Coffee Talk from
Fall 2020 Issue
to
Find out exactly what goes into making specialty coffee drinks so special. | Page 4
Caramel Macchiato French Vanilla Cappuccino Hazelnut Latte CAFE AU LAIT MACCHIATO Ristretto Espresso CAFE MOCHA Black Coffee
Iced Cappuccino D a r k R o a s t French Press AMERICANO
INSIDE: Check out these 10 must-stop coffee shops across the U.S. on your next road trip. | Page 12
A Letter
Editor
from the
Hi there! My name is Frani McDermott and I am a senior at the University of Northern Iowa.
When I turned 15 years old, I started my first ever job as a barista at the local coffee shop in my small hometown. It was quite ironic, considering at that time I had never even had coffee before, nor did I think it tasted good in the slightest. Although I learned all of the ins and outs about how to make a wide array of coffee drinks - and I made hundreds of them during my 3 years there - I still never understood why they were so appealing. Flash forward about four years, once I went off to college, and I quickly figured out what the hype was about. I fell in love with the world of coffee the taste, the aroma, the aesthetic of a cozy coffee shop - it soon became one of my happy little escapes from the daily stresses of college life. I created Coffee Talk because I know that there are many others out there who share my love for the taste and culture of coffee. I wanted to create a place where all of us coffee-lovers can learn more about our favorite drink and share in our passion together. So sit back, grab your cup of joe, and let’s chat all things coffee!
Frani McDermott With love,
Editor in Chief
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Table of Contents 2 4 9 12
Letter from the Editor
An introduction to Coffee Talk from the Editor in Chief.
Feature Story: From Bean to Cup
Learn what it takes to perfect a delicious cup of coffee, all the way from the coffee tree to your mug.
5 Health Benefits of Drinking Coffee
We all drink it. Here's a few reasons why it's good for you, too.
Road Trip: Coffee Edition
Experience a variety of coffee cultures all across the U.S.!
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from
bean
to
cup
What makes specialty coffee so special? Find out what goes into crafting the perfect latte, all the way from the coffee tree (yes, tree!), to roasting the beans, to filling your mug.
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FEATURE | COFFEE TALK
by: Jon Clark
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Let’s start with the bean...
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f you’re reading this right now, you’ve probably heard the term “specialty coffee” before. Or maybe even tasted it. See the thing is, coffee companies and producers have to meet a lot of criteria to earn that “specialty” title, and today we’re going to find out why. All that is to say that you’ve come to the right place! Sit tight, get comfy, and grab a cup of coffee. But not just any kind, this time, it’ll be specialty coffee. Here we go:
SOURCING AND ORIGINS ow let’s imagine, as nightmarish as it may seem, that you are buying the standard coffee from your local grocer. Folgers, Maxwell House, or whatever else they have in stock. Do you know exactly where that coffee comes from? If you have some grocery store coffee at home, go ahead and look. No worries, I’ll wait… Found anything? Chances are… no! And it’s not because you COFFEE OVERVIEW couldn’t read it on the container ontrary to what either, it’s just… not available to you think you you. Which brings us to… know, coffee is Point #1 not just coffee. It’s not all Specialty coffee understands grown the same way neithat where a coffee comes from, ther is it roasted or brewed how it was sourced and how it or even drank the same was processed are VERY imway. And specialty coffee portant to the individuality of has been the one making each coffee bean. the newest waves. Without There are two common varieties of specialty coffee further ado and some *drum roll* please….here’s beans you should care about and will normally come the definition: Specialty coffee is coffee that focuses on quality, across. These two are Arabica and Robusta. They are consistency, sourcing and its transparency, roasting very different in taste, origin, and how they are grown. and brewing methods of every single coffee bean. Arabica is the one you will run into most of the time It’s a more intimate and beautiful relationship with and so it will be our focus here. Now that we know the types, let’s dig in a little deepour favorite drink. Now let’s break that down a bit more and understand what specialty looks like at ev- er on why the coffee’s origin matters greatly. Here are three important question you should always have ery stage.
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“Specialty coffee focuses on quality, consistency, sourcing, roasting and brewing methods of every single coffee bean.”
