point of

export as some exporters sell their

oldest stocks first and warehouse their

newer crops in caverns underground.

Since the civil war began in 2015,

coffee production in Yemen has been

badly affected. The actual volumes

produced have decreased only a little,

but exports have fallen to a little over

half of what they were before the war.

Be aware that there has been some

increase in the fraudulent mislabeling

of Ethiopian coffees with many being

presented as Yemeni coffees to try and

meet the existing demand and achieve a

premium price. Traceability.

Trying to understand exactly where

coffees come from in Yemen can be

extremely confusing. Often the name of

the coffee will include the term mocker

indicating the port from which it was

exported. Usually coffees are only

traceable back to a particular region

within Yemen rather than to the farm

where they were produced. It is also

common to see the local names for

different coffee varieties used to

describe the coffee, such as matari.

Having better levels of traceability

doesn't necessarily guarantee better

quality. Often different coffees are

blended together before export and

exported under the most valuable name.

The demand for Yemen coffee is based on

its unusual, wild, and pungent flavors,

and these come in part from defects in

the process. If you want to try coffee

from Yemen, it is advisable to source

one from a supplier with whom you have

already built a level of trust. Roasters

will need to cut through many terrible

samples to find a good one. Buying

blindly as a consumer stacks the odds

against you, and you may end up with

something that tastes dirty, rotten, and

unpleasant.

Kisher.

Kisher is a byproduct of coffee

production. It is the dried but not

roasted husks removed from the coffee

cherries. In Yemen, these husks are

often brewed like tea as a way to

consume a form of coffee. More recently,

producers in Central America have been

experimenting with the same product

there called cascera. This is usually

just the dried fruit of the cherry

rather than both the fruit and the dried

parchment seen in Kisha. The term mocker

originally the word referred to the port

in Yemen from where the coffee was

exported. This spelling soon changed to

m o k a and the term was used to

describe the potent and pungent coffees

produced in Yemen. Some naturally

processed coffees from other countries

are still described this way such as

mocka harah from Ethiopia. The coffees

from Yemen were often blended with

coffees from Java and the mocka Java

blend was born. However, the name was

not protected and thus became a kind of

stylistic term used by many roasters to

describe the flavor of a particular

blend they created rather than where the

component coffees came from. The current

use of the term mocker to describe a

mixture of hot chocolate and espresso

only serves to further bewilder the

consumer. Taste profile.

Wild, complex, and pungent. A completely

distinctive coffee experience different

from other coffees around the world. For

some, the wild, slightly fermented fruit

quality is off-putting, while others

prize it highly.

Americas,

the Americas supply the majority of the

world's coffee beans, but the range and

quality of bean exports varies hugely.

Though Brazilian harvests provide

onethird of the international coffee

market, there is increasing interest in

unusual varieties from smaller growers

such as the Geisha variety produced in

Panama. Ecoourism and awareness of

sustainable and cooperative farming

methods are also changing the way

plantations across the Americas harvest

and grow crops.

Bolivia.

Bolivia has the potential to produce

truly great coffees and already does in

very small quantities. The country's

entire production is smaller than that

of one of Brazil's larger coffee farms.

Production is shrinking year on year and

coffee farms are disappearing at an

alarming rate. We may soon see coffees

from Bolivia, especially great ones,

almost disappear.

Frustratingly, there is little

information about the introduction of

coffee and the history of coffee growing

in Bolivia. There are reports of

substantial coffee production in the

country going back to the 1880s, but not

a great deal more. The country is large,

about the same size as Ethiopia or

Colombia. It is landlocked, which has

traditionally posed something of a

challenge to the export of coffee,

adding both time and cost. Bolivia is

relatively unpopulated with just 10.5

million inhabitants. The population is

often characterized as being incredibly

poor with around 25% categorized as

living in extreme poverty. The country's

economy is reliant on minerals and

natural gas as well as agriculture.

Although coffee has never really

featured prominently,

it's impossible to ignore the impact on

the economy and on agriculture of cocoa

grown for the drug trade. Farmers are

increasingly switching from coffee to

cocoa because cocoa provides greater

security for producers because the price

is subject to less variance. In 2010 and

2011, while coffee prices were high,

anti-drugs programs funded by Bolivia

and the US managed to encourage more

farmers to switch to coffee production.

However, the price of coffee has fallen

again and many farmers have turned once

more to cocoa. The conditions for

growing coffee in Bolivia are in many

ways ideal. There is certainly the

necessary altitude and the climate has

nicely defined wet and dry seasons. Most

of the coffee grown here is old heirloom

varieties such as Typica and Coutura.

Some excellent, clean and complex

coffees have been coming out of Bolivia

recently, although this wasn't always

the case. In the past, producers picked

and pulped the coffees they grew and

then transported the pulp to a central

processing station. There were two big

problems. Firstly, changes in

temperature on the journey to the

processing station could result in the

coffee freezing. And secondly, the pulp

still contained enough moisture to keep

fermenting. Often this resulted in a

loss of quality or undesirable flavors

creeping in. More and more quality

conscious producers are doing the posth

harvest work on their own farms. The US

has funded the construction of a number

of small coffee washing stations across

the country as part of the anti-drugs

program. However, despite changes to

help bolster quality, coffees from

Bolivia still lack the reputation of

those from neighboring countries such as

Colombia or Brazil.

Competitions such as the Cup of

Excellence have helped shine a light on

the best coffees in Bolivia. I would

recommend seeking them out and enjoying

them while they're still around. Even

though specialty coffee does yield a

greater return, even quality conscious

farmers are still giving up coffee

production.

Traceability

Coffees in Bolivia are typically

traceable down to a single farm or

cooperative. Due to land reforms,

large-scale land ownership has been

reduced since 1991, and the 23,000

families that produce coffee in Bolivia

do so from small farms, typically 1.2 to

8 hectares, 3 to 20 acres. The export of

Bolivia's output is handled by a small

number, around 30 private exporting

companies.

Taste profile. The best Bolivian coffees

tend to be very sweet and very clean,

but relatively rarely are they

particularly fruity in flavor.

Brazil.

Brazil has been the world's largest

producer of coffee for more than 150

years. Currently, Brazil grows around

1/3 of the world's coffee, although in

the past its market share was as high as

80%. Coffee was introduced to Brazil

from French Guyana in 1727 while Brazil

was still under Portuguese rule. The

first coffee in Brazil was planted by

Francisco Dlo Paletta in the region of

Parah in the north of the country.

According to myth, Paletta traveled to

French Guyana on a diplomatic mission,

seduced the wife of a governor there,

and was given the seeds hidden in a

bouquet from her on his departure. The

coffee he planted on his return home was

probably used just for domestic

consumption, and it remained a

relatively unimportant crop until it

began to work its way south, being

passed from garden to garden as much as

from farm to farm as a crop. Commercial

production begins. The commercial

production of coffee initially began

around the Pariba River, relatively

close to Rio de Janeiro.

This area suited coffee not just because

the land was ideal but also because its

proximity to Rio de Janeiro would

facilitate export. In contrast to the

smaller coffee farms that flourished in

Central America, Brazil's first

commercial farms were large slavedriven

plantations. This industrialized

approach is still relatively uncommon in

the rest of the world and fairly unique

to Brazilian coffee production. The

approach to production was aggressive.

The most powerful or forceful would win

disputes over poorly defined property

boundaries and a single slave looked

after 4 to 7,000 plants. When the soil

became depleted from the intensive

farming, the farm would just move on to

fresh land. Coffee production boomed

between 1820 and 1830, overtaking the

demand of Brazilian coffee drinkers and

beginning to feed the wider global

market. Those who controlled coffee

production became both incredibly

wealthy and very powerful and were

referred to as coffee barons. Their

needs would have a significant impact on

the government's policies and its

support of the coffee industry. By 1830,

Brazil produced 30% of the world's

coffee. This rose to 40% by 1840,

although the massive increase in supply

resulted in a drop in the global price

for coffee. Up until the middle of the

19th century, Brazil's coffee industry

was reliant on slave labor. More than

1.5 million slaves had been brought to

Brazil to work on the coffee

plantations. When the British put a stop

to Brazil's slave trade with Africa in

1850, Brazil turned to migrant labor or

its internal slave trade. There were

great fears that the abolition of

slavery in Brazil in 1888 would endanger

the coffee industry, but the harvest

continued successfully from that year

onwards.

