Moka pot | BREWING
This stovetop brewing device has been around for the past 80 years, and, like espresso itself, was invented in Italy. Alfonso Bialetti (1888–1970) acquired the design (the work of Luigi De Ponti) in 1933, and Bialetti Industrie still produces the very same model under the trade name Moka Express. The moka pot has found great popularity due to its ability to produce an espresso-esque drink on the domestic stove. The design allows pressure to build up as the water heats in the bottom chamber of the pot along with steam. When the steam gets to critical point, it forces the water up through a bed of ground coffee and fills the top chamber with strong, freshly brewed coffee. Different designs require a different amount of heat and pressure before the water makes its way up through the coffee, and a common complaint directed at the pot is that the coffee can taste burnt. The reality is that the water has just gotten too hot and is overextracting the coffee. A simple trick is to use less water in the bottom chamber; this means the buildup of steam is more quickly able to move the water up and through the coffee before its temperature rises too high.
Mucilage | ORIGIN
Mucilage is the flesh of the coffee fruit that sticks to the parchment surrounding the coffee beans. This mucilage is very important in a number of ways. During the development of the cherry on the tree, it is this mucilage that will be measured for sugar content. When picking a ripe cherry off the tree and tasting it, it is always surprising to find just how sweet it is. A favourite experience of mine took place at the Finca Los Pirineos in El Salvador, where, wandering among the coffee plants, we tasted a huge range of ripe cherries from some of the famous coffee varieties grown there. The differences in the flavour of the mucilage were staggering. During the various processing methods it is this mucilage we are interested in, how it dries and affects the flavour of the bean.
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Brix p38
El Salvador p77
Honey process p118
Natural process p156
Multi boiler | ESPRESSO
Perusing the espresso machine options available in the marketplace, you may well have seen the term “dual” or “multi boiler” among the technical specifications and selling points. Back in the day, one big boiler would provide multiple services across the machine. The boiler would heat water for the heat exchangers, provide hot water for the spigot, and provide steam power for making the frothy hot milk. For this to be effective, you need a really big boiler, so that you can do all these things at once without them hindering one another. The idea behind the multi boiler is to split up these jobs. This concept was first introduced in the form of dual boilers – one for brewing espresso and another for steam and hot water – but the idea has now gone much, much further, and you will see not only separate boilers for each group head on the machine, but also separate preheating boilers for each of these. The multi-boiler design allows the machine to store and produce water of varying temperatures at any one time and creates more consistency and precision in those temperatures.
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Heat exchanger p117
N
Naked shot | BREWING
The naked shot went through a period of extreme popularity that has now somewhat subsided. This term refers simply to the bottom of the portafilter being drilled out so that the coffee exits directly from the base of the basket and into the cup. This means that the mesmerizing pour of the espresso can be witnessed. An initial slo-mo-like exit of very dark liquid transforms into long, rich, flowing streams of espresso. As this is happening, the colour turns from brown to red and then a rich caramel. Midway through the shot, the streams converge into one central stream that becomes faster and blonder in colour, before the shot is completed. It really is rather pretty, if potentially a bit messy. Other than the aesthetics, there are a few benefits to the naked shot. It does allow you access to a better visual representation of how the water is flowing through the coffee and as such will help indicate channelling. The spouts of a standard portafilter also have the potential to build up coffee residue, which imparts negative flavours on the cup, so not having them helps to avoid this, though you can, of course, just clean the spouts. The same thought process suggests that a naked shot allows all the coffee into the cup, with valuable solids not being caught in the spouts. I don’t think this has a particularly large impact on cup quality. Testing suggests that it is very hard to achieve two even versions of a single espresso when the shot is split through two spouts, suggesting a naked or a double shot is likely to be more consistent.
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Basket p23
Channelling p52
Espresso p79
Portafilter p176
Natural process | PROCESSING
Natural processing (or dry-processed coffee) is the most ancient and straightforward processing method. The coffee cherry is harvested and then set out to dry with the fruit and skin intact and the coffee beans inside. The coffee bean and the coffee cherry dry together and are separated at the end of the drying process. This is a stark contrast to fully washed coffee, in which the cherry and the bean spend very little time together. The drying of natural coffee can take a long time and is labour-intensive, requiring continual raking and turning to avoid mold buildup and overfermentation, which will result in off tastes. The exact drying times and temperatures correlate closely to quality; a common issue in natural-processed coffees is that they take too long to dry. These coffees can develop rotten or overly “funky” flavour characteristics. Pioneering work by Flavio Borém looks at water activity in drying coffee and shows that incorrect drying can compromise the cell walls of the beans, meaning that these coffees age and fade in flavour very quickly. It is often suggested that the coffee “takes on” the fruit flavour from the cherry. Though there are theories, the exact reason why the coffee develops winier, rounder fruit notes with the natural process is not precisely known. The natural process requires considerably less water than other processing methods and is, in this sense, environmentally superior. It also means that natural processing is more likely to be used in parts of the world with water shortages. It is not altogether unusual for roasters and coffee buyers to have a complete “no natural” policy. Personally, I think that, while there are many examples of “bad” natural-processed coffees that are earthy, woody, or sour, certain natural-processed coffees can have exciting and complex flavour profiles that are delicious. The natural process is actually very close to honey and pulped natural processing methods, and nowadays many experimental farmers are playing with various natural-style processes as a means of altering and improving the flavour characteristics of their coffee.