FROM BEAN TO CUP | COFFEE TALK answers to: 1. Where was your coffee grown? Coffee grows pretty much all over the equatorial zone. This is also tied to different altitude levels or meters above sea level (MASL) that coffee can grow in. You might not realize it, but where coffee grows has a significant difference in its tasting notes, scent, how you roast it, how you brew it, and all its other qualities. Your coffee kind of loses all of its individuality when you get sold an “original blend” from a mysterious land. 2. How was your coffee processed? When a coffee tree is harvested, the beans are actually in this cherry-like casing. They are called coffee cherries, or just cherries or berries, or whatever you really want to call them. This means that the coffee beans are actually inside these
Coffee cherries start out green and turn red as they ripen. After being picked, the skin and pulp are removed and just the brown seed is left. cherries and to get to it the coffee has to be processed. For now, I’ll mention two processing methods, natural and washed. – Natural Processing: after harvest, the cherries are allowed to ferment before removing the cherry flesh/casing and separating the coffee beans. During this fermentation
period, the coffee absorbs some of the fruity flavors from the cherry and this is very clear in the taste. This is the original way of processing coffee and originated in Ethiopia. – Washed Processing: here the opposite happens. The cherry is removed (washed) and then the beans
Coffee is best grown around the ‘Bean Belt,’ which includes areas between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Pictured above is beans being sorted by hand in Ethiopia.
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are dried. You are trying to get the coffee’s unaltered flavors so fermentation is avoided and/or controlled. As you can imagine, this requires a lot of water and it does produce high-quality coffee. So today this is the most used coffee processing method in the world. 3. How was your coffee sourced? Was it ethical? You have probably heard of the terms Fair Trade, Direct Trade or Ethically Sourced. Like I mentioned earlier, specialty coffee keeps a closer working relationship with coffee producers. And this information is almost always shown on the packaging. Traditionally, coffee goes through multiple stages from different buyers to get all the way to your cup. The alternative to this is to go direct and/or source through someone else who deals directly with the farmers. Think about it this way: if there are multiple stages in coffee pur-
chasing, every single person that sells the coffee is going to put a margin on it. This ends up hurting the person at the bottom, the farmer. That’s why you have fair trade, which operates through a cooperative and serves as something like a union for farmers, protecting them and providing education and equipment. Direct trade, as the name suggests is the roaster going directly to the farmer, building that relationship themselves and buying from them. This comes at a premium price, which again benefits the farmer. There is also semi-direct trade which just means roasters deal with another body or organization to bring their coffee and they themselves do the direct trade. These are pretty important questions that you should have answers to about your coffee. Considering you probably drink it more than once a day, it makes it even more
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"Small batch roasting has become a craft, an art, a beautiful intersection of science, love, and dedication.” important. And specialty coffee is the answer to your questions. THE ART OF COFFEE ROASTING here are two cases here, mass consumption roasting and small batch roasting. Guess which one describes specialty coffee? Small batch roasting and just coffee roasting, in general, has become a craft, an art, a beautiful intersection of science, love, and dedication. Through small batch roasting, coffee roasters are able to test mul-
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Small batch roasting is more than just throwing beans into the roasting cylinder; it requires precise control of the humidity, temperature, barometric pressure, and, of course, the perfect bean-to-cylinder ratio.