A second boom. A second coffee boom ran

from the 1880s through to the 1930s. A

period named after the two most

important products of the time. The huge

influence of both coffee barons from Sa

Paulo and dairy producers in Minaj led

to a political climate known as the cafe

con period. This period also saw the

Brazilian government start the practice

of valorization, a protectionist

practice designed to stabilize the price

of coffee. The government would buy

coffee from producers at an inflated

price when the market was low and hold

it until the market was high. This meant

stable prices for coffee barons and

prevented over supply from lower coffee

prices. By the 1920s, Brazil was

producing 80% of the world's coffee and

coffee financed a huge amount of

infrastructure in the country. This

unabated production led to a massive

surplus of coffee that would only

exacerbate the damage of the crash

during the Great Depression in the

1930s. Brazil's government ended up

burning around 78 million bags of

stockpiled coffee in an effort to

invigorate coffee prices, though it had

little effect on them. During World War

II, there was growing concern in the US

that with European market shut off,

declining prices could drive Central and

South American countries towards Nazi or

communist sympathy. In an attempt to

stabilize the price of coffee, an

international agreement was drawn up

based on a quotota system. This

agreement drove up the price of coffee

until it stabilized in the mid1 1950s

and is considered a precursor to the

much wider international coffee

agreement ICA signed in 1962 which would

come to encompass 42 producing

countries. Quotas were fixed according

to the indicator coffee price determined

by the international coffee organization

the ICO. If prices dropped then quotas

were reduced and if prices climbed then

quotas were increased. This agreement

lasted until 1989 when it broke down

after Brazil refused to accept a

reduction in its quotota. Brazil

believed that it was an extremely

efficient producer and could prosper

outside of the agreement. The result of

the breakdown of the ICA was an

unregulated market and prices dropped

dramatically over the following 5 years

resulting in the coffee crisis that

would inspire the fair trade movement

within coffee production.

on and off years. With Brazil being such

a dominant supplier of the world's

coffee, anything that affected

production in Brazil had a knock-on

effect on global pricing. One such

factor was the alternating cycle of

Brazil's annual crop. Over the years, it

became clear that Brazil's harvest would

swing each year between a large and a

small harvest. Some work has been done

in recent years to try and mitigate this

effect, creating less variation

yeartoear and greater stability. The

reason for this variation in crop is

that a coffee tree will naturally have

an alternating cycle of large and small

crops, but this can be controlled by

light pruning. Light pruning has not

been a common practice in Brazil with

producers preferring to prune back hard

so there is little crop the following

year. In the past, there have been

dramatic incidents such as the Black

Frost of 1975, which reduced the

following year's crop by nearly 75%.

As a result of the frost, the global

price of coffee almost doubled

immediately. In 2000 and 2001, there

were two off years in a row that

resulted in a massive harvest in 2002

with a huge production of coffee. This

coincided with another long period of

low prices for coffee caused by an

excess of coffee on the global market.

Modern coffee production.

Brazil is undeniably the most advanced

and industrialized coffee producing

country in the world with a focus on

yield and production. It has not

retained a great reputation for

producing coffees of the highest

quality. Most large farms employ

relatively crude picking techniques such

as strip picking where the entire branch

is stripped of its cherries in one go.

If the plantations are large and flat,

common in Brazil's larger coffee farms,

they use harvesting machines to shake

the cherries loose from the branches.

Neither method takes ripeness into

consideration and as a result there can

be a large number of unripe cherries in

the harvested coffee. For a long time,

Brazil also processed a great deal of

its coffee by sun drying the whole

cherries on patios. The introduction of

the pulped natural process in the early

'90s did help to improve quality. But

for years, Brazil's specialty coffee

producers, who may pick by hand, who may

wash their coffee, and who may grow

interesting varieties at higher

altitudes have battled against the

country's reputation for producing

coffees with low acidity and increased

body best suited to espresso blends.

However, while much of Brazil's coffee

grows below the altitudes best suited to

quality, it is still possible to find

some very interesting and delicious

coffees there. Equally, the country

produces some very clean and sweet

coffees without much acidity that many

people quite rightly find delicious and

very approachable.

Domestic consumption.

Brazil has been actively trying to

increase its internal coffee consumption

with increasing success. While giving

children coffee at school from a young

age may raise some eyebrows, the

consumption in Brazil now rivals that of

the United States. No raw coffee can be

imported into Brazil, which means that a

large percentage of the coffee grown in

Brazil is consumed there. Though

generally the quality of coffee for

domestic consumption is lower than that

for export. Coffee bars have appeared

throughout the major cities, though the

price of coffee in these places is

similar to better coffee bars in the

United States and Europe. So they have

become another symbol of the increasing

divide between rich and poor in Brazil.

Traceability.

Highquality Brazilian coffees are

usually traceable down to a specific

farm or fazenda. Whereas the lower

quality coffees are bulk lots and not

traceable. Coffees marked as Santos have

simply shipped from the port of Santos.

And the name has nothing to do with

where the coffee was grown. Brazil

probably breaks the rule of thumb that

traceability is linked to quality as

there are farms in Brazil producing more

coffee than the whole of Bolivia. And

while the coffee may be traceable due to

the size of production, it will not

necessarily be higher in quality as a

result. Taste profile. Better Brazilian

coffees tend to be low in acidity, heavy

in body, and sweet, often with chocolate

and nutty flavors.

Robusta production. While not a focus of

this book, it should be noted that

Brazil is one of the world's primary

producers of Robusta along with Arabica.

In Brazil, robusta is usually called

conon and is produced in regions such as

Rondonia.

Colombia

coffee was probably first introduced to

Colombia in 1723 by the Jesuits, though

there are inevitably different accounts.

It spread slowly as a commercial crop to

various regions of the country, but its

production did not become significant

until the end of the 19th century. By

1912, coffee made up approximately 50%

of Colombia's total exports.

Colombia recognized the value of

marketing and building its brand

relatively early on. The creation in

1958 of Juan Valdez, the farmer who

represents Colombian coffee, was perhaps

their greatest success. Juan Valdez and

his mule were created as the symbol of

Colombian coffee and appeared on bags of

coffee and also in various advertising

campaigns portrayed by three different

actors over the years.

W Valdez became a point of recognition

particularly in the US and added value

to Colombian coffee. The character built

on the success of early marketing

phrases such as mountain grown coffee

and the constant promotion of 100%

Colombian coffee meant that Colombia

would stand apart in the minds of

consumers across the world. This

marketing was and continues to be

undertaken by the Federation National

Deafos, the FNC. This organization

created in 1927 is particularly unusual

in the coffee producing world. While

many countries have organizations

involved in the export and promotion of

their coffee, few are quite as large and

complex as the FNC.

It was created as a private nonprofit

organization to defend the interests of

coffee producers and is funded through a

special tax on all coffee exported. As

Colombia is one of the largest coffee

producers in the world, the FNC is

wellunded and has become something of a

monstrous bureaucratic organization.

This bureaucracy is perhaps inevitable

as the FNC is now technically owned and

controlled by its 500,000 coffee

producing members. While the FNC is

involved in the more obvious roles of

marketing, production, and some

financial matters, its reach goes deeper

into coffee growing communities and it

has a hand in the creation of both

social and physical infrastructure,

including rural roads, schools, and

health centers. It has also invested in

other industries besides coffee to help

spur on regional development and

well-being.

The FNC and quality.

Recently, there has been some friction

between the FNC and the more

qualityconscious section of the industry

as the FNC's perceived interest of the

farmers may not always lead to the best

possible quality in the coffee. The FNC

has a research division called Senica

Cafe which breeds specific varieties and

many believe the promotion of varieties

like Castillo has favored quantity of

yield above cup quality. It is possible

to see both sides of the argument. And

as global climate change has an

increasing impact on the stability of

Colombia's production, it is

increasingly difficult to argue against

varieties that ensure livelihoods for

producers, even at the expense of losing

some great cups of coffee. Traceability.

As part of the promotion of Colombian

coffee, the FNC created the terms supreo

and excelso. These terms relate only to

the size of the bean, and it's important

to understand that they have no relation

to quality.

Unfortunately, this classification

obscures any traceability as coffee

marketed this way may come from many

many farms and be blended before being

sd mechanically to the necessary size

and grade. Essentially, this is generic

coffee and its naming offers no help

when trying to buy quality. The

specialty coffee section of the industry

has been working hard to maintain

traceability. So, when looking for

something incredibly enjoyable, make

sure the beans come from a distinct

place rather than just being a certain

size.

Taste profile. Colombian coffees have a

huge range of flavors. From the heavier

chocolatier coffees through to the jammy

sweet fruity lots. A huge spectrum of

flavor exists across the regions.

