Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.
I know you thought we were through with the genus-species-kingdom stuff after high-school biology, but did you know there are two different species of coffee plant? Well, there are: Arabica, or high-altitude grown gourmet coffee, and Robusta, or the more environmentally tolerant (and much cheaper) sort of coffee often found in instant crystals and behind bodega counters around the world.
But is the latter really more "robust" than the haute Arabica? Find out after the jump.
Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.
Ah, the triumphant leaning back in your chair after a great meal at the season's "it" restaurant, pushing away the licked-clean plate and wishing you could loosen your belt in polite company. "Why sure, we'd love to see the dessert menu. And I'll have a cappuccino."
But then the cappuccino comes. It's got bitter, thin espresso topped with stiff, dry peaks of overdone milk covered in heaps of cheap cocoa powder. And, well ... it's not worth the $6 they're charging for it.
Does it have to be this way? Can there be such a thing as truly great restaurant coffee? Find out after the jump.
If some of your favorite things are "Gossip Girl," health-care-reform debates and game 7 of the World Series, it sounds like you might be drawn to the dramatic -- which says to me that maybe you'd like to try brewing coffee in an über-theatrical Japanese siphon brewer.
Ah, yes: the blazing heat, the cauldron-like bubbling, the unpredictable drop of the finished java and the clean, dynamic coffee flavor. It couldn't be more dramatic if it were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
OK, not everything, but definitely something. And the same goes for coffee.
Much as wine grapes come in different cultivars (as anyone who prefers a Cabernet Franc to a Cabernet Sauvignon can tell you), coffee can be born to one of thousands of types, both heirloom and hybrid, which can have an impact on a coffee's productivity, appearance and, certainly, flavor.
While much is made of the variety of a particular grape (or apple, for fruit fans; or rose, for gardeners; or rice, for starch lovers), a large percentage of coffee farmers don't grow any one single type on their land, and many can't even be sure how much of their farm is one variety or another. Largely for this reason, any coffee that can be identified, with certainty, by its type is often cause for celebration among bean heads. The famous Esmeralda coffee I mentioned last week, for instance, is special in part because it comprises an exotic, transplanted Ethiopian variety called Gesha or Geisha (likely named for a spot in Ethiopia -- many African coffee varieties are christened for their proximity to certain villages or regions, such as Harrar and Sidamo).
So how about a nice, steaming hot cup of coffee ... for $10, or more?
Not unlike its more respected buddy made from fermented grapes, exceptional, rare and just plain wacky coffees have begun to fetch higher prices all over the world. Panama's now-famous farm Hacienda la Esmeralda, for instance, has been commanding record prices for its green beans, setting world records for auction sales in 2004 ($21/pound), 2006 ($50.25/pound) and 2007 (a whopping $130/pound).
But is it a matter of simply being impressed by the price tag, or is there something to these top-shelf beans? Read on to find out.
Of course, I'm not talking about the four-leaf kind, though that type's pretty rare, too. No, I mean the Clover coffee maker, a high-tech gadget that dropped jaws all over bean circles a few years ago, with its deeply sophisticated, digital one-cup-at-a-time brewing (not to mention the $11K price tag).
At first, the machines were the pride of the serious coffee lover, with independent cafés snapping them up as a way of showcasing artisanal coffees one by one, instead of losing them to the murky depths of an insulated thermos. But when Starbucks bought the Clover technology last year, the funky-looking little metal boxes were suddenly less and less available to your average café owner, becoming proprietary to the green mermaid.
So why is this lucky? Because it started a revolution. Or, more accurately, a renaissance. Read more about getting lucky with cup-at-a-time coffee after the jump.
Aside from beans and water, the coffee-brewing puzzle almost always requires at least one other element: a filter. Just about every method or machine utilizes them -- French press plungers have fine-mesh screens, espresso machines use perforated metal baskets, electric drip-coffee makers require the ubiquitous accordion-fold filters and even preground coffee pods come in their own little brew packs to keep the grounds at bay (that is, out of your teeth).
Understanding your filter situation can actually be a bit confusing, since there are myriad varieties available in a host of sizes, shapes and materials. Trying to make sense of the coffee-filter section at the market is not unlike trying to find the right replacement mop head (there's about an 80 percent chance of failure).
I say nuts to baristas who turn their noses up at decaf. As far as I'm concerned, decaf drinkers are the salt of the earth, and I think it's high time they get their due.
Just think of it: There are millions upon millions of regular-coffee guzzlers who'll down 20 ounces of swill just to get a fix, but I see decaf devotees as folks who pursue coffee just for the sheer love of it. It's gotta be love, since the buzz isn't the main draw. Not only that, but poor decaffers are often stuck with the dregs: Stale coffee left sitting in an urn for hours, espresso poorly made by way of utter dismissal and even snide service from pro-caffeinators.
Well call me naive, but I just gotta stick up for the (probably pretty tired) underdog. Though the FDA has long considered caffeine a "safe" substance (though it is, strictly speaking, a kind of drug), try telling that to the folks who toss and turn all night as penance for a 6 p.m. cuppa. (And I can definitely sympathize.) Or worse yet, people who are allergic to the stuff!
But how does the buzz get out of that little bean? Click through to find out.
Sometimes it seems like owning a coffee shop is on everybody's bucket list: Travel around the world, write the great American novel, retire and open a top-notch café. Last year, Alex Clark, 26, and Aaron Hagedorn, 33, checked that last one off, abandoning their steady (if somewhat boring) financial-sector 9-to-5s in midtown Manhattan for predawn mornings and late, overcaffeinated nights helming Ost Café in Gotham's Alphabet City neighborhood.