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FROM BEAN TO CUP | COFFEE TALK tiple roast profiles (another way of saying how much the coffee is roasted) and cup it many many many many times! This is essentially a really good quality control program. I was recently speaking with a friend of mine, a Toronto-based coffee roaster, Felix at De Mello Palheta and he put it as, “sometimes it taking days to weeks and multiple roasts to figure out the right fit for the coffee.” Now, that is dedication! But most importantly, it is a deeper understanding that each coffee needs to be treated differently. And guess what? This makes the coffee taste that much better. You know from the first sip that this is how coffee is supposed to be. This is what you should be drinking and what you should have been drinking. The other side to roasting is how fast your coffee gets to you after roasting. Ideally, coffee should be consumed after about 5 days of roasting. This allows the coffee to de-gas (this is that intense coffee smell you get when you buy fresh roast coffee) enough to drink. After that, I would say within 30 days of the roasting your coffee should be really good. After that, it is inevitable, but your coffee will start to get stale. This is why the date the coffee was roasted is such an important piece of information. It lets you know how fresh your coffee is. Special-
ty coffee is always stamped with the date of the roast. If you are buying coffee and there is no roast date to be found, then you can safely assume that it isn’t fresh. Specialty coffee will take the guesswork out of this one for you. CULTURAL IMPACT dmit it, your local specialty coffee shop is a little too serious about their coffee and it kind of looks like a hipster congregation. But there is no doubt they have better coffee than your local chain coffee shop. Specialty coffee has brought along with it a new cultural wave. The third wave coffee culture, artisan coffee, and even the “coffee like wine” wave. All of these are just side effects of specialty coffee and our recent realization of it. However, some people are somewhat intimidated by this and often label it as “hipster coffee”, as if it is some far unknown thing that they are just not “cool” enough to enjoy or even appreciate. This is a misconception. Don’t be fooled by some one else’s passion and dedication to bring out the best in something. People have just started taking coffee seriously, much like chefs do with their ingredients. As they should. If you are in the bigger cities (New York, LA, Toronto,
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Coffee: we all drink it. Here’s 5 reasons why it’s actually good for you, too. by: Nikki Jong
1. Coffee is a potential source of antioxidants. Coffee shows more antioxidant activity than green tea and cocoa, two antioxidant superstars. Scientists have identified ~1,000 antioxidants in unprocessed coffee beans, and hundreds more develop during the roasting process.
2. Caffeine provides a short-term memory boost. Austrian researchers found an increase in memory skills and reaction time among participants who received a dose of 100 milligrams of caffeine, compared to the control group who saw no increases at all.
3. Coffee is healthy for your heart. A landmark Dutch study, which analyzed more than 37,000 people over 13 years, found that coffee drinkers who consumed 2-4 cups daily had a 20% lower risk of heart disease.
4. Coffee may lessen your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. A 2009 study found that the risk of developing diabetes dropped by 7% for each daily cup of coffee.
5. Coffee can enhance exercise performance. Caffeine is a performance and endurance enhancer; not only does it fight fatigue, but it also strengthens muscle contraction, reduces perception of pain, and increases fatty acids in the blood, which supports endurance.
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Seattle, Montreal, Vancouver..take your pick). You’ll have probably noticed the amount of small, specialty and craft coffee shops popping up. It’s a beautiful thing because it means now we are getting more and more specialty coffee selections. Similarly, roasteries (coffee roasters) have popped up everywhere and, honestly, I couldn’t be happier. This is allowing the world of specialty coffee to evolve and grow at a much faster rate. All it needed was participation. Think of it this way, every one of these coffee roasters and shops is roasting and brewing the coffee in a unique way. This creates variety, it creates awareness, and, most importantly, some damn good coffee! Which one is the best is for you to decide.
Keurig to pull you up a cup faster than lightning, but would it taste the same? Probably not. Because sometimes coffee has to be carefully measured, ground and poured, hence the name slow brewing. Measure everything. If you want consistency, you have to measure consistently. This doesn’t only happen when brewing either, it’s all over the whole specialty coffee process. In brewing, the
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“If you want consistency, you have to measure consistently.”
Here’s why this is important:
Determining your coffee to water ratio. Sometimes you can have a
cup that is too concentrated or too weak. Knowing how much water you use fixes this.
Figuring out the right grind size for each brew. From personal expe-
rience, this has probably been the toughest. Different brewing methods will require different grind sizes. Experiment your grinds and never let go once you hit those sweet spots.
