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Monday, July 23, 2007
Third wave, fourth wave, fifth wave...
This is Roosevelt. Rosie to some, Idgy to others. Roosevelt has a dirty mouth.
I wonder if most dogs can tell the difference between good food and bad or they just simply eat? I have definitely had some picky pets in the past who would turn a nose up at 'pet food' opting for what was on my plate instead so I'm inclined to think they could be discerning. Rosie is not of that ilk though.
Obviously, this post's not going to be about my mother's spaniel, it's about us as foodies and coffee aficionados. We eat so much processed food and so many items that are simply of questionable quality that I often wonder what is our food culture? Do we just simply put stuff in our mouth and say, well, it tastes good with little thought to quantifying that feeling... or is there something more to it.
What is good taste? How do we define quality?
It brings up the thought that what I believed was great only a year ago, I doubt would make my top list now. That is a statement about my evolution in coffee and the way our perspective has been shaped. It began with fresh roast and 'not burnt' then migrated to a myriad of qualifications including how it was processed and at what elevation it was grown. I really began to notice how much our group has changed in our perspective of coffee over the last year after our most recent cupping session. Sitting at a table with Silas and Judson while Ben manned the sample roaster gave me a renewed feeling of direction in coffee which immediately made me look back on how we got there.
Many people getting into coffee, who use the Internet, will start with a site like coffeegeek.com. For a while, it's like an epiphany. Pull thick chocolate ristretto shots, take photos, repeat. Life was good. Then things quiet down and after a while those chocolate shots were becoming boring and a lot of people lose interest. Some people fade away and move on to other interests thinking they had mastered some angle of coffee at that point. Others moved forward and found home-barista.com and it could provide a more serious place where technical people converged and pontificated 'what if?' After time though, the mods and hacks came to an ending point where everything was PID'd including the toaster and there seemed to be little more to explore for the coffee enthusiast.
A peak, not the end of the road but to the limits of experience, knowledge, ability, access, or simply budget. For me, what I naively thought I mastered long ago still remains a mountain in front of me today because quite simply, as I learn more about coffee, I realize just how hard it becomes to learn each little bit more. This potential keeps me going. That next 5% looks like Everest in the distance but it's a mountain worth climbing. It's a harrowing thought to think that with all these fancy cafes popping up and pocket emptying bids for coffee, it only means that it doesn't get easier from here on out. The competition will get smarter and tougher as everyone tries to best 'the best.' it may be jaw dropping bids for coffees that may be hot names rather than good coffee or it may lead to a roaster's renaissance where roasters compete to get the most from every super expensive coffee. I dream of that roaster's renaissance someday because then there will be so many great cups out there to be had.
This reminds me how George Howell often pontificates that this industry is 'in it's infancy.' I wonder if he understands how deeply truthful that rings. We chest thump about the skilled barista, competitions, and artisan roasting while we simultaneously battle uphill to simply have a common language of what quality might potentially be. I have no criticisms to lay, only a simple question.
If this is the beginning, what's next?
This is Roosevelt. Rosie to some, Idgy to others. Roosevelt has a dirty mouth.
I wonder if most dogs can tell the difference between good food and bad or they just simply eat? I have definitely had some picky pets in the past who would turn a nose up at 'pet food' opting for what was on my plate instead so I'm inclined to think they could be discerning. Rosie is not of that ilk though.
Obviously, this post's not going to be about my mother's spaniel, it's about us as foodies and coffee aficionados. We eat so much processed food and so many items that are simply of questionable quality that I often wonder what is our food culture? Do we just simply put stuff in our mouth and say, well, it tastes good with little thought to quantifying that feeling... or is there something more to it.
What is good taste? How do we define quality?
It brings up the thought that what I believed was great only a year ago, I doubt would make my top list now. That is a statement about my evolution in coffee and the way our perspective has been shaped. It began with fresh roast and 'not burnt' then migrated to a myriad of qualifications including how it was processed and at what elevation it was grown. I really began to notice how much our group has changed in our perspective of coffee over the last year after our most recent cupping session. Sitting at a table with Silas and Judson while Ben manned the sample roaster gave me a renewed feeling of direction in coffee which immediately made me look back on how we got there.
