Its easy to take for granted, but that black liquid in your morning cup is a remarkable thing.
By many accounts coffee is the most popular beverage on earth after water. According to the World Bank, as many as 500 million people are involved directly or indirectly in the global coffee trade. Coffee is the most actively traded commodity on the planet after petroleum. Still, most people are in the dark about what this stuff is - and consequently in the dark about what makes a good cup.
We’ll gloss over the particulars for now, but coffee as we know it is the seed from the ripened fruit of a shrub or tree native to Africa. It grows best in tropical climates at higher elevations and is cultivated commercially on five continents. The two species of commercial interest are Coffea arabica (arabica coffee) and Coffea canephora (robusta) with arabica beans being the tastier of the two.
People in the “specialty coffee” trade talk a lot about the seed to cup chain - a seemingly insurmountable series of events from plant to pour that determine whether your coffee tastes like paradise or poo. The selection of cultivar, the long husbandry of the plants, the altitude and quality of the land, the climate, the care exercised in harvesting, the meticulousness of the processing, the practices of the dry mill, the rough travel of export, the competency of the roaster and the many variables of right brewing all come to play in what happens in your cup.
Finding a good cup of coffee can be hard, and a great cup of coffee can be really elusive. The vast array of brands, styles, certification labels, and drink preparation methods make it all the more confusing. This week I’ll be dropping some pointers on how to find the beans and brews that can help you up your coffee game.
Nice to see you in Dethroner, Tonx!
can we get some sort of intro/bio for tonx? my mommy said im not allowed to read blog posts from strangers …
thaddeus - scroll back for Joel’s intro in the announcement of this weeks theme. Also you can read my blog at http://www.tonx.org which will probably tell you more than you ever wanted to know. Say hi to your mom from me.
wow, i feel like a tool. previously i scrolled down, but immediately stopped on the too-tightly vested joel and never went further. glad to be reading ya!
Tonx! Aloha from Seattle, my Internet friend. Very much looking forward to your advice.
great to see you dethroning for a week, but I’m pretty sure that tea is more popular than coffee, worldwide.
Ton-X, TonX, Tonx, tonx, or just Tony is a roaster-extraordinare who once did what I thought was pretty darned near impossible - made a seven bean blend that was just bam. Can’t wait to see what he does with Intelly in LA, and it was a great surprise to see him show up on Dethroner.
Finally, one of these blogs I visit every day has someone who *knows what they are talking about* when they talk about coffee and espresso. I don’t think Tony will be pimping the Nespresso-based Miele built in that Gizmodo did a few days ago ;)
May fave topic… I am loaded with useless opinions and trivia on coffee: with three girls ranging from 4 to 0 I drink a s**tload. My mornings start usually before 6am (not my choice) so I fire it up with a Rancilio Silvia brewed espresso poured into a drip coffee (this has some great names: Hammerhead, Depth Charge, Red Eye, Shot-in-the-Dark and Cafe Canadiana).
So, now on topic, I highly recommend seeing the movie “Black Gold”. Not a perfect or unbiased documentary, but if you love coffee it’s awesome: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0492447/
Now, off-topc again:
My fave boutique roaster (in the U.S.) has to be Small World Coffee in (of all places) Princeton, New Jersey. I can’t sing their praises enough: http://www.smallworldcoffee.com. Their house and Grumpy Monkey blends are awesome for drip. Their Rocket Fuel makes a subtle espresso. I find they don’t overroast so you get a lot of character in the coffee, as well as a substantial amount of caffeine.
If anyone can recommend a boutique roaster in Canada (specifically Ottawa) that’s real quality I’d appreciate the recommendation. The current crop is poor from what I’ve seen, IMHO.
If you like your fancy espressos/ristrettos/etc, try Caffe Artigiano in Vancouver: http://www.caffeartigiano.com/. These guys are the quintessential baristas.
In the UK, try the Costa chain and avoid Starbucks.
And my fave coffee sites: http://www.coffeegeek.com and http://projectamericano.com
Thanks for reading an old man’s caffeine-induced ramblings.
javajavajavajavajava
-George of the Jungle
In other news, I love coffee. Glad to see it on the site, sorry I’m just now seeing it.