Daniel of Arabica

brew, drink, repeat

Coffee in India

From NPR, and via a tweet by my friend @stephinstereo (a musician and student of music, who blogs at Double Narrative) I find out that coffee in India is setting itself up to be a big thing. Although, as the interviewee in the piece admits, it’s not really the coffee that attracts, but the prospect of place to meet that doesn’t offer alcohol (still frowned upon, it seems) for young people.

Café Coffee Day focused on convincing them that they liked getting coffee, even if they weren’t coffee lovers

– Arvind Singhal, the head of Technopack, a consulting firm in New Delhi

All of it sounds amazingly similar to the reasoning behind the rise of Starbucks and its ilk here in the states.

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Penned by Daniel, in Miscellanea on 9 February 2012

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Hofmann and the Nespresso

James Hoffmann, part-owner of the esteemed coffee roaster Square Mile in London, penned another quality piece on his site Jimseven, entitled “Nespresso”.

Nespresso—that paragon of coffee brewing ease and convenience—has been taking some hits from the Twitter streams (and other places as well, I suppose) of coffee professionals and enthusiasts of late because they have become very successful at selling what is considered to be less-than-premium coffee at more-than-premium prices.

While I regularly, willingly, and enthusiastically pay between $17 and $25 per 12oz. bag of quality beans from reputable new-style1 coffee roasters, a Nespresso customer is paying much, much more per oz. Regularly. Willingly. Enthusiastically (I assume). I’ve heard (and this is from memory, not research) prices of as much as $60/lb. as not being unusual.

The assumption is that these are the same people who would crow no end of foul play and marketing chicanery at the prospect of paying what I pay, for the bag that sits in my cupboard. And yet they pay more. James seems to infer that they may be the same people…

Lots of these people buy great coffees to drink as drip – they might buy fresh whole bean coffee, well farmed and roasted, to drink alongside their Nespresso.

…but, absent some sort of empirical data clearly stating otherwise, I don’t think that’s the truth. These people, from a marketing standpoint, are not the same people at all. Their motivations are completely different from mine. Paramount in their decision on what coffee to buy and how best to prepare it, is the concept of convenience.

When James says…

Ultimately my point is this: Nespresso and K-Cups success clearly demonstrate that people are happy to pay more for coffee. They are happy to pay a lot more. Their enormous sales volumes are solid evidence of this. I don’t think we should be angry about how much they charge, unless we’re directing this at our own failures to reach that price point despite having better product. One could infer that Nespresso’s success implies we’re way too cheap.

…I say, no, they aren’t. They are willing to pay more for convenience. But not for quality.

I don’t think that most of the bemoaning of the K-cup or the Nespresso is jealousy over how much money these companies are making but instead, is probably disappointment over another instance where quality is once again losing to convenience, that convenience is still paramount in the mind of the mass-market consumer over and above anything else. They’re shaking their head in disbelief.

Where I think James is correct, is that while frustrating, the success of Nespresso and K-cup is also an opportunity to learn how to hone the message of quality over convenience. It’s tempting but ultimately ridiculous to ridicule these people for purchasing what they purchase based on my motivations. Because they are not the same motivations at all. Convenience is not what I’m buying when I look for my next coffee or, for that matter, when I’m looking for the next anything I plan on opening up my wallet for and putting into my body. But I’ve had difficulty getting that logic across, even at a personal level. I’ve been mocked and ridiculed as being a patsy for preferring quality over convenience. I can’t be the only one. If it’s this difficult at the level of one person to another, it must be that much more difficult at the retail level.

I think convenience is at the root of many of the current food issues of today. At least, maybe, convenience’s far too lofty place in the decision making process of what we produce and what we eat. Convenience is overrated. Convenience is an economically, environmentally, and socially insidious concept. We’ve been trained in it’s importance. It’s going to take some time to unlearn it.

Footnotes

  1. …for lack of a better term. Really, can we figure out something to call modern era roasters who have broken from the Peet’s/Starbucks roasting model? [↩]
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Penned by Daniel, in Talking Points on 8 February 2012

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Up next: Intelligentsia’s Shegole, Ethiopia

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Promising syrup, roundness, spice, sweet molasses, candied fig, and citrus zest acidity.

