We like to jack around. Especially while roasting, because we have the luxury of a roaster right in the coffee shop. We occasionally brew a presspot of coffee as soon as it comes out of the roaster. I like it because it's just as damned fresh as can be. Granted, it's not my favorite coffee on the planet, but having the ability to experience that is really something. Today I had a new idea.
I was roasting a Kenya Chania French Mission Varietal. I lined it up with Garth so that, as soon as I dropped the coffee into the cooling bin, and the coffee was still 420 degrees, I grabbed a couple scoops of beans and ran over to the counter. Garth poured the into the Bunn grinder and ground them very fine. (Smoke pours out of the grinder when you do this.) We poured them into the Aeropress and poured cold water out of the refrigerator into the press. I stirred, and pressed hard. The coffee came out with a HUGE head of blonde foam. We were very excited. And it actually was good. It was still a little cool, as the cold water mixed with really hot coffee grounds. We enjoyed the experience because the coffee was refreshing and because not very many people in the world could do that. It was fun.
So I think it was interesting how the cold water reacted with the hot coffee beans to brew the coffee. Extraction seemed pretty good- though we ground it pretty fine and I applied a substantial amount of force on the piston of the Aeropress. Force increases extraction. Heat increases extraction. Usually that heat comes from the water. Ha!
The freshness of the coffee was a positive factor in this experiment. In the presspot, using piping hot coffee to brew, it makes a less-flavorful cup. But not with the Aeropress. I was just thinking, I can't believe we haven't tried this with the espresso machine. We've many times made espresso with coffee that was roasted less than 5 minutes before, but never with coffee
that hadn't cooled yet. I must try it soon.
So coffee out of the roaster that's still 400+ degrees... is that "too fresh" for brewing? I love this debate. It's crazy and ridiculous and so unscientific. One thing about this debate (within the Specialty Coffee industry) that makes me a little crazy is the fact that I relate "fresh coffee" with the specialty industry, or the third wave or whatever they want to call themselves. One thing I thought everyone had learned was that coffee tasted remarkably better when it was ultra-fresh. It's the thing that turned my life around to face this path I'm walking. The first time I ever roasted coffee in my kitchen, my eyes were opened to a whole new world. The roaster I was using wasn't very good. The coffee I was using, I'm sure was not great (I think it was a Colombia Supremo). But I roasted it and ground it right afterward and brewed it immediately and I was blown away by the things I tasted. I tasted coffee oils that weren't stale. For the first time in my life. I had the smallest glimmer of what coffee COULD BE. Because I knew that if I hadn't ever tasted fresh coffee, hardly anyone else had either. And it's different. Amazingly different. Fantastically different.
So when I hear people in my industry saying coffee should sit (until it's stale) before using it, I feel sorry for them.
It's a thread about one of my podcasts where I talked about coffee freshness, my frustrations with the industry, and some opinions of the few in the industry who have come to the same conclusion as I about freshness. I'm glad they're discussing it. I guess they're discussing it. Maybe they're all just writing their opinions. When I read it I came away with one glaring problem. What I recall from the majority of the posts is that people are saying they agree that coffee is best when used for pourover, drip, or presspot within 3 or 4 days out of the roaster. But those same people think that coffee is best when used for espresso after it sits for 10 to 14 days. Here's my problem: coffee beans are coffee beans.
We are talking about coffee beans, aren't we?
Because all along I've been talking about coffee beans.
As far as I know, coffee beans do not cease to be coffee beans when you put them into an espresso hopper. They're still coffee beans.
Do you see my problem? This is a logic problem.
It's as if I were to say I think abortion is wrong because it's killing an unborn baby. But I think it is ok in the instances of rape or incest. That, my friends, is a logic problem.
So if the coffee beans are stale, and they can tell the coffee beans are stale when they make a pourover or presspot, after 4 days or so... Those same coffee beans, by reason of logic, cannot become UNstale upon dropping them into an espresso hopper.
Therefore I conclude that the majority of the specialty coffee industry prefers their espresso STALE. I simply do not.
Check out these pictures of our hot coffee, cold water Aeropress experiment.