Costa Rica.

Coffee has been grown in Costa Rica

since the early 19th century. When the

country's independence from Spain was

declared in 1821, the municipal

government gave away free coffee seeds

to encourage production. And records

show there were around 17,000 trees in

Costa Rica at this point. In 1825, the

government continued its promotion of

coffee by exempting it from certain

taxes. And in 1831, the government

decreed that if anyone grew coffee on

fellow land for 5 years, they could

claim ownership of it. While a small

amount of coffee had been exported to

Panama in 1820, the first real exports

began in 1832.

Although this coffee was ultimately

bound for England, it first passed

through Chile where it was rebagged and

renamed as Cafe Chileeno de Val Pariso.

Direct export to England followed in

1843, not long after the English became

increasingly invested in Costa Rica.

This ultimately led to the establishment

of the Anglo- Costa Rican Bank in 1863,

which provided finance to allow the

industry to grow. For nearly 50 years

between 1846 and 1890, coffee was the

sole export of the country. Coffee drove

infrastructure such as the creation of

the first railroads linking the country

to the Atlantic, as well as the funding

of the San Juan Deios Hospital, the

first post office, and the first

government printing office. It would

have an impact on culture too as the

national theater is a product of the

early coffee economy along with the

first libraries and the Santa Thomas

University. Costa Rica's coffee

infrastructure had long given it an

advantage when it came to fetching a

better price on the international

market. The wet process had been

introduced in 1830 and by 1905 there

were 200 wet mills in the country.

washed coffees achieved higher prices

and at this time processing coffee in

this way added to its perceived value.

The coffee industry continued to grow

until it began to reach its geographical

limits. The population was still

spreading from San Jose to the rest of

the country and farmers were looking for

new land upon which to grow crops.

However, not all of the land in the

country was suitable for growing coffee,

something that still checks the growth

of the industry to date. It's undeniable

that Costa Rican coffee held a good

reputation and achieved good prices for

its coffees for a very long time. Even

though the coffees it was producing were

typically clean and pleasant rather than

interesting or unusual. There was a

drive in the latter part of the 20th

century to move away from heirloom

varieties towards higher yielding

varieties. While higher yields make

economic sense, many in the specialty

coffee industry felt that the cup

quality decreased and became even less

interesting. However, there have been

recent changes that have brought a great

deal of interest back to the higher

quality coffees produced in the country.

The government's role. Right from the

start, coffee production was strongly

encouraged in Costa Rica with land being

given away to those who wish to grow the

crop on it. In 1933, the government

under pressure from the coffee growing

community created the rather

bombastically titled Institute for the

Defense of Coffee. Initially, the

institute was to play a role in trying

to prevent small coffee growers from

being exploited by those who bought

their coffee cherry cheaply, processed

it, and sold it for a much greater

profit. They did this by setting a limit

on the profit that could be made by

larger processors. In 1948, the

government body for coffee became the

Officina del Cafe, though some of the

responsibilities for coffee went to the

Department of Agriculture.

This organization became the Institut

del Cafe de Costa Rica, Ecafe, which

still exists today. Ecafe has a

wide-ranging involvement in the coffee

industry, running experimental research

farms and promoting the quality of Costa

Rican coffee worldwide. It is funded by

a 1.5% tax on all exports of coffee from

Costa Rica. The Micromill Revolution.

Costa Rican coffee had a long-standing

reputation for good quality and as such

fetched a premium price in the commodity

marketplace. What it lacked as the

specialty coffee market developed was

much in the way of traceable coffee.

Typically, coffees exported from Costa

Rica around the turn of the millennium

carried marks that were essentially

brands created by the large mills or

beneficios. These brands obscured

exactly where the coffee had been grown

and the unique teroir or qualities that

it may possess. There was little in the

processing chain to keep the individual

lots distinct. In the mid to late 2000s,

however, there was a dramatic increase

in micro mills. Farmers were investing

in small-cale post-h harvest equipment

of their own and doing more of the

processing themselves. This meant they

were able to increase control over their

coffee and the diversity of styles and

coffees from all regions of Costa Rica

has dramatically increased. In the past,

a unique or unusual coffee would have

been blended in with coffees of

neighboring farms, but not any longer.

This makes Costa Rican coffees exciting

to explore, as it's now easier than ever

to taste several different coffees from

a particular area side by side, and

begin to see the effect geography can

have on taste.

Coffee and tourism.

Costa Rica is the most developed and

considered the safest of the Central

American countries. This makes it an

incredibly popular tourist destination,

especially with North Americans.

Tourism has come not only to displace

coffee as the primary source of income

from abroad, but it has also collided

and combined with it. Ecoourism is

particularly popular in Costa Rica, and

it is possible to visit and take tours

of many coffee farms in the country.

Typically those offering tours are the

larger farms with less focus on absolute

quality, but it is nonetheless

interesting to have the opportunity to

see how coffee farming works up close.

Traceability.

Currently, land ownership is extremely

common in Costa Rica with 90% of coffee

producers there owning small to

medium-sized farms. As such, it's

possible to find coffees traceable to an

individual farm or a particular

cooperative.

Taste profile. Costa Rican coffees are

typically very clean and sweet, though

often very lightbodied. However,

recently micro mills are producing a

wider range of flavors and styles.

Cuba

coffee came to Cuba from the island of

Hispanola in 1748, but there was little

coffee industry to speak of until the

influx of French settlers in 1791,

fleeing the Haitian Revolution. By 1827,

there were around 2,000 coffee farms on

the island, and coffee became a major

export, generating more money than

sugar. Castro's revolution from 1953 to

1961 brought with it the nationalization

of coffee farms, and production dropped

almost immediately. Those who

volunteered to farm coffee had no

experience, and those who had previously

worked the land had fled the country in

the wake of the revolution. Coffee

production struggled on the island and

little in the way of incentives or

encouragement from the government did

much to bolster the industry. Though

production did peak in the 1970s at

around 30,000 metric tonses. As Cuba's

coffee industry was faltering, many

Central American countries continued to

enjoy greater exports and success in

international markets.

The breakdown of the Soviet Union left

Cuba increasingly isolated and the trade

embargo placed on Cuba by the United

States removed a major potential market.

Japan has been the major importer of

Cuban coffee, though Europe remains a

strong market. The best coffees are

typically exported, usually around a

fifth of the total production, leaving

the rest for domestic consumption.

Cuba's own production does not cover

domestic demand, and in 2013, the

country spent nearly $40 million on

imported coffee. The coffee being

imported into Cuba is not of the highest

quality, so it's relatively cheap. But

high market prices have led to the

reappearance of the habit of mixing in

roasted peas to bulk out the coffee.

Right now, Cuban coffee production

remains low at around 6,000 to 7,000

metric tons a year. Much of the

equipment used is old and many of the

producers are still reliant on mules.

Roads are often badly damaged by

alternating rain and drought and are

poorly maintained. Coffee is usually

dried in the sun, though some mechanical

drying takes place, and most of the

coffees grown for export are washed.

Cuba's climate and topography are well

suited to coffee growing, and its

scarcity may add much to its value, but

there are many challenges facing those

producers wishing to create high-quality

coffees.

Cuban coffee. A number of Cuban coffee

preparations have spread around the

world, including cotadito, cafe con

leche, and cafe Kubano. The latter

refers to an espresso that is sweetened

as it is brewed by adding sugar to the

ground coffee. In the United States

especially, and in other places, it is

not uncommon to see Cuban coffee

advertised. True Cuban coffee is illegal

in the United States due to the trade

embargo, but this term is often used to

describe a cafe Kubano. Coffees, often

from Brazil, are selected to represent

the flavors one might expect from Cuba,

but there are, of course, concerns about

confusion among consumers and the

mislabeling of goods. Traceability.

Cuban coffees are unlikely to be

traceable down to a single farm and are

often only traceable down to a

particular region or sub region of the

country. Taste profile. Cuban coffees

have a typical island coffee profile,

relatively low in acidity with a heavier

body.

Dominican Republic.

Coffee came to the Spanish controlled

portion of the island of Hispanola, what

is now the Dominican Republic in 1735.

The first plantings were probably on a

hill in Bahuro Panzo near Na. By the end

of the 18th century, coffee had become

the second most important crop after

sugar, though both relied heavily on

slavery until the revolution of 1791.

Coffee production really took root

between 1822 and 1844, particularly in

the region of Valdez in the southern

mountains. This region contained several

coffee growing areas and became the

primary production area in the country

by 1880.

