An ignoramus’ guide to the Coffee

There’s a lot to cover here and not much space so I’ll try to keep everything short and precise. If you’d like to discuss any aspect with me, you can get in touch and I’ll try and answer the questions (if I have the answers..)

If you’re not a “coffee snob”, when you hear of coffee in Pakistan, your mind immediately starts picturing what the well established instant coffee brands have so successfully ingrained in your mind; the thought of boiling water or milk and adding a spoon full of “coffee powder” in it and letting the aroma take over your senses. Or you’re reminded of the fascia of the nearby coffee shop with a sweet smelling ambiance filled with lo-if music and lo-lit ateliers.

So let’s address the elephant first seeing as it occupies the largest space in the room and then free up the space for further discussion. “Instant Coffee” isn’t coffee but a processed chemical. Actual coffee, or ground coffee, doesn’t dissolve in water. It is just like tea. Instant coffee is what happens when capitalists intervene and try to sell you the coffee experience in a pocket friendly (read: cheap) way.

So what is coffee?

According to an old wives’ tale, coffee was discovered back in the 15th century when one shepherd found that his goats were getting high after eating a certain cherry. The shepherd brought the cherry to his King who then ordered his best cooks to come up with recipes which would involve the use of the cherry. The cooks noticed that the seeds of the cherry gave off a very distinct smell when roasted. Eureka!! Coffee was born (or made?).

Fast forward 500 years and coffee has become a huge economy. Billions of dollars go into growing, harvesting, roasting and brewing the beans. There are huge multinational coffee chains like starbucks, costa, gloria jean’s & coffee planet, to name a few. However, I want to keep my focus on what the beans actually are and how to brew them.

What Are Coffee Beans?

Coffee beans are seeds extracted from the coffee plant cherry. It is named “cherry” solely based on resemblance. Each cherry contains 2 green beans. The types of coffees that are most commonly found are called arabica and robusta. While I would leave digging deeper into the origins and characteristics of these beans for some other time, I would point out here that arabica is the most commonly consumed type of coffee, dominating about 65~70 % of the market.

The green beans are dried, roasted and packed to be shipped for various brands and companies. Each brand has its own coffee tasters or “Q-Graders” who are given the responsibility of buying the green bean by scoring them on a scale of 1 to 100. The beans that score 80 and above are considered “Speciality Coffee” and anything below 60 is garbage. It is pertinent to mention that what the instant coffee mafia buys for processing is indeed somewhere between 50 to 60.

The Q-Graders also define the profile of the coffee. You can check the flavour wheel here and appreciate the intricacy and delicacy of the black (brown, really) magical bean and the profile of flavours it can hold! Magical, isn’t it? It’s like Bethoven’s 5th symphony or Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Babar Azam’s cover drive or Maradona’s Hand of God - only better!

Sorry for getting carried away… Where were we? Oh yes.

Let me answer a few of the common questions now.

I purchased beans. How do I brew them?

Basically there are so many parameters and variables to consider while brewing coffee but I’ll try and keep my focus on 4. These are:

1. Grind Size

2. Water Temperature

3. Pressure

4. Brewing Time

So you can play with these variables and brew the coffee of your choice. For instance, you don’t have enough time so you want to cut your time short. So pick up your Aeropress and increase the brewing pressure with high water temperature and fine grind size, you’re done with your brew in less than 2 minutes. Next day, you have a little more time on your hand but you don’t want the aeropress kick but you’re looking for something more robust. You go for a French Press. The no-paper filter coffee maker really gets all the oils and flavors extracted from your mediumly sized coffee ground. So on the third day, you have a lot of time on your hands; 24 hours worth. So you pick up coarsely ground coffee and cold water and you immerse the coffee in the water for about 24 hours. At the end of the process, you get a really smooth & sweet coffee with no bitterness and low acidity.

How do I make cappuccino at Home?

Well, you can’t! Unless you own an espresso machine. A high quality espresso machine and an even better coffee burr grinder. Espresso is brewed in 20~24 seconds at 9 bar (9 times the atmospheric pressure) and 90~96 °C. I know you love the sight of the latte art on your cappuccino but operating an espresso machine and making the latte art requires precision, skill & experience; leave that to the professionals.

So for those who enjoy cappuccinos or lattes or other milk-based coffees, the way these coffees work is that they’re given a base of an espresso shot and then the baristas play with milk, milk foam and other syrups to form a massive variety of drinks. Sounds simple, no? If only.

When do I drink Coffee?

I drink my coffee first thing in the morning; I need to wake myself up

We’ve heard and felt this statement many times. But “Coffee” doesn’t actually wake you up. Caffeine in coffee just increases the cortisol levels in our blood which then actually wakes us up. Now cortisol is automatically released when we wake up and if we drink coffee right around the same time, more cortisol is released which can lead to anxiety and muscle tremors in the long run.

What we should do instead is understand our “cortisol release cycle”. Roughly 4 hours after we’ve woken up, cortisol level hits its first “lowest spot” and that’s when we should take our first cup of coffee. Tracking our cortisol levels can help in optimizing our coffee drinking schedule and really benefit from the “black gold”.

Conclusion:

Coffee is really a really complex drink. You can play with any part of the process and come up with a drink with a completely unique taste. You can choose a ceramic or china or demitasse cup and let the material do its magic.

Fun Fact: Drinking Coffee in a mud glass gives you a tonne of new flavours as each sip reduces the temperature of the coffee.

You can also vary the TDS (total dissolved solids) of your coffee water by switching from tap water to mineral and then to using water that drips out of an AC to get a variety of taste from your coffee beans.

Final Tip: Spread your coffee ground in your garden once you’re done brewing. The coffee ground is an excellent fertilizer and the coffee aroma attracts earthworms which can really help soften the mud for better water & mineral distribution. This also (allegedly) keeps the stray cats from littering in your garden.