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This is a picture of 10g of coffee ground coarsely and then sifted into 3 sizes.

It shows the dramatic difference in particle size. Now it might illustrate the state of the burrs, and some grinders are better than others, but I wanted to show it because it illustrates the unevenness of grinding. And it’s quite shocking I think!!

It really brought home to me how an extraction percentage is not a true value but an average. That is, take an ext% reading of 18%, it’s not that we’ve extracted 18% from each particle (we may not have extracted 18% from any!). We’ve extracted different amounts from each. From some it may be 20%, from others 13%, and from others still upwards of 27%!! All these added together and averaged give us the extraction yield. In this case: 18%.

Ben Kaminsky: Barista vs. Volumetrics →

How volumetrics and flow meters can produce very consistent espresso…

: Travel Diaries - Q and A with Chris Owens →

handsomecoffee:

Here’s one from David Boyle. This one just missed twitter’s 140 character limit so we’re posting Chris’s response here.

David Boyle (@DaveedBoyle)

3/5/13, 11:12 PM

@HandsomeRoaster from ur travel exp, what is the biggest need for getn coffee farmers out of poverty? …

Mortgaging our values by @nickcho →

“Capitalism is a great thing, except when it’s not so great.”

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undertarker-barista:

malunamaimoone:

People of specialty - SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America)

coffee

Coffee’s a Prison

Imagine a coffee bean as a badly built prison. It’s prisoners are coffees flavour and aromatics.

There are cracks and holes everywhere from which these prisoners can escape. But kept standing (i.e. unground) it slows the prisoners escape path and keeps the majority locked up.

Knock it down (i.e. grind it) and we’re essentially knocking down the prison walls. In no time the prisoners escape and we’re left with rubble. And rubble doesn’t taste so good.

Lesson learnt for manual brewing:

Nail the technique!!!

No amount amount of tinkering with dose or grind size will yield consistent results without a solid, repeatable and consistent technique.

(Granted this could be said of any other variable, however technique, I think, is often overlooked).

Approaches to Brewing and My Neglect of Espresso →

Dymaxion.: The rarest fruit in Indonesia, and how it changed the way I talk about coffee. →

petergiuliano:

The fruit stands of Indonesia are glorious. On the islands of Java and Sumatra, these temples to tropical fruit overflow with all types of strange and delicious delicacies: the impossibly delicious manggis, buah naga (dragon fruit) lengkeng (dragon’s eyeball fruit), and the giant, intimidating…

Bitter Press: Raw Product vs. Unfinished Product vs. Finished Product →

bitterpress:

One of the most difficult things we have to work with in the coffee industry is the fact that coffee isn’t a finished product until it’s brewed. When examining the classification in most grocery stores, coffee falls under the Specialty department, but it’s not often that it follows the same path….