Perfecting the time in between pours. I normally use a stopwatch
feature on my phone for this. Basically, coffee will go through different stages of extraction from the initial pour of the bloom stage. This helps you nail down the timings of each. most common way of measuring is Luckily, there have been many looking at the weight of coffee and apps and tools popping up recently BREWING water, and the sizes and consistency that make measuring so much easihis has probably got to be of the ground coffee. This will help er. Most notable is Acaia which has the most exciting part be- you calibrate and understand how an app too. It does WONDERS in cause this is where you get each factor affects the taste of your keeping track of your brewing and to taste the final result, yay! coffee. measuring everything related to it. There an equal amount of focus on how coffee is ground, extracted, brewed, and how all of this varies with each brewing method. Slow Coffee Brewing You have probably noticed many coffee brewers popping up (or they are just becoming more popular nowadays) and their point is to create slow and ritualistic brewing. In other words, they’re a way of manual brewing. Note that these mostly apply to pour-over style brewing. The quality of coffee you get is The pour over similar to the difference between method of brewing fast food and, well, slow food (think accentuates intricate home-cooked meal). One is all flavors, making it about speed of delivery and the perfect for single other is about quality. Slow brewing coffee is the same. You could get a origin coffees since it allows the flavors and aromas to shine.
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FROM BEAN TO CUP | COFFEE TALK
From the pour over method, to the French press, to the Aeropress, there are countless ways to brew your coffee. This is where the fun comes in; try out the different methods and determine which works best for you! THE RITUAL f you talk to most people that brew their own coffee using equipment like Chemex, Kalita Wave, AeroPress, Hario V60 or others, you’ll notice that they have some sort of a ritual. It starts with first weighing out your coffee and then you develop a ratio of coffee to water that works for you (we at Nomad suggest a 1:16 ratio of water to coffee to start off). Then, there is rinsing of filters and from there it varies from person to person. Some will have different amounts of water that they pour and in specific rounds. If this sounds complicated, trust me it isn’t. It just all comes from realizing that a “one size fits all” kind of coffee brewing doesn’t work in every case and, most importantly, it probably doesn’t work for you. One thing this reminds me of is the East African coffee ceremony. If you haven’t had it, do it! Now! It is almost part of everyday life for people in countries like Eritrea and Ethiopia. The way it works is that the coffee is roasted, ground and brewed all in the same sitting. Every single step is rich with tradition, culture and the aroma of freshly roasted coffee. Once the coffee is ground it is boiled in a clay pot called a “jebena” and served in this small espresso cup sized “fenjals.”
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It’s something that always brings people together and the whole process is done from start to finish with everyone sitting around. That’s why the word ceremony is the perfect way of describing it. FINAL THOUGHTS pecialty coffee is about exploration and experimentation to find what is best for you. So take this as your starting point. Don’t start your coffee journey tomorrow. Don’t push it off any longer. Do it today. If you don’t know where to get coffee, just head over to your local coffee roaster’s shop and pick up a freshly roasted batch. If that’s not possible or it just happens that your local coffee isn’t specialty, then order some online. Be crafty, be a mad scientist, experiment and try out every single thing you can think of with your coffee.
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You can’t buy happiness, but you CAN buy coffee. And that’s pretty darn close. 11
Kiosko
-Portland, OR -A tranquil cafe best known for their creative latte art.
ROAD TRIP:
Check out these must-stop
The Molecule Effect -Denver, CO -Enjoy art, wine & delicious coffee - all in one local cafe.
Temple Coffee Roasters -Sacramento, CA -High quality coffee; ranked among the top coffee roasters in the nation!
Stupid Good Coffee -Dallas, TX -Calling lovers of a quirky atmosphere and sustainable drinks: this coffee is stupid good!
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COFFEE EDITION coffee shops around the States! Limitless Coffee & Tea -Chicago, IL -Stop for the Instagram-worthy lattes & a vegan friendly menu.
Smokey Row
-Des Moines, IA -Retro & historic; great for a classic brew. Stay for the yummy ice cream, too!
Humphreys Street -Nashville, TN -100% of profits go to supporting teens from low income communities. How cool is that!?
Grounded Coffee House -New York, NY -Grab a warm seasonal latte & escape from the hustle & bustle of the city!
Chapterhouse Cafe & Gallery -Philadelphia, PA -A cozy shop that boasts quirky local art & fairtrade coffee & tea.
Panther Coffee -Miami, FL -Specialty, single origin coffee roasted fresh in a vintage 1920’s roaster. SO good!
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Coffee Talk