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Fermentation p90
Honey process p118
Silver skin p198
Nicaragua | ORIGIN
It has been a tumultuous century for Nicaragua and coffee growing is part of that journey, as it has inevitably gotten caught up in the country’s political and economic events. Nowadays, though, traceability and high-quality cups are flourishing. A number of varieties grow very well in Nicaragua’s various regions and produce a range of cup profiles, from rich and full bodies to juicy, fruity, and complex. The Cup of Excellence has been successful in the country and the Nueva Segovia region in the north repeatedly provides many successful coffees with outstanding cup quality.
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Cup of Excellence p64
Nordic | COFFEE CULTURE
Nordic countries will often head up the per-capita coffee consumption lists, with Finland sitting at the top, closely followed by Norway. Not only is a lot of coffee consumed in this part of the world, but provenance and flavour are key, as can be seen, indeed, in the whole Nordic approach to cuisine. When the World Barista Championship began in 2000, the Nordic countries swept the board repeatedly for the first several years while everyone else sought to catch up. Many influential coffee companies and individuals are dotted around Scandinavia and Finland. In Sweden there is the daily ritual of fika and in the reg
ion as a whole the best restaurants incorporate the best coffee into their profile, as pioneered by the likes of Noma in Copenhagen and its collaboration with 2004 World Barista Champion Tim Wendelboe.
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Fika p90
World Barista Championship p239
Nutate | ESPRESSO
Nutating is a relatively modern term to make its way into coffee. Popularized by Australian 2012 World Brewers Cup champion Matt Perger, it refers to a tamping technique. Normally, a barista would tamp down as levelly as possible in one smooth lowering movement until the ground coffee is compacted. The physics behind nutating is a lot like walking on snow. If you walk in traditional snowshoes (the ones like tennis rackets), your weight, and therefore force, is distributed and you will not compress the snow very much. Compare that to walking on snow with a pair of heels. Nutating allows you to compact the coffee bed to a greater degree by applying more concentrated pressure. To achieve this, the barista tamps the dose in a circular fashion with a swivel. One edge of one side of the tamper compresses the coffee first, you then roll it round to compress the rest, before ending up with a flat tamp. Although potentially a successful way of compressing coffee grounds, for an even extraction it also has high potential to be executed inconsistently or unevenly.
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Barista p23
Extraction p86
Tamping p213
O
Old Brown Java | AGED COFFEE
The freshness of green coffee has become increasingly important to how we understand quality. A lot of the attributes we value, such as a clean cup, acidity, vibrancy, and sweetness, are present only in the freshly harvested coffee, and after several months these fade. Coffee becomes woody and flatter over time. Old Brown Java, a bit like Monsoon Malabar, breaks a coffee storage rule and is purposefully aged for up to five years, during which time the bean turns from a blue-green to brown. These coffees are pungent and woody with almost no acidity. There continues to be a market for these coffees.
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Green p109
India p124
Indonesia p126
Past crop p172
Olfactory | FLAVOUR
When we eat or drink something, our mouth and our nose work together and we experience taste and flavour. You just need to hold your nose while eating something to notice that much of the expected flavour simply disappears. In fact, it is our noses that are responsible for most of what we call flavour. This tasting system in our noses is called the olfactory system. Our mouths are known as the gustatory system and are responsible for sensations such as sweet, sour, and salty as well as textures like dryness and astringency. Other senses such as sight and sound feed into our tasting experiences as well, but are often forgotten about. The olfactory system, however, is undoubtedly the king of taste. Humans have varying sensitivities within their olfactory systems. Our sense of smell, and therefore taste, can be affected by a number of factors including genetics, age, or disease. This feeds into why the same drink can taste different to several people. We humans have a pretty decent smelling apparatus, but other mammals such as dogs have far superior ones, with up to 300 times more sensitivity. I have often smelt the intense perfumed notes of a very special coffee and wished at that moment that I had the nose of my dog, Luca.
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Flavour notes p97
Gustatory p113
Sensory science p197
Oliver table
See “Density table”.
