It all starts with a bean

It all starts with a bean...

So simple, so insignificant.

One little bean, which is actually a seed, not a bean.

They come in pairs, covered in juicy ripe red fruit. Separated at harvest, they are collected, cleaned, milled, dried, stored and shipped. Then we roast them, and then infuse them with hot water and mix them with milk, cream, sugar or spice.

A little package of flavours. Which flavours depends on where they came from... the soil and the weather their parent trees were exposed to as they were growing. The people who collected them and processed them: Were they washed and hulled right away, or were they allowed to ferment in the pulp package they grew in? Then they are shipped half way around the world and somebody decides how to roast them. A light or medium roast that will preserve the origin flavours and acid twang? Perhaps just a little darker to add a touch of the bitter sweet roast flavour and smooth out the highs? Finally somebody brings them home, or to their shop and prepares them to be enjoyed. A coarse grind and a slow brew? Perhaps a fine powder and a violent pump driven extraction at high pressure?

So many factors. So far to travel.

Amazing that it happens, and happens to so many beans. And so many people are involved in the journey each bean makes from plantation to cup. We count them in pounds or kilograms, in container loads, in jute sacks, in stale-roasted tins and freez-dried jars, and in carefully folded bags of fresh whole bean goodness.

Nobody counts the beans themselves. How many are plucked, separated and transported? How many are discarded along the way because of an imperfection? How many complete the long journey and make it to my cup? In a lifetime? Millions.

To the beans I will drink today... Thank you.

Drink Coffee, Not Plastic

Focus on Coffee

This morning my wife had a few friends over and they all wanted to drink my coffee -  presto, instant focus group. This gave me a chance to try my hand at preparing a lot of drinks in a short period of time. It also was an opportunity to get some feed back on my drink preparation using my new machine, and on a blend I have recently been working on.

I was about to shut down the machine, and then somebody asked for a second drink, and several of them joined in, including the guest who was not even a coffee drinker.

Victory? Well it is if I judge the comment of one lady who said that it was the best latte she had ever had. Would I have ranked so high if placed beside the best that Toronto has to offer? Probably not today as my preparation was a bit off (see addendum below). However, it was good enough to blow away the mass-market competition's thin and burnt brew! While I did not conduct a formal survey, I did get the impression that at least a couple in the group were regular coffee drinkers and they were all aware that the quality at Tim Hortons was deplorable. One person was a regular latte buyer who wanted some advice on which machine to purchase to start making her own drinks at home.

The Problems with Pods

While they were gathered around the coffee bar enjoying their lattes the conversation changed and taught me something unexpected. After bashing Tim Hortons and discussing the merits of McDonald's coffee, the ladies turned to a discussion of the merits of single preparation machines such as Keurig and Tassimo.  There was a general consensus that these systems are undesirable in three ways. Flavour was not discussed - instead the packaging was to blame:

1. Sustainability 
2. Cost
3. Health Risk

All agreed that the waste created by these systems was unnecessary and excessive. The foil and filter in the pod as well as the plastic pod itself are not recyclable. The cost per drink is usually in excess of $1 which seemed unreasonable when compared to so many other home-brew options. Later I did some research and found a New York Times article by Oliver Strand that placed the the cost per pound of pod-coffee in excess of $50! That is way higher than the $16-$18 paid for a pound of speciality whole bean coffee. 

The most objectionable aspect however, was the preparation using a plastic pod combined with hot water. Several people were aghast that anybody would be so silly as to consume anything that had been in contact with heated plastic. The comment, "What rock have they been living under?" was made. The obvious health risk was certainly a killer of pod-coffee for all of these ladies, who I believe all have children still living at home with them.

It was so interesting to me that during this discussion there was no mention from the group of the negative impact on the flavour of the coffee by it being prepared using hot plastic and old ground stale coffee. Why was that? Isn't coffee selected by a potential consumer based on taste? Perhaps not. Perhaps the marketing of coffee has gone so far beyond a simple attribute such as the flavour and aroma that some consumers consider the flavour a secondary consideration? 

The group's reaction to the coffee I served them leaves some room for hope. Perhaps the damage done by first and second wave coffee giants is not unreversable.  Although the general public may have become accustomed to bitter and astringent flavours in their brew, when they are presented with something better they know it. In fact, they get excited. Excitement was certainly the reaction of the group today. They seemed genuinely interested in the flavours they were tasting, and they were asking for seconds!