The friends traded in their office desks for Ost's beautiful corner location in an ever up-and-coming part of town -- complete with floor-to-ceiling windows and plenty of sunlight -- in order to live the proverbial dream as small-business owners... but do they think it was worth it? Leave it to the CoffeeMeister to find out.
Doesn't the heat make you daydream about being someplace else?
Someplace tropical and friendly, where the heat is part of the romance -- bellying up to a Havana lunch counter, enjoying the languid spinning of a lazy ceiling fan, the cool droplets crawling down the side of a sweating glass, the tinny tenor of cantador Beny Moré. And, naturally, a coffee.
You're thinking, "Coffee?! Who daydreams about coffee while sweat is making tracks down your spine?"
Me, that's who.
Brutal summer days are made for cafecito -- the thick, strong Cuban-style espresso brewed with sugar that's best when belted first thing in the morning. It may look like a regular ol' espresso, but the extra sweet kick might just jump-start your day a little quicker.
Hey, wait a sec! Are you really about to dump out the rest of the too-big coffee you ordered this morning, drank a third of, forgot about and let get lukewarm? Come on, pal -- you think this stuff grows on trees?
Well, actually, it kind of does -- except they're more like bushes. And the beans that we enjoy roasted, ground and percolated in the morning are actually seeds, not beans: They're more like a cherry pit than any legume you put in your famous Super Bowl Sunday chili. And much like every other fresh fruit or vegetable we enjoy, the beauty and deliciousness of a coffee is fleeting, seasonal and really labor intensive.
Read more about coffee's journey from seed to cup after the jump.
There are a lot of awesomejobsoutthere, but if I may say so, I think I've got one of the best: Getting paid to taste, learn and teach about coffee. (Great for the palate, maybe not so great for a night's sleep.) But as much as I've been able to learn while busily caffeinating New York City, there's always more to be discovered. Coffee's so fascinating, it could be its own Trivial Pursuit category. I thought I'd share five of the best facts I've picked up along the way about our favorite little buzzin' bean, for you to wow your coffee-loving friends with.
5. Espresso has less caffeine than a cup of drip coffee ... sort of. A 7-ounce cuppa joe averages about 150 mg of caffeine, while a 1.5- to 2-ounce shot of espresso yields roughly 100 mg (data varies from source to source). But yes, strictly speaking, drip coffee does have more caffeine per total volume -- but not per ounce. Espresso wins that round, hands down.
4. Coffee is one of the most complex things we consume. Clocking in with nearly 1,000 aromatic compounds (and more being discovered all the time), coffee runs laps around even red wine, which contains about a third as many.
Picture this: New York City, August, 2009. It's hot -- I mean really hot. Like, stick to the seats on the subway hot. You're feeling mighty low and mighty steamed, and all you want is a belt of something quick and cool to keep you moving. Something that'll put the spring back into your step.
You know what you need, buddy? A caffeinated dessert. An affogato al caffé.
When you finally get one and it does the trick, turn your re-energized self toward Italy and give 'em a salute: Not only did our friends on the boot give us both the espresso and gelato that make up this icy indulgence, but they did us one better by putting them together. The resulting dessert, often shortened to simply affogato -- literally "drowned" in Italian -- is heavenly in its traditional form (a scoop of vanilla gelato topped with freshly brewed espresso), so even tiny tweaks (chocolate ice cream) or additions (Frangelico) can make it sublime.
There's nothing like the calming warmth of a shot of espresso -- that old friend you count on to get you going.
But like the passive-aggressive pal leaving catty notes on your Facebook wall, your morning joe can turn on you in an instant, especially if you have one too many.
I've only been betrayed once, but it was enough to permanently slow my caffeine binge habits: The moment I swallowed the offending shot, my heart started pounding, I saw double, my hands started sweating and I stumbled blindly towards the door of my favorite café, trying to sneak out unnoticed. (It is not ideal for a CoffeeMeister's reputation to be crumpled on the floor of a café in a fit of caffeine-induced hysteria).
It's easy for people to forget -- or deny -- that caffeine is a drug, but the facts say otherwise: Like its distant cousins cocaine and nicotine, it's an alkaloid, though there aren't typically state-funded "quit cappuccinos" campaigns. The stimulating stuff's natural function is as a built-in pesticide for plants like coffee, cacao and tea.
Contrary to the paralyzing effect it has on crawling critters, it sends us skipping back to our desks at 3 p.m. with a renewed sense of joie de vivre. Sadly, however, too much of a good thing is bad news indeed.
Everybody thinks their neighborhood barista is the best. The difference is that New York-based espresso doyenne Amber Sather really is one of the best, as her Barista Championship titles attest (Sather's taken home first place in two Northeast regional barista competitions and third in the national event, among others).
Though many folks don't know they exist, barista championships are no joke to coffee professionals: You must prepare four espressos, cappuccinos and signature drinks of your own design to a panel of judges under extreme pressure.
The sassy Montana native moved to New York City a year ago, leaving a barista-trainer position with Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea in Chicago for a spot on the team at Brooklyn favorite Café Grumpy, where she trains baristas and passes cup after caffeinated cup to sleepy locals.
After the jump, Sather chats with the CoffeeMeister about barista competitions, her idea of the perfect café and more.
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