By 1956, the country had started to

export coffees from specific regions,

predominantly Bani, AOA, and Baldazia.

In the 1960s, the farmers in these

regions became more organized and a mill

was opened in 1967 with 155 members. As

in many coffee producing countries, the

turmoil and unpredictability of prices

at the end of the 20th century have led

to a decreased dependence on coffee as

an export product. Many producers

diversified into beans or avocados,

though a good number of them have

retained a small amount of coffee in

case prices recover.

Although Valdez is not one of the main

government designated growing regions,

they have sought to protect its origin

name with a launch in 2010 of the cafe

de Valdia brand. Export versus domestic

consumption.

Interestingly, it seems since the late

1970s, the quantity of coffee produced

in the Dominican Republic has very

little, but exports have dropped

dramatically. Currently, only about 20%

of the coffee harvested is sold for

export. This is because domestic coffee

consumption is relatively high at

approximately 3 kilos around six and a

half pounds per person per year, more

than the United Kingdom. In 2007, around

half of exports were shipped via Puerto

Rico, though this acts as a gateway to

the United States. The rest of the

coffee was destined for Europe or Japan.

Since 2001, more and more of the coffee

destined for export has been grown

organically and certified, adding value

and revenue to the industry. But while

organic production overall is a good

thing, it should be reiterated that it

does not necessarily make a better cup

of coffee. Some argue that the high

domestic consumption of coffee in the

Dominican Republic has resulted in lower

quality overall as the coffee is not

competing with other exporting countries

for this particular market. Nonetheless,

there are still great coffees to be

found in the Dominican Republic.

Traceability.

While it's possible to get some

extremely traceable coffee, usually down

to a particular farm, much of what is

exported is not particularly traceable

past the growing region. These coffees

are often graded by bean size with

designations such as supreo, which may

carry a premium, but not one that is

based on cup quality. Taste profile.

Typical of coffee grown on islands, the

better tend to be quite mild, low to

middling in acidity, and relatively

clean.

Ecuador.

Coffee came relatively late to Ecuador,

arriving in around 1860 in the province

of Malabi.

Coffee production spread throughout the

country, and by 1905, export to Europe

began from the port of Manta. Ecuador is

one of the relatively few countries to

grow both Arabica and Robusta coffee.

After disease ravaged much of the cocoa

crop in the 1920s, many farmers began to

focus on coffee. Exports began to grow

from 1935, and what was 220,000 bags

then became around 1.8 million bags by

1985. The world coffee crisis of the

1990s caused an inevitable drop in

production, but by 2011, production was

back to around 1 million bags per year.

Until the 1970s, coffee had been

Ecuador's main export crop, but it was

later replaced by oil, shrimp, and

bananas. Ecuadorians consume more

soluble coffee than they do fresh. And

interestingly, the cost of coffee

production in Ecuador is high enough

that soluble coffee manufacturers there

import coffee from Vietnam instead of

buying it in Ecuador. Ecuador does not

hold a great reputation for quality

coffee. In part, this is because 40% of

its production is robuster, but still

most of Ecuador's exported coffee is

relatively low quality. To keep

production costs down, much of the crop

is dried either on the tree before

picking or on patios. And the term to

describe this natural process locally is

cafe ombbola.

This coffee generally ends up in soluble

coffee and around 83% of the country's

export has been naturally processed.

Colombia is one of the main importers

because manufacturers of soluble coffee

there will pay a better price than local

ones. This is because Colombian coffee

is expensive due to the strength of the

national brand in foreign markets. While

coffee has been produced in Ecuador for

a long time, there are those who feel

that it is only now worth considering

coffee from this country as a hidden gem

full of potential. There is certainly

the geography and climate to produce

extraordinary coffees. And it will be

interesting to see if investment from

the specialty coffee industry results in

some great new coffees hailing from

Ecuador in the future. Traceability.

It is rare to find coffee traceable down

to a single estate. It is more common to

see lots from a group of producers or

sometimes a lot can be put together by

an exporter. Lots like this can come

from a large number of farmers, but it

may still be excellent.

Taste profile. Coffees from Ecuador are

beginning to live up to their potential

for quality with sweeter and more

complex coffees becoming available. They

are made more interesting by a pleasant

acidity.

El Salvador.

Coffee was first produced commercially

in El Salvador in the 1850s. It soon

became a favored crop with tax breaks

for producers. Coffee production became

an important part of the economy and the

country's main export. And by 1880, El

Salvador was the fourth largest producer

of coffee in the world, producing more

than twice as much as it does today.

The growth of the coffee industry came

about in part because El Salvador was

moving away from its previous dominant

crop, indigo, after the invention of

chemical dyes in the mid- 19th century.

The land used to grow indigo had been

controlled by a relatively small landed

elite. Coffee production required a

different type of land. So these landed

families used their influence in

government to pass laws to push the poor

from their land so that it could be

absorbed into new coffee plantations.

Compensation to those indigenous people

was all but non-existent. Sometimes they

were simply offered the chance to work

seasonally on the newly established

coffee plantations. By the early 20th

century, El Salvador would become one of

the most progressive of the Central

American nations with the first paved

highways and investment in ports,

railroads, and lavish public buildings.

Coffee helped fund infrastructure and

integrate indigenous communities into

the national economy, but it also served

as a mechanism for the landed elite to

maintain political and economic control

over the country. The aristocracy of the

time exerted their power through the

support of military rule from the 1930s.

And this became a period of relative

stability. The growth of the coffee

industry in the decades that followed

helped support the development of a

cotton industry and light manufacturing.

Up until the civil war of the 1980s, El

Salvador had a reputation for quality

and efficiency in its coffee production

with wellestablished relationships with

importing countries. The civil war,

however, would have a dramatic impact on

this as production fell and foreign

markets looked elsewhere for their

coffee. Heirloom varieties. Despite the

drop in production and exports, the

Civil War had an unexpected benefit for

the coffee industry. Throughout much of

Central America at the time, coffee

producers were replacing their heirloom

varieties with newly developed high

yield varieties. The cup quality of

these new varieties did not match that

of heirloom varieties, but the yield was

favored over quality. El Salvador,

however, never went through this

process. The country still has an

unusually high percentage of heirloom

bourbon trees in total producing around

68% of its coffee. Combined with its

well- drained but mineralrich volcanic

soils, the country has the potential to

produce some stunningly sweet coffees.

This has been the focus of much of El

Salvador's recent coffee marketing and

it has worked hard to regain its

standing amongst the coffee producing

countries and reestablish old

relationships with consuming nations.

Large estates still exist in Al

Salvador, but there are also a lot of

small farms. It's a great country to

explore as there are many stunning

coffees full of sweetness and

complexity.

The Pacas variety. In 1949, a mutation

of the Bon variety was discovered by Don

Alberto Pacas on one of his farms. It

was named after him and was later

crossed with Maragipe, a variety of

coffee with very large beans to create

the Pakamara variety. Both desirable

varieties remain in production in the

region and in neighboring countries.

Traceability. The infrastructure in

place means that it's relatively easy to

retain the traceability on highquality

coffees right back to farm level. And

many farms are able to create microlotss

based around process and variety.

Taste profile. The Bourbon variety

coffees from El Salvador are famously

sweet and well balanced with a pleasing

soft acidity to give balance in the cup.

Altitude classifications. Al Salvador

still sometimes classifies coffee based

on the altitude at which it was grown.

These classifications have no relation

to either quality or traceability.

Strictly high grown SHG grown above

1,200 m 3,900 ft. High grown HG grown

above 900 m

3,000 ft. Central standard grown above

600 m or 2,000 ft.

Guatemala.

Many believe that coffee was first

introduced to Guatemala by the Jesuits

around 1750, though there are accounts

of it being grown and served in the

country in 1747.

As in El Salvador, coffee only became an

important crop in Guatemala after 1856

when the invention of chemical dyes

reduced the demand for indigo, which was

at the time the main cash crop. The

government had already made some

attempts to diversify away from Indigo.

In 1845, it formed the Commission for

Coffee Cultivation and Promotion, which

produced educational materials for

coffee producers and also helped

establish a price and levels of quality.

In 1868, the government distributed

around 1 million coffee seeds in an

effort to further stimulate the

industry. When Hustto Rufino Barios came

to power in 1871, he made coffee the

backbone of the economy. Unfortunately,

his reforms resulted in the indigenous

people of Guatemala being further

deprived of their land as they led to

the sale of around 400,000 hectares,

990,000

acres of what was considered public

land. These became large coffee

plantations. The efforts to stimulate

coffee production certainly worked,

however, and by 1880, coffee made up

around 90% of Guatemala's exports.