One-way valve | PACKAGING
When you treat yourself to your favourite bag of beans, it can come in a vast array of containers, made from varying materials, each with different storage properties. Once the beans are roasted they begin to change and age as they release carbon dioxide and are exposed to oxygen. The majority of coffee bags have a one-way valve that allows the CO2 to leave while not allowing oxygen in, while others are simply top-folded paper bags. The paper bag style is simple and has a certain aesthetic appeal, but it will mean that the ageing of the coffee is much more rapid compared to the one-way valve bag. The valve, of course, needs to be part of a bag that itself provides an oxygen barrier (usually achieved with some kind of foil lining). Plant-based liners are becoming available. These bags can also be flushed with nitrogen to limit the oxygen left in the bag. Nitrogen-flushed packaging, especially in the form of aluminum cans, extends the shelf life and freshness of the coffee considerably. This is alluring as it can give us more time to enjoy coffees when they are at their best in terms of green freshness and roasting.
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Green p109
Resting p189
Origin | PROVENANCE
Origin has become a commonly used term in coffee. I think it is valuable to point out the potential vagueness of the term. In essence, “origin” is a straightforward term. It refers to the point of origin of a coffee: “Where does it come from?” Historically, especially in the Italian espresso tradition, coffees from many countries have been blended together. In many cases, the exact origin of the components in the blend is the secret of the maker. Contrarily, the speciality and “third wave” movements place an emphasis on traceability and provenance, seeking to outline the origins of what you are drinking and to draw connections between flavour and the coffee’s “story”. The term “single origin” has become widely used and is becoming more prominent throughout the coffee-retailing landscape. The term implies quality and appeals to the drinker’s curiosity to explore the flavour possibilities of coffee. However, a coffee from any single country is technically from a single origin, inasmuch as the coffee is from one country. The coffee, however, could be a blend of many diverse coffees from many farms. A number of speciality roasters now have almost exclusively single-origin offerings, and the term in this context is increasingly intended to denote a coffee from a specific variety of coffee plant, from a specific farm.
SEE ALSO
Blending p27
Espresso p79
Third wave p218
Oxidation | STORAGE
Oxygen is a very useful thing. However, it is also the scourge of shelf life and the perisher of food products. Coffee ages in two ways: it loses aromatics and it oxidizes. Oxidation is where oxygen comes along and steals electrons. Fruit going brown is a very visible example of this. Other forces have an impact upon a coffee’s ageing, such as heat and light, but oxygen is the big daddy. If a coffee container can be made to contain less than 1 percent oxygen, the freshness of the coffee is extended for amazing amounts of time. An aluminium container will give the longest life to the coffee by creating an extremely impressive oxygen barrier. With nitrogen-flushing and sealed containers, the life of the coffee goes from one month or so to several months, or even years. While freshness can be objectively measured from the moment the coffee is roasted, the optimal condition of the coffee – when the coffee’s character it at its peak – is more subjective.
SEE ALSO
Resting p189
P
Pacamara | VARIETY
Pacamara is a coffee variety with a large bean size that is growing in popularity and is the result of the crossing of the Pacas variety and the Maragogype elephant bean. Pacas itself is a Bourbon mutation that originates in El Salvador and is named after a long-etablished family of coffee growers in the country. Pacamara, too, originates in El Salvador and, due to the high cup quality, has been successfully planted in other origins. Surprising not only for its size, Pacamara is capable of distinctive flavour characteristics. I often find floral and hoppy notes combined with a fair dose of chocolate and red fruit in Pacamara lots.
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Bourbon p35
El Salvador p77
Variety p228
Panama | ORIGIN
The international reputation of Panama is intrinsically linked to the fame and success of the Geisha variety. Panama is likely the best example of a boutique coffee producer. Estates regularly focus on separating their crop up into individual lots, allowing fo
r a focus on flavour variation within one estate. This means you will often be able to taste individual varieties processed in various ways all from one plot of land. Farms often develop a strong brand and identity to sell to the international market. Hacienda Esmeralda is well known for beginning the prominence of Geisha and establishing very high prices for the highest-scoring coffees through the Best of Panama competition. Esmeralda has won this competition multiple times. The Boquete and Volcán Barú coffee regions are known for producing exceptional coffee. It is not all about Geisha, though: there are other varieties that are grown very successfully in Panama, such as Caturra and Bourbon.
SEE ALSO
Bourbon p35
Cup of Excellence p64
Geisha p105
Paper
See “Chemex”.
Papua New Guinea | ORIGIN
Papua New Guinea is popping up more and more on importers’ cupping tables as well as in speciality coffee roasteries. Nearly all of the coffee is grown by smallholders. The potential problems with smallholdings – most notably, the lack of resources to process coffee well – can be countered by cooperative farming, which is all about bringing producers together and pooling resources as well as achieving market share. This origin is still very much in the “full of potential” bracket: some companies are actively working in the country to help improve quality, while many others are keeping a keen eye on the origin. Often, Papua New Guinea is filed under the Indonesia origin, but the cup qualities are unique. The good coffees are clean and bright with complex fruit and a creamy quality.
The Coffee Dictionary Page 8