The exchange today also contains another ray of hope for the artisans of coffee. One of the ways that we can fight the coffee bosses and beat them at their own game is to highlight the deficiencies described by the group. The negative impact and cost associated with that packaging and marketing used by the big guys is certainly a big stick we can whack them with. Also, the health risks of plastic pods and the other chemicals and devices used for mass market preparation is on the minds of consumers. Small coffee houses and restaurants preparing delicious wholesome drinks made from locally prepared ingredients in a socially conscious manner really can make a difference. Not only are we offering a product that just tastes so much better, we can be the knights in shining armour from ecological and heath perspectives.

The best tactic for the long term has to be educating consumers, because great coffee is like a lot of other things... once you start, there is no going back. Once people know what they are missing, they miss it. Unfortunately there is a lot of work to do because the coffee bosses have been trying to keep people in the dark about great coffee for a long time. Keep up the revolution!

Addendum... the details...

I prepared the lattes using a blend based on Ethiopian Harrar, Brasil Cerrado and Indonesian Sulawesi Kalossi. The feedback from the group was great, which was surprising as for only about 25% of the shots was I able to pull perfect extractions. The rest were under extracted, some running out as quickly as 15 seconds, rather than the 25 seconds I was aiming for. I had set up the grind and tamp pressure the night before, but I realize now that I should have dumped a couple of shots and tightened the grind. Instead of that I just carried on and tried more pressure in my tamp. Scool-boy error, I know. Lesson learned...

Coffee Market?

Why market coffee?
When I think about the marketing I observe for coffee, it makes me wonder what its all about.

Does coffee need to be marketed? Is there a benefit? As long as you have a friend, relative, co-worker or other acquaintance that drinks coffee, you would be exposed to the opportunity to try it and enjoy it. Through this exposure you would have an opportunity to become attracted to the stimulant effect of the caffein contained in the drink, and I assume come to enjoy the taste. If the taste were not good, you would probably only try coffee once or twice, and not again. A bad flavour would probably put you off of the modest stimulant effect of the drink.

Marketing is usually designed to influence a person to purchase something they did not previously want or need. It can also be used to introduce somebody to something they were not already aware of. We have already figured out that you want coffee that stimulates you and tastes good, so you do not need to be influenced to want or need or discover coffee. Therefore, I must assume that the purpose of marketing of coffee is something else...

Fresh? 
The major Canadian coffee chain repeats with broken record precision, "always fresh". This is based on their practice of marking the time on their pots of drip brewed coffee with a white pencil, and limiting the time that that pot can be served to 20 minutes.

In reality their coffee is not fresh...

The consensus among coffee experts is that roasted coffee goes stales in minutes, some say seconds, and the only way to ensure freshness is to grind immediately before preparation. This chain roasts and grinds massive quantities of coffee, and then packages it into little foil packets. The coffee is then boxed and shipped across Canada and the USA.  They probably do this because it costs more to make a fresh cup. By grinding and roasting in a single location, they reduce costs by roasting, grinding and packaging on an industrial scale, rather than at many plants with many workers across the country. Another fact is that providing staff with foil packets of stale coffee and drip machines to brew is simple, and they have to invest less in the training of their staff.  That makes the staff more easy to replace.

In this case it seems that the purpose of marketing coffee is to to influence us to buy their stale coffee so that they can maximize their profit and avoid the risk of a skill dependancy in their employees.

Does Burnt Coffee Taste Good?
For a moment take a careful, objective approach and stretch your imagination far enough to assume that there are some people who find that burnt coffee (French roast, or generally roasts darker than Viennese) is the only coffee that tastes good. Perhaps they have a certain "profile" of taste buds on their tongue that creates for them the impression of pleasure when they imbibe a burnt brew... Ok, enough of that.

The truth about dark roasts is that they are achieved at the expense of the complex and varied origin flavours of the bean. It is truly ironic that the company responsible for brining "speciality coffee" to the masses, is single-handedly responsible for selling coffee that hides the most delicious and compelling flavour potentials in the bean. Imagine what the coffee world would be like with out the nutty sweetness of a high-grown Costa Rican, or the earthy body of an Indonesian coffee. And the Africans! Do not get me started on the amazing complexity and subtle nuances of a dry processed Ethiopian bean, this blog is too short for that! It is a truly regrettable and shameful fact that the green-logo company has made a global empire on selling coffee prepared from burnt beans. Why do they do it? The best explanation I have found is that it provides a simple way of achieving consistency by permitting them to use just about any beans that they can find in their blend. One burnt bean tastes much like another.

In this case it seems that the purpose of coffee marketing is to convince us to buy burnt coffee that is cheaper to roast on an industrial scale.