Coffee would again be involved in the

country's politics following the global

depression in 1930.

Horge Ubiko had come to power and worked

to lower the price of coffee to help

stimulate export. He built extensive

infrastructure but gave more power and

land to the United Fruit Company UFC, an

American corporation that grew to be

extremely powerful. Uber ultimately

resigned due to a general strike and

protests against him. There followed a

period of democratic free speech and

president Arab Benz proposed a land

reform act in 1953 to expropriate land

largely controlled by the UFC to

redistribute it for agricultural

purposes. Both large coffee plantation

owners and the UFC supported by the US

state department fought against the

reforms. In 1954 a CIA coup overthrew

the Arben's government and the proposed

land reforms never took place. This set

the country down a path towards a civil

war that lasted from 1960 to 1996.

Many of the issues that provoked the

war, poverty, land distribution, hunger,

and racism towards indigenous peoples

are still issues today. Guatemala's

coffee production peaked at the turn of

the millennium as many producers moved

away from coffee into macadamia nuts and

avocados after the coffee crisis of

2001.

Coffee leaf rust has also been an

increasing problem for producers

throughout the country, damaging a large

portion of their production.

Traceability.

Guatemalan coffees should be traceable

down to a farm level or down to a

cooperative or producer group. While

some regions in Guatemala are now

protected denominations of origin, the

country has a long history of

traceability and estates producing

highquality coffee because many farmers

have their own wet mills and process

their own coffee. Taste profile. A wide

range of flavors are present in

Guatemala's coffees. From lighter, very

sweet, fruity, and complex coffees

through to the heavier, richer, and more

chocolatey cups. Altitude grading.

Similar to other Central American

countries, Guatemala uses a version of

altitude grading. Prime grown at 750 to

900 m, 2,000 to 3,000 ft. Extra prime

grown at 900 to 1,50 m. 3,00 to 3,500

ft. Semih hard bean grown at 1,50 m

to,220 m. 3,500 to 4,000 ft. Hard bean

HB grown at 1220 to,300 m, 4,000 to

4,300 ft. Strictly hard bean, SHB, grown

over 1,300 meters above 4,300 ft.

Haiti

coffee probably came to Haiti from the

island of Martineique while it was a

newly founded French colony in 1725.

The first coffee was likely grown around

Tero Rouge in the northeast of the

country. 10 years later, another coffee

plantation appeared in the mountains in

the north of Haiti. Coffee production

rapidly increased on the island and a

number of sources claim that between

1750 and 1788 Haiti produced between 50

and 60% of the world's coffee. The

industry would reach its peak in 1788

and the following years of revolution

ultimately leading to independence in

1804 would see coffee production rapidly

decline. The freeing of slaves on the

island didn't just have an impact on the

production of coffee, but also led to

the country being ostracized in terms of

international trade. However, the

industry would slowly rebuild and see

another peak in 1850 before receding

again. Coffee production once again

boomed in the 1940s, and in 1949, Haiti

produced 1/3 of the world's coffee.

Coffee production, like many aspects of

Hades economy, suffered under the

Duvalier regimes between 1957 and 1986,

and natural disasters would play a role

in further hampering the industry. The

collapse of the International Coffee

Agreement led to reports in 1990 of

farmers choosing to burn their coffee

trees to make charcoal to sell instead.

In the mid 1990s, an organization called

Federes Associier

Nativ Fac was created. It would buy

dried parchment coffee and then mill it,

sorted and blended. The coffee had been

washed rather than dry processed and

this was somewhat unusual. It created a

brand name called Haitian Blue,

referencing the color of the raw coffee

caused by the washing process and

controlled its route to market. In doing

so, it was for a while able to lift the

prices paid to growers. While not

traceable in the way we expect specialty

coffee to be today, it did create a

premium around provenence and story.

However, mismanagement of the

organization led to declining volumes

and not meeting contracts with roasters

led to the eventual decline and

bankruptcy of the FACN.

The earthquake in 2010 that devastated

the island also devastated the coffee

industry, which had already been in

steady decline. Worth $7 million in

2000. By 2010, it had dwindled in value

to just $1 million. There was hope that

coffee would play a role in the

country's economic recovery alongside

mangoes, the other major crop. Various

NOS's, non-governmental organizations,

have worked to invest in the industry.

And while there is highquality washed

coffee being exported from the country,

the industry remains very small and is

growing slowly.

Traceability. If you can find

high-quality coffee from Haiti, then

it's going to come most likely from a

cooperative of growers. There are no

single estates selling coffee in the

country. Haiti consumes almost as much

coffee as it produces, so very little is

exported.

Taste profile. Relatively full-bodied,

earthy and sometimes spicy with a little

acidity. A typical island coffee taste

profile. Better lots have a soft

sweetness.

United States.

Hawaii.

Hawaii is the only coffee producing

region in a first world country. This

changes the economics as well as the

marketing of the coffee. The producers

here have been successful at engaging

consumers directly, often entwining the

coffee with a visit to the islands, but

many coffee professionals feel that the

quality of the coffee may not merit its

price. Coffee was first brought to

Hawaii in 1817, although these initial

plantings were unsuccessful. In 1825,

the governor of Oahu, Chief Boi, was on

voyage from Europe and stopped off in

Brazil, where he picked up some coffee

plants. These plants did thrive and

coffee production was soon widespread

across the Hawaiian Islands. The Bourbon

variety was probably brought to the Big

Island in 1828 and the first commercial

plantation in Kawaii began operation in

1836.

However, plantations in the Hanlay

Valley of Kauaii were destroyed by the

coffee blight insect in 1858.

The only region that continued to

produce coffee from these initial

plantings is the Kona region on the Big

Island. In the late 1800s, the industry

attracted migrants from China and then

Japan who came to work on the

plantations. In the 1920s, many

Filipinos arrived to work on the coffee

farms during harvest time and the

sugarcane plantations in the spring.

However, coffee did not become hugely

important to the island economy until

the 1980s when sugar production ceased

to be sufficiently profitable. The event

triggered a renewed interest in coffee

right across the state.

Kona. The best known growing region in

Hawaii and one of the best known in the

world is the Kona region on the Big

Island. A long history of coffee

production has helped cement the

reputation of the region. Although its

success has led to its exploitation

through the mislabeling of coffee,

legislation on the island now means that

any Kona blend must state the quantity

of coffee from Kona on it and the use of

the 100% Kona trademark is carefully

controlled. A farm called Konai in

California had previously fought the

awarding of any trademark or protection

for the name. But in 1996, its executive

was found guilty of filling his Kona

coffee bags with beans from Costa Rica.

More recently, the region has been

challenged by the problem of coffee

berry bora. The island has introduced a

number of measures to combat the blight

with some success. Although there were

fears that a reduction in yield would

drive the already high price of Kona

coffee even higher.

Kona grading. Kona has its own grading

system mostly based on the size of the

beans but also divided into type one and

type two. Type one are these standard

coffee beans with two beans per cherry

while type two are exclusively

peberries.

Within type one, Kona extra fancy are

the largest beans. Then they decreased

in size through the following grades.

Kona fancy, Kona number one, Kona select

and Kona prime. Within type two, there

are only two grades. Kona number one pir

and the smaller Kona pou prime. There

are requirements for a maximum level of

defects in most of the grades, but these

are quite generous and not in themselves

a reliable indicator of quality.

Traceability. It will come as no

surprise that in a developed country,

the expectations of traceability should

be high. Coffees are usually traceable

down to a specific farm. In many cases,

the farms roast their own coffees to

sell direct to consumers and tourists.

Many also export some of their crop,

predominantly to the mainland United

States. Taste profile. Typically lower

in acidity with a little bit more body.

Approachable but rarely complex and

fruited.

Honduras.

Since it is now the largest producer of

coffee in Central America, it is

surprising how little is known about the

introduction of coffee to Honduras. What

is probably the earliest record dated to

1804 discusses the quality of coffee

produced there. This dates the arrival

of coffee to before 1799 as the plants

would take a few years to produce a

crop. It has only really been since 2001

that Honduras's production of coffee has

increased dramatically. While the coffee

industry drove the growth and

development of infrastructure in much of

Central America during the 1800s, due to

Honduras's late blossoming, the

infrastructure simply was not there.

This has provided a challenge for

quality and has meant that much of the

coffee produced under this new expansion

was destined for the commodity market.

Only more recently have we begun to see

excellent coffees coming out of

Honduras.

