Coffeegeeks are known to be strange bunch. They like to take their coffee skills to new levels by constantly pushing themselves to learn as much about coffee and the art of making coffee as they can. That quest for that ultimate “God Shot”,  or producing the most glorious latte art that would make any coffee lover openly state: “That’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen since viewing the world from the top of Mount Everest – You can just hear the non-coffeegeeks thinking: “Get a life”.  As a home barista who is on his quest to make that ultimate coffee drink (being espresso or latte with the ultimate latte art) that would satisfy him to such an extent as to proclaim that he’d made the greatest coffee drink that has ever graced this planet, I’m sure I can speak for many other home baristas who have asked the question to themselves: “I wonder what it would be like to have a coffee shop.” 

Well a fellow Barista Undergounder in the form of Louis (the latte art king) and myself (TrevO, the latte art jester), spoke about it at Joe’s place (Ikhofi). After the discussion, Joe presented us with a challenge. “Could home baristas actually run a real coffee shop.” He said that he decided not to open on Sundays, as his business was more active on weekdays and Saturday mornings. So he offered a challenge to us to run his shop on Sundays for a few months, saying, it will either work itself more into our systems, or it could work itself out of our systems. But there was a catch. We’d have to do everything. Joe would only observe, probably to make sure we didn’t burn the place down by accident. Now how could we say no to that. We would call the Sundays at Ikhofi “The Art of Coffee” with no breakfasts (none of us wanted to fry bacon and eggs) and only cakes or muffins (anything that compliments coffee). And it was only in the mornings from 9am - 1pm.

Louis and I were not confident enough with handling the business side too much (we just wanted to play on the Wega), so we dragged our wives into it. Louis’ wife, Annette and my wife, Charlaine, would make the muffins and cake, as well as handle the books and the computer\till. When it comes to figures, Louis and I only know 25 seconds – the ballpark figure of the perfect espresso shot, so accounting stuff would be only limited to numerals of 25. And since we enjoy talking to people about coffee, till the next season’s green bean harvest is ready, we were given the duties of customer relations. Joe’s protege, Elizabeth (who is a great barista and is becoming very competent with Joe’s Diedrich roaster) said she’d help out for the first few times, in case we ran into any trouble. She actually landed up doing all the sessions with us,which was just great.

  Well the first day was quite an experience. So much has to happen before you even get to pull your first shot. Setting tables and chairs as well as preparing the machines/computer/float takes some time and energy. Its also so difficult to decide how much milk to order, or how much cake and muffins to buy. Oh, and I ordered some shortbread from our friend Dean, who has developed a passion for making it. He’d once brought it to a party where I was making coffee on my trusty Silvia, and we all declared that it was possibly the world’s finest –making him the hero of the day. I told him that if ever I opened a coffee shop, then he would have to make shortbread for me exclusively. He arrived at the shop on the first Sunday and we did the deal with a couple of hand shakes and passing of goods under the table. That shortbread was to be our secret weapon. 

Well we had a few customers on the first day. Louis and I had ridden our bikes to work since Sundays are great for that. My old BSA motorbike parked at the front drew a lot of attention and I spoke to so many bike enthusiasts. Motorbikes and bicycles are good for coffee. Louis was a little nervous that first day. He was a little shaky with his latte arts. – Ah ha, the king is human after all. But pretty soon after two Sundays he was well on his usual brilliant form, leaving me in fluffy foam. For some reason my mojo decided to leave me and was nowhere to be seen. It actually got quite bad. We survived that first day and the shop was still standing, so we were very happy (I’m sure Joe was very relieved), until we checked the books. Louis and I had jammed all the profits away. We had made a lot more coffee than what we’d sold. But how could you blame us. We were let loose on a two-group Wega, with litres of milk and kilos of great coffee beans. Joe’s beans really pull beautifully and we were having a ball. But we forgot that we were running a business. 

The next Sunday was quite different. Louis and I were kept in check by our wives. They made sure we didn’t make that same mistake (wives make great managers). We also learned about the Babycino drink. It’s simply  some frothed milk in an espresso cup and made cooler for very little kids. Now I thought, how simple, we could never do it wrong. But then along came a cute little girl named Ivy, who always came with her father (Doug, another coffeegeek). She made me redo her babycino five times, because the milk wasn’t frothy enough. I was so relieved to finally get the nod from her when I got it right. So a great lesson learned was, don’t underestimate your young clients (they know what they want) and get them while they’re young. One day coffee will be added to that frothed milk and he/she will be hooked forever, boohahahaaaa!! 

Louis was ill on one Sunday, so I even had to run the shop on my own with Elizabeth, who dazzled me with her latte art skills, as well as teaching me how to make a real cappuccino. It's actually quite difficult when you are so used to making lattes. Then on another Sunday, our BU student barista extrodinaire, Neil (aka Boom) joined me and helped me jam the profits away. But my mojo had gone AWOL, which really upset me. And as the morning went, I gained more confidence. I even got a bit of my mojo back. I realised that I’m one of those baristas, who’s mojo leaves them when they get to serious about what they’re doing. I had forgotten how to enjoy, because I was so worried about getting it right for customers. Then with Bob Marley singing ‘Jamming’ on the sound system, and Elizabeth and Neil showing me a couple of tricks, I started producing much better lattes with even some recognisable rosettas. After a few Sundays, Louis decided to take the plunge and order his own roaster and start on his own. Joe is so sharing of his knowledge and so encouraging that I can see why Louis made this choice. I hope he does a write-up on his experience with his new roaster. When Louis’ roaster arrived, we decided that we were satisfied with what we had achieved. We’d proved that home baristas (under the whip of their wives) can run a coffee shop. 

We learned so many good lessons from the experience. We improved our profit margins when there was no Springbok rugby test on that Sunday and twiddled our thumbs when there was a rugby test on telly. Lesson learned, rugby is not good for coffee, it is only good for beer. And Louis and I messed up a few times and had coffee olympic jams, even with some clients (Doug being one of them). It really is difficult to try to hold back.  Too many jams in the shop eats up profits.We also had many customers sitting down, then leaving when finding out that we didn’t do breakfasts. This is a very important lesson to anyone wanting to open up a coffee shop. It seems that in South Africa, coffee is hardly ever the main focus. It is simply seen as an add on to breakfast. We still do not have a proper coffee culture. There is a movement happening, but it might still take a very long time to get to the same level as in Italy,  Australia, Germany, Japan and the US. At the moment, for local roasters who dedicate their lives to producing really special coffee, it feels like an uphill battle against a local coffee culture who are mesmerized by the bling factor of famous brand coffee labels. There are some really good commercially branded coffees out there, but from a local roaster, you get something special. It’s actually more of a relationship. You gain from the relationship the roaster has with the coffee farmers, and the roastmaster gets to know what you like personally. So it makes for a more personal and special coffee experience.  

I thought I’d simply learn about how to make coffee in a commercial environment, by this experience, but I actually learned a lot more than that. I would like to thank Joe for giving Louis and I the opportunity and all I can say is, “Joe, you have a lot of guts to allow home baristas like us to take over your shop. I have so much respect for you and your craft and I have learned so much. It was great to see how much care you put into what you do."  If there were many more micro-roasters (especially in other towns and cities), then we could have SA well covered with good fresh coffee. The bling would be in the taste and not on the can/bag. The bug has sure hit Louis and I wish him well on his new coffee adventure.  And the great thing is,  there is still space for more. 

TrevO

Arstechnica Article

By Yun Xie | Published: November 25, 2008 - 01:36PM CT

Used coffee grounds may be garbage to most of us but, to chemical engineers at University of Nevada, they are a versatile source of green energy. Narasimharao Kondamudi, Susanta Mohapatra, and Mano Misra proposed that the solid waste from coffee brewing can do a lot more than act as compost for gardens. They set out to see if they could extract oils from old coffee grounds and chemically convert those oils to biodiesel.

 
Image Credit: Ragesoss.

Read more: Coffee grounds for biodiesel

A great article by Jerry Baldwin, one of the founders of Starbucks:

Many of the more macho coffee drinkers think that all decaffeinated coffee is beside the point. “Why bother?” they ask.

But those who value the taste of coffee as well as the stimulation may disagree. Then, there are those people who, despite their love and appreciation of coffee, can’t tolerate much caffeine; others, who tolerate it well in the early part of the day, can’t sleep if they drink coffee later in the day. Caffeine metabolism varies widely among individuals. Generally, men process caffeine faster than women, especially pregnant women, who are slowest. The liver metabolizes caffeine, so age and liver health also affect one’s tolerance. (See “Caffeine and Decaf” in the curator’s Joy of Coffee, or the Wikipedia entry on caffeine.)

All this brings us to decaffeinated coffee.

All decaffeination methods adversely affect flavor, but careful selection of green beans along with competent roasting and brewing can produce a cup that may fool the experts.

As recently as the mid-’80s, people were drinking more decaf, thinking that caffeine was bad for them. As more and more research showed the health benefits of coffee, people began to switch back to caffeine. Sales of decaf in the late ’80s for some roasters were as high as 25 percent of total coffee sales. Today, among both commercial and specialty roasters, the percentage is more like 10 to 15: lower, but still a significant portion of coffee drinking.

Please suspend any chemo-phobia you may have while reading this. Don’t let the technical words for chemicals put you off, and don’t play into the hands of the irresponsible scare tactics of unscrupulous advertisers of Swiss Water-process decaffeination.

There are four main methods of decaffeination in wide use today, each named for the solvent used: di-hydro-oxide (aka water), ethyl acetate, supercritical CO2, and methylene chloride (dichloromethane in Europe). Even if you remember your high school chemistry, the words may be unfamiliar, but keep that chemo-phobia in check. (A new method using ultraviolet light is coming to the market. Don’t get your hopes up–poor flavor, so far.)

All methods produce a range of quality primarily due to bean selection (garbage in = garbage out) and process temperature, which affects the speed and thus the cost of processing. The American standard for decaffeinated coffee is to remove 97 percent of the original caffeine. Since caffeine content of individual coffees varies widely (see my earlier post on the topic), the amount of residual caffeine will also vary. Unfortunately, all decaffeination methods adversely affect flavor, but careful selection of green beans along with competent roasting and brewing can produce a cup that may fool the experts.

For decades, we have preferred coffees decaffeinated with methylene chloride (MC) because time after time, year after year, they have produced the most flavorful cup. The method is simple enough. First, steam swells the beans to make it easier for the caffeine to be removed. The solvent is then circulated through the beans and then into distillation to remove the caffeine and wax that have been removed from the beans. The cleansed solvent is recirculated and re-distilled until the caffeine has been removed. The beans are then rinsed with water and vacuum-dried.

The most sensitive test for detecting residual MC detects as little as one part per million. I have never seen a test result that detects any amount in specialty decaf. Furthermore, the boiling point of the solvent is 104 degrees F and coffee is roasted at 375 to 425 degrees F. Any remaining solvent, if there were any, would be vaporized during roasting. MC has been eliminated from cosmetics and has stringent worker safety regulations in Europe, but the procedures used in coffee processing and roasting leave nothing to cause any concern.

Most important, after safety, is taste. MC is the most selective solvent, leaving the greatest coffee flavor in the beans.

We have also cupped many samples that have been decaffeinated using either ethyl acetate or carbon dioxide (CO2). Neither method has consistently produced satisfying flavor in the cup. Ethyl acetate, a synthetic fruit ester, leaves a fruity aftertaste in the coffee–unfortunately nothing like the berry and citrus flavors we find in East African coffees. And we had high hopes for the CO2 process in the early ’90s. Carbon dioxide is the carbonation in sparkling water, but it is forced into the coffee at pressures well in excess of 1000 pounds per square inch to extract the caffeine. Perhaps it’s the pressure that also forces out the coffee flavor.

The last method to discuss is dihydro-oxide–water. At one time, water process was the most damaging to coffee flavor. That general statement is no longer true, due to improvements in the processing by some companies. Although some water-process decaf has flavor approaching methylene chloride (and a relatively new North American company is making great strides in cup quality), further development will be required before it can be methylene chloride’s equal.

In general the process uses water as the solvent, supersaturated with soluble solids from green coffee beans, except caffeine. The idea is that when the warm solvent is circulated through the coffee, it will extract only caffeine, which in turn is removed from the circulating fluid with activated carbon. It’s a thesis that in practice has not produced great cups of decaf.

The old standby water decaffeination company, Swiss Water (the only attempt to brand a process), of Vancouver, Canada, is doing all the advertising while others are improving their process. We prefer the cup quality of other companies, and I deplore the marketing tactics of Swiss Water.

In the late ’80s, when I first wrote to the previous owners, I decried their deliberately misleading advertising. Here they go again. They are falling back into advertising tactics that assume the ignorance of the audience. Their attempt to associate the chemical names of the other processes with some chemo-hysteria is unethical.

To summarize, of the four major processes for decaf, only methylene chloride and water are widely used in specialty coffee (here, by the way, Wikipedia on decaffeination is less strong than it is on caffeine). Methylene chloride can produce the best cup results when good coffee and careful processing are used. Good coffee and careful processing also produce the best results from dihydro-oxide, but the best is still second in cup quality to MC.

Source: http://food.theatlantic.com/coffee-culture/in-defense-of-decaff-1.php

Forum Discussion