The bottom line it seems is that the aim of coffee marketing is not to get you to buy coffee, you are already motivated to do that for the stimulant effect and the taste. The real purpose of the marketing of these two companies is to get you to buy stale or burnt coffee. Coffee that has either a thin and disgusting taste, or a flavour that completely masks the really delicious possibilities of the bean.

Knowledge is power, so go out there and support your local micro-roasters and local coffee shops. Demand a higher quality cup for your hard-earned-dime, and tell the coffee Bosses where to shove their stale, burnt bean!

There is no going back

Be Warned
Once you start down the road that leads to better tasting coffee, there is no going back.

Sometimes we end up there by accident or convenience... the ubiquitous familiar crummy coffee is not to be found when you need it, and you are forced to buy at a new place. Maybe you meet somebody at their favourite coffee shop and the brew is delicious. Or it could be that a friend offers you fresh coffee they roasted at home. However it starts, once you get a taste for excellent coffee it is very hard to return to your ignorance and imbibe the turbid slurry that you once did.

In the beginning
My coffee rebirth occurred in Italy in the early '90s. I visited a friend doing a year of art school in Florence. The first morning I was there he told me he had something wonderful to show me before breakfast. We got dressed and went downstairs to the cafe on the street beside his apartment. The aroma of coffee as we entered the shop hinted of the nature of his promise to me. The barista was dressed very well in an expensive looking shirt and tie. His shirt was pressed, hair quaffed, and he sported a very short beard. The decor and fixtures were very modern, but with a hint of art deco in the angular lines of the chromed fixtures and chair-backs. My companion ordered for us, "due caffe latte, por favor". I was impressed with his command of this new language.

Our drinks arrived in elegantly curved glasses with handles, and were placed on napkins in saucers. We took them to the bar by the shop front window, and perched on stools with a view of the ancient paved street. I took a tentative sip of that perfectly warm and rich beverage, and then gulped it down. It was incredible! A perfect balance I had never experienced before. The nutty mocha of the coffee blended with the deliciously creamy sweetness of the milk. No flavour too strong or out front, both perfectly combined to compliment each other and satisfy the palette. Wow, I can still remember that taste now, twenty years later.

It remains the benchmark upon which I judge all coffee experiences.

Know your Power
Knowledge is power - The coffee Bosses know this, and that is why they work so hard to keep us down in the dirt. Evidence the ad campaigns touting "fresh" coffee, and "delicious blends". Ha! what lies they tell us! Every time I see those proclamations I am amazed by the incredible power marketing can have over quality. Their days are numbered though, for as we the coffee drinking masses come to realize the lies that have been told, the force of the revolt will be awesome.

Coffee Crash 2013

Prices crash, again
Futures prices for coffee, which is the second most traded global commodity after oil, have plummeted recently. The Coffee Bosses (aggregators, middle men, importers and mass market retailers) benefit, while coffee producers worldwide face starvation or the end of their way of life, again. What is most troubling is that is has only been 7 years since the start of the recovery from the last crash in coffee.  

The Coffee C contract is the world benchmark for Arabica coffee. Check this link for historic prices. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coffee . This is how the Coffee Colonialists cook up prices to keep their margins high, and prices to producers low. Right now the price is $1.03 USD. I has not been that low since 2006, which was the tail end of a multi-year depression in global coffee prices that decimated the farmers, their families and their plantations. 

What can you do?
Well, buying fair trade coffee is a start. Fairly traded coffee is certified (verified) that the roaster has paid a fair price for the coffee, provided access to loans, and a bunch of other generally good things that the "first-world" buyers of coffee think are good. Keep in mind that there are arguments against fair trade. These are focused mainly on the restrictions this system can place on the growers in a region, the kinds of negative behaviour it can drive in growers, and how some workers are excluded from sharing in the benefits of increased prices. Note that Fair Trade it is not a guarantee of sustainable farming practices - these come separately from the fair trade logos, either as a result of organic, shade tree, or bird friendly certifications or practices, or as a result of the growers own initiative.