The National Coffee Institute, the

Institut Honduro del Cafe, IH Cafe, was

established in 1970 and is working to

improve quality. In each of the six

regions it has defined, there is a

coffee tasting laboratory to assist

local producers.

Honduras was producing just under 6

million bags of coffee a year by 2011,

more than Costa Rica and Guatemala

combined. Around 110,000 families are

involved in the production of coffee

across the country. As for its future,

there are concerns about the impact of

leaf rust. A state of national emergency

was declared after harvests were badly

damaged in 2012 and 13, and the effects

of leaf rust usually last a few years.

Classification of coffee. Honduras uses

a similar system to El Salvador and

Guatemala, which describes and

categorizes the coffee by the altitude

at which they were grown. Above 1,200 m,

3,900 ft, a coffee can be described as

strictly high grown, SHG, and above

1,000 m or 3,300 ft as high grown, HG.

While there is some correlation between

altitude and quality, it is most common

to see less traceable lots marketed this

way. Though more traceable coffees often

carry the initials, too. The problem of

climate.

While the land is well suited to growing

great coffee, the weather poses a

challenge. The high rainfall often makes

it difficult to dry the beans after

processing. So, some producers use a

combination of sun drying and mechanical

drying. This has landed Honduras with a

reputation for producing great coffees

that can fade quite quickly, but much

work is being done to address this

problem. Much of the coffee is

warehoused before shipping in extremely

hot conditions near Puerto Cortez, which

can degrade it further. There are

obviously always exceptions to the rule,

however, and the very best coffees from

Honduras generally hold up better over

time. Traceability. It is possible to

get high levels of traceability in

Honduras down to estate level or down to

a specific cooperative or producer

group. Taste profile. A range of

different flavors are found in Honduran

coffees, but the best often have a

complex fruity quality and a lively

juicy acidity.

Jamaica.

The story of coffee on the island begins

in 1728 when the governor Sir Nicholas

Lors received a coffee plant from the

governor of Martineique. Lors had

already experimented with several crops

and he planted the coffee in the St.

Andrew area. Initially, its production

was relatively limited. In 1752, Jamaica

exported only 27 metric tons of coffee.

The real boom started in the second half

of the 18th century with coffee

spreading from the St. Andrew area up to

the Blue Mountains. In 1800, 686 coffee

plantations were in operation and by

1814, Jamaica's annual production was

around 15,000 tons of coffee, although

some estimates are considerably higher.

After this boom, the industry started to

see a slow decline. The primary reason

was probably the lack of labor, although

other factors also played a role. The

slave trade had been abolished in 1807,

but the emancipation of slaves on the

island did not happen until 1838.

While there had been some efforts to

recruit former slaves as private

laborers, coffee struggled to compete

with other industries. And when combined

with both poor soil management and the

loss of favorable trade conditions that

Britain had previously extended its

colonies, it resulted in a steep decline

for coffee. By 1850, there were only

around 180 plantations left, and

production had dropped to 1,500 metric

tonses. At the end of the 19th century,

Jamaica was producing around 4,000

metric tonses of coffee. But serious

issues with quality were starting to

appear. In 1891, legislation had been

passed to try to spread knowledge about

coffee production in an effort to

increase quality, and infrastructure was

put into place for the centralized

processing and grading of coffee.

This program had limited success,

although a central coffee clearing house

was constructed in 1944 for all coffee

to pass through before export. And in

1950, the Jamaican coffee board was

formed. From this point onwards, coffees

from the Blue Mountain region made slow

and steady gains in reputation until

they came to be considered amongst the

finest coffees in the world. At that

time, however, few wellprocessed coffees

were available. And today, Jamaica's

coffees cannot really compete against

the very best coffees from Central and

South America or East Africa. Jamaican

coffees tend to be clean, sweet, and

very mild. They lack the complexity or

distinct characteristics that one may

expect from specialty grade coffees.

However, they were consistently

producing and cleverly marketing clean

and sweet coffees long before other

producers were, and this gave their

coffees a distinct advantage for some

time. Taste profile. Clean, sweet

coffees, though rarely complex or juicy

and fruity.

Mexico.

The first coffee plants were probably

brought to Mexico around 1785, most

likely from Cuba or what is now the

Dominican Republic. There are reports of

plantations in the region of Veraracruz

in 1790.

However, due to the wealth earned from

Mexico's rich mineral deposits, for many

years, there was little drive behind

energizing and creating a coffee

industry.

Only after the Mexican Revolution ended

in 1920 did coffee growing spread to

small farms. In 1914, there had been a

redistribution of land back to

indigenous peoples and to laborers, and

many of those trapped working on coffee

plantations were freed and were able to

return to their communities, taking

their coffee growing skills with them.

This redistribution of land broke up

many of the larger hiendas and this was

the beginning of smallh holder

production in Mexico. In 1973 the

government formed the Mexican coffee

institute the institut Mexican del cafe

referred to as inme cafe. They were

tasked with providing technical

assistance and financial credit to

producers and work within the

international coffee agreement to meet

and stay within the agreed production

quotas. This investment in the industry

led to a rapid expansion in both

production and the amount of land

dedicated to coffee. In some rural

areas, production increased by almost

900%.

However, the 1980s saw the Mexican

government change its policy towards

coffee, in part due to its heavy

borrowing and the drop in the price of

oil that led to it defaulting on its

loans. Support of the industry slowly

began to decline and in 1989, Inmma Cafe

collapsed completely and the government

sold off its state-owned coffee

processing facilities. The effect on the

industry was devastating. Credit had

dried up and many farmers struggled to

find places to sell their coffee. This

led to an increase in predatory coffee

brokers known as coyotees who would buy

coffee from farmers very cheaply to

resell at a profit. The loss of inme

cafe combined with the coffee price

crisis caused by the breakdown of the

1989 international coffee agreement had

a strong effect on the quality of coffee

being produced too. With less income,

huge numbers of producers ceased using

fertilizers, stopped investing in pest

protection, and spent less time and

resources on weeding and farm

management. In some cases, farmers

simply stopped harvesting their coffee.

Interestingly, some producers,

particularly in the states of Wajaka,

Giapis, and Veraracruz, responded by

forming collectives to take over many of

the responsibilities previously held by

Inmate Cafe, including the collective

purchasing and running of coffee mills,

technical assistance, political

lobbying, and even assistance in

developing direct relationships with

buyers.

Coffee producers in Mexico seem to have

embraced coffee certifications. Fair

trade and organic, in particular, are

quite common.

Mexico sells a great deal of its coffee

to the United States, so it is

relatively rare to find excellent

examples of Mexican coffee elsewhere in

the world. Traceability. Most coffee in

Mexico is produced by small holders

rather than larger states. Traceability

should be possible down to a producer

group, cooperative, or occasionally down

to a farm. Taste profile.

Mexico produces quite a range of coffee

across its regions from lighterbodied

delicate coffees through to sweeter

coffees with caramel, toffee or

chocolate flavors in the cup.

Nicaragua

coffee was first brought to Nicaragua by

Catholic missionaries in 1790 and

initially it was grown as something of a

curiosity. It was not until around 1840

that it gained economic significance in

response to an increasing global demand

for coffee. The first commercial

plantations appeared around Managua.

The 100red-year period between 1840 and

1940 is often referred to as the coffee

boom years in Nicaragua. And during this

time, coffee had a dramatic effect on

the economy. As coffee gained importance

and value, so it required the input of

more and more resources and labor. By

1870, coffee was Nicaragua's primary

export crop, and the government strove

to make it easier for foreign companies

to invest in the industry and to acquire

land. Previously, public land was sold

to private individuals, and the

government encouraged the creation of

large farms with these subsidy laws

passed in 1879 and 1889, which paid

planters 5 cents for every tree they

planted over 5,000 trees.

By the end of the 19th century,

Nicaragua came to resemble something of

a banana republic with most of the

profit from coffee either leaving the

country or going to a small number of

local land owners. The first growers

cooperative was formed in the early 20th

century and the idea of cooperatives was

promoted again from time to time during

the Samoza family dictatorship between

1936 and 1979.

However, the overthrow of the Samosa

family by the Sandinistas and the

ushering in of communism in 1979 was the

beginning of a difficult time for the

coffee industry. The Contras, rebel

groups backed by the US and the CIA

formed to oppose the new government,

targeted the coffee industry as part of

their campaign, attacking vehicles

transporting coffee farm workers as well

as sabotaging coffee mills. Despite

these setbacks, in 1992, coffee was

still Nicaragua's primary export.