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Penned by Daniel, in Tasting notes on 27 January 2012

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Coffee Common’s First Public Event in North America

Coffee Common’s First Public Event in North America is going to be in New York City….

And it’s only $5. Sheeeeeit, that’s cheaper than two cups of coffee at Intelligentsia in Pasadena. I’m there! Oh, wait, no I’m not. I’m stuck here in California. But if you’re in New York and you love the coffee, you should go … and let me live vicariously through you.

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Penned by Daniel, in Links, Miscellanea on 6 January 2012

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Handsome Roaster’s Kenya Ruthagati is…

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V60/3:12

…blackberries, vanilla, tobacco, a bright explosion.

AeroPress/2:43

Hot: …sharp, concentrated, blackberry syrup made with molasses

Cooler: …bright, darkly fruity.

This was the last of Handsome’s stock of Kenya Ruthagati. You will be missed. It made a hell of a SO shot as well.

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Penned by Daniel, in Recently brewed, Tasting notes on 5 January 2012 tagged Kenya, Los Angeles

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Tonx’s new Colombia Huila in the V60

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Full name: Colombia Huila, Los Naranjos Co-op, Fly-crop Harvest

Maybe I’m biased—tis the season and I love the season—but I think Tonx has a perfect coffee for the holidays on their hands.

The premiere brew

Their latest coffee shipment is tasting great out of the v60o. True to Tonx’s stated intent, sweetness prevails in the cup. But I’m also of the mind to say that there is some subtle spiciness happening as well: cloves and cinnamon. Nothing is overpowering at all—not the sweetness, not the spice. Balance and harmony. Zen coffee.

For the nerd inside you:This first cup was brewed on the V60 using my normal, quite fine grind (a little finer than I use for a normal cone filter), a 1 minute pre-infusion, a little swirl on the pour in the beginning to integrate the water and the grinds but after that, slow and straight into the center.

More as the brewing progresses…

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Penned by Daniel, in Equipment Whore, Recently brewed, Tasting notes on 19 December 2011

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A new piece on the humble folks of Tonx in LAWeekly

…all I did was just not fuck it up

— Tony “Tonx” Konecny of Tonx in LAWeekly

Full disclosure: I’ve met both Tony and Nik, think they’re both stand-up gents and wish them all the success in the world with their new coffee venture.

In agreement with Mr. Konecny’s take on the role of the roaster in the process of getting a good coffee from the farm to the cup. I have a great amount of respect for those I’ve heard say the very same thing. It’s a humble and respectful attitude—both toward the people involved as well as the product itself.

Congratulations to Nik and Tony of Tonx on their new piece in LAWeekly.

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Penned by Daniel, in Links, Quotes on 19 December 2011 tagged humbleness, respect

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Tonx’s Kenya Karinga in the Chemex

Mmmm…pie…

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Tonx coffee’s Kenya Karinga, out of the Chemex, wants to be a piece of blackberry pie, with all it’s constituent parts—butter, sugar, flour, etc.—making a showing, married to a rich chewy molassesy ginger snap cookie, with a strawberry afterwards (I don’t know, maybe you found it in the fruit bowl or something).

And it does a damn fine job of it.

It also wanted me to grind it finer than I usually do for the coffees I have in my favorite 60s era blown-glass coffee maker. I mistakenly ground the Karinga for the V60 the first time out. Turned out wonderful (as stated above). The second time, with grind corrected?

Where’s my pie?!

A “roasty” grind

This grind conundrum dovetails nicely with something I learned, but forgot, about grinding (even slightly) darker coffees, and a component of this particular Tonx offering that a couple friends and I noticed: it’s a little more “roasty” than we are accustomed to in a Tonx coffee.

Ok, let’s see if I can get this out in some sort of concise but intelligible written form… In my experience, the more darkly a coffee is roasted, the finer you need to grind it for a given brew method.