Many people getting into coffee, who use the Internet, will start with a site like coffeegeek.com. For a while, it's like an epiphany. Pull thick chocolate ristretto shots, take photos, repeat. Life was good. Then things quiet down and after a while those chocolate shots were becoming boring and a lot of people lose interest. Some people fade away and move on to other interests thinking they had mastered some angle of coffee at that point. Others moved forward and found home-barista.com and it could provide a more serious place where technical people converged and pontificated 'what if?' After time though, the mods and hacks came to an ending point where everything was PID'd including the toaster and there seemed to be little more to explore for the coffee enthusiast.A peak, not the end of the road but to the limits of experience, knowledge, ability, access, or simply budget. For me, what I naively thought I mastered long ago still remains a mountain in front of me today because quite simply, as I learn more about coffee, I realize just how hard it becomes to learn each little bit more. This potential keeps me going. That next 5% looks like Everest in the distance but it's a mountain worth climbing. It's a harrowing thought to think that with all these fancy cafes popping up and pocket emptying bids for coffee, it only means that it doesn't get easier from here on out. The competition will get smarter and tougher as everyone tries to best 'the best.' it may be jaw dropping bids for coffees that may be hot names rather than good coffee or it may lead to a roaster's renaissance where roasters compete to get the most from every super expensive coffee. I dream of that roaster's renaissance someday because then there will be so many great cups out there to be had.This reminds me how George Howell often pontificates that this industry is 'in it's infancy.' I wonder if he understands how deeply truthful that rings. We chest thump about the skilled barista, competitions, and artisan roasting while we simultaneously battle uphill to simply have a common language of what quality might potentially be. I have no criticisms to lay, only a simple question.If this is the beginning, what's next?
Labels: musings
¶ Jaime van Schyndel 10:21 PM
Comments:
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Oh dear, Jamie, not another pontification about "quality" ;)
In all seriousness, though, I think that there's a lot that can be done. I ran an informal coffee tasting course for some friends of mine who were in town for a conference a few weeks ago. None of them are overly culinary, but it was quite heartening to see that they were all able to distinguish the difference between the origins that I presented them. This is a prelude to a course that I hope to run for the general public.
In terms of something that's more at your level, I agree that one of the huge problems is that people aren't talking a common language when they describe coffees. This leads to absurdities, like people randomly grabbing a popcorn popper and whatever batch of grade 5 harrar is around and exclaiming about how "blueberry" laden their cup is, then concluding that they must be better roasters than the local experienced commercial coffee roaster, who doesn't make such bold and unwarranted proclamations about his or her harrar. So I think that it's about time for you to get your hands on the only decent attempt made to try and solve the problem so far - the Nez du Cafe kit.
Cheers,
Luca
In all seriousness, though, I think that there's a lot that can be done. I ran an informal coffee tasting course for some friends of mine who were in town for a conference a few weeks ago. None of them are overly culinary, but it was quite heartening to see that they were all able to distinguish the difference between the origins that I presented them. This is a prelude to a course that I hope to run for the general public.
In terms of something that's more at your level, I agree that one of the huge problems is that people aren't talking a common language when they describe coffees. This leads to absurdities, like people randomly grabbing a popcorn popper and whatever batch of grade 5 harrar is around and exclaiming about how "blueberry" laden their cup is, then concluding that they must be better roasters than the local experienced commercial coffee roaster, who doesn't make such bold and unwarranted proclamations about his or her harrar. So I think that it's about time for you to get your hands on the only decent attempt made to try and solve the problem so far - the Nez du Cafe kit.
Cheers,
Luca
Luca,
It's the noise factor really. I had a long talk with a green buyer who related similar problems to what irks me. 'I want to have more cups of coffee on the market I would want to drink' He was right, we are in the dark ages when it comes to storage, shipping, and understanding green defects. So for you Luca, I won't pontificate what if, I'll start pounding the point home about what I know quality is.
BTW, HB is becoming like CG with too much pseudo science and the 'if jim says so, it must be true' lame attitudes. I'm sorry, but how can I listen to anyone who uses coffee that has so much cup to cup variance to run 'experiments'
Seriously, what are you evaluating when each cup is different to start with? How do you know popcorning doesn't make a difference or your espresso really was sweeter or a myriad of other observations when a traditional cupping of your coffee used as a base for experiments reveals a new cup every time. That's the tip of the iceberg really in why I don't get the community right now. Like lemmings, they are.
Honestly, I'm not fired up about it anymore, it's just the sad state of our business. A lot of talk and very little substance.