However, the crash in coffee prices

between 1999 and 2003 massively damaged

the coffee sector again. Three of the

largest six banks in the country

collapsed due to their level of exposure

to coffee production. The effect of low

prices was perhaps multiplied further

after the devastation of Hurricane Mitch

in 1998 and the drought at the turn of

the millennium.

Things are now, however, looking up for

Nicaraguan coffee and more farmers are

focusing on quality. In the past, the

traceability of coffee was poor and most

sold as a mill brand or as being from a

particular region. Now, the levels of

traceability are very high.

Traceability. You should be able to find

coffees traceable down to single estates

or to producer groups or cooperatives.

Taste profile. A range of flavors are

found in Nicaraguan coffees. They are

typically quite complex and capable of

pleasing fruitlike flavors and clean

acidity.

Panama

coffee plants probably arrived in Panama

with the first European settlers in the

early 19th century. In the past, Panama

did not have a very good reputation for

its coffees and its production was about

onetenth of that of its neighbor Costa

Rica. But now there is increasing

interest from the specialty coffee

community in the highquality coffees it

can produce. Panama's geography is such

that there are a number of distinct

microclimates in its coffee growing

regions and there are some incredibly

skilled and dedicated producers

currently growing coffee. This means

that there are some stellar coffees

being produced though these often come

with relatively high asking prices.

These high prices are partly determined

by the other major factor influencing

the industry there, real estate. There

is a high demand for land from North

Americans wishing to buy a home in a

stable, beautiful, and relatively cheap

country. Many farms that once produced

coffee have now been sold as homes for

expats. Panama also has a higher

standard of labor laws, so coffee

pickers tend to be paid a higher wage

there, a cost that is passed on to the

consumer. Hienda la Esmeralda. When it

comes to discussing the price of coffee,

one particular farm in Panama merits a

mention, and it is hard to think of

another estate that has had such a

strong influence on the coffee industry

in Central America. That farm is

Hassienda Lasaralda, owned and operated

by the Petersonen family. At a time when

the commodity price of coffee was

relatively low, the Specialty Coffee

Association of Panama organized a

competition called the Best of Panama.

The best lots of coffee from different

farms in Panama were ranked and then put

up for an online auction. Hassiand de

Lasalda had been growing a distinct

variety called Gisher for some years,

but this competition brought their

coffee to a wider audience. They won the

competition for four successive years

from 2004 to 2007, then again in 2009,

2010, and a category of the competition

in 2013.

From the outset, this coffee broke

records when it achieved a price of $21

per pound in 2004, which incrementally

crept up to $170 per pound in 2010. A

small lot of its naturally processed

coffee sold for $350.25

per pound in 2013, leaving no one in

doubt that this was the most expensive

single estate coffee in the world.

Unlike some other very high-priced

coffees such as the appalling

noveltydriven Copil luak or some of the

Jamaica Blue Mountain coffees, this farm

achieved its prices due to the genuinely

high quality of its coffee. Although

high demand and great marketing

undoubtedly played a role, this

record-breaking coffee tastes quite

unusual. Extremely floral and citrusy,

though quite light and tealike in body.

These characteristics are attributed to

the Geisha variety. The impact of this

farm can be seen in the number of farms

in Panama and in Central America who

have started planting geisha. For many

producers, this variety seemed like a

promise of higher prices and to some

extent this has proven to be true as

geisha lots are usually sold for higher

prices than other varieties.

Traceability. One should expect high

levels of traceability from Panama.

Coffees are often traceable down to a

single estate, and it is not unusual to

see distinct lots from one particular

estate, such as a coffee produced by a

distinct post-h harvest process or one

from a specific variety of the coffee

plant. Taste profile. The better coffees

tend to be citrusy and floral,

lightbodied, delicate, and complex.

Peru.

Coffee was brought to Peru between 1740

and 1760 at a time when the vice royalty

of Peru covered a larger area than the

country does today. Although the climate

was well suited to large-scale coffee

production, all coffee grown in the

first 100 years or so was consumed

locally. The first exports of coffee to

Germany and England did not begin until

1887.

In the 1900s, the Peruvian government

defaulted on a loan from the British

government and ended up giving them 2

million hectares, 5 million acres, of

land in central Peru as repayment. One

quarter of this land was turned over to

plantations, growing crops which

included coffee. Migrant workers from

the Highlands came to work on these

farms, and some ended up owning some

land themselves. Others would later buy

land from the British when they left

Peru. Unfortunately for the coffee

industry, Juan Velasco's government

brought in laws in the 1970s that would

growth. The International Coffee

Agreement had guaranteed sales and

prices, so there had been little

incentive to create proper

infrastructure. When state support was

withdrawn, the coffee industry sank into

disarray. The quality of the coffee and

Peru's market position further suffered

at the hands of the Communist Party, the

Shining Path, whose guerilla activity

destroyed crops and drove farmers from

their land.

The vacuum left in Peru's coffee

industry has recently been filled by

non-government organizations such as

Fair Trade and now a large quantity of

coffee from Peru is FTC certified. More

and more land is also being devoted to

coffee. In 1980 there were around 62,000

hectares, about 150,000 acres. Today

there are 95,000 hectares, 235,000

acres. Peru is now one of the largest

producers of coffee in the world. The

infrastructure within Peru still stands

in the way of the country producing

extremely highquality lots. Few mills

are situated close to farms, which means

that the coffee is often traveling

longer than is desirable after harvest

before the processing starts. Some

coffees end up being bought and blended

with other coffees, then resold on route

to the coast for export. Interestingly,

around one quarter of the 100,000 small

producers in the country are now members

of cooperatives. Although it is

important to remember that the fair

trade certification can only apply to

coffee produced by a cooperative. There

is also a strong culture of organic

production in Peru, though this rarely

yields a higher cup quality. In fact,

the organic coffees produced in Peru are

often so cheap that they end up bringing

down prices paid to other farmers

regardless of them producing higher

quality coffee. Perhaps because of this

and also because of the widespread

cultivation of the typical variety, leaf

rust is increasingly a problem for

Peruvian producers. While the 2013 crop

was good, there have been severe

outbreaks of leaf rust which may well

reduce overall production in the near

future.

Traceability. The best coffee should be

traceable down to a producer group or

down to a single estate. Taste profile.

Typically, Peruvian coffees have been

clean but a little soft and flat. They

are sweet and relatively heavy-bodied

but not very complex. Increasingly,

there are distinctive and juicier

coffees becoming available.

Venezuela.

The introduction of coffee to Venezuela

is generally credited to a Jesuit priest

named Joseé Gumier in around 1730.

Venezuela came to be known for its

plantations of tobacco and cacao run on

slave labor. And from around 1793, there

is evidence of large coffee plantations,

too. From around 1800, coffee took an

increasingly important role in the

economy. During the Venezuelan War of

Independence, from 1811 to 1823, cacao

production began to drop, but coffee

production surged. The first boom in the

country's coffee industry took place

between 1830 and 1855 when Venezuela

produced around 1/3 of the world's

coffee. Coffee continued to grow in

production, peaking in 1919 with a total

export of 1.37 million bags. Together,

coffee and cacao accounted for 75% of

the country's entire export revenue.

Most of the coffee went to the United

States. In the 1920s, Venezuela's

economy became increasingly dependent on

petroleum, although coffee remained a

good source of revenue. Much of the

revenue was spent on national

infrastructure until the prices dropped

in the 1930s, and the production and

processing infrastructure suffered as a

consequence. This period also saw a

shift towards privatization in the

coffee industry, stripping peasants of

much of their power to grow their own

coffee on public land. Since this

period, the nation has been

fundamentally dependent on petroleum

products and other mineral exports.

Coffee production and exports had

remained relatively high with Venezuela

nearly matching the production of

Colombia. But that changed under the

government of Ugo Chavez. In 2003, the

government introduced strict regulations

on coffee production, which meant the

country increasingly had to rely on

imports for domestic consumption, mostly

from Nicaragua and Brazil. Venezuela

exported 479,000

bags of coffee in 1992/93

and this dropped again to 19,000 bags in

2009 2010.

Government fixed sales prices have been

considerably below the cost of

production which has inevitably damaged

the industry. Few can predict how the

situation will change in the wake of

Chaffis' death. Traceability as so

little coffee is exported from the

country. Coming across Venezuelan

coffees of quality is rare. While some

should be traceable down to single

estates, it is more common to see

coffees described by their region names.

Generally speaking, the low altitude and

lack of focus on cup quality means that

I would recommend trying Venezuelan

coffees only if they are being provided

by a roaster whose coffees you generally

enjoy and who you trust. Taste profile.