In other words, all other things being equal, if you were to take a coffee, roast it two ways (one darker than the other, of course) and brew the two resulting bags of beans using the very same method, the more darkly roasted of the two would require a finer grind than the lighter to achieve optimal extraction (i.e. to taste its best). “What?”, you may be asking, “are you talking about?”

I’ve been told (and it makes sense to me) that more darkly roasted coffees are more porous—less dense—than lighter roasted beans. So it follows that a more porous bean is going to allow more water through than one that is roasted more lightly. This is something that I’ve forgotten but that, in a wonderful bit of serendipity, has come back to prove itself true: a roasty grind (i.e. a finer grind) for a roasty coffee. In order to hold the water with the grinds long enough to get a good extraction you’re going to need a finer grind.

Gawd, I love this stuff…says the nerd.

More pie, please

Lucky for me, I have more. Tomorrow, for breakfast, I’ll be having some more blackberry pie. If you have any Tonx Kenya Karinga and a Chemex, I hope you’ll join me.

An update — brew time

Now that I’m paying closer attention, a note on brew time: with a finer grind you’re going to get longer brew times of course. My blackberry pie experience came courtesy of an unusually long 4:15 brew time. That’s not normally what I go for—aound 3:00 is the goal—but I’ve found that the Chemex, in particular, seems to handle longer brew times with more panache than others.

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Penned by Daniel, in Tasting notes on 15 December 2011

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Intelligentsia’s Colombia Finca Santuario Bourbon Micro-lot

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Colombias seem to be very good right now. Tonx had a tasty one a little ways back and this morning I had another fine  example in Intelligentsia’s Finca Santuario Micro-lot.

I made my way over to the only reputable coffee bar in Pasadena, Intelligentsia, and ordered a cup (and carafe, of course—there’s no way out of it) of the Finca Santuario.

Tastes like…

Chicken, of course … just kidding. Prepared in a V60, it was juicy without being tangy and punch-like and the word that came to mind was licorice. Black licorice. Or maybe anise but with a sweetness that wasn’t quite molasses but not white sugar. Caramelized anise? Yeah, that sounds good. It was a full, hefty sweetness, not round but concentrated.

Awesome mouthfeel and a pleasant after-taste as well.

With that sweetness, I wonder what it might be like out of the Chemex. Think they would humor me? If they do, you’ll hear about it here.

Pasadena, anyone?

Oh, and will somebody please fix Pasadena up with another decent coffee bar? It’s like a desert out here with but a single expensive oasis.

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Penned by Daniel, in Cafe tramp on 14 December 2011

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Sightglass’s Guatemala Finca Rosma

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Ready for it? One breath. Go: Guatemala Finca Rosma.

Rrrroooolls off the tongue. Rolls onto it as well.

This coffee from Sightglass came highly recommended by the wonderful folks at Modern Coffee in Oakland, Ca., where it was apparently brought in by one of Sightglass’s SF competitors. Yeah, they liked it that much.

Chemex and V60

Chemex? Meh. V60? Yeah. Not enough acidity to shine in the Chemex, I think. Falls a little flat for me. But, in the V60 its sweetness really shines—a full, round sweetness. Earthy sweet.

The AeroPress

The Rosma’s profile in the AeroPress could be thought of as a sort of combination of those found in the Chemex and the V60. The acidty zzzzing that comes through when made in the V60 is fairly muted but not as much as when brewed through the Chemex. The Chemex killed it. The AeroPress just hides it somewhat behind a big, round sweetness made up of tobacco and wood with a little blip of vegetalness (probably not a word) and a pleasantly viscous mouthfeel.

Wrap it up…

If all you’ve got is a Chemex at home, I might look for something that has a little more liveliness but if you’ve got anything else—from a cone to an AeroPress—I say go for it.

Find out more about this coffee—and buy it too—at Sightlgass’s website.

 

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Penned by Daniel, in Recently brewed, Tasting notes, Things I'll miss about the Bay Area on 12 December 2011 tagged San Francisco, Sightglass

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You can find me elsewhere as @danielofarabica and @danapalooza on Twitter.

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