It's the noise factor really. I had a long talk with a green buyer who related similar problems to what irks me. 'I want to have more cups of coffee on the market I would want to drink' He was right, we are in the dark ages when it comes to storage, shipping, and understanding green defects. So for you Luca, I won't pontificate what if, I'll start pounding the point home about what I know quality is.
BTW, HB is becoming like CG with too much pseudo science and the 'if jim says so, it must be true' lame attitudes. I'm sorry, but how can I listen to anyone who uses coffee that has so much cup to cup variance to run 'experiments'
Seriously, what are you evaluating when each cup is different to start with? How do you know popcorning doesn't make a difference or your espresso really was sweeter or a myriad of other observations when a traditional cupping of your coffee used as a base for experiments reveals a new cup every time. That's the tip of the iceberg really in why I don't get the community right now. Like lemmings, they are.
Honestly, I'm not fired up about it anymore, it's just the sad state of our business. A lot of talk and very little substance.
It sounds to me like you're on about moving the top bar up. That's certainly a worthwhile pursuit, and I think that your green storage project will be very interesting, regardless of what the results are. I'm starting to suspect that although Australia is a relatively large espresso market, we probably don't really have the buying power to get the really top of the top auction lots. Then there's the fact that it is probably more expensive to ship things to Australia than just about anywhere else in the world. So I'm really hoping that your storage experiment doesn't show that any particular method is superior ... but tasting lots as they decay over a year leads me to suspect that you might be on to something. Sigh. Time to get out the cheque book ...
If you want to take heart at something, though, I think that the vast amount of information now available at people's fingertips means that the basics are at least starting to filter down to most consumers and cafes. Over the last few years, I have seen a massive increase in the number of cafes around me using freshly roasted stuff, not keeping the dosing chamber full and pouring latte art. So I think that things are looking better at the middle of the quality spectrum, and I suspect that that improvement will continue.
As for Jim's MO, I have to say that I'm not really in full agreement with either of your points of view. Yes, I think that there tends to be a bit of variation with coffees that can obscure anything that you're trying to measure on taste criteria. No, I don't think that this is a reason not to experiment. My reasoning is just straightforward pragmatism - bemoaning the lack of quality in beans that are common and affordable enough to be able to be used for testing equipment and/or techniques doesn't get us anywhere useful. All that we can do is to taste something and see if we can pick up repeatable and discernible differences. I guess that if I were trying to do a really serious experiment, I would probably try to use a clean cupping, wet processed, high grown SO ... something like a Minita, I guess, although I have never had access to Minita. Hopefully your green storage project can help on this point. Jim seems to use coffees that he is familiar with, and he's mostly pretty cautious about limiting the scope of his generalisations, so I don't really have a problem with it. That said, I'm past the point of taking much that I read as gospel without experimenting myself.
Personally, I'm quite motivated by Japan. First up, the Hoff's win returned the focus to where it ought to be - flavour. That is a service that the whole coffee community owes him a debt of thanks for. Well, that and the sensible changes to the WBC scoresheet. I think that Justin's efforts will probably go completely unrecognised, but I'll buy him a beer next time I see him. Second, although I didn't get to go, many of my co workers did and they're bringing me back a two cup Hario ... which is a prelude to us getting some more syphons in for the shop. Combined the fact that I have taken control of our SO offerings and accompanying tasting notes, I'm looking forward to really building my palate in the months to come.
We're hoping to get some mountain top stuff in soon ... apparently we managed to snag a few extra bags of bin 35, but now that it showed up in the WBC top six again, I think that we might not get it. If we do, I have been in touch with Ben and will be happy to organise for y'all to get some. I'll trade you for some of the awesome stuff that you get that I do not have access to!
Cheers,
Luca
If you want to take heart at something, though, I think that the vast amount of information now available at people's fingertips means that the basics are at least starting to filter down to most consumers and cafes. Over the last few years, I have seen a massive increase in the number of cafes around me using freshly roasted stuff, not keeping the dosing chamber full and pouring latte art. So I think that things are looking better at the middle of the quality spectrum, and I suspect that that improvement will continue.