The better coffees from Venezuela are

quite sweet, a little low in acidity and

relatively rich in terms of mouth feel

and texture.

Glossery

Arabica, short for cafe arabica, the

most widely grown species of the coffee

plant. It is considered superior to

robusta, the other species commonly

grown.

Aromatic compound. A chemical compound

within coffee that contributes to the

aroma of the coffee when ground or

brewed. Bloom. Pouring a small amount of

water onto the coffee at the start of a

pore of a brew in order to start the

extraction process is called the bloom

because of the way that the coffee

swells when it gets wet. Brew ratio. The

relationship between the amount of

ground coffee used and the amount of

water used to brew it.

Brew time. The total amount of time

water is in contact with coffee when it

is being brewed. Burr grinder. A coffee

grinder that has two sharp cutting

discs, usually metal, that can be

adjusted to grind coffee to the desired

grind size.

C price. The price of commodity coffee

traded on the stock market. This price

is considered the base price for coffee

trading.

Cherry. The fruit of the coffee tree is

often called a cherry or berry. The two

seeds inside the cherry are the coffee

beans.

Coffee berry bora, a pest that afflicts

the coffee crop, borrowing into the

fruit and consuming the beans inside.

Commodity coffee. Coffee that has no

value linked to its quality and whose

traceability is neither important nor

often available.

Cooperative. A group of farmers working

together for their mutual benefit.

Crema. The layer of brown foam that

appears on top of an espresso caused by

the drink being brewed under high

pressure. Cup of excellence competition.

A program established to find, evaluate,

and rank fine quality coffee from a

particular country and then sell the

winning coffees through an international

online auction system. Cup quality. The

combination of the positive taste and

flavor attributes of a particular

coffee. Cupping. The process of brewing,

smelling, and tasting coffee used by

professional tasters in the coffee

industry.

Dark roast. Coffee roasted for a longer

time until the bean is a very dark brown

with an oily surface.

Defect. A flaw in the coffee bean that

contributes an unpleasant taste. Dialing

in. The process of adjusting an espresso

grinder until the resulting coffee

tastes good and is properly extracted.

Dry mill, a facility that will hull,

sort, and grade parchment coffee ready

for export. Dry process, a post-h

harvest process in which the whole

coffee cherry is dried before being

hauled to extract the green coffee

inside. Extraction, the process of

brewing coffee in which a percentage of

the ground coffee is dissolved in the

water. Fair Trade Movement, a group of

organizations looking to certify and

reward cooperatives of coffee producers

with a guaranteed premium and minimum

price for their coffee.

Fast roast. The commercial technique of

roasting coffee very quickly, often in

less than 5 minutes as part of the

process of making instant or soluble

coffee. Fully washed. A posth harvest

process in which the coffee beans are

squeezed from the fruit, fermented, and

washed clean before being dried. Gilling

basa, a posth harvest process common in

Indonesia in which the coffee is hullled

from its parchment layer while still at

high moisture levels and then dried.

This contributes a particular earthy

quality to the coffeey's flavor. Green

coffee, the coffee industry term for

raw, unroasted coffee. This is the state

in which coffee is traded

internationally. Grind size, the size of

the particles of ground coffee. The

finer and smaller the pieces, the easier

it is to extract flavor from the coffee.

Heirloom varieties, a term used for

varieties of coffee that have been

traditionally grown for some time. Honey

process, a posth harvest process similar

to the pulped natural process in which

the coffee bean is squeezed from the

fruit, but a variable amount of fruit

flesh is left on during the drying

phase.

Inraoso

also known as resting. This describes

the period of time when raw coffee is

stored in parchment before it is holed,

graded and exported. This process is

considered important in stabilizing the

moisture content within the bean.

International coffee agreement first

signed in 1962. This is a quotota system

in place between many coffee producing

countries and some importing countries

in order to prevent supply and demand

swings on the global market and

stabilize pricing.

Latte art. The patterns created by

carefully pouring foamed milk into

espresso coffee.

Leaf rust. An orange brown fungus that

attacks the leaves on a coffee tree,

eventually causing the tree to die.

Light roast. A coffee roasted in such a

way as to preserve its acidity and

fruier flavors. The term refers to the

coffee bean being a lighter shade of

brown.

Lot a distinct quantity of coffee which

has gone through some sort of selection

process. Microfoam. The tiny bubbles of

foam created when milk is properly

steamed. Microlot. typically 10 bags or

fewer each weighing 60 or 69 kilos of a

particular selection from a farm or

producer group. Monsooning along India's

Malabar coast harvested coffee beans are

exposed to the monsoon rain for 3 or 4

months causing them to lose their

acidity.

Mouth feel a term used to describe the

texture and tactile attributes of the

coffee when drinking it ranging from

very light and teaike through to rich

and creamy. Natural process. A post-h

harvest process in which the coffee

beans are picked and then carefully

dried in the sun until the entire cherry

is dry.

Over extraction. This refers to

extracting more of the soluble material

than desired when brewing coffee,

resulting in the cup that tastes bitter,

harsh, and unpleasant.

Parchment. The protective papery layer

surrounding the coffee bean which is

removed before the coffee is exported.

Parchment coffee. Coffee that has been

harvested and processed but still has

its papery layer surrounding the bean.

This protective layer prevents a

decrease in quality before the coffee is

exported.

Pee

term used to describe a single bean

forming inside a coffee cherry instead

of two. Potato defect. A defect common

in parts of East Africa as a result of

which a single bean will smell strongly

of potato skins when ground and brewed.

Pulped natural process. A post-h harvest

process in which the coffee beans are

squeezed mechanically from the fruit

before being dried on patios or raised

beds.

Robusta, one of the two main

commercially produced species of coffee,

Robusta is considered lower in quality

than Arabica, but is easier to grow at

lower altitudes and more resistant to

pests and disease.

Rust resistant varieties. Varieties of

Arabica and Robusta that are resistant

to a fungus called leaf rust or royer

which consumes the leaves on the tree

ultimately killing the plant.

Screen size. Coffee beans are sorted by

size using large screens with varying

hole sizes in them. This is part of the

grading process before a coffee is

exported.

Silver skin. A very fine papery layer

that clings to the coffee bean. It comes

loose during roasting and is then

referred to as chaff. Slow roast. A

slower, gentler roasting process

typically used by those looking to roast

a coffee in such a way that it tastes as

good as possible. Depending on the

roasting machine and technique, the

process can take between 10 and 20

minutes per roast.

Small holder. A producer who owns a

small amount of land on which to grow

coffee.

Specialty market. The market for coffee

traded on the basis of its quality and

flavor. This term covers every aspect of

the industry including producers,

exporters, importers, roasters, cafes,

and consumers.

Strength of coffee. A term to describe

how much dissolved coffee a cup of

coffee contains. Typically, a cup of

brewed coffee is 1.3 to 1.5% dissolved

coffee and the rest is water. With

espresso, the ratio may be closer to 8

to 12% dissolved coffee.

Strip picking, a harvesting technique

that involves pickers running their hand

down a branch to remove all the cherries

in one motion. While quick, this

technique means unripe cherries are

harvested along with ripe ones, and the

cherries will need to be sorted later in

the process.

Tamping. When making espresso, this is

the process of pushing the ground coffee

down so that it forms an even flat bed

before it is brewed under very high

pressure. This helps ensure the coffee

brews evenly.

Tervoir, the combined effects of

geography and climate on the way a

coffee tastes.

Traceability, the transparency of the

supply chain in coffee and its

preservation, so one can know exactly

who produced a particular lot of coffee.

Typica, the oldest variety of Arabica

that has been used in commercial coffee

production. under extraction. In the

process of brewing coffee, this happens

when we fail to dissolve all the desired

solubles in ground coffee, leaving us

with a sour, often aringent cup of

coffee.

Washed process, a posth harvest process

where the coffee cherries are squeezed,

forcing the beans out. These beans are

then fermented to break down the sticky

fruit flesh that is clinging to them.

This is then washed off and the coffee

is then dried carefully and slowly.

washing station, a facility that

receives coffee cherries and processes

them until they are dry parchment coffee

using a variety of post-h harvest

processes.

You have been listening to a Mitchell

Beasley audio book, The World Atlas of

Coffee, From Beans to Brewing, Coffees

Explored, Explained, and Enjoyed.

Written and read by James Hoffman.

Produced by Paul Dawson for ID Audio.

The recording is copyright 2021 by the

Octopus Publishing Group Limited. For

information about other Octopus audio