You oughta know #20

In this week’s issue: Gesha coffee auction prices reach insane highs; your brewing cold brew wrong; Scott Rao has the lowdown on coffee grinds.

Sep 11, 2023

Nau mai, hoki mai and welcome back to You oughta know.

In this week’s issue: Gesha coffee auction prices reach insane highs; your brewing cold brew wrong; Scott Rao has the lowdown on coffee grinds.

Some speny Gesha coming our way…

Oh wow.

At the 2023 Best of Panama coffee auction in August, the average price of the coffee was US $868.22 per kg. The biggest big was US $10,005 per kg for a washed Gesha from Carmen Estate Coffee.

That is wild.

Even New Zealand’s own Coffee Tech managed to get a piece of this $10k action.

They told Perfect Daily Grind that high bids are sometimes necessary.

“We think this is a fair price for the farmers,” they say. “If we compare prices paid for premium whisky or wine, the coffee sector still has a long way to go.
“Growing this coffee isn’t easy or something that can happen overnight,” they add. “We think the high price rewards producers’ hard work and encourages other farmers – even from other origins – to improve coffee quality.
“Generating more interest in these coffees drives more people to want to try them,” they continue. “And with more buyers placing bids on these coffees, it means we can pay less money on smaller quantities.”

Whether these sorts of prices are actually worth it, time will tell.

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It’s getting warmer - time for a better cold brew

Lance Hedrick reckons most of the cold brew method’s thrown out there sucks.

“Cold brew tastes like you’re drinking coffee filtered through a used sock, from a sportsperson. Gross.” But he’s on a mission to fix that.

Lance’s main beef is that flash cooled cold brew is weak and doesn’t taste great. This is because most methods don’t use enough water in their brews to extract all the awesomeness.

Your typical James Hoffmann type flash cold brew is based on a 1:15 ratio of 20g coffee to 300g water. But because the water is split between brew water and ice in the caraf (usually 60% water and 40% ice), the actual brew ratio is 1:9.

Lance’s method uses more water to brew with, and much less ice. He shoots for a 1:12 ratio with 20g of coffee to 240g of water. And then add about 60g of ice to cool down the brew.

The more water you use, the more you’ll extract and the nicer it’ll taste.

I put this to the test - Lance vs James - and I have to say, Lance is on to something here.

His method had a bigger mouth feel, was juicier and wasn’t thin or weak. It was a heck of a cup and I recommend people trying this method.

It’s subtle, but you can see that the cup on the right isn’t has ‘clear’ or see-through as the on on the left. The one on the right uses Lance’s method, and tasted much, much better.

Scott Rao knows a thing or two

Scott Rao wrote the book on filter coffee (literally) and is widely regarded as one of the world authorities of coffee extraction.

In his latest blog post he talks about ‘grind particle-size distribution’ ie the variance of grind size you get with coffee grinders (some big, some small, some good).

The general consensus was that if you remove the very small bits (that can make coffee bitter), and the very large bits (that can make coffee sour), you’ll be left with a more consistent and balanced cup of coffee.

Scott says that there might be a “happy medium of fines (small bits)” that you need to help coffee brewing.

“I recently asked Jonathan [author of The Physics of Filter Coffee] for his current thoughts on fines and he said:

“When there is an insufficient proportion of fines, it causes larger, uneven gaps between particles.” Jonathan agrees that having too many fines can cause channeling, and having too few fines leaves too much large, open flow paths for astringent particles to travel out of the coffee bed. Fines fill the gaps between larger particles and help limit the amount, and perhaps size, of low-density flow paths within the coffee bed.

He goes on to say:

“I’m not a scientist, but I have 30 years of experience in coffee and have personally brewed more than one million cups, which has given me some insights. What I discuss in this post is a speculation I call the “happy medium theory of fines.” In my experience:

When there is an excessive proportion of fines, many flow paths clog easily, and water must find channels through which to bypass the clogged areas. These channels result in undesired astringency.

When there is an insufficient proportion of fines, large flow paths form in the coffee bed, and a disproportionate amount of water exits the bed through those paths, lowering brew strength, and carrying larger, astringent compounds into the cup.

The “happy medium” amount of fines provides enough fines to even out the size of gaps between larger coffee particles, but not so many fines that excessive, localized clogging occurs.

The happy medium amount of fines for a given brewing situation is the amount that minimizes astringency.
Optimal espresso percolation requires a greater proportion of fines than filter-coffee percolation does.”

This article is very interesting, though it may take a few reads to fully digest. It’s definitely worth a read.

Coming up on The Magic Roast

Look out for my review of the Tricolate, coming out Thursday.