Neither Fair Trade or sustainable practices are a guarantee of quality. This is where Direct Trade come in. This approach sees roasters working with local growers of coffee on a micro-scale to arrange their own relationships with the coffee farmers. In return for farmers delivering the highest quality coffee, Direct Trade buyers pay a premium above Fair Trade prices for what is arguably the best coffee available. Period. At its best Direct Trade coffee does several things; it breaks the "averaging effect" that aggregators and other middle-men have on the quality of coffee made available to the rest of the world from a growing area. Direct Trade roasters select coffee based on premium quality directly from the farms where it was grown. They are not buying coffee that has been mixed with beans from inferior plants, poor handling or carless storage. These traders also pay a premium price, directly to the grower of the coffee, not to a middle man. This often has the effect of enabling the growers to purchase their own processing equipment, so that they can process their own coffee, rather than paying a middle-man to do that. Heck, sometimes it is a simple as having the funds to purchase a truck that puts the growers in the "drivers seat" so that they can decide where and how to have their crop processed. Finally, Direct Trade roasters are in a position, because of the premium they pay, to insist that farmers use sustainable methods for farming. Of course there are arguments against the Direct Trade approach to coffee. Without strict and published criteria and a certification process and administrator (and fees!) Direct Trade is self regulated by the participants. Unless they can provide you proof, you are basically taking the roaster's word for it that they are doing all the good they claim to be doing.

Is this the end?
No way! If more consumers and roasters insist on Fair and Direct traded coffee, the benefits are going to be enjoyed by everybody that really matters, the real people, us! Probably the single biggest thing you can do is to go local. Remember that the local coffee roasters, shops, and espresso bars in your area are not benefiting from the depression in prices. They are too far down the coffee food-chain to benefit. All of the extra profit manufactured by the futures market is kept by the coffee Bosses that are processing, importing and distributing the commodity. 

This means you need to stop going to the big chain coffee whores for their sleazy brew. It might sometimes be cheap, but it is always dirty. 

You just can not argue against the benefit to the people growing the coffee of being paid more for their crops than the coffee "machine" is trying get a way with paying them. Remember, the futures market for coffee is only there to benefit market traders and the Coffee Bosses, who are profiting from selling us lousy coffee. 

Revolution Coffee Manifesto

It is time for a Coffee Revolution! 

Too long have we been the subservient thralls of the coffee Bosses, forcing us to drink their stale, bitter, burnt and limp brew. It is time to rise up! We can take back the power and enjoy truly amazing coffee every day, for a reasonable price. The dream is in our grasp, all we need to do is stand up for our right to great coffee, and demand what is rightfully ours!

How did we get here?
Coffee first appeared in Europe after it was imported from Africa in the middle of the 17th Century. As the European Imperialists spread the coffee plant throughout their colonial empires over the next two hundred years, many of the best coffee producing areas were discovered and planted. 

In 1938 Gaggia of Milan patented a design that would become the foundation of the modern espresso machine. This discovery has led to the most intense and delicious coffee flavour and aroma possible since coffee was first discovered. Since its original discovery by a humble goat herder in Ethiopia, coffee has made its way across the world and has become the most traded global commodity, second only to oil! 

Regrettably, there has been a steady decline in the quality of cup offered to the masses (you and me) by the coffee Aristocrats. Ironically there are more coffee shops around than every before, but the their signature brew is a burnt and bitter offering that their propaganda chiefs have cast like a spell on the general public.  

It is time to reprogram yourself

Fresh is...

• Green beans that have been roasted in the last two weeks.
• Roasted beans that have been ground in the last 5 minutes
• Ground coffee that has been prepared in the last 15 seconds

Fresh is not…

•   coffee that has been roasted and stored (in any method) for more than two weeks. 
•   coffee that has been roasted and distributed over Canada, or North America. 
•   coffee that has been ground and stored in any kind of bag, puck, container or other doodad. 
•   coffee is not something that has been brewed and left in a pot for 20 minutes! 

Fresh coffee comes from beans that are roasted pretty close to your local espresso bar. It is prepared lovingly with freshly ground coffee, filtered water and a warm cup by the trained staff at your favourite coffee shop.  

What is the problem?

To enjoy excellent coffee is simple: all you need is quality beans, skilful roasting and careful preparation. Unfortunately, in the rush to make massive profits the emphasis has shifted from a great cup of coffee to start your morning, to something else. That something else doesn't actually benefit the coffee drinking Proletariat (you and me). It does however make a big profit for the coffee Bosses that want to keep us down in the coffee drinking slums!

And don't let them fool you... great coffee doesn't have to be expensive. Did you know that on average coffee farmers are paid $2 for every pound they grow, and that a pound of speciality coffee retails for about $17! Whoa, that is a lot of profit!

So, tomorrow when you are queuing up at that ubiquitous coffee chain to buy your cup of joe, think about what they are trying to sell you. Is it anywhere near to the best coffee you have ever had? Is it really what you want? If not, go out and find a local espresso bar and try them out - I bet you will be surprised... I bet you will never go back!