As for Jim's MO, I have to say that I'm not really in full agreement with either of your points of view. Yes, I think that there tends to be a bit of variation with coffees that can obscure anything that you're trying to measure on taste criteria. No, I don't think that this is a reason not to experiment. My reasoning is just straightforward pragmatism - bemoaning the lack of quality in beans that are common and affordable enough to be able to be used for testing equipment and/or techniques doesn't get us anywhere useful. All that we can do is to taste something and see if we can pick up repeatable and discernible differences. I guess that if I were trying to do a really serious experiment, I would probably try to use a clean cupping, wet processed, high grown SO ... something like a Minita, I guess, although I have never had access to Minita. Hopefully your green storage project can help on this point. Jim seems to use coffees that he is familiar with, and he's mostly pretty cautious about limiting the scope of his generalisations, so I don't really have a problem with it. That said, I'm past the point of taking much that I read as gospel without experimenting myself.
Personally, I'm quite motivated by Japan. First up, the Hoff's win returned the focus to where it ought to be - flavour. That is a service that the whole coffee community owes him a debt of thanks for. Well, that and the sensible changes to the WBC scoresheet. I think that Justin's efforts will probably go completely unrecognised, but I'll buy him a beer next time I see him. Second, although I didn't get to go, many of my co workers did and they're bringing me back a two cup Hario ... which is a prelude to us getting some more syphons in for the shop. Combined the fact that I have taken control of our SO offerings and accompanying tasting notes, I'm looking forward to really building my palate in the months to come.
We're hoping to get some mountain top stuff in soon ... apparently we managed to snag a few extra bags of bin 35, but now that it showed up in the WBC top six again, I think that we might not get it. If we do, I have been in touch with Ben and will be happy to organise for y'all to get some. I'll trade you for some of the awesome stuff that you get that I do not have access to!
Cheers,
Luca
Luca,
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I think we just have to agree to disagree on Jim and other points. One day you will come visit a lot of the famous cafes here, as I have, and see the reality behind all the talk over here. You are welcome to our hospitality anytime.
For the bin 35, I dunno, sounds wild ;-) Float it on the forum and see who else is interested assuming you can get some. Also, I know the guys in Taiwan have a similar problem maybe worth discussing at times. Green buying is about relationships in many ways, make friends, buy together, share. Geography is in our favor over here but that doesn't mean many are doing much with it.
In all seriousness, tipping, scorching, and baking are very common here. Operator error or simply a lack of understanding. While it's easy to get caught up in trying to outdo each other with shop design, fantastic pours, or some ego tripping idealism, gotta get the coffee right first.
I have this thing that keeps rumbling through my head, 'get the coffee right first' or everything else is just posturing, show, a waste of time. I mean this about myself not as a commentary on anyone else.
Good luck with the syphons, exchange notes with Ben when you have time. Always looking to explore. Seems everyone is getting them these days :-)
I honestly haven't seen Hoffman's presentation yet. Reality hits right now and I'm very busy but at some point I will observe it. I hope it has some ripple effect but I also have longed for Hoffman to take a less diplomatic stand for some time which never surfaced.
bTw, cupping, do the defects analysis thing, you will never look at the cup the same way again.
Later-
Jaime
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Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I think we just have to agree to disagree on Jim and other points. One day you will come visit a lot of the famous cafes here, as I have, and see the reality behind all the talk over here. You are welcome to our hospitality anytime.
For the bin 35, I dunno, sounds wild ;-) Float it on the forum and see who else is interested assuming you can get some. Also, I know the guys in Taiwan have a similar problem maybe worth discussing at times. Green buying is about relationships in many ways, make friends, buy together, share. Geography is in our favor over here but that doesn't mean many are doing much with it.
In all seriousness, tipping, scorching, and baking are very common here. Operator error or simply a lack of understanding. While it's easy to get caught up in trying to outdo each other with shop design, fantastic pours, or some ego tripping idealism, gotta get the coffee right first.
I have this thing that keeps rumbling through my head, 'get the coffee right first' or everything else is just posturing, show, a waste of time. I mean this about myself not as a commentary on anyone else.
Good luck with the syphons, exchange notes with Ben when you have time. Always looking to explore. Seems everyone is getting them these days :-)
I honestly haven't seen Hoffman's presentation yet. Reality hits right now and I'm very busy but at some point I will observe it. I hope it has some ripple effect but I also have longed for Hoffman to take a less diplomatic stand for some time which never surfaced.
bTw, cupping, do the defects analysis thing, you will never look at the cup the same way again.
Later-
Jaime
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