Budan Beans - blog

Making coffee - the process has changed, but not the ingredients

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 10:14:00 +0000

We loved this vintage post, a 1961 educational film about coffee-making methods from around the world.
At its heart is this simple message:

How, then, do we make the perfect cup of coffee to our taste? Success lies in a single word: Care. Three simple ingredients go into the brewing process: water, coffee, time. Care will produce a perfect result every time.

How do you like your coffee?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:40:00 +0000

It's a simple question, and yet how often do you get served a coffee which is more to the barista's liking than yours?
Too hot, too cold or even worse, you have to meet certain 'standards', as set by the barista.

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald, Pour diddums . . . you'll get your coffee how we like it, struck a chord with us - for all the wrong reasons.
It gives examples of precious behaviour from Sydney cafes including one in Lilyfield, which has "DIY sugar".

The fear and loathing is not confined to Lilyfield. Elsewhere across Sydney, purist baristas have declared war on skim milk, large cups, Equal, extra hot and other accoutrements they say taint the perfect cup. Bar Italia in Leichardt is famous for its ''No soy, no skim'' stand. Customers have been known to storm out of Barefoot Coffee Traders in Manly which won't do decaf or large cups. Kafenio Cafe in Cronulla declares: ''No skim or babycinos … Don't even ask!''

We haven't even tried to understand this attitude.

We love our coffees, we're proud of the variety of flavours and unique single origins we have been able to introduce to so many new palates.

Ideally, we would like to serve our coffees a couple of degrees cooler, to bring out the flavours more. But we're realists - we know our customers are on the go, heading to work or sport; they want their cup to retain its heat on their drive in.

Does our coffee need four sugars? Three shots of caramel? No, but who are we to decide for others?

''I'm passionately frustrated. I mean, it's a coffee, not a dessert.
''We're not going to tell everyone off, but is the customer always right?''

We're going to go with yes.

Monsooned coffee is proof that some times the usual way, is not the best way.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:11:00 +0000

So how did this 'faulty' coffee become such a star?

In the 1800s, when Indian was under British colonial rule, coffee was shipped back to England on tall sailing ships.
The journey was long, rounding the southern cape of Africa, and during the journey the coffee was exposed to the elements of the ship and the monsoonal conditions.
The result was what was considered at first a fault in the coffee - the beans swelled, they changed colour and the flavours changed.
But the flavour was much sought after; a smoother, more pleasant taste, low in acidity, making a pleasant change for the palates used to beans from northern Africa and South America.
As shipping speeds improved, the monsooning process was lost, but the hunger for the tastes it produced did not.

So the farmers on the Western coast of India developed more sophisticated and controlled ways of replicating the monsooning process.
After the coffee berries are picked, they are sundried and sorted according to quality, before being stored for the monsoon season.

Monsooned coffee beans
note the larger than usual size and the pale, golden colour

Over a three to four month process (about June through to September) the beans are laid out on the floors of monsooning sheds which are open to the elements. The beans are continually raked over, spread out, and mixed as they absorb up to 50 per cent more moisture than other comparable beans. They swell and change colour to a pale, almost golden yellow, compared to the dark green of most other processed coffee beans.

Finally the beans are sorted again, to separate those which have monsooned perfectly, and those which have developed faults through this tricky process.

Because of the extra moisture, the resulting coffee is very low in acidity. The process itself gives unique flavours, with predominant tastes of chocolate, spice and nuts.
And all because the ships to market took so long to make the journey.

For us it raises the question, what other deviations from the mainstream can